In Nukus there seems to be not much going on... it's a fairly isolated town, but this seems to be the reason that it is famous. The Savitsky Art Museum is a collection of works by artists during the Soviet era who didn't really conform. Artist and collector Igor Savitsky managed to keep these works safe in the desert.

The collection is overwhelming! Only 3% of the collection is on show, but still - it seems like every surface is covered! Everything from jewellery to sculpture, paintings, sketches and every style from realism to cubism to impressionism to surrealism and folk art. Even Fintan was impressed! Seeing an artists' development through his life is something that you rarely see in a gallery - they have several here. And particularly when we only think of the Russian propaganda images as the sole artwork of the Soviet times...

After our visit to the Ashgabat History Museum we weren't expecting much - how wrong we were! One of my favourites was a painting called Drinking the Dregs - it's really dark, and shows a scene in a bar with a group of really seedy fat cats drooling over a pretty girl with their cigars and glasses of wine!

It cost 12,000 som per person and 55,000 som for 50 photographs - that's £4 per person entry and £18 to take photos. But it's such an impresssive collection, neither of us minded so long as it goes towards keeping the collection together.