Khudaibergen Devanov (1879-1937) was a pioneering Uzbek photographer, cinematographer, filmmaker and cameraman. He is regarded as a great figure of culture in his home of Khiva, responsible for taking photos of his city and its figures. Devanov’s collection evolved over the course of his entire creative life. It includes periods of the development of Khorezm: the years of the reign of Muhammad Rahim Khan II, Feruz (1864-1910), Asfandiar Khan (1910-1918), the years of the formation of the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic (KhPSR, 1920-1924) and Soviet Uzbekistan (UzSSR, 1925-1937).

These objects are the only visual evidence of real events that occurred at turning points of the Turkestan region. This documentary heritage in the form of a collection of photographic glass negatives and photographs testifies to historical and cultural originality and local uniqueness of Khorezm (the lower reaches of Amu Darya, Khorezm Oasis) and historical and cultural transformations at the turn of the 19th and the first three decades of the 20th centuries. A wide panorama of captured historical events, changes in political systems, diversity of ethnographic and social types, features of life and economic activity of the population, as well as samples of material, cultural and artistic creativity, serves as a reliable and truthful source of our modern knowledge about Khorezm that has not yet been studied and introduced into scientific circulation.