from Irkutsk, lake Baikal paintings and drawings by
- Alekseev Anatoly
- Basharin Nikolaij
- Desyatkin Boris
- Golenev Vladimir
- Korenev Sergei
- Kostovskij Anatoly
- Kuzmin Vladimir
- Moshkin Valery
- Moskvitin Alexander
- Muravyov Alexander
- Shihalev Gennadij
- Solovyov Igor
- Solovyova Irina
- Tetenkin Vladimir
- Vershinin Nicolaij
- Basharin Nikolaij
We are used to the language of comparison but there is no comparison. which can be made with Siberia. We can only compare the results of man's activity but no more. There is nothing in the world that could be seen as an analogue to Siberia. It seems that it could exist as a separate planet. It possesses everything that such a planet ought to have in the three kingdoms of nature: on the earth, under the earth, and in the sky. It is impossible to describe in familiar terms it's life so varied and diverse.
There is everything powerful and free in our nature and everything is so far from its like in other places. If there is a plain the biggest and the flattest on the planet - that is the western Plain. If there is a swamp - there is a real swamp here and it seems there is no end to it even looking from the air. The East Siberian Taiga is whole continent, suffering, by the way, in it's life a most horrifying disaster because of fire and felling. There are rivers Ob, Jenisei, and Lena, which could be rival only to each other. One fifth of the fresh water of the world is in lake Baikal. Yes everything here was planned and made in generous and full measure, as if from this side - from the Pacific Ocean Gold began the creation on the world and made it wide and bright, spared no resources and only afterwards recollected that they could be in short supply and began trimming down and skimping.
As the matter of the fact mankind could begin a new life learning upon Siberia and other few still preserved places. In any case if mankind wants to live further it has to decide what to breathe, what to drink and what to eat, how and what for to use mankind's intelligence.
The Earth as a planet more and more stands on those fours whales but none of them is reliable. The world "Siberia" in it's sense does not mean "salvation" but it could be the synonym of salvation.
Valentin Rasputin