Samarkand was the capital of the Uzbek SSR from 1925 to 1930 before being replaced by Tashkent. During World War II, after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, a number of Samarkand's citizens were sent to Smolensk to fight the enemy. Many were taken captive or killed by the Nazis. Additionally, thousands of refugees from the occupied western regions of the USSR fled to the city and it served as one of the main hubs for the fleeing civilians in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union as a whole.