Vasily Yakovlevich Sitnikov is a legend of unofficial art of the thaw era. His nickname Vasya the Lanternman is due to the fact that he worked on a projector for showing transparencies at the Surikov Institute. A virtuoso artist who was able to paint a picture with a broom or a floor brush was actually self-taught or a person of natural gifts (whoever you like). He painted beautifully and kept a whole “academy” of his students.

Alexey Hanzen is a grandson and to some extent a student of Ivan Aivazovsky. As a child, he visited him in his workshop in Feodosia. But he received a professional art education in France and Germany. Hanzen became a successful artist during his lifetime. His paintings were awarded at European salons.

Belenok is a classic of disaster. Whirlwind. Panic realism. A lonely figure hiding behind a barrier. An anomaly hung in the air behind him. Anxious waiting for a denouement. The tension is growing and... This atmosphere is the main theme in the work of Petr Belenok. An artist of amazing fate. At the beginning of his creative career, he was a rather successful official sculptor in Ukraine. He made busts of Lenin for village councils. No end of work and endless stream of orders. Wealth in exchange for eternal provincialism. And he didn’t want to live like that. He preferred the freedom and independence of unofficial art instead of bureaucratic satiety. Who now remembers the sculptors of endless Lenin busts? But Belenok went down in history as one of the main artists of unofficial art.