The Savitsky Museum houses one of the most remarkable art collections in the former Soviet Union. The museum owns some 90,000 artefacts and pieces of art – including more than 15,000 paintings – only a fraction of which are actually on display. About half of the paintings were brought here in Soviet times by 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 country for not conforming to the socialist realism of the times. The paintings found protection in these isolated backwaters (Nukus, after all, being literally the last place you'd look for anything) and it’s interesting to hear how this nonconformist museum survived during the Soviet era. An English-language guided tour can really help to contextualise the collection and acts as an introduction to the fascinating stories behind many of the paintings.
The museum has impressive archaeological, ethnographic and folk art collections to match its collection of paintings, as well as high-quality temporary exhibits. The huge collection is rotated every few months, so you could visit many times and continue to see new works.
The Savitsky Museum’s warehouse of stored works, many in the process of restoration, is also open for viewing. It costs US$40 for small groups, and should be arranged in advance. Meanwhile, an annexe of the museum that was until recently housed in the Regional Studies Museum, has been reabsorbed into the main collection and the archives, as the Regional Studies Museum is being demolished and rebuilt elsewhere.
