“In the dusty remote reaches of Uzbekistan, in a city so desolate that it served as the site of a Soviet chemical weapons factory, sits what may be one of the most important collections of 20th Century Soviet art in the world. This collection, virtually unknown during the Soviet era, has been revitalized by the attention of a group of art-loving expatriates whose efforts helped spur the completion in late 2002 of a long-stalled museum building, realizing the dream of its founder and the small cadre of dedicated women who for years kept the museum going under almost impossibly difficult conditions… However, although the security guards, curators and gift shop attendants all appear for work each day in the marble-clad edifice, the ‘new’ museum – designed in 1971 – remains shuttered.”