On Firdavsiy Street, beside our own bus stop.
School No.17 was founded in the 1930s. It is one of Samarkand’s state general secondary schools: free, open to the neighbourhood, and answerable to the city’s department of preschool and school education.
You will know the building by its brick front, its arched ground-floor windows and the blue “17-MAKTAB” sign over the door. Plaques beside the entrance carry the school’s name in Uzbek and in Russian. The bus stop outside is called “17-maktab”, after the school.
The street is narrow and busy. In February 2022 the city’s road-safety officers laid a speed bump at our gate, and the school thanked them on behalf of its pupils, teachers and parents.
Children study here from Grade 1 to Grade 11. Most lessons are taught in Russian, and local languages are taught as well. By the school’s own estimate, 300 to 350 pupils graduate each year, which makes about 30,000 since the school opened.
