Natalya Andreevna Levdanskaya:
Co-curator at this exhibition is not in vain, completely, became Anna Kopytina. The artist, who is now mastering the Kuril Islands, has far-reaching plans associated with them, which may also affect us.
And now I give her the floor.

Anna Kopytina:
Thank you, Natalya Andreevna.
Since I believe that far-reaching plans should not only be mine.
It would be necessary, as the artists say, to occupy the Kuril Islands. It is worth looking at the work of Pogrebnyak, that’s how many artists there are so many there should be on all the islands.

Now this depression after 1994, after the earthquake. AT In particular, it was connected with this, so that people began to leave the islands, to flee simply from there. Receive this compensation, and move.

Of course, it has already gone far into the past ...
There is now infrastructure, everything is set up in order to come there. Even I would say that with comfort.

To bring in paints, sketchbooks. To paint pictures and exhibit them.
For this, there are now houses of culture and halls.

And the inhabitants are waiting, hungry for art. Remember the Shikotans. They remember them, and say that paintings hang in houses. And many remember and are familiar with them.

I was lucky enough to meet and make friends with Anatoly Momotov and his family. This is the same Momot, as the Shikotans called him. Who drove them on a schooner, but Evgeny Nikolaevich on the islands. And he preserved the work of Yevgeny Nikolaevich and Yuri Ivanovich Volkov.
And if you need to tell something or take someone with you, please.
Well, actually, thanks for coming.
Check out this whole great history of painting about the Kuril Islands.
Thank you all.

And I want to say, of course, the words of gratitude to the art gallery.