Whilst studying at the V.I. Surikov Art Institute they worked on a large number of studies on the theme of war. But these were studies depicting more recent events: sending off the army, scenes in railway stations and frontline action. There work on this theme hadn’t developed past sketches. But in 1955, Sergei Tkachyov happened to tell a friend at the “Akademicheskaya Dacha” about one of his experiences during the Great Patriotic War, when in deep frost he and his comrades, all with injuries sustained in battle, were sent to a field hospital: “We were all exhausted, ” the artist explains, “most of all we wanted to sleep. It was already growing dark, the lieutenant became delirious on the way - he was very weak. On the way we wandered into an abandoned hut, where there still seemed to be some signs of life. We sat down on the bench, and suddenly a kitten came out from under the stove and, clinging to us, began to snuggle up to us and meow. I took some crumbs of bread from my field bag, which it devoured avidly. Out of the window, war was raging. Yet here, in this abandoned hut, there was a sliver of the peaceful life we had desperately dreamed of whilst in the trenches.”

Mikhail Abdullaev, a friend of the brothers, was one of those to hear this story. He threatened to steal the idea from the Tkachyovs if they didn’t paint a picture of it themselves. After this the artists excitedly set to work. They decided not to limit themselves to just sketching out this scene. They thought about creating a general portrayal, which could explore peoples’ courage during the war and dreams of a peaceful life. To realize this idea the artists prepared many studies. They tried different lighting options and colors, designed different interiors of the hut and experimented with the soldier’s positioning.