Things to see and do Nukous

The museum has a unique collection of Soviet avant-garde and post-avant-garde paintings assembled by Igor Savitsky. Despite the risk of being denounced as anti-communist and being deported to Siberia, this enthusiast managed to save more than 90,000 works by artists repressed during the Stalinist period, which he stored in the archives of the Nukus Museum. Nukus was far from Moscow and its totalitarian power, and the paintings were forgotten by the world, like a treasure buried in the sands of the desert. They only reappeared with perestroika and in 1988 a first exhibition was held at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. It includes works by Robert Falk, Yevgeny Lyssenko, Liubov Popova, David Chterenberg, Alexander Volkov, Alexander Nikolaev, known as Usto-Moumin, Vasily Rojdestvenski and works by Sokolov during his years in the Gulag. There is also a collection of copies that belonged to Fernand Léger, including works such as the portal of the Fountain of the Innocents. It is a treasure that alone justifies the trip to Noukous. The museum also has a floor dedicated to Karakalpak handicrafts. Once again, it is a unique collection of jewellery, fabrics, clothing: 8,000 pieces in total to present this little-known people, including in Uzbekistan.

However, despite the great wealth of the collection on display, less than 10% of the total works collected by Igor Savitsky have joined the museum.

This immense necropolis, more than two thousand years old, houses mainly Muslim tombs, but also Nestorian tombs as crosses were found engraved on some of the buildings. Most of the mausoleums are in ruins, some have been summarily renovated, such as those of Khalif Erdjep and Bugar Jumart Kassab, while others are waiting for the government to release a budget to resume work. The mausoleum of Nazlimkhan, built in the 14th century, is half buried underground. A must-see visit on the road to Nukus!