Igor Savitsky wanted to be a painter. Instead, he spent his life collecting and preserving the work of other artists.
Nearly 1,500 miles from Moscow, he created a museum that hosts the world’s second largest collection of Russian avant garde art. There he stashed more than 44,000 paintings censored by the Soviet regime.

How Savitsky was able to salvage tens of thousands of art works is the subject of the new documentary The Desert of Forbidden Art. Film Critic Jonathan Miller reviewed the film.

Music: Huun Huur Tu & Carmen Rizzo, “In Search of a Lost Past”, from the CD The Eternal, (Electrofone)