Smolensk 2007 paper, mixed media 585×545
On the horizon beyond the Dnieper, there are the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on Gorodyanka, St Nicholas chapel, the bell tower of Upper St. George's Church and the Downtown Church of St. Nicholas. On our side of the Dnieper, there are following churches: Svirskaya — of St. Michael the Archangel, St. John the Divine, St. George the Victorious, and Okopnaya — of the Mandylion of Edessa. Oktyabrskoy Revolutsii Street (October Revolution Street, it still has such a name in 2015) runs along the left border of the picture. The cathedral of the Abraham monastery is to the right from the Assumption cathedral. To the right of it, one can see the famous house with clocks, former Evropeyskaya hotel on the corner of Bolshaya Sovetskaya Street and Lenina Street (Big Soviet Street and Lenin Street, they still have such names in 2015). In the right lower corner, there is a tower of the Smolensk Kremlin with the gates “broken through”. To the left at the bottom of the picture there is Krasina Street descending to the ravine.
Picture of Smolensk uses sauce as well. The picture is carried out mainly in oil pastel, the sky — in dry pastel. It is the combination of two types of pastel that ensures implementation of the idea of "realism", according to the author. The oil pastel, which excites the same devotion of the artist, as he entertained earlier only towards the sauce, is used in this picture only as an instrument to obtain a "realistic" image. And the row of churches, stretching along the bank of the Dnieper above the evening sky (conventionality neighboring to the "realism"), uses the sauce not as an instrument, but as an independent artistic essence.
The picture emphasizes steepness of the stairs, leading to the Assumption Cathedral. The cathedral is much foreshortened stressing the steep stairs. Generally, it seems that abrupt landscape of the city is the main theme of the picture. It appears that cobbled streets "dive" under the ground, where roots of the fantastic trees hang down from the vaults of mysterious tunnels.
The churches along the bank of the Dnieper are located on the picture with topographic precision.
