NUKUS
CITY AND MUSEUM

The Nukus Museum of Art was founded by the Russian painter, collector and archaeologist Igor Savitsky, who after an archaeological expedition in Uzbekistan in 1950 saw the importance of preserving the traditional art of the region and managed to open the museum with a collection of goldsmith works, textiles, carpets and other traditional objects. Named curator of the museum a few years later, Savitsky used the cover of this traditional art and archeology museums and took advantage of the lower control that the central government was exercising in this remote region for gradually bringing to life a Russian and Central Asian contemporary art collection that has now become the largest in the world after the one of the Hermitage in San Pitersburgo. The current director of the museum, Marinika Babanazarova, explains in this interview the unusual history of the museum, describing its sections and emphasizing its uniqueness in terms of variety of the exhibited works and importance of a collection that has been saved from the censorship and the oblivion. The Nukus Museum is today the only touristic attraction of the city, which is located over the desert in the northwest corner of the country, but it is also the most important fine art museum not only in the region of Karakalpakstan, but probably across the entire country.