Uzbekistan observes September 1 as Independence Day, a national holiday the government officially recognises. The August Coup, which took place in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, in 1991, was the catalyst for several Soviet republics to declare their independence from the Soviet Union. On August 31, 1991, Islam Karimov, who was serving as President of the Uzbek Soviet Union, announced that Uzbekistan had achieved independence from the Soviet Union. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of Uzbekistan passed a resolution regarding the declaration of independence of the Republic of Uzbekistan and a law regarding the independence of the state of Uzbekistan. Karimov's signature on the statutes resulted in renaming the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic to the Republic of Uzbekistan.
