The collection of the Engels Museum of Local Lore includes a unique exhibit — the request of Yakov Yakovlevich Weber addressed to the director of the museum asking to send a list and photos of his works in order for him to submit them to the Alma-Ata Union of Artists from March 4, 1954.

Yakov Weber asks the director of the museum Yevgeniya Makovskaya to send him two signed and stamped lists of his art works, which had been purchased by the institution earlier, as well as to attach the photographs of the paintings, their detailed descriptions, titles and dates. Yakov Weber needed this in order to be admitted as a member of the Alma-Ata Union of Artists, to be reinstated as Honored Artist and to reclaim his personal pension and all that he had been deprived of as a result of his five-year exile. This document echoes a written statement with a similar request to the head of the Engels city archive and characterizes the last years of the artist’s life. During this period of time Yakov Weber together with his family lived in the Kazakh village of Kuropatkino, and despite all the hardships of the times and his position, continued to believe that he would realize his longtime dream of a large exhibition of works created by him throughout his life. His desire to know the fate of his works was connected with his intention to be faithful to the chosen path, the path of service to art.

The document conveys the artist’s style of writing. Curiously, there are two signatures under the text, one of which was crossed out. Weber was probably very worried, as the decision, which he expected from the museum management, was of great importance in the artist’s life. The issue was more than significant — to restore his good name and dignity. In the archive of Weber’s letters written in the 1950s there are several letters with a similar appeal, but Yakov Weber apparently never received an answer to his requests. But, fortunately, in 1956 Yakov Weber was rehabilitated and reinstated as an Honored Artist. The painter died on February 20, 1958 at the age of 87 in Tsivilsk (Chuvash ASSR).