Savitsky State Museum of Art

The Savitsky State Museum of Art in Nukus, Uzbekistan, features over 82,000 items, including Russian avant-garde paintings, Karakalpak folk art, and archaeological artifacts.

Planning your visit

The Savitsky Museum is one of the more improbable collections in the world. Igor Savitsky, a Russian artist, spent decades in Soviet Karakalpakstan collecting work by avant-garde painters whom Stalin's regime had banned, imprisoned or driven into obscurity — buying canvases from widows and attics, storing them in a remote desert town where Moscow's cultural authorities were unlikely to look closely.

The result is around 82,000 items including the second-largest collection of Russian avant-garde art anywhere, by artists who were erased from the official record and whose work survives largely because of this one man's persistence. Alongside it sit Karakalpak folk art and archaeological material from Khorezm.

Nukus is genuinely remote, near what remains of the Aral Sea, and reaching it requires deliberate effort.

Bookable options combine the museum with Muynak's ship cemetery — vessels stranded on dry seabed where the Aral once was — and Khiva. Allow two hours in the museum. Current availability is listed below.