Vasily Vereshchagin. Turkestan series. V. Vereshchagin. Turkestan series Turkestan series of paintings

Fresh review

So the last day of our trip to Germany in 2016 came, it made no sense to travel far, especially since we planned a family dinner on the occasion of my birthday for the evening. But I did not want to sit at home on this sunny day, so we went to look at the water bridge in the summer. I already wrote about him in an article for 2012, but then it was winter and cloudy weather, windy and rather disgusting. Now we decided to get impressions with a new one, positive attitude. Everything is bright and green, the grass breaks through even on paved areas.

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The last part was mostly about . Now it will be about the stones themselves and science. Of course, I learned more about the rocks not when visiting this national park, but from the museum of the city of Byala, where part of the exposition is dedicated to this particular place.

I'll start, though, I'm still with photographs of the rocks themselves, but the text will mainly be from the museum. Although it is quite general. So:

The White Rocks in Byala are the fourth place in the world that testifies to a gigantic cosmic cataclysm that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs, and also gave the opportunity for mammals to develop. The White Cliffs represent a continuous geological rock profile with a Cretaceous-Tertiary geochronological boundary and an accompanying iridium anomaly. The rocks are a relatively new geotope protected within the framework of the development of the Register and Cadastre of Geological Phenomena in Bulgaria at the initiative of the Varna Regional Council. This place has a high scientific and ecological value.

I will continue to publish photos taken by a German tourist in Almaty in December 2013. Everything about the upper districts of the city will be here (well, or almost everything - something will be included in the next review). And without much detail: all the beautiful high-rise buildings, everything is clean and beautiful. In general, what our authorities want to show tourists. And of course, the Independence Monument will be detailed.

The first photo is the Telecentre on Mira-Timiryazev. The building is really very beautiful.

Of course, if you look at the map, then in the center of Sharjah there is not a lake, but a bay connected to the sea by a long and not very wide sleeve. But local guides for some reason call it the "lake". There is nothing special to write about, a lot of photos and panoramas. I went to him by chance. The heat was 45 degrees, so it was deserted - normal people do not walk in such weather.

It is surprising that with such heat, which is not one or two days here, but almost all year round, everything around is quite green. Here is the first photo on this topic.

According to the excursion program, which we were provided with in Alma-Ata, on the second day there should be an acquaintance with Tbilisi. But everything went wrong. The host side had their own ideas about organizing excursions. And on this day we went to the Borjomi Gorge. In principle, we did not care where to go in the first place, so we were not upset. Moreover, we were not alone in the excursion minibus from our hotel. The guide warned that the tour would be long and you need to have money in local currency with you, because lunch is not included in the cost of this trip, and there may not be ATMs or exchangers on the spot. And our transport went through the streets of Tbilisi, to collect tourists from other hotels. So our acquaintance with the city continued at least from the bus window.

I have always wanted to see Switzerland. But after listening to friends who have already been there or even live there, as well as having read all sorts of ratings of the most expensive cities in the world (for example, according to the rating of the Swiss bank UBS in 2018, Zurich is in first place), Switzerland somehow scared me away Well, mountains, well, architecture ... - In Almaty, there are also mountains, and in Germany in any city - architecture. Suddenly, in Switzerland, a mixture of Germany and Almaty, but at the price of an airplane? It's not interesting

But the company I work for has a contract with the University of Zurich - UZH, and since the beginning of 2018 I have been lucky enough to visit this city several times - mostly business trips, but once I even went there as a tourist When I started writing an article , there were not very many photos, because during business trips you don’t really walk around the city - from work to the hotel, back in the morning. But over these few times they have accumulated enough for a couple of articles. So, article nummero uno.

Another notable place nearby is the Carbon Canyon Regional Park. And it is notable for its grove, even a hiking trail leads to it, along which we, in fact, walked. This park belongs to the neighboring town of Brea (as it is called in Russian on the Google map, and in theirs Brea). But I’ll start from the beginning, we were brought to this beginning of the trail by car, and then we set off on foot, although it didn’t look like a health path everywhere.

I heard about either a national park or a geological reserve, which is located near the town of Obzor, in the neighboring village of Byala, and which is called "White Rocks". I rented a car and went to see what it was. Firstly, Byala turned out to be not a village, as everyone in Obzor calls it, but a normal tourist town, the size of Obzor, which became a city in 1984. Secondly, the name Byala - translates as "White" and this name just comes from this natural monument - "White Rocks".

In this review, I will tell you how to get there and what is there, beautiful or interesting. And in the next - about the museum and about the rocks with more scientific point vision.

Not much to write about. Therefore, basically, just photographs, the bulk of which are made from a moving car, therefore with glare.

Giebichenstein Castle was built during the early medieval period, between 900 and 1000 years. At that time, it had a very important strategic importance not only for the Magdeburg bishops, whose residence was until the castle was built, but also played an important role in all imperial politics. The first written mention dates back to 961. Built on a high cliff above the Saale River, about 90 meters above sea level, on the spot where the main Roman road once passed. In the period from 1445 to 1464, at the foot of the castle rock, the Lower Castle was also built, which was intended to serve as a fortified courtyard. Since the transfer of the episcopal residence to Moritzburg, the so-called Upper Castle began to fall into disrepair. And after the Thirty Years' War, when it was captured by the Swedes and set on fire, in which almost all the buildings perished, it was abandoned altogether and never restored. In 1921, the castle was transferred to city ownership. But even in such a ruined form, it is very picturesque.

« Turkestan series» - a series of paintings by the Russian artist Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin, written in 1871-1873. in Munich based on the artist's trips to Central Asia in 1867-1868 and 1869-1870. The Turkestan series also includes a small sub-series "Barbarians" ("Heroic Poem"), which Vereshchagin decided to single out and give independent significance. This sub-series is devoted exclusively to military subjects.

In 1867, K. P. Kaufman, the Governor-General of Turkestan and the commander of Russian troops in Central Asia, invited the artist to his service - he should be with the general in the rank of ensign. In August 1867, Vereshchagin went to Tashkent and Samarkand. He participated in the defense of the besieged Samarkand, was wounded and received the Order of St. George 4th class "In retribution for the distinction rendered during the defense of the citadel of Samarkand, from June 2 to 8, 1868." At the end of 1868, the artist arrived in St. Petersburg, from there to Paris, and then back to St. Petersburg. In 1869, with the assistance of Kaufman, he organized a "Turkestan exhibition" in the capital. After the end of the exhibition, Vereshchagin again went to Turkestan, this time through Siberia.

In 1871, Vereshchagin moved to Munich and began to work on paintings based on oriental subjects. Two years later, he completed the Turkestan series, which included 13 paintings, 81 studies and 133 drawings - in this composition it was shown at Vereshchagin's first solo exhibition in crystal palace in London in 1873, and then in 1874 in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Vereshchagin made it a prerequisite for the acquisition of the collection in its entirety. It was bought in 1874 by P. M. Tretyakov for 92 thousand silver rubles. He opened it to the general public, first in the premises of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, and then, after the addition of new halls, in his gallery.

The Turkestan series is partly devoted to the military events of the period when the Central Asian khanates were annexed to Russia, and partly to the Central Asian way of life, traditions and culture of the local population. Both the subject matter and the pictorial technique were new and unusual for their time, and at first caused a mixed assessment of contemporaries. For many artists (including Perov, Chistyakov, and at first Repin), the Turkestan series seemed alien to Russian art, but over time, Kramskoy's opinion prevailed that this series was a brilliant success of the new Russian school and its unconditional achievement.

Uzbek woman in Tashkent

In the mountains of Alatau

The main street in Samarkand from the height of the citadel in the early morning

Doors of Timur (Tamerlane)

Kalmyk chapel

Mausoleum Gur-Emir. Samarkand

06.08.2008 Category: Uncategorized Tags: 1 590 views

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the Turkestan series for the representation and understanding of that time, already distant for us, when photography was just beginning its journey into history. After all, in those distant times, everything historical events fixed only with a pen and brush. Thanks to the picturesque works of V. Vereshchagin, we can now see people who lived in the 19th century, as well as the architecture of the old Tashkent and Samarkand. Have a real idea about the ethnic group of the peoples who inhabited Turkestan.

Vasily Vereshchagin. Turkestan series

Vereshchagin participated in the campaign of Russian troops led by Kaufman in the conquest of Central Asia.In June 1868, as part of a small Russian garrison, Vereshchagin took part in the defense of the Samarkand fortress from the troops of the Emir of Bukhara, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George of the 4th degree, which was awarded for special military merits. It was the only award accepted by the artist. Returning from Turkestan, Vereshchagin settled in Munich in 1871, where he continued to work on Turkestan subjects on the basis of sketches and brought collections. In its final form, the Turkestan series included thirteen paintings, eighty-one studies and one hundred and thirty-three drawings - in this composition it was shown at Vereshchagin's first solo exhibition in London in 1873, and then in 1874 in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

What Vereshchagin showed in the Turkestan series was new, original, unexpected: it was a whole unknown world, presented remarkably vividly in its truth and character. The colors and the novelty of the painting were amazing, a technique not similar to the technique of Russian contemporaries, which seemed inexplicable in a young amateur artist who had been seriously engaged in painting for only a few years. For many of the artists (including Perov, Chistyakov, and at first Repin), the Turkestan series seemed foreign and even alien in Russian art, “colored patches” on his strict clothes, but the opinion expressed by Kramskoy : The Turkestan series is a brilliant success of the new Russian school, its unconditional achievement, "highly raising the spirit of the Russian person", making the heart beat "with pride that Vereshchagin is Russian, completely Russian."

The success of the Turkestan series in Russia, as already noted, was enormous. “In my opinion, this is an event. This is the conquest of Russia, much greater than the conquest of Kaufman. sums up public opinion Kramskoy… Moscow collector P.M. Tretyakov, bought the Turkestan series in 1874 ... and opened it to the general public, first in the premises of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, and then, after the addition of new halls specifically for the Vereshchagin series, in his gallery.

Vereshchagin is endowed with an amazing, in his words, “a downright terrible memory of the past,” which firmly held the smallest details of what he had seen and allowed him to return to them many years later. Having moved to Munich, he continues to write Turkestan sketches and paintings. He works with sitters, checks every detail with authentic costumes, weapons, and utensils brought from Turkestan, but he does a lot from memory. The artist does not bring anything "from himself". His task is to achieve adequacy between what he writes and what appears to his inner gaze, to prevent "double-mindedness", according to Stasov's expression, between reality, as it lives in his memory, and a picturesque image ...

Exactly 150 years ago, in 1867, immediately after the conquest of Turkestan by the tsarist troops, the young but already famous battle painter Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin (1842-1904) accepted the invitation of the Turkestan Governor-General General K. P. Kaufman to be his secretary-artist . Vereshchagin agreed to go on a dangerous journey. In his autobiographical notes, he indicated the reason that pushed him on a dangerous journey: “I went because I wanted to know what true war about which I read and heard a lot ... ".

During the long journey from St. Petersburg to Tashkent in the south of the war-torn region, and later during numerous trips around Turkestan, Vereshchagin created hundreds of drawings and sketches depicting scenes from the life of the peoples of Central Asia, made sketches of cities and towns, fortresses and historical monuments. His albums depict the faces of Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Gypsies, Jews and other inhabitants of the vast region. So, on the banks of the Syr Darya, he created portraits of the Kazakhs and painted the ruins of the Kokand fortress Akmechet, recently blown up by the troops of V.A. Perovsky.

The artist agreed with Kaufman that he would not be given any ranks in the service, that he would keep his civilian clothes and receive the right to freely move around the region for sketches and sketches. However, life took a different course. Having stopped in Samarkand, occupied by the Russians, Vereshchagin began to study the life and life of the city.

But when the main troops under the command of Kaufman left Samarkand to further fight against the emir, the small garrison of the city was besieged by thousands of troops of the Shakhrisabz Khanate and the local population that joined it. The opponents outnumbered the Russian forces by almost eighty times. From their fire, the ranks of the courageous defenders of the Samarkand citadel were greatly thinned. The situation sometimes became simply catastrophic. Vereshchagin, having changed his pencil for a gun, joined the ranks of the defenders.

He participated in the defense of the fortress, more than once led the soldiers into hand-to-hand combat, conducted reconnaissance of the enemy with danger to his life, and went ahead everywhere. A bullet split his gun at chest level, another bullet knocked his hat off his head. A strong blow with a stone injured his leg. Courage, composure, diligence of the artist created for him a high prestige among the officers and soldiers of the detachment.

The besieged held out, the siege was finally lifted.

In the artist’s submission for the award, it is written as follows: “During the eight-day siege of the Samarkand citadel by the crowds of Bukharians, ensign Vereshchagin encouraged the garrison with a courageous example ... Despite the hail of stones and murderous rifle fire, with a gun in his hands, he rushed to storm the citadel and with his heroic example carried away the brave defenders ". The artist was awarded the Order of St. George. Later, he received several more awards, but he always wore only this one - combat.
For more than a year he followed the troops and painted from nature, mainly battle scenes, soldiers running into the attack, wounded, dying and already dead. However, despite the fact that V.V. Vereshchagin was a professional soldier (he graduated from the Naval Corps before the Academy of Arts), he only took part in military operations when absolutely necessary, as happened in Samarkand.

He, the artist, had a completely different task. Vasily Vasilyevich was in a hurry to convey on paper or on canvas his admiration for the beauty of southern nature, its steppes and river valleys, the lilac-blue haze of distant mountains.

He captured the images of local residents, the migration of a Kazakh family, elegant yurts, tents, camels and horses. But all battle pictures contain an angry protest against savagery, barbarism, cruelty, death of people, against darkness and ignorance, religious fanaticism and poverty.

A year later, with the assistance of K.P. Kaufman, an exhibition of battle paintings and drawings by V.V. Vereshchagin of the Turkestan cycle was organized in St. Petersburg and held with great success. For the first time, our Asia appeared on the artist's canvases in all its glory and contradictions.

The Turkestan series made a stunning impression on contemporaries. What Vereshchagin showed was new, original, unexpected: it was a whole unknown world, presented remarkably vividly in its truth and character.

After the closing of the exhibition, Vereshchagin again travels to Turkestan, but through Siberia. This time he made a trip to Semirechye and Western China.

Several well-known and now paintings are dedicated to Semirechye and Kyrgyzstan: “A rich Kyrgyz hunter with a falcon”, “Views of the mountains near the village of Lepsinskaya, the valley of the Chu River” (Shu), Lake Issyk-Kul, the snowy peaks of the Kyrgyz Range, Naryn in the Tien Shan. Dozens of sketches by Vereshchagin are now kept in the Museum of Ethnography in Moscow. They contain information about people who lived a century and a half ago on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Returning from Central Asia, he went to Germany and there, in his peaceful workshop, from memory and sketches he created the famous Turkestan series of famous battle paintings. Among them is the Apotheosis of War, the most famous one, familiar to us from childhood from reproductions in textbooks: a mountain of skulls against the backdrop of a destroyed city, black birds - a symbol of death - flying over them. The picture was created under the impression of stories about how the despot of Kashgar - Valikhan-Tore executed a European traveler and ordered his head to be placed on top of a pyramid made of the skulls of other executed people. The inscription on the frame reads: "Dedicated to all the great conquerors - past, present and future."

The anti-war paintings by VV Vereshchagin were a huge success at several exhibitions held in Europe and Russia. But in the spring of 1874, after the exhibition in St. Petersburg, a scandal erupted: Vereshchagin was accused of anti-patriotism and sympathy for the enemy. And all because Emperor Alexander II, who got acquainted with Vereshchagin’s canvases, as the newspapers wrote then, “expressed his displeasure very sharply,” and the heir, the future Emperor Alexander III, generally said: “His constant tendentiousness is contrary to national pride, and one can conclude from them one thing: either Vereshchagin is a beast, or a completely crazy person. Of course, at that time it was customary to "impose" peace by force of arms, but showed the disgusting face of war. Such "displeasure" of the first persons of the country often sound like a call for persecution not only here. Criticism and gossip fell upon Vereshchagin. The artist closed himself in his studio and even destroyed several of his paintings. When, just a month later, the Imperial Academy of Arts awarded Vereshchagin the title of professor, he refused to accept it. For this he was declared a rebel, a nihilist and a revolutionary.

Traveling around the world, he always kept diaries - "Notes". He published 12 books, many articles, both in domestic and foreign press. In them, V.V. Vereshchagin described his views on art, as well as the customs and customs of the countries where he visited. And he traveled half the world and created several series of paintings about the Russian-Turkish war, where he highlighted the events in Bulgaria. For two years he traveled around India, where the British colonialists then raged, visited the countries of Southeast Asia, Egypt and the Arab countries. Vereshchagin saw and experienced the terrible disasters and horrors of several wars, memories of which haunted him like a nightmare for many years. He was wounded several times, lost his health, lost his younger brother. And some military men fell upon him with accusations that he had too thickened the tragic sides in his paintings, for example, the Russian-Turkish war. The artist replied that he did not depict even a tenth of what he personally observed in reality. Later he will create other series of real masterpieces. But the Turkestan series of works by VV Vereshchagin was the first and most famous in his work. It's not just about the war. He devoted many pages in the Notes, drawings and three large paintings to another "great conqueror of Asia", who claimed almost more lives than battles - drugs.

Although after the exhibition in Paris, the young immediately became famous, oddly enough, two paintings brought him special fame, the plots of which seem to fall out of military theme. There are no military operations, no bloody scenes, no corpses, no severed heads, no skulls, no crows. But the people depicted on them are very similar to corpses.

Two paintings made a stunning impression on Parisians - Opium Eaters (1868) and Politicians in an Opium Shop. Tashkent" (1870). They caused a scandal, which made Vereshchagin even more famous.

The world of Turkestan was then completely unknown in Europe, and drugs in France were considered a pleasant and harmless pastime. Opium and the strongest wormwood drink absinthe, which causes hallucinations, were then considered in Europe as signs of exclusivity, inherent only to aristocrats and creative people. This potion was considered a reliable painkiller, an easy remedy for alcoholism. Opium was given at the slightest toothache and headache as a sedative and with binges, so that a person would stop drinking. And the fact that he soon became a drug addict was somehow not noticed. He's not violent anymore! Some researchers still believe that many of the Impressionist paintings were painted by them in a state of mild drug intoxication. You can't create anything under the strong one. Then drugs were sung in novels and poems, which attracted new people who wanted to join the clan of special people. The opium craze came from China. The "queen of the seas" England also brought drugs from India. Bohemia - famous artists, artists, writers, poets - created closed clubs for opium lovers.

In them, a select society plunged into narcotic hallucinations, and then shared their impressions. Such a club of opium smokers was described in one of the stories by Conan Doyle. His favorite hero Sherlock Holmes "on business", investigating yet another case, finds himself in an opium smokehouse - in a den of the same "opium-eaters" that Vereshchagin described.

And in the story there is not a word about the danger of such a hobby. Everything is quiet there, it smells. Everything is so exquisite!

And here is an excerpt from an article in the Parisian magazine Light and Shadows (1879), glorifying the drug: “It lies before you: a piece of green mastic, the size of a walnut, emitting an unpleasant, nauseating smell. Therein lies happiness, happiness with all its extravagances. Swallow without fear - you don't die from it! Your body will not suffer in the slightest from this. You don't risk anything..."

Well, after that, how not to try the Chinese "happiness"!

And suddenly the Russian shows a gloomy den, drugged by a potion of people in outlandish clothes ... Are they really akin to exquisite Parisian bohemia ?!

One painting at an exhibition in Paris was immediately banned, but many European newspapers managed to reproduce it many times, and, having already been removed from the exhibition, it also made a fuss in St. Petersburg. Everyone wanted to see her.

Before Turkestan, Vereshchagin himself knew that there were drugs, but in Russia they were not yet as widespread as in Turkestan. And there he lived in Samarkand, Tashkent, Kokand, visited among the nomads in the Kyrgyz steppes, studied the mores, traditions and customs of the eastern peoples, sometimes quite cruel. For Vereshchagin, the East was the discovery of a new world - fascinating, unusual. However, he also saw a terrible thing: opium takes the lives of people, like the most ferocious conqueror.

The artist was a very attentive observer and also a fighter for social justice. He simply could not help but pay attention to the destructive addiction of the Central Asian inhabitants to opium. When he first saw the “opium eaters” in person, Vereshchagin was shocked: “They used drugs to replace alcohol, which in the East, due to cultural and religious traditions, was not very common,” he wrote. Here is how the artist himself tells about his impressions in his memoirs. “When I came once on a rather cold day to the calendarkhan (to the den), I found a picture that crashed into my memory: a whole company of opium-eaters sat along the walls, all crouching like monkeys, clinging to one another; most of them have probably recently taken a dose of opium; a dull expression on their faces; the half-open mouths of some move as if they are whispering something; many, with their heads buried in their knees, breathe heavily, occasionally twitching with convulsions. Near the bazaar there are many kennels in which sofas (dervishes), opium eaters, live. These are small, dark, dirty closets full of various rubbish and insects. In some, kuknar is cooked, and then the closet takes on the appearance of a drinking shop, constantly having visitors; some, having drunk in moderation, leave safely, others, less moderate, fall off their feet and sleep side by side in dark corners. Kuknar is a very stupefying drink made from the husks of the common poppy ... ”Vereshchagin tells in detail how kuknar is prepared. We will not distribute this recipe.

The artist assesses the drink in this way: “The bitterness of kuknar is so unpleasant that I could never swallow it, although I was treated to friendly sofas more than once. In similar kennels, shops are set up for smoking opium; such a closet is all covered and upholstered with mats - and the floor, and the walls, and the ceiling; the smoker lies down and draws from the hookah the smoke from the burning ball of opium, which is held with small tweezers by others at the hole of the hookah. The stupefaction from smoking opium is almost stronger than from taking it inside; its action can be compared with the action of tobacco, but only in a much stronger degree; like tobacco, it takes away sleep, natural, restorative sleep; but, they say, he gives waking dreams, restless dreams, fleeting, hallucinations, followed by weakness and frustration, but pleasant.

It was this impression that he reflected in the painting "Opium Eaters". Banned in Paris, it became known in St. Petersburg from copies and postcards. About her began to talk in the art world.

The well-known critic V. Stasov then wrote: “With sculptural tangibility, the dirty corner of the brothel is conveyed in the picture and the figures of its mendicant visitors are depicted. All these unfortunate ragamuffins, desperate poor people, barely covered with miserable rags, exposing a body parched by poverty and vice. Six warped by life and destitute people reached the brothel by different roads, through various sorrows and sufferings, but all of them were brought here by the desire, at least with the help of poison, to forget the bleak reality ... "

Another scandalous picture “Politicians in an opium shop. Tashkent” appeared as a result of the artist’s second trip to Turkestan. At this time, V.V. Vereshchagin paints several small sketches depicting the types of Central Asian beggars, which, in addition to Politicians, include Beggars in Samarkand, Chorus of Dervishes Begging for Alms, Dervishes (duvans) in festive attire. These paintings-etudes can be recognized as documentary accurate. At first glance, they represent a simple sketch of urban customs. In fact, everything is more complicated here. The artist noticed the mass nature of poverty and the connection of poverty with an attempt to illusory escape from it - the tragedy of drug addiction. The artist wrote: “Almost all sofas are noteworthy drunkards, almost all opium-eaters ... I once fed one whole stick ... opium and I will not forget how greedily he swallowed, I will not forget the whole figure, the whole appearance of the opium-eater: tall, utterly pale, yellow, he looked more like a skeleton than a living person; he hardly heard what was being done and said around him, day and night he dreamed only of opium. At first he did not pay attention to what I said to him, did not answer and probably did not hear; but then he saw opium in my hands - suddenly his face cleared up, until then meaningless, got an expression: his eyes opened wide, his nostrils flared, he stretched out his hand and began to whisper: give, give ... I did not give at first, I hid the opium - then the skeleton this one all came in, began to break down, grimace like a child, and kept begging me: give me a bang, give me a bang! .. (beng is opium). When I finally gave him a piece, he grabbed it in both hands and, crouching against his wall, began to gnaw it slowly, with pleasure, closing his eyes as a dog gnaws at a tasty bone.

He had already gnawed off half of it, when an opium-eater sitting next to him, who had long been looking enviously at the preference I had given to the skeleton, suddenly tore out the rest from him and in one second put it in his mouth. What happened to the poor skeleton? He rushed at his comrade, threw him down and began to pull in every possible way, frantically saying: “Give it back, give it back, I say!”

“Kalendarkhans are shelters for the poor, as well as something in between our cafe-restaurant and a club ... There are always a lot of people there, chatting, smoking, drinking and sleeping. I happened to meet quite respectable people there, who, however, seemed to be ashamed that I, a Russian Tyura (master), found them in the company of opium eaters and kuknarchs.

V.V. Vereshchagin, with his paintings and Notes, realistically showed the poverty and wretchedness of those who were accustomed to opium. The artist did not romanticize or idealize this vice, as it was then in Europe. He looked into the water when he warned: “It can hardly be doubted that in a more or less long time opium will come into use in Europe; behind tobacco, behind those drugs that are now absorbed in tobacco, opium is naturally and inevitably next in line.

But even the wise and insightful Vasily Vasilyevich did not imagine what a tragedy the spread of drugs would turn out to be for the peoples of Asia and Europe.

He, and the writer, with all his heart rooting for the people, tried to prevent the danger that was approaching the world with the power of his talent. But who listens to the most reasonable warnings!

Sometimes, in a polemic heat, modern debaters begin to reproach each other, who was the first to bring the evil of drug addiction or alcoholism to our region. Pointless activity! The answer to this question was given as early as the 19th century.

Back in 1885, by order of the governor of the Turkestan region A.K. Abramov, the scientist S. Moravitsky conducted a special study on the spread of drugs in the "new territories" - in Turkestan. Even then, doctors reported with alarm that "the indigenous population instilled hashishism in the newcomer, and the latter instilled alcohol in the native."

Officers, cartographers, scientists, making official trips, reported to the higher authorities, and some to the king himself, "curious facts", such as, for example, about the supply of opium to our region by Chinese merchants. Scouts believed: “for 20 million Muslim population (1880), there were up to 800 thousand consumers of hashish alone. And this number was considered underestimated. Understanding the seriousness of the problem, Emperor Nicholas II, on July 7, 1915, approved the Law "On measures to combat opium smoking." It was ordered to destroy poppy crops, which caused protests from his sowers. And this was during the First World War! What happened next and where Emperor Nicholas II disappeared, I believe, everyone knows. Many countries came to the fight against drugs in the 20s of the twentieth century, but we are witnesses to those who are now winning this fight. This deadly business for humanity is very profitable for someone!

The life of Vasily Vasilyevich Vereshchagin himself, one might say, a pioneer on the path full of danger in the fight against drugs, was tragic. Having visited all the hot spots of that time, creating hundreds of anti-war works, with the beginning of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. went to his last war - to the Far East. K. Simonov wrote about the fate of the artist: “All his life he loved to draw war. On a starless night, having run into a mine, He, together with the ship, went to the bottom, Without finishing the last picture ... ". He died along with Admiral S.O. Makarov during the explosion of the battleship Petropavlovsk near Port Arthur.

And another fantastic fact. In 1912, Vereshchagin's paintings were supposed to go to an exhibition in America ... on the Titanic, but the organizers did not manage to complete the necessary documents, and the paintings remained in the port until the next flight. Fate?

And below you can get acquainted with the works (not only with the Turkestan series) of this brilliant painter.

On the occasion of yesterday's anniversary of the death of the artist, I present what I managed to find on the net.

"Turkestan Series" was written by Vasily Vereshchagin in 1871-1873. in Munich based on the artist's trips to Central Asia in 1867-1868 and 1869-1870. The Turkestan series also includes a small sub-series "Barbarians" ("Heroic Poem"), which Vereshchagin decided to single out and give it an independent meaning. This sub-series is devoted exclusively to military subjects.

In 1867 K.P. Kaufman, the governor-general of Turkestan and the commander of Russian troops in Central Asia, invited the artist to his service - he was supposed to be with the general in the rank of ensign. In August 1867 Vereshchagin went to Tashkent and Samarkand. He participated in the defense of the besieged Samarkand, was wounded and received the Order of St. George 4th class "In retribution for the distinction rendered during the defense of the citadel of Samarkand, from June 2 to 8, 1868." At the end of 1868 the artist arrived in St. Petersburg, from there to Paris, and then back to St. Petersburg. In 1869, with the assistance of Kaufman, he organized the Turkestan Exhibition in the capital. After the end of the exhibition, Vereshchagin again went to Turkestan, this time through Siberia.

In 1871, Vereshchagin moved to Munich and began to work on paintings based on oriental subjects. Two years later, he completed the Turkestan series, which included 13 paintings, 81 studies and 133 drawings - in this composition it was shown at the first personal exhibition of Vereshchagin in the Crystal Palace in London in 1873, and then in 1874 in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Vereshchagin made it a prerequisite for the acquisition of the collection in its entirety. In 1874, P. M. Tretyakov bought the Turkestan Series for 92,000 silver rubles. He opened it to the general public, first in the premises of the Moscow Society of Art Lovers, and then, after the addition of new halls, in his gallery.

Rich Kyrgyz hunter with a falcon

Interior view of the yurt of a wealthy Kyrgyz