Sometimes he spoke:
"I was born in
1937 "Year of the Bull".
I am – "a bull
plowing a fallow field”.
It’s Gennady 4 years old
It’s house in Omsk on the street "Second line”, where
the family lived after the war
Father Mikhail, a student at art school
Vrubel. Mid 30s.
Post-war Siberia... The populous noisy "Cossack" market on
the suburb of Omsk. Beggars. The recent soldiers crippled by war. Accordion,
laughter... The road on a cemetery, passing nearby. Wind band, mourning,
tears...
Dust and barefoot children...
Finally, after 7
years of separation from the father-veteran and wanderings of mother with the
little son across the Far East, the family again reunited. Parents artists
work in art fund, Gennady goes to school, cares of younger sisters, goes
behind water on a pumping station, stands in long queues for kerosene and
bread, runs to fish with the companion on Omka and Irtysh... Also draws,
draws from life every day. Peace life is gradually adjusted. But future
artist already knows that are happy not all. Near the house there are two
psychiatric hospitals...
With his mother Ludmila
1942
Father’s
photo from the front
All life he
remembered the red brick 4-storeyed house on the neighboring street "the
1-st line", bloodcurdling female screams and the sobbings reaching from
there in the evenings, and appearing behind lattices of windows ridiculous
suffering figures of closely cropped women in the bottom shirts. On the road
behind water he saw them every day, passing by barefoot with buckets and a
yoke. Their images were engraved in the memory and mysteriously and painfully
pursued soul of the impressionable boy. He also knew that before the war in
this psychiatric hospital his mother lay...
On the family
circumstances the father didn't manage to achieve the cherished dream - to
study in Academy of Arts in Leningrad though he was recommended there after
the excellent termination of the Art school of Vrubel (the same school also
ended mother). But he just from the childhood imparted the high creative
principles and diligence to the son. Gena didn't leave a pencil since the
early childhood, he slept with a pencil under a pillow. Coming back late at
night from work, the father awoke the son and asked him to show homework -
one drawing from the nature, one drawing on memories and one water color.
"Have pity on his son, he is still small," - half-asleep mother
often told.