In his painting There Lives Such a Guy, artist Vladimir Kutilin painted a young worker. There are few objects in the painting, but they can tell us about the protagonist’s recent past and future. He has served in the Airborne Troops and quit them as a lance corporal: this can be seen by his full-dress military uniform hanging on the wall. Besides that, the young man is wearing a blue-and-white striped shirt, like the ones worn by paratroopers.

Beside him, on the wall, we can see a helmet and a canvas cloak with a metallic fall protection harness fastened to it. These objects can tell us about the character’s profession: such clothes were worn in the URSS by high riggers. On the same wall, there is a picture from a magazine and a photo from the army: most probably, it is a photo of the young man with his army mates.

In the painting There Lives Such a Guy, Vladimir Kutilin created the image of a typical young man that lived in the URSS in the middle of the XX century. He looks calm and confident: he has served in the army and now has find a job, probably at a construction site in Siberia, Baikal or the Far East.

The painting has the same title as a film by Vasili Shukshin released in 1962. Its main character is a truck conductor that led the life of an ordinary Soviet worker: went to dancing parties and to the library, courted girls. But when a fire started at a petroleum installation where he came for gasoline, such a guy saved a truck with fuel from the fire and got the glory of a hero.

In 1998, Kutilin was awarded a silver medal of the Russian Academy of Arts For contributing to the development of the Russian art. Today, his works are kept in the arts museums of Kostroma and Belgorod, in the Tretyakov Gallery and in private collections in Russia and abroad.