Vladimir Yakovlevich Akimov was born on November 27, 1950, in the Chuvash village of Enduraikino, Samara region. He graduated from the Cheboksary Art College and the Repin Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

While his early work drifted toward poetic and romantic aesthetics, during the perestroika, Vladimir Akimov started adding more irony and almost grotesque images into his art and increasingly turning to myths that are closely intertwined with folk tales. Vladimir Akimov said about mythology,

The artist describes his creative method with the abbreviation “mythofare”, meaning mythological and fantastic realism. He has managed to make fantastic elements feel natural in a realistic environment. By interpreting the world around him using a multifaceted prism of myths and legends, Akimov has achieved an exceptional philosophical atmosphere where time is universal and eternal.

“Tale of a Flying Cow” belongs to the series “Tales from the Village of Enduraikino”, or “Tales of Yashka the Movie”. The artist spoke about this character of his paintings, “In my village, there was Uncle Yasha, who had a nickname Yashka the Movie. Back in the 1950s, there was no entertainment in villages: we had no radio or TV. And Uncle Yasha had the makings of an actor. Often, he would walk down the street, see children, and start playing the buffoon. He would tell all kinds of stories and jokes. Children listened to his improvised fairy tales all ears. He always had countless fairy tales in store… He was a kind of a local Baron Munchausen. I often talk to my colleagues from other Russian regions, and every one of them who grew up in the village says that they knew a person like that.”

The text of the tale is inscribed along the original frame and tells the story of a flying cow that belonged to Grandmother Aganka, grazed on its own, and flew in to give milk six times a day. The villagers used excess milk to barter it for anything they needed, even champagne or a Napoleon Cake. The story ends with the author noting, with a dreamy sigh,