Story

Siberian Carpenter of German Extraction

At the beginning of World War II Stalin exiled thousands of ethnic German families living in the European areas of the USSR to

Natasha’s Dream: Colors of Her Future

I wonder where she is now, on what continent and on which side of the Atlantic Ocean or the Equator. We were planning to get m

Girl with Peach

“Girl with Peaches” is a famous impressionist portrait by the Russian artist Valentin Serov, painted in 1887. That

Kogalym: Siberian Town in Winter

A view from the window of my studio. It was just a room in a barrack, similar to the ones next to me. The barracks were divide

Star Cat

In the middle of a harsh Siberia winter I was driven to make this nostalgic fantasy picture of a cat staring at a starry summe

Birth of Athena

As a teenager my interest shifted towards fantasy pictures. Books on Greek history and mythology challenged my imagination. At

An Aged Pinocchio Who Never Became a Real Boy

We’ve all had dreams that never came true, and now those little dreamers can still be found in all of us, in various sta

An Aged Pinocchio, Ink Drawing

The ink version of an oil painting that has a story behind it. Click here to read it. Share this... Facebook TwitterGoogle Pin

Specter of Don Quixote: Picasso in 3D

An eerie specter of Don Quixote, the fossilized remnant of the feudal era, haunting the Western world. He lurks outside its c

Picasso Reversals

Prints of Picasso’s works – his drawing of Don Quixote (1955) and his painting, Girl on the Ball (1905) – hu

Cartoon: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was all the rave during my college years when it was translated into Russian and p

Cartoon: Daniel Pipes

At one of David Horowitz’s events I was listening to a speech by Daniel Pipes. My hand was holding a pen. On the table i

Reading Transforms Reality

An attempt to capture the transformation of reality in the mind of a reader, when fictional shapes and colors enter the room a

Portrait of a Hunt

He comes from the indigenous Western Siberian tribe of hunters, fishermen, and reindeer herders, whose official English spelli

Mental Patient as Emperor

He wasn’t too bright, wearing a permanently perplexed expression on his face, as if he were always lost in deep philoso

Mobster from the Caucasus

Another patient. I don’t know if he was a real mobster, but he surely talked and acted like one. At one time he stole my

Two-Colored Ink Portrait of Pavka

I drew him in the style of an early Soviet poster because looked like an earnest, selfless, ascetic, and all-around positive s

Siberian Psycho

This was by no means my best drawing, but just an experiment of what I could accomplish with the limited available materials,

Sasha the Moscow Hippy

As my friend and I were traveling in Uzbekistan in 1983, we met Sasha – a self-identified hippy from Moscow. He was sit

Village Girl from Yaroshivka, Ukraine

This could also be the portrait of Joan of Arc. She had a look of quiet determination and defiance, with crazy sparkles in he

Ukrainian Worker in Siberia

In the 1979-80s the Soviet government encouraged workers to move to the Western Siberia, by paying them double and sometimes t

Kropotin, Property Owner

This old man was transferred from a psychiatric ward where he was abused and beaten by other mental patients. He kept to himse

The Planet of Thinking Crystals (Teen)

These angular shapes may look like an abstract painting – but they are, in fact, an alien living forest of colorful thinking

Alien Self-Eating Planet (Teen)

As I was drawing doodles in my Biology class, I imagined the possibility of alien life existing, not as individual units, but

The Interceptor of Souls (Teen)

Another teenage fantasy rooted in childhood nightmares. As I walked home one rainy summer night I noticed that the fog and dri

John and Paul Pay a Visit

John Lennon and Paul McCartney hanging out in my old apartment in Ukraine. I originally drew a couple of my friends for whom m

Fantasy Wall Drawing (Teen)

When I was about 16, my parents replaced wallpaper in my room. They didn’t buy enough rolls and ran out of them before t

Mom’s Trip to the Mailbox (Teen)

My mother walking across the yard, back from her trip to the mailbox sometime in the late 1970s. She is carrying home the Prav