Alla Semakova’s painting “Remote Northern Village” depicts the village of Lopshenga, which is located on the Summer Coast of the White Sea. This part of the coast stretches from the mouth of the Northern Dvina to the cape of Ukhtnavolok. It is named after the place where the Pomors went fishing in summer. The other part of the coast is called the Winter Coast, following the same principle.
Lopshenga is a small village, most of its population are Pomors. A fishing cooperative was established here in 1928, later it was transformed into a fishing collective farm. Since 1965, Lopshenga has had an airdrome, and the museum and ethnographic complex “The White Sea Air Wharfs” was opened in 2020.
Alla Semakova’s painting features a morning landscape: there is a light mist above the water, which often occurs at dawn. The wooden boats are in the foreground. Two of the boats are moored near the shore, and another one was pulled out of water. In the background, there are small wooden buildings: these are the ‘banyas’ (saunas), which the Pomors traditionally built on the shore, at a distance from the houses.
Alla Semakova was born in 1954 in Rostov-on-Don, into the family of the artist Gennady Semakov. She graduated from Yaroslavl Art School. One of Semakova’s first works was a picture of the boat “Zapad”, a ship that became a monument to northern wooden shipbuilding. After that she painted a lot of pictures with maritime themes. Currently, works by Alla Semakova are held in the collections of the Arkhangelsk Museum of Fine Arts, the Malye Korely Historical and Architectural Museum, the Palace of Congresses in St Petersburg, as well as in private collections in Russia and abroad.
Lopshenga is a small village, most of its population are Pomors. A fishing cooperative was established here in 1928, later it was transformed into a fishing collective farm. Since 1965, Lopshenga has had an airdrome, and the museum and ethnographic complex “The White Sea Air Wharfs” was opened in 2020.
Alla Semakova’s painting features a morning landscape: there is a light mist above the water, which often occurs at dawn. The wooden boats are in the foreground. Two of the boats are moored near the shore, and another one was pulled out of water. In the background, there are small wooden buildings: these are the ‘banyas’ (saunas), which the Pomors traditionally built on the shore, at a distance from the houses.
Alla Semakova was born in 1954 in Rostov-on-Don, into the family of the artist Gennady Semakov. She graduated from Yaroslavl Art School. One of Semakova’s first works was a picture of the boat “Zapad”, a ship that became a monument to northern wooden shipbuilding. After that she painted a lot of pictures with maritime themes. Currently, works by Alla Semakova are held in the collections of the Arkhangelsk Museum of Fine Arts, the Malye Korely Historical and Architectural Museum, the Palace of Congresses in St Petersburg, as well as in private collections in Russia and abroad.
