Kashkadarya Regional Museum of History and Culture

History

From 1975 to 2007 the museum occupied the Abdulazizxoja Madrasa, built in 1909. Its first displays covered the pre- and post-revolutionary periods and natural history; in 1992 the history sections were merged and a folk applied art department was created. When the madrasa closed for restoration ahead of Qarshi’s 2,700th anniversary, the collection moved temporarily, and on 23 February 2007 the museum reopened in a new building in Alisher Navoi Park.

More than 50 objects found in 2005 during the restoration of the Odina Mosque, including tiles, carved fragments and an old mulberry-wood door, also entered the collection.

Collection

The museum has departments of history, folk applied art and public education. Its holdings of over 38,000 items include paintings, graphics and sculpture, coins, archaeological finds, documents and ethnographic objects. The collection of Oriental manuscripts stands out; its catalogue was published in French in Rome in 2004. It also holds more than a hundred works by the Polish artist Apelbaum.

Its pottery and archaeological finds bring three thousand years of the Nasaf oasis’s history to life.