Honored Artist of the Republic of Mordovia Andrey Stepanovich Alyoshkin was a painter, graphic artist, teacher, stage designer, screenwriter, and writer. He also created the design of the Mordovian flag. Andrey Stepanovich graduated from the Leningrad Art College named after Valentin Serov and the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin. The artist participated in a large number of exhibitions of different levels, and arranged numerous solo exhibitions. Alyoshkin’s works are on display in the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts named after S.D. Erzia, as well as in Russian and foreign private collections.

The art of Andrey Alyoshkin is marked by special attention to Mordovian mythology. The artist devoted a lot of time not only to fine art, but also to Mordovian history and mythology. His book “Where Have the Mordovian Gods Gone?” tells about Mordovian beliefs, and includes graphic drawings along with the texts.

“From the Circle of Life” of the series “The Way of the Great Bird” is a picture of the entire universe in the form of simple signs. The myth of the Great Bird, sharing some similarities with the Karelian-Finnish version of the creation of the world, serves as its basis. The Great Bird Inenarmun laid an egg, it shattered, the shell gave birth to the firmament, the yolk became the earth, and the whites were turned into water. There is a version according to which, after the creation of the world, the bird laid seven colored eggs on a great tree, from which the spirits of this world hatched. It is no coincidence that the outline of the wings, placed in a circle, occupies the central part of the painting. The circle is not only an egg, from which the Mordovian land originated, it is the basis of all things: the change of day and night, the seasons, the cycle of life, the succession of generations. It also symbolizes a fortress as if the mythological world acquires a tangible foundation in the work. The circle is also reminiscent of the syulgam, the chest ornament that fastened the collar of a woman’s shirt. As if to emphasize this similarity, the artist covers the fragment with gilding. We see a kind of archaeological excavation in which the figures of people and animals schematically resemble runic writing, which tells of a culture that has reached us from the depths of centuries.