Tashkent bans peace exhibition

Exhibition of painting 'When they bombed Bukhara' by the pacifist painter Vjačeslav Akhunov called off. Bolshevik troops bombed the Uzbek city in 1920. Fears of a Russian-ordered stop. The role of an agency at Putin's direct orders.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - For reasons still unknown, the Uzbek authorities have cancelled the exhibition at the State Museum of Arts of the painting by the famous national painter Vjačeslav Akhunov, "When they bombed Bukhara". The artwork had been brought to the capital Tashkent on 25 March from a private collection in the US. It was to be exhibited in the past few days at the unveiling ceremony of the bust of the popular poet Raufi Parfi.

As Akhunov told Ozodlik, museum director Vasilja Fajzieva did not allow the painting to be placed in the exhibition hall. The oil painting, seven metres wide and two metres high, was already waiting, packed in the corridor, but Fajzieva merely said that 'we cannot bring it into the hall'. Yet the director had another painting by the conceptualist painter on display, the 'Portrait of Čulpan', depicting the early 20th century writer Abdulakhmid Suleyman, prophet of the cultural renaissance of Uzbekistan and Central Asia as a whole, who had chosen the pseudonym 'Čulpan' (Morning Star).

Akhunov painted the triptych 'When they bombed Bukhara' in 1987, after reading the book 'War in Songs. Materials on the History of the Civil War', which recalls the period after the 1917 revolution, with the bombing ordered by the Bolshevik leader Frunze in 1920. The young painter therefore wanted to express his feelings about those events, and the painting was shown in September 1988 in the Zamon gallery in London, owned by the Aga Khan, at the height of Gorbachev's perestroika. Akhunov himself was persecuted for years in his homeland for his 'too free and pacifist' views.

According to the author, the reason for the rejection is unclear, because 'I don't think that in itself makes the Russians very angry, even though they bombed Bukhara, the holy 'Bukhoroi Šarif', one of the Asian pillars of the Muslim world', recalling the term forbidden by the Russians back in 1913. The memory must have become troublesome at the time of the war in Ukraine, and this painting 'reminds us that the Russians also did similar things in the past', notes the painter.

A short while ago, the deputy director of the Tashkent Museum of Arts, Vladimir Ovčinnikov, was also granted Russian citizenship, after having worked for years as the manager of the private Veksel'berg museum in St. Petersburg: a collection of Fabergé's decorative Easter eggs bought at Sotheby's auction by the oligarch Viktor Veksel'berg, known as 'Putin's wallet' and a victim of Western sanctions. The shadow of the Kremlin leader is thus also being extended in Uzbekistan.

According to the claims of the US Ministry of Finance, which imposed the sanction, Veksel'berg is very active in disseminating 'soft power' mechanisms to support Russia's foreign policy, and his manoeuvres in the international art world appear to be an expression of this. It is emphasised on Uzbek social media that Ovčinnikov is a member of the Rossotrudničestva agency, a Russian institution linked to the Commonwealth of Independent States, in the Central Asian section.

It is a body directly at the service of Putin and the Russian federal government, dedicated to defending the interests of Russian compatriots and active in more than 80 countries around the world, offering services and funding initiatives that help affirm Russia's principles and values internationally. The agency is itself affected by sanctions from the European Union and several other countries. Akhunov wonders whether the deputy director is a 'relokant', a Russian who has fled to avoid being involved in the special military operation, or a 'gonet', a Kremlin agent sent abroad to supervise the behaviour of compatriots 'off the record'.

As several local press organs, above all the Eltuz agency, point out, the Uzbek capital's museum of arts is no stranger to scandals, ever since the time of the first president Karimov, when a trade in stolen works of art was uncovered and replaced with more than 300 fakes, and even in this case 'taxpayers have the right to know the truth about the works on display and those banned'.

Ovčinnikov refused to make any statements to the press in response to these grievances, while Fajzieva added that the painting was not exhibited 'due to a lack of documentation', having arrived late, as did the 'Portrait of Čulpan'.