The Peace Bell

One of the oldest parks is located in the Yakkasaray district of Tashkent – Babur Park, which was opened in 1932. The Peace Bell, whose history dates back to 1951, was installed here on April 21, 2003.

In 1951, a member of the Council of the UN Association of Japan, Tiedzi Nakagawa, speaking at the 6th UN General Assembly, took the initiative to collect coins and medals from people from all over the world, regardless of their nationality and race, their political views, ideas and principles, and the regions in which they live. From the collected coins, he promised to cast a bell in memory of the tragedy in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then present it to the UN headquarters in New York, where he would warn humanity with his ringing against the repetition of such tragedies. “I want the bell to ring for peace,” Tiedzi Nakagawa concluded his speech. The initiative was supported at the UN and began collecting coins and medals, to which Pope of those years Pius XII contributed by handing over 9 gold coins, as well as representatives at the UN of more than 60 countries that approved this idea. Tiedzi Nakagawa himself traveled a large number of countries in 3 years, where he collected coins and medals. So, on June 8, 1951, a bell weighing 116kg, 1m high and 60cm in diameter, was installed in the Japanese Garden of the UN headquarters in New York.

At the same time, Tiedzi Nakagawa launched a campaign to promote the Peace Bell in different countries. 

In 2003, the Bell was installed in Tashkent, on an artificial hill in Babur Park. A cast-iron replica of a Japanese bell is located inside a shady gazebo covered with a green tiled roof with four arches and steps to them. The gazebo is made in the traditional style of a Japanese Shinto temple, and anyone can come up to the bell and touch it, however, it will not work to ring the bell, since it is fixed immobile. The inscription on the bell is made in Uzbek and English and reads: “A symbol of peace and eternal friendship between people of all countries.” The bell is a symbol of peace and friendship, and its ringing calls the people of the Earth to solidarity and the cessation of all kinds of conflicts. 

The bell rings when it is struck with a special log – shumoku, 2 times a year: on Earth Day on March 20 and on the International Day of Peace on September 21. The bell ringing lasts one minute, and these days’ similar bells are ringing in 102 other countries except Uzbekistan. 

There is a belief that any person whose soul is burdened with sorrows and worries can approach and touch the bell, and he will already take all the worries from his heart. Anyone can check if this is the case by visiting Babur Park.