Nukus and the Savitsky Museum

Igor Savitsky, an artist working in Karakalpakstan from the 1950s, began collecting the work of Soviet painters whose art had been suppressed, buying it from widows and attics and bringing it to Nukus, far enough from Moscow that nobody looked closely, and the museum he founded now holds many thousands of works that would otherwise have been destroyed. The Karakalpak ethnographic collection alongside it is substantial in its own right.

What you actually see

• The avant-garde collection - thousands of suppressed Soviet works saved and brought here.
• The Savitsky story - the collector who assembled it in the 1950s and 1960s.
• The Karakalpak ethnography - jewellery, dress and yurt fittings of the region.
• The archaeological rooms - material from the Khorezm desert fortresses.

When to go

April to May and September to October are the comfortable months. The museum closes one day a week. Summer heat here is extreme.

Honest expectations

Only a fraction of the collection is on display at any time. The museum closes one day a week and photography is restricted. Nukus itself is a bleak Soviet-planned city with little else.

Nearby

Mizdakhan is west, and Chilpik is south.