IGOR STAVISKY MUSEUM (FINE ARTS)

The museum boasts a unique collection of Soviet avant-garde and post-avant-garde paintings assembled by Igor Stavisky. Despite the risk of being denounced as anti-Communist and deported to Siberia, this enthusiast managed to save over 90,000 works by artists repressed during the Stalinist period, which he stored in the Noukous museum archives. Far from Moscow and its totalitarian power, the paintings were forgotten by the world, like treasure buried in the desert sands. They only reappeared with perestroika , and in 1988 a first exhibition was held at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

On display are works by Robert Falk, Evguenni Lyssenko, Liubov Popova, David Chterenberg, Alexandre Volkov, Alexandre Nikolaev, known as Usto-Moumin, Vassili Rojdestvenski and Sokolov's work from his years in the Gulag, as well as a collection of copies belonging to Fernand Léger, including works such as the portal to the Fountain of the Innocents. It's a treasure trove that alone justifies a trip to Noukous. The museum also has a floor devoted to Karakalpak craftsmanship. Here again, a unique collection of jewelry, fabrics and clothing - 8,000 pieces in all - presents this little-known people, even in Uzbekistan.

However, despite the richness of the collection on display, less than 10% of the total number of works assembled by Igor Stavisky have made their way to the museum.