Saturday, May 11, 2013
This morning we drove away from Khiva at 7:30am knowing we had a long day ahead. We headed north on A380 to the town of Nukus to see a museum that we had heard a great deal about and wanted to see. On the way we stopped at the mud ruins of a 300-400AD fortress called Tupra Kala, which had been the capital of ancient Kharezm for a short time until its water source dried up. What appealed to me about the site was the view from the top of the ruined walls. We could see the countryside in every direction and could make out other ancient forts in the distance. I could imagine the forts sending smoke signals to each other and could understand how ancient cities could disappear in the desert and be relocated by archeologists centuries later due to the mounds that were still visible. The distances are vast with nothing to block one’s view of the horizon, except these slight mounds. It reminded me of our view from the bridge of our ship when we were at the North Pole and could make out the curvature of the earth.
Nukus, at 300,000 people, is the largest city in northern Uzbekistan. It was built by the Soviets during the late 30’s and has nothing remarkable to offer except the Nukus Museum, which was our reason for driving hours out of our way and devoting a whole day to experiencing this remarkable art collection. The museum is so special that I want to take a bit of time to help you understand the attraction.
Several weeks ago, Stacey, from GeoEx, sent us a 90-minute video about an unusual museum. Founded in 1966, the Savitsky Karakalpakstan State Art Museum, the video states, comprises a collection of over 90,000 pieces, ranging from regional folk art and Uzbek fine art to the second largest collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world, after the Russian Museum in St Petersburg. Having visited this museum during our trip to St Petersburg in 1997 and remembering being more impressed by it than by the Hermitage, we signed on for Nukus immediately upon seeing the video.
The story goes like this: Igor Savitsky (1915-1984), a Muscovite painter/archeologist made his home in Nukus in the mid-50’s. Like many artists of his generation, he traveled to Central Asia in search of inspiration and quality of light. Between 1957 and 1966, he assembled an extensive collection of regional jewelry, carpets, coins, clothing and other artifacts and convinced the regional authorities of the need for a museum. Following its establishment, he became the curator in 1966. Thereafter he began collecting the works of Central Asian artists and eventually those of the Russian avant-garde, whose paintings, although already recognized in Western Europe, had been banned in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s rule and through the 1960s.
Despite the risk of being denounced as an “enemy of the people”, Savitsky sought out proscribed painters and their heirs to collect, archive and display their works. He managed to assemble thousands of Russian avant-garde and post avant-garde paintings. Refuting the Socialist Realism school that prevailed inside Soviet Russia, the collection shook the foundations of that time, as that kind of art during the 20s and 30s had, hitherto, been unknown to exist. It was not until perestroika in 1985, by which time Savitsky had died, that his achievements and collections were acknowledged and not until 1991, when Uzbekistan became independent, that Nukus, a remote “closed” city during the Soviet Union, became accessible to the outside world. Today, the word is getting out, but very slowly—only about 5000 foreigners visit the museum each year. The museum moved to a new building in 2003 and houses the best fine arts collection we have visited in a long time. Suffice it to say, we thought the museum was well worth the effort to see it.
Unfortunately we do not have any photos of the the collections, but we did buy a book about the museum and the collections, which we will happily show any of you that ask.
We arrived at the museum shortly before noon, spent about two hours viewing paintings with a most knowledgeable museum docent, went to lunch at 2pm and came back to see the other collections until the museum closed at 4pm. After that we visited an ancient necropolis on the west side of the Oxus River, mostly to kill time, before heading to the airport for our 7:55pm flight to Tashkent. We arrived at our hotel at 11pm. Mark dove into bed, while I phoned Mom via Skype to wish her a Happy 91st birthday and published an already written post.
Tomorrow we depart Uzbekistan by car for Tajikistan.
Adventures with Julia 