The collection of the Iskitim Museum of Arts and History includes a painting titled “Edigan in the Evening” by the Siberian artist Ivan Petrovich Popov. It was donated to the museum by the painter in 1985.
The artist depicted a view of Mount Edigan at sunset when everything is colored in warm tones. The mountains lit by the setting sun are painted with shades of orange, pink, and gold. Ivan Popov visited this area many times, and the mountains always inspired him with their majesty and grandeur. However, instead of romanticizing the landscape, the artist chose to capture the world in a realistic manner, revealing its true beauty.
Ivan Popov recalled in his autobiography “Diary of an Artist”, “The same summer, I also traveled to the remote village of Ednean where I planned to work. The landlady’s brother took me there. In Ednean, I managed to create two decent studies which I have not parted with to this day…” In the book, the name of the village Edigan was mistakenly changed to Ednean because the editors misread it in the manuscript. Andrey Ivanovich Popov, the artist’s son, helped the museum curators sort out the confusion regarding the name.
The village of Edigan is located in the Chemal District of the Altai Republic, in a narrow valley of the Edigan River, some distance away from the Chemal Highway. The name of the village is translated from the Altai language as “Khan’s elder sister” or “aunt.” The mountains surrounding Edigan are covered in cedar forests. During the day, the color and silhouettes of the mountain peaks change depending on the position of the sun. There are only seven streets in Edigan. Ivan Popov’s close friends lived on one of them. When the artist came to work en plein air, he stayed with them. The village is located 16 km from Mount Edigan, one of the seven sacred mountains of the Altai. Nearby, at an altitude of 1,920 meters, at the foot of Mount Kabarga, there is the mystical Lake Manas named after a legendary hero of Kyrgyz folklore. The locals believe Mount Edigan to be the home of mountain spirits and consider the water from Lake Manas to be life-giving.
