Karakalpakstan, the most western region of usbekistan, is mostly desert. As main sights it features the location of a former seaside (aral sea) which hat receded following some giant irrigation projects by the sowjets. We went to a town called nukus which features a square sowjet city grid and a lot of buildings in need of repair. There are not many things to do or see in nukus except for the musuem which was installed by igor savitsky, a ‘renegade art collector’ who saved thousands of works that did not fit with the stalinist kunst-politik and stored them away on the edge of the former ussr.
The museum itself is really ugly and features art of different quality, but there were a lot of works which were really fantastic, e.g. by elena kolovay, a russian woman painter and grafic artist.
As the museum is by by far to small for the collection, they are currently building a new house for it which is planned to be an exact replica of the outdated museum that is there today and will stand as a twin right beside it – an installation piece of its own right.