While still a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Lukian Popov began to participate in exhibitions of the Association of Itinerants, and in 1903 he was accepted into the Association as full member. Along with artists Sergei Ivanov and Nikolai Kasatkin, he was considered one of the most progressive late Itinerants who paid special attention to social problems. Resettlement of Russian peasants at the turn of the century is one of the central topics of Lukian Popov’s works. 

In his paintings, the artist emphasized not only the road hardships of the settlers, but also the massive scale of this social phenomenon. Most of his paintings devoted to this subject depict a lot of people: whether it is an early sketch of the 1890’s Settlers’ Camp, the painting Settlers in Summer of the late 1890’s - early 1900’s, or the canvas featuring a long peasant convoy, Settlers in Winter.

In general, the subject of resettlement was popular among other artists of that era; for example, Itinerant artist Sergey Ivanov devoted a lot of his paintings to it. However, in his paintings he took the personal tragedy of wandering peasants to the fore. A good example is his canvas Returnees of 1888 with several dark figures of dirty, impoverished peasants who have to return to their homeland.