A Day at the Museum: Ashgabat III

I took a tour of the Museum of Fine Art in Ashgabat. It was a unique experience in that I’ve never before visited an art museum and had to show my passport to a policeman, and answer several questions about when I entered Turkmenistan, what I was doing there, etc. Like most museums I went to there, I was the only visitor. It was divided into two sections, Turkmen art on the first floor and the international collection on the second. I concentrated on the first floor. The most interesting part was the paintings featuring the former president, and there were a bunch:

H. Churiyev and M. Babayev, “With Rich Harvest Turkmenbashi the Great,” 2003

O. Lallykov “With Great Leader to the Golden Age,” 2003

I. Ishankuliyev, “Shining Stars of the East,” 2004

There is a shocking lack of information about the history of Turkmenistan and the Turkmens, which I will get into in another post. This is an example of the problem – I’m pretty sure the Turkmen had nothing to do with the Crusades:

B. Ovganov, “Defeat of the First Crusade by the Turkmen,” 2002

And there is some Socialist Realism, like this:

Biashim Nurali, “Frontier Guards,” 1949

And there is a small amount of real art in the museum. This is a reconstructed fragment of the façade of the 15th century Seyit Jamal-ad-Din Mosque. It was a mosaic with two dragons, rare in a mosque and apparently formerly pretty cool, as you can see by the painting below it.

Comments

[Hrag]

Wow, these are impressive...who is in the international collection? Any gems of Soviet art or early Russian constructivism?

[carpetblogger]

Sorry we missed that, but Ashgabat's carpet museum is outstanding!

[Josh]

Hrag -- I just zipped through the international collection, but there appeared to be no gems of any sort, just the standard third-rate impressionists and Romantics you get at these sorts of museums.

And carpetblogger -- I did also check out the carpet museum, and with my visits to the Turkmenbashi mosque and the national museum, I have now seen all five of the five largest carpets in the world! Another note: the carpet museum is named after... his mother! Who was a carpet weaver.