The road in Porfiry Krylov’s painting leads to the village of Strakhovo, Tula Oblast. It is located just two kilometers from the Polenovo Museum-Reserve and is closely associated with the name of the Russian artist Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, who fulfilled his dream and founded a picturesque estate.

In 1911, Vasily Polenov founded the construction of a building for an eight-year school in Strakhovo, where his wife Natalia Vasilyevna conducted art lessons. The children of Strakhovo were the first to witness the artist’s last large-scale project — the Polenovo Diorama, which is a sequence of paintings of locations from around the world. His youngest daughter, Natalia, organized a children’s theater in Strakhovo, in which young actors staged fairy tales. In 1954, a health camp “Children’s Republic of Polenovo” appeared near Strakhovo.

Porfiry Nikitich Krylov visited Polenovo for the first time right after the war, in 1946. He immediately fell in love with the poetic beauty of these places, the wide valley near Oka River and its endless expanses. He came to Polenovo almost every year for two decades and painted many striking landscapes. Krylov was friends with Feodor Dmitrievich Polenov, grandson of Vasily Polenov and director of the Polenovo Museum-Reserve. In his book “Keepers of Springs” Feodor Polenov wrote: