On National Unity Day, Russian art united different peoples

On November 4, foreign students group of PRMU visited the exposition of
Russian art of the Nizhny Novgorod Art Museum. Students from Iraq, India,
Egypt, imbued with the lyricism of the Russian landscape, periodically froze near
the paintings of I.I. Shishkina, I.I. Levitan, A.K. Savrasova, M.V. Nesterov. Our
foreign students were happy to recognize almost their native Nizhny Novgorod
places on the canvases: the Kremlin, the Volga, the Nizhny Novgorod trade fair,
monasteries. The picture of V.M. Vasnetsov “Flying Carpet” caused some
confusion: they mistook the Russian Ivan Tsarevich for the hero of Arab fairy tales
Aladdin. They were also surprised at how deeply and accurately the Russian artist
perceived the world that was not native to him: the Himalayas in the paintings of
N.K. Roerich was forced to remember some students in the north of their native
India, mosques in the eastern landscapes of I.K. Aivazovsky evoked joy from the
attention to their culture among students from Arab countries. During a visit to the
museum, an undoubted interest in Russian history arose: despair in the eyes of
false Dmitry, confidence in the look of Kuzma Minin, the military uniform of a

Russian General and soldier in 1812 raised many questions that the tutors and
museum staff tried to answer.