AWIL-UM : Thoughts in Perspective: Our world: Zinaida Serebriakova and Vladimir Kuzmin

This Duo is again dedicated to the wonderful art that emerged from the Russian space, let it bring us together, breaking the barriers some want to create.

Vladimir Kuzmin (Russian: Влади́мир Борисович Кузьмин) is a Russian rock artist born on May 31, 1955. After gaining a degree in a musical college he became lead guitarist in various VIA bands. In 1981 he became a member of Carnival releasing one album. From 1982 till the present he plays with Dynamic. Apparently in 2011 he was awarded by President Medvedev. The song's title is Семь морей and means Seven Seas.

Zinaida Yevgenyevna Serebriakova (Russian: Зинаи́да Евге́ньевна Серебряко́ва) was a Russian painter born on 12 December 1884. She grew up in Kharkov (which is now situated in Ukraine) into a refined family, descendants of the Benois family. Her grandfather (Nicholas Benois) was the chairman of the Society of Architects and a member of the Russian Academy of Science, her uncle (Alexandre Benois), a famous painter himself and founder of the Mir iskusstva art group and her father, Yevgeny Nikolayevich Lanceray, was a well known sculptor. These are just a few highlights.

After graduating the gymnasium she went to an art school founded by Princess M. K. Tenisheva. In 1901 she studied under Repin, followed by Osip Braz from 1903 to 1905. Like all aspiring artists she went for a year to Italy in 1902. After completing her education in Russia she continued to study in Paris. Life was pleasant and fruitful up till the Bolshevik revolution. In 1919 her husband died of typhus contracted in jail and so was faced without any income, with four children and her sick mother. Things however began to improve after long moments of hunger and poverty. Even in the most difficult of periods she was lucky, her grandfather's apartment in Petrograd (in which she moved in December 1920) was shared with artists from the Moscow Art Theater. This sharing of private apartments was forced upon their owners who never had a say on who will be assigned to them.

In 1924 she went to Paris after receiving a commission. It is not entirely clear if she wanted or not to return to the Soviet Union, what is known is that out of her four children she managed to bring to Paris only two in 1926 and 1928. She went on to explore Africa arriving in Morocco for a limited period. In 1947 she became a French citizen. Only after Khrushchev came to power she was allowed to come back to the Union.

Her work was exhibited in the Soviet Union in 1966 in cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. She enjoyed a complete success with millions of albums sold. Zinaida died a year later in Paris and is buried at the Russian cemetery.

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