The Institute of the Sun, also known as the Big Solar Furnace or the Solar Furnace Complex, is located just 50 kilometres or so from Tashkent, in the unassuming town of Parkent, which at first glance doesn’t really seem to stand out in any particular way. Just an ordinary Uzbek town at the foot of the mountains. And yet, all you have to do is look up at the hill towering above it to see something that definitely doesn’t belong in this landscape. On the mountainside stands a huge, futuristic structure covered in thousands of mirrors, looking like a bizarre cross between an abandoned industrial complex, an urbex site and…