Opening of the exhibition "Great Cities of Russia" in the Russian State Library

So many people gathered at the opening of the exhibition “Great Cities of Russia” in the Russian State Library in the Pink Hall of the Pashkov’s House, so that the artists had to wait for the end of the event to take pictures against the background of their paintings. Our artist and correspondent, Surzhina Diana, was surprised at the variety of materials and image transmission technologies: Tamara Kravchenko’s stone mosaic based on 15th century motifs is adjacent to oil painting on the non-woven fabric of agrotextile Zaitseva Irina, a hot batik on silk by Alekseeva Natalya and Lazutina Irina echoes the still life of Kalinkina Dina, lyrical landscapes -Lavrova Anna continues on the ornamented paintings of Murzina Svetlana.

Dina Kalinkina. Photo by Surzhina Diana.

Anna Vladimirova-Lavrova. Photo by Surzhina Diana.

Tamara Kravchenko. Photo by Surzhina Diana.

Irina Zaitseva. Photo by Surzhina Diana.

At the opening acted folklore theatrical and dance collective "Kaleda-Maleda" in folk costumes. A group created by the Karelin family of artists performed at many city events. For example, "Ethno-Village" in Tagansky Park on City Day, at the Yakutsky festival "Ysyakh" in the Kolomensky Museum Reserve. The performance was attended by Balatsun Taisiya, Arkhipkina Ekaterina, Svetlana Tsyganok, Elena Gililova, Karelina Tais. Their number showed not only the colorful brightness of the Russian costume, but also showed the spiritual grace and feminine smoothness of the girls’ movements, making us remember the beauties from Russian folk tales.

- We try to create costumes close to the originals of the 19th century of various provinces of Russia. - says Tais Karelina, - in the creation of our costumes we use old technologies: beadwork, gold embroidery, bead embroidery on white, different types of embroideries, as well as a special cut.

Folklore theater and dance group "Caleda-Maleda". Photo of Margarita Karelina.

I would especially like to note the age of women artists: despite the difficulties with health and finances, their faces will be overwhelmed by joy and interest in life and creativity. Each artist, with whom they managed to talk at the exhibition, took part in some well-known projects of the Soviet Union, for example, participated in the design of metro stations or created cartoons.

Photo by Vlada Vetrova.

The exhibition "Great Cities of Russia" from October 1 to 25 in the RSL (Moscow, Vozdvizhenka 3/5) is dedicated to cities whose name contains the word Great: Rostov Veliky, Veliky Novgorod, Veliky Ustyug and Velikiye Luki. During the four years of wanderings, the artists of the Irida Sorority collected a huge amount of material on the historical past of cities and got acquainted with local history museums in many cities of our country. After the exposition in Moscow, the exhibition will go on a tour of the Great Cities.