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Collecions

CENTRAL ASIA

The Central Asian collection includes exhibits from the territories once crossed by the historic Silk Road and now belonging to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. It illustrates the heritage of these diverse communities, mostly of Turkish and Iranian origins, shaped by the Great Steppe traditions, Persian, Arab, and Russian influences, as well as

shamanism, Zoroastrianism, and Sunni Islam. Most of the exhibits were acquired in the 1970s and 1980s. This includes a significant part of the Afghan stock: a set of objects obtained during the 1976 Asian Ethnological Expedition and jewellery pieces collected by Tadeusz Martynowicz. Many valuable items were acquired by the Museum in 1984 thanks to the efforts of a group of Poles working and living in Kabul at the time. In the 1990s the collection grew to include a representative set of ceramic objects from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan acquired locally by Russian ethnographer Grigory Derviz and coming from Professor Andrzej Strumiłło’s private collection. The Museum was subsequently gifted objects acquired in Afghanistan before World War II by the Wichrzycki family, Kazakh jewellery passed on by the artists Alibay Bapanov and Saule Bapanova, and a set of headwear donated by Captain Kazimierz Wojtaszewski and Monika Chwilczyńska. Recent acquisitions include textiles from Uzbekistan and a set of traditional costumes from Turkmenistan gifted by Vladimir Pawłocki and Inga Pawłocka.