The Crimean Tatar people were deported from Crimea in 1944; while other deported peoples such as the Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Balkars, and Kalmyks were permitted to return to their homelands and had their titular republics restored in the 1950s by Khrushchev, Crimean Tatars were not granted this right,[1] as their labor was seen as too valuable to let go of by Uzbek authorities.
[5] The climate was very hot, arid, and considered inhospitable,[6] nothing like the lush greenery of Crimea;[7] there were only six tiny settlements in the district when it was formed, composed of Turkmen tribesmen.
[17] The Communist Party put pressure on respected members of the Crimean Tatar community like Mustafa Selimov to support the project, but he completely refused and said that returning to Crimea would be the only solution to their national question.
[18] Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR Georgy Orlov was chosen to meet with Crimean Tatar elites to recruit them into supporting the project.
[20][21] The newspaper Lenin Bayrağı] and the magazine Yıldız frequently published articles encouraging relocation to Mubarek, singing praises of the development of the project.
[21] The government never told them an official reason for demanding that all of them move to Mubarek even though there were only two job spots open for them, nor did the party answer why it was not sending any of them to cities with large Crimean Tatar populations like Chirchiq.
[26] But in the end, it was clear that the reason that all of them were told to go to Mubarek despite most not being needed for work was to increase the population of Crimean Tatars in the district.
[18] Some Crimean Tatar participants in the project admitted that they understood the inherently flawed nature of the plan were personally uncomfortable with the idea and did not expect it to amount to anything.