Nukus

The name Nukus comes from the old tribal name of the Karakalpaks, Nukus (in Persian: نوکاث Nūkās, "New Kath"). Nukus developed from a small settlement in 1932 into a large, modern Soviet city with broad avenues and big public buildings by the 1950s. The city's isolation made it host to the Red Army's Chemical Research Institute, a major research and testing center for chemical weapons. In 2002 the United States Department of Defense dismantled the Chemical Research Institute, the major research and testing site for the Novichok agent, under a $6 million Cooperative Threat Reduction program. Turtkul city became the administrative center of the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan when the Soviet authorities came to power. …

Nukus experiences a cold desert climate (Köppen BWk, Trewartha BWho) with summers that are long, dry and very hot, and winters that are short, though quite cold and snowy, having a very dry type of a continental climate. Because the Aral Sea and Amu Darya have dried up, the climate has become much hotter and drier since 1960, and health conditions resulting from salt and other chemicals in the air have become more common.

The city is home to the Karakalpak branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, several research institutes (including the Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnography, a branch of the Uzbek Scientific Research Institute of Pedagogical Sciences named after T. N. Kara-Niyazov (UzNIIPN), Karakalpak State University, Nukus State Pedagogical Institute named after Azhiniyaz, Karakalpak medical institute, branch of the Tashkent State Agrarian University, Karalpak state Technologies university, Nukus branch of the Institute of Sports and Culture of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Nukus branch of the Tashkent State Dental Institute), 51 secondary schools, colleges, academic lyceums, 5 boarding schools, 52 preschool institutions and 2 libraries. There are 9 family clinics. …

In 2019, the Nukus free economic zone (FEZ) was established to "attract direct foreign and domestic investments for the production of import-substituting products that are in demand on foreign markets". This FEZ will be in place for 30 years.

Nukus is host to the Nukus Museum of Art (also known as the State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, named after Igor Savitsky) and State Museum. The State Museum houses the usual collection of artifacts recovered from archaeological investigations, traditional jewelry, costumes and musical instruments, displays of the area's now vanished or endangered flora and fauna, and on the Aral Sea issue. The Art Museum is noted for its collection of modern Russian and Uzbek art from 1918 to 1935. Both Savitsky himself and the collection at Nukus survived because the city's remoteness limited the influence and reach of Soviet authorities. The documentary film The Desert of Forbidden Art is all about the collection and its history. Nukus is also home to the Amet and Ayimkhan Shamuratovs house museum, a center for Karakalpak music and oral culture. …

Salijon Abdurahmanov (born 1950) journalist and former prisoner of conscience. Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov (born c. 1979) – lawyer, journalist and human rights activist