Things to Do at State Museum of Fine Arts

The Kyrgyz State Museum of Fine Arts occupies a Soviet-era building on Abdrakhmanov Street and charges 100 KGS for foreigners (about $1.15 USD), 50 KGS for locals, opening Tuesday through Sunday 10:00 to 17:00. The ground floor holds Kyrgyz applied arts: embroidered felt shyrdak rugs in the traditional red-and-white geometric patterns, carved wooden implements, silver jewelry set with cornelian and turquoise, and a full-sized reconstructed yurt complete with felt walls, reed screens, and the wooden lattice frame (kerege) that expands and collapses for nomadic travel. Upstairs, the painting collection spans Russian Realist works from the 19th century through Soviet Socialist Realism (heroic tractor drivers, cotton harvest scenes) to contemporary Kyrgyz artists exploring nomadic identity through abstract and mixed-media work. The Semyon Chuikov gallery holds paintings of Kyrgyz mountain life from the 1930s and 1940s that glow with light borrowed from the actual Tien Shan sunsets outside the museum's windows. The building is quiet enough on weekday afternoons that your footsteps echo in the galleries, and the guard on the second floor may offer to turn on lights in rooms that default to dark. Budget 60 to 90 minutes, and combine with the Philharmonic next door and a walk through Dubovy Park.

You can walk to this museum from most central hotels. The building sits on Abdrakhmanov Street, distinctive enough that you won't miss it once you're in the neighborhood. Tell any marshrutka or taxi driver 'Muzey Izobrazitelnykh Iskusstv'-if your Russian can handle it.