9/29: Nukus' Famed Savitsky Collection & 'Real' Nukus

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On our way back to Nukus from wandering around Mizdakhan, one of the most amazing cemeteries or necropolises anywhere in the world, located near Uzbekistan's border with Turkmenistan, we drove past some obviously brand new construction. We must have had an old tour book as "the Soviet creation" had been described as "one of Uzbekistan's least appealing cities and gets few visitors relative to its Silk Road cousins. It feels half deserted and a drive into outlying areas reveals a region of dying towns and blighted landscapes."

After reading that, we certainly didn't expect to be so impressed by the excellent condition of the roads, the building boom and pretty apartment buildings one after another unlike what we'd just seen in old Tashkent which had seemed quite depressing by comparison. 

The ground floor level of all the buildings on both sides of the street which went on for miles were all brand new shops as I recall. Every single building seemed to be designed the same and also painted the same pale yellow color without exception! It looked like an immense amount of money had been recently poured into the city as we had never seen so much new construction. In hindsight, I can see how it looked rather sterile and sanitized but, when we were there, I think we both were just so amazed how the description we'd read of a backwater outpost departed from the reality of what we saw. 

There were two large flags in the city's square as Nukus is the capital of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, one of Uzbekistan's most depressed regions. Our old guidebook indicated that the formerly nomadic and fishing Karakalpaks, who only number about 400,000 of the region's 1.2 million population, were struggling to recapture a sense of national identity after being collectivized and urbanized in Soviet times. 

I read that in January 2015, The (London) Telegraph included Nukus in the list of '10 extraordinary destinations you have probably never heard of.' “This sand-swept, Soviet-built city in northwestern Uzbekistan is understandably not on the typical tourist trail, but behind its unprepossessing exterior lies an absolute gem: the Savitsky Gallery. This is the world’s foremost collection of 20th century Russian avant-garde painting and includes important works by Sokolov, Komarovskiy and the Amaravella group. The artworks were collected by the curator of the Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art in the 1960s. He acquired banned works from persecuted Soviet artists, often for little or no money, conserving and ultimately displaying them in this remote Central Asian outpost."

The only reason we had included the distant city of Nukus on our Uzbekistan itinerary was to visit the Savitsky Collection after reading that and other reviews about the museum. Though the museum owns some 90,000 pieces of art including more than 15,000 paintings, just a fraction were on display. About half of the paintings were brought to Nukus by the "renegade artist and ethnographer Igor Savitsky who managed to work within the system to preserve an entire generation of avant-garde work that was proscribed and destroyed elsewhere in the Soviet Union for not conforming to the socialist realism of the times."

I read that Savitsky found a piece of Russian avant-garde art used as a tool to fix a roof in a farm, others were retrieved from being used as door stops, etc! He discovered that there was much more art hidden from the Stalin regime. "As Nukus is such a long way from anywhere, Savitsky was able to amass such a collection of Soviet era avant-garde art, nobody could be bothered to check whether he was towing the Party line. That he also supported Karakalpakstan culture meant that the regional bureaucrats were sympathetic to his goals."

Many of the artists whose works were on display are unknown in the West. Many were executed, imprisoned or exiled to Siberia during Stalin's reign. I could understand why the museum was also known as the Museum of Forbidden Art.

The admission price was relatively steep which we had no problem with considering this was a world class exhibit of a period of Russian art. However, we did balk at the 320,000 som or $40 camera fee as that sounded like out and out gouging. Throughout our several hour visit to the museum which was housed in two buildings - a third was closed - there were times I just itched to take photos but I just couldn't rationalize that exorbitant cost to have some lasting memories of our visit or to include photos in this post.

The museum contained an obviously very impressive collection of Soviet avant-garde art as well as fascinating archaeological and cultural exhibits of the local Karakalpakstan people. Prior to visiting Nukus, I knew nothing about Karakalpakstan, so it was a very informative and educational visit to learn about the region and its people. 

If you have any interest in Russian avant-garde art and art from the same period produced in what is now Uzbekistan, look at one or more of the YouTube videos describing the history of the museum, its founder and the quality of the Savitsky Collection.

These high school kids all welcomed us to Nukus with literally open arms as you can see!

It was still early and the sun was shining so we walked over to the large park behind the museum to read in my case and play on the iPad in Steven's case. While we were sitting on a bench, some young students came over to chat wit us for a while. They seemed amazed we'd come all the way to their hometown and wanted to know why!

The sculpture was of Ajiniyaz, a famous Uzbek writer, poet and musician. 

Everything we saw in Nukus looked so manicured, so perfect, even the sidewalks  - almost unheard of in any of the cities we visited since leaving Paris in mid August - pretty flowerbeds, trees and lawns with nothing out of place. It felt so soulless as if the life had been drained out of the city.

Then, all of a sudden, the place was virtually overrun with wedding parties everywhere!

It was heartening and life affirming to see lots of people gathered to celebrate new beginnings.  

We wanted to get a sense of 'real' Nukus away from the beautiful but stark museums, city square and the sameness of all the new construction. So, as seems to be our pattern in these Central Asian cities, we headed to the local bazaar or market. The Nukus Bazaar was about thirty minutes away on foot. 

It was neat seeing locals going about their daily business in the many stalls and buildings that made up the Nukus market. It felt like we were in the land of the living and not an idealized town of brand new buildings everywhere we looked with no churches or mosques, etc anywhere.

A tower of jars of honey!

The market in Nukus had a large section devoted to salads and pickled vegetables just like Tashkent's Chorsu Bazaar had. The scent of vinegar was so strong I had to hold my nose, though!

The national bread, known as nan or more commonly by its Russian name, lepyoshka, with the puffy, raised sides and flattened, prettily designed center cost all of one thousand som or just twelve cents each.  

This girl sold lots of ice cream cones at just twenty cents each. I almost went back for seconds as the first was so good!

A member of the older generation and younger generation, side by side. Would the latter ever look like how the current older babushkas look like, I wonder? 

More carrots for you, Ivy!

This fellow had looked amused when he saw me taking photos of the carrots and people in the produce section so he put on a show for me!

As we walked back past the square, we saw yet more weddings and limos galore. I don't think I have ever seen in my life as many limos as we have this trip!

Dinner choices that night in Nukus were between slim and none apart from the hotel restaurant as the hotel catered to large tour groups. I ordered lagman, a typical Uzbek dish, made of long, flat noodles, vegetables and a little bit of meat.

Steven had hoped to order plov again, a Central Asian pilaf dish comprised of rice, fried vegetables - normally just carrots in our experience - with a dollop of meat on top, but he was out of luck and had to settle for something else. I'm glad to say we were still smiling at the end of our meals as we both enjoyed them thoroughly!

Perhaps no museum could have stood up to the amount of hype we'd read about the Savitsky Collection, as we both certainly felt glad we'd seen the many fabulous works, but neither of us were in any way wowed as some people talk about being after going. I think I speak for Steven, too, when I say the absolute highlight of our brief trip to Nukus was that morning's trip to the Mizdakhan necropolis even though that was supposed to be an almost afterthought when visiting Nukus. 

Next post: Onto the Silk Road City of Khiva!

Posted on October 18th, 2018, from Almaty, Kazakhstan.