The exhibition of the Iskitim Museum of Arts and History features a portrait of Vera Alekseyevna Popova, painted in 1966.

Vera Alekseyevna Popova was married to Ivan Nikitich Popov, the cousin of the artist’s father. According to her relatives, she was a resolute but kind and caring woman. Together with her husband, they raised four children, facing many difficulties along the way, including the Stalinist repressions. In Srostki, the political repressions peaked in the early 1930s. Makar Leontyevich Shukshin and Ivan Nikitich Popov were arrested among many other victims of repression. In his autobiography, Ivan Popov recalled this tragedy,

The women of Srostki had extremely hard lives. Most of them lost their husbands at a young age for no good reason and had to raise children alone. They worked under the same conditions as men. They found a rare source of comfort and distraction in fortune-telling using cards and mirrors. Ivan Popov recalled, “Late at night after all the work was done, the women would gather at our house for their ‘night vigils’. They would take turns sitting in front of two mirrors, light three candles on each side, and look into the depths of the reflections… I saw them watching the mirrors, waiting for a glimpse of their loved ones. I remember seeing them patiently wait for their husbands to appear… Now I look at old photographs of these loved ones — Mikhail Sergeyevich and Ivan Nikitich… wearing their soldier’s uniforms… long before their arrest… I read their naive and sweet confessions on the backs of the pictures, ‘Taken on October 12, 1919. Here, my dear wife Vera, look at me and do not forget about me.’ These words speak volumes. Who even had the nerve to brand them as enemies of the people?!“

In this portrait, Vera Popova is 68 years old. This is a tired woman who has lived a difficult life. Still, she has retained a pure and genuine beauty, which is expressed in the heavenly blue color of her eyes.