Not everyone whose fate is tied to our city loved it.

In 1890, the artist Sergei Arsenyevich Vinogradov came to Kharkiv in an effort to avoid military service. In our city, he taught painting and drawing at the arts and crafts school until 1898 (according to other sources, until 1896). During his time in Kharkiv, the artist exhibited his paintings at traveling exhibitions organized by the “Peredvizhniki Society,” the “36 Artists” exhibitions, the “World of Art” society, and the “Moscow Society of Artists,” with the intention of finally establishing an artistic association that would reflect his views, which later came to be known as the “Union of Russian Artists.”

However, Kharkiv did not appeal to Sergei Arsenyevich. In letters to his friends, he described our beloved city as “unpleasant” and “repulsive.” To a native of the village of Bolshie Soli in the Kostroma Governorate, our city seemed monotonous and provincial, a place where nothing of substance ever happened.

At the same time, Sergei Arsenyevich’s paintings from his Kharkiv period are by no means the worst in his body of work. This is the kind of beauty that was created in Kharkiv…