Tag Archives: Victor Ryabinin Artist Historian

Victor Ryabinin Artist Four Years Out of Time

Victor Ryabinin left Königsberg in 2019 to go back there. There is so much presence in his absence that it is hard to say if he ever went at all.

18 July 2023 ~ Victor Ryabinin Artist Four Years Out of Time

Featured image: Victor Ryabinin with Mick Hart, The London Pub, Kaliningrad, 2015

Our friend, artist, philosopher and local historian, VIctor Ryabinin, who lived out his entire life in Königsberg, died on 18 July 2019. He was, as I and others have written, a most unassuming, but in spite of and because of this, most remarkable man, both intellectually and on the level of humanity.

This is the first year that I will be unable to make the annual homage to his grave, as I am in England at present doing all the things that we people have to do whilst we are alive and which, when we die, mean very little if nothing to anyone. “Is it worth it?” sang Elvis Costello.

Such is not the case with Victor: Victor left behind a concatenation of friends and colleagues who filled the hall at his funeral to pay their last respects to him, who have written heart-felt eulogies to him, enough to fill a book, and who continue to speak of him with great affection and reverence. This is the yardstick of a worthwhile life: to have people remember you for the essence of the person you were and the light that you brought to their life.

It was a small affair, my funeral: There was the vicar, who begrudgingly turned out on a wet afternoon when the pubs were open, Ginger the cat, who had nothing better to do, and two professionals from Rent A Mourner. No one could be asked to dig the grave, so they used a post-hole digger and buried me standing up. My brother, the one who is a carpenter, made the coffin from MDF, his stock-in-trade material and, in order to keep things cheap, cut corners literally so that my feet stuck out one end. Happily ~ purely for the sake of appearances, mind, nothing to do with respect ~ someone found an old pair of wellies, so that took care of that.

Leonard Cohen was played throughout, and a man, chosen because of his serious face and the fact he cost a fiver, read an excerpt from my favourite short story, Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe, and then the graveside bystanders, muttering “He always was a miserable bugger.” ~ Ginger the cat said “Meow!” ~ off they went to the nearest pub at a gallop and by the time their first pint had been downed they had forgotten I ever existed.

Victor Ryabinin Artist

Something as ignominious as this could never happen to the likes of Victor Ryabinin, because he was a truly likeable man: admired, respected, loved, revered, warm of company and generous in spirit.

In 2022, we privately and officially celebrated Victor’s life and commemorated his death with a plaque that we had commissioned, and which is now attached to the wall of our dacha. There was talk once, there always is a lot of talk full of good intentions immediately after someone dies, of erecting a plaque in Victor’s honour on the wall of the building where his studio once was. It is a great pity that this idea has never been brought to fruition, as many people ~ poets, architects, historians, artists, museum curators and me ~ were privileged to sit with him there, surrounded by relics from Königsberg and the artworks created in his own hand, artworks which these relics, these haunting pieces of the past combined with his personal memories, had assigned him to compose and pass on for posterity.

Another building that deserves to be endowed with a plaque in memory of Victory Ryabinin is the Kaliningrad Art School, where Victor worked as an art teacher for many years. His former students speak warmly of him, both of the man and the teacher, and it is gratifying to discover that the inspiration that he instilled shines through their sketches and paintings, which are displayed at various times in solo exhibitions and with the works of other artists in Kaliningrad’s art museums.

Today, I am far away and unable to make my annual trip to Victor’s graveside. When he died, I vowed this would never happen, but show me the man who is master of his destiny and we’ll sit together and talk of lies. Fortunately, our minds are capable of travelling far greater distances than any machine, and special people and unique places never stray far from our thoughts. They are a source of great comfort in its ever having been and a source of equal pain in its never to be again.

What happens to the heart? Leonard Cohen asks. And well he might. Whatever it is, we have no choice but to live with it, if only, thankfully, for a little while longer ~ somehow.

Victor Ryabinin
Arrived in Königsberg 17^th December 1946
Returned to Königsberg 18^th July 2019

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Artist-Historian: A biographical essay by author Boris Nisnevich

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad: Mick Hart recalls how fortunate he was to have met and to have known Victor Ryabinin

“Through Victor, I learnt many things that I had seen throughout my life in Königsberg but had never really thought about.“ ~ Stanislav Konovalov, student and personal friend of Victor Ryabinin

Remembering Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Königsberg

On the third anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death

Published: 18 July 2022 ~ Remembering Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Königsberg

Photograph: Victor Ryabinin seated on the right at the far end of the table

On 30th June this year, the thought occurred to me that three years ago to this date in less than four weeks we would be deprived of one of the most significant people in our lives.

On this, the third anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s death, I have rescued from my photo archives an image for this post that was taken in a Kaliningrad restaurant shortly after I moved to Kaliningrad in the winter of 2018.

This restaurant, situated below ground level not far from the Kaliningrad Hotel, had become a popular haunt of Victor’s and his inner circle, his coterie of friends and fellow artists, not purely for its Soviet theme, although this coalesced perfectly with Victor’s love of history, but also for the very practical and very reasonable reason that the food was affordably priced and, more importantly, it was one of those rapidly fading establishments where customers were permitted to bring their own alcohol with them.

In the intervening period between my last visit to Kaliningrad and my return in 2018, a revolution had occurred, not arguably of the magnitude and life-changing tempestuousness as that experienced in Russia in the early years of the twentieth century but nevertheless in drinking circles on the scale of one to 10 somewhere close to 11: Victor and his clan had largely renounced the drinking of vodka and taken to cognac instead.

In the last few months of Victor’s life, and our association with him, the new trend was so evidently established that whenever we would meet, I would refer to those occasions as a meeting of The Cognac Club.

Remembering Victor Ryabinin, Artist, Königsberg

Sadly, not only is Victor no longer with us, but the old haunt, the Soviet café, has also vanished from our living timeline.

For as much as it appealed to me, I am not entirely sorry that the cafe has ceased to exist. Knowing me and memories, it would have been all too tempting to return there and try to close the gap between what once was and nevermore can be. Life, as we grow older, is full of half-way houses where we hope one day we might meet again and mausoleums where if we do at least we won’t be alone, even if none of us know it.

The photograph I have used for this post was taken in the Soviet café at a time before we knew what it would eventually come to mean for us. Not every grain can be counted or heard as the sand runs down in the hour glass. Victor Ryabinin passed away a few months after this photograph was taken.

The memories you painted, all are good my friend …

Dedicated to Victor Ryabinin
Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningard
Дух Кенигсберга Виктор Рябинин
Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Artist Historian
Художник Виктор Рябинин Кёнигсберг

Victor Ryabinin Pushes Boat Out with Bronze Aged Fisherman

A monumental occasion

Published: 10 June 2022 ~ Victor Ryabinin Pushes Boat Out with Bronze Aged Fisherman

At last, on Saturday 4th June 2022, the memorial plaque that we commissioned in 2021 linking Victor Ryabinin, friend and Königsberg artist, to our physical representation of his famous painting ‘Boat with Flowers’, which occupies pride of place next to the Soviet fisherman statue, was given a home. The reason it never got attached last year was that we could not make up our minds where the plaque should go. The original plan was to include it within the boat and statue ensemble, possibly secured to a large flat-surfaced rock, screwed to the side of the boat or mounted on some plinth or other. I was easy with any of these three options, but Olga opined that the plaque would be hidden, which would rather defeat the object.

Renovation of the Statue
A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

Thus, the location of the plaque was put to the vote, resulting in the unanimous decision to secure it to the side of the house, beside the garden gate. Our friend with the drill and bolts, Mr Chilikin, performed his side of the operation, whilst I, having just returned from the shop with two bottles of beer, provided inestimable assistance by holding the plaque in place.

Victor Ryabinin

When you lose someone as dear and as vital as Victor, time has a perplexing way of flying and standing still at the same time. This July will see the third anniversary of Victor’s death. It seems like only yesterday, ten thousand days or more.

I am not ashamed to say that once the plaque had been placed, I did shed a few tears, but being a real Englishman, not a cheap British counterfeit, in order to maintain the myth of the stiff upper lip, I managed this in private.

Of course, once the plaque had been ‘unveiled’ a toast ensued involving vodka, after which an intuitive silence fell on those of us present, the shared but unspoken thought being that had Death not exercised its non negotiable right to inopportune subtraction, doubtlessly Victor would have been with us today, and no plaque would have been necessary, just another glass. Life goes on, as they say, though never quite in the same old way.

Links> Victor Ryabinin
Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad
Дух Кенигсберга Виктор Рябинин

This year our boat is not looking anywhere near as well-stocked and verdant as the one in Victor’s painting, so project two is to rectify that discrepancy as soon as humanly possible.

Before getting down to the serious task of celebrating what was without argument the most glorious summer day this year, Mr Chilikin also made good his promise to turn our fisherman bronze. You may remember that last year’s restorative work on Captain Codpiece, our statue, had garnered criticism from a certain outspoken babushka, to wit that his new coat of paint appeared to be designed to make the feeble minded do something remarkably silly, like go down on one knee. Hence, there was nothing for it: either we had to delete one letter in the ‘Codpiece’ name and add two more in its place or pursue the original plan, which was to make him bronze.

The latter option being the best in good taste all round, though the former was chucklingly good, Mr Chilikin got to woke, I mean work, and with the catalysing infusion of a couple of homemade vodkas gave Codpiece a new look that would make any alchemist jealous.

In the 1960s, the fisherman had been silvered, but that was long ago. The Soviet era passed, the silver wore away and the fisherman’s concrete superstructure began seriously deteriorating. We repaired him, coated the concrete in a special sealant and weather-proof solution and painted him in a dark matte ground with hints and highlights of bronze. Finally, succumbing to the criticism that he was as dark as a midnight mushroom, we turned up the bronze, although some might say that relative to the new beginning he is fullfilling an act of destiny and turning into gold.

The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers Victor Ryabinin

“Whenever sad, draw a flower” ~ Victor Ryabinin

Published: 6 January 2022 ~ The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers Victor Ryabinin

The Terrible Doubt of Appearances or the Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers? ‘Whenever sad, draw a flower’, Victor Ryabinin wrote. If only he was here to show us how

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Recently, a friend of Victor Ryabinin’s visited the flat where he used to live, she wrote:

“Yesterday we were at V. Ryabinin’s house. I looked at his diaries — amazing documents of the life of not one person, but of a country. Today I read poetry on one of the pages [of his diary] , and my heart sinks.”

It would appear that Victor had found the words he needed to express his own thoughts and feelings in a poem by the American poet Walt Whitman, Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances.

The following extract, translated into Russian by Victor, appeared in his diary:

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be these
are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and the real
something has yet to be known,
(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me and
mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of
them,)

My wife, Olga, wrote on her Facebook page on the same day as she read the above:

“Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. It has always been the same. My friend Victor Ryabinin, who was not only a great artist but a great philosopher, invented a simple cure for depression. His motto was: “Whenever sad, draw a flower”.

The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers ~ Victor Ryabinin

The photographs below are of the building where Victor lived and some of his stored artwork. They are reproduced here with the kind permission of Valentina Pokladova, who wrote:

“The shrubbery along the fence seems to remember the owner and sheds pearly tears …”

Click here for details of an exhibition of Victor Ryabinin’s work.

Building where Victor Ryabinin lived under repair 2021

Building where Victor Ryabinin lived under scaffolding 2021

The Terrible Doubt of Weeping Flowers Victor Ryabinin

“The shrubbery along the fence seems to remember the owner and sheds pearly tears …”

Victor Ryabinin Art Exhibition Kaliningrad opens December 2021

An Artist who Can Hear Angels Speak

Published: 21 December 2021 ~ Victor Ryabinin Art Exhibition Kaliningrad opens December 2021

An art exhibition devoted to the works of our late friend Victor Ryabinin opens at The Kaliningrad Regional Museum of History and Arts on 23 December 2021. The exhibition will run until 31 December 2022.

He [Victor Ryabinin] was a breath of fresh air in my understanding of art. He was so alive in comparison with many of the other teachers. He ignited our imagination. He was not backward in pointing out our mistakes, but he inspired! And he took a sincere interest in our artistic development, which extended beyond the classroom.
Stanislav Konovalov, friend & art student of Victor Ryabinin

Details of Victor, the man and artist, can be found by accessing the links below:

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Artist-Historian
Художник Виктор Рябинин Кёнигсберг
Victor Ryabinin Königsberg Kaliningrad
Дух Кенигсберга Виктор Рябинин
Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg
Stanislav Konovalov ~ student and friend of Victor Ryabinin

“When I wrote the draft to {Victor Ryabinin’s biographical essay}, I wrote that I believe there is no equal to him in Kaliningrad — I still believe he has no equal.”
Boris Nisnevich, author

Victor Ryabinin Art Exhibition Kaliningrad

The Kaliningrad Regional Museum of History and Arts is located close to the bank of Kaliningrad’s Lower Pond.

Originally Königsberg’s city hall (Stadthalle) and also a performing arts centre, the impressive, multi-roomed building was constructed in 1912 by the Berlin architect Richard Zeil.

In its pre-war glory days, the Stadhalle boasted three concert halls, a restaurant and a well-appointed garden cafe that looked out over the castle pond, Schlossteich.

As with most of Königsberg, the building suffered extensive damage during the Allied bombing raid that took place on 26 August 1944. It took five years to restore the building, from 1981 to 1986.

The museum has five halls, each one devoted to a different theme: Nature, Archaeology, Regional History, War Room & the Post-war History of the Region.

Essential details:

The Kaliningrad Regional Museum of History and Arts
236016, Kaliningrad, St. Clinical, 21

Tel: 8 (4012) 994-900; 8 (911) 868-31-76

Email: koihm@westrussia.org (director’s reception)

Website: https://westrussia.org/

Opening times
10am to 6pm Monday ~ Sunday
(Note cash desk open until 5pm)

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

A funky, flower-power, fabulous day

Published: 13 September 2021 ~ Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

It didn’t go exactly according to plan, but then what does? I am talking about our hippy party, which was scheduled to take place on the 11^th September 2021. The main stumbling block was the weather. We had decided to hold the event on the 11^th because two weeks before the day assorted internet weather services were predicting uninterrupted sun, but as the days fell away from the calendar, so the forecast changed erratically.

One consultation revealed that it would be overcast, another that we were in for intermittent rain, another that … In desperation, I even turned to the BBC weather site, knowing only too well that their forecasts, like everything else that they do, has a sharp liberal left slant to it, so the probability of getting the truth, the half-truth or anything but the truth was rather hit and miss, and yes, their forecast was also chopping and changing, like the way they had reported Brexit and the EU referendum.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that as the day drew near, one by one, people cried away; and on the evening before the day that the party was to take place, we cancelled it.

Between times, we had succeeded in completing the renovation of Captain Codpiece, the deteriorating statue in our garden. Our friend and artist Vladimir Chilikin, with the help of a beer or two, had transformed Codpiece from the worn concrete man that he had become over the past 40 years into a strapping bronzed figure, in which many lost details could now be clearly seen.

Olga Hart with Russian fisherman statue — Olga Hart with renovated fisherman statue

We, my wife and I, had been admiring Chilikin’s work from the pavement at the end of the garden when who should materialise but our friendly stout babushka.

“Hello,” we regaled her, cheerily.

“Why have you spoilt him?” she asked.

I knew she could not have been referring to me, so she must have meant the statue. Before we had chance to reply, she had exclaimed “He’s black!”

I heard someone saying, but I know not from whence the voice came, that it would not surprise me if it was black. Being British, I am only too aware that white statues are an endangered species, at least in the UK, and that, unless they are all painted black, it won’t be long before they will all have been run off with and thrown over some wall or other into a watery mire. But I ignored this voice and simply retorted, “No, in fact, he is bronze.”

“Well,” replied the stout babushka in a rare moment of concession, “I wouldn’t know because I am peearnee (drunk).”

I think in all fairness we can say ‘tipsy’, because when Olga collected some litter from the side of the road and placed it in our rubbish bag, babushka was quick to comment: “Huh! Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time!”

The statue, which is bronzed not black, was completed that afternoon. We had brought the marble glazed plaque to Victor Ryabinin with us, and before we left at the end of the day, we dragged the boat into place and finished the ensemble.

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast

We came back on the 11^th September as, on the morning of that day, we discovered that the weather forecast had changed again. Now we were informed that it would rain but not until 8pm, and until that time it would be bright and sunny, with temperatures reaching 26 degrees centigrade.

It was too late to rally the fringe, but the old faithful were ready to go and at a moment’s notice, so our hippy party went ahead, albeit reduced in numbers.

An executive decision was reached that it did not seem proper to combine the opening of Victor’s memorial with everyone dressed in flower power, even though Victor’s Boat with Flowers put flowers centre stage. But we abided by the decision and reserved the ceremony for a later date

The renovated statue, rocks adorning the plinth and Victor’s Boat with Flowers joined forces with our rather silly attire, caricature wigs, bright-coloured cushions and mats and, with the help of Arthur’s classic Volga and the dulcet tones of the Beatles wafting from our music system, attracted many a stare and comment from passing villagers.

The stout babushka was not in evidence today, which was a shame. I am sure that she would have had a thing or two to say had she witnessed our shenanigans. But at some point in the early evening a different distraction occurred. Someone had sent a drone buzzing over the garden and consigned us all and our antics to film.

I am sure that a hippy party, themed or not, would not have gone down well had this been the former USSR, even though, or especially since, drinking cognac from cognac glasses gave our particular brand of hippyness a rather bourgeois air.

Peace man! (no sexism intended, of course)

Hippy Party on the Baltic Coast — Mick Hart with Artour, who looks like a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Benny Hill

Mick Hart with Egis Kaliningrad — Mick Hart with Egis looking as cool as cucumbers on a hot day

A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

Pushing the boat out

Published: 30 August 2021 ~ A Memorial Garden for Victor Ryabinin

The idea to create our own, modest memorial garden to Victor Ryabinin came to us when we were deliberating on what name to give to the dacha. My wife, Olga, said that she wanted to name it ‘Boat with Flowers House’ after one of Victor’s paintings, which was also used as an illustration for the front cover of his and Sam Simkin’s book on East Prussian poetry.

Victor Ryabinin’s ‘Boat with Flowers’, shown here as the front-cover design for his and Sam Simkin’s book on East Prussian Poetry

We already felt obliged, motivated by our sensibility for history and heritage, to renovate the statue that stands in our garden. The statue is that of a fisherman. We did not put him there and neither did the Germans. In German times the dacha was the village hall, but in the Soviet era it became a hostelry for fishermen. Now it is a place where Olga plays houses and gardens, and I drink beer that I have bought from the local shop. And although I believe that a statue of me with a pint glass in my hand would be something that Nigel Farage would approve of, as the fisherman was there first, there he should remain.

The statue is Captain Codpiece. That is not his real name, of course, but one that has been bestowed upon him by my brother. I don’t think Codpiece minds. He knows we respect him, and he has certainly benefitted from our recent ministrations.

I started the ball rolling by removing the moss, most of which had gathered on the plinth of the statue, and cleaned the flaking concrete from it, then some chaps from the village, whose building skills are far superior to mine, reconstructed the plinth using wooden planks for shuttering and pouring fresh concrete into the mould.

**The statue with its new plinth under construction**

Last week, our friend Chilikin, artist and conservationist, drank beer and vodka with me, and he also gave Codpiece the once over with a wire brush before saturating him in a transparent sealing compound, which will also act as a base substrate for the paint job that is to follow. In Soviet times, the statute was bright silver; the paint acted as a weather-shield, but it also transformed the concrete man into something resembling a metallised robot. Times change, and as the silver has worn off and with it the sheen of dubious taste, we have decided to act on Chilikin’s advice and go for a mottled bronze. The ‘distressed’ look will preserve antiquity, and a fresh coat of paint will give the statue a new lease of life.

Chilikin renovating Statue — **Valordia Chilikin restoring the statue of the fisherman**

Whilst Codpiece will stand tall, literally head and shoulders above the ensemble, iconic to the composition will be the boat we acquired some weeks previously, which will be used to recreate Victor’s Boat with Flowers.

Painting boat for Victor Ryabinin memorial — **Mick Hart applying preservative to the boat that will be used in**
**Victor Ryabinin’s memorial garden**

A memorial plaque has been commissioned and is in the process of being made. Next week we hope to find a suitable boulder on which to mount the plaque.

If we adhere to our timetable and complete the garden by mid-September, there is talk in the air of commemorating the event with a private gathering of clans. The occasion, I have been told, will not be black or white tie, but all attendees will be expected to wear some kind of hippy dress that backdates them to the 1960s. Codpiece was erected in the 1960s, so somehow it only seems right.

F.A.B. cats!

Links to posts on Victor Ryabin, Artist

Victor Ryabinin at One with Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin at one with Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin, artist, Königsberg
17 December 1946 ~ 18 July 2019

Why Victor Ryabinin will never leave Königsberg

Victor Ryabinin, a word with him after his death:
Thoughts on the second anniversary of Victor’s death
It is two years now, by our understanding of time, since Victor stepped out of time, but hardly a day goes by when we do not mention him. Since his death, Victor has become the benchmark by which we judge both the architectural and cultural developments in Kaliningrad and its region.

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To coincide with what would have been Victor Ryabinin’s 75^th birthday, a book has been published which celebrates and commemorates his life and work. Conceived, supervised and edited by Kaliningrad artist Marina Simkina, daughter of the famous Russian poet Sam Simkin, and Boris Nisnevich, author and journalist, this fascinating book contains personal memories of Victor Ryabinin and critical acclaim of his work and career from 28 of his friends and colleagues.

More information about the book can be found by following this link [Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg], which will take you to the permanent pages on this blog under the category Victor Ryabinin Königsberg.

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The following articles relating to Victor, his life and his art, also appear in this category:

Victor Ryabinin the Spirit of Königsberg
Oдин из самых замечательных людей, которых я когда-либо встречал
I first met Victor Ryabinin in the spring of 2001. A friend of my wife’s, knowing how much my wife liked art and how fascinated I was with anything to do with the past, suggested that we meet this ‘very interesting’ man, who was an artist and a historian.

An artist who can hear angels speak
Художник, у которого ангелы говорят
Kaliningrad author and journalist, Boris Nisnevich’s essay on the haunting influence that Königsberg’s ruins had on Victor Ryabinin’s philosophy and art: “When I wrote the draft to this article, I wrote that I believe there is no equal to him in Kaliningrad — I still believe he has no equal.” ~ Boris Nisnevich

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin
This article was published in memoriam on the first anniversary of Victor’s death. Victor died on 18 July 2019.

Personal Tour Guide Kaliningrad
Stanislav Konovalov (Stas) was a student and close friend of Victor Ryabinin. In the months following Victor’s death Stas supervised and worked on the emotionally and physically difficult task of dismantling, packing, transporting and storing the many and various Königsberg artefacts, artworks and assorted relics that once adorned and constituted The Studio ~ Victor’s atmospheric art studio and celebrated reception room. Stas took detailed photographs and measurements of the room in the hope one day that it could be reconstructed as part of a permanent exhibition to Victor and his work. Sadly, Stas himself passed away in November 2020. We live in hope that someone will continue the work that his untimely demise left unfinished. This is Stas’ story.

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg Kaliningrad

Victor Ryabinin’s Headstone Königsberg
After quite a hiatus Victor’s grave was finally bestowed with a headstone befitting the man and the artist. It shows Victor sitting on a stool in his art studio. He is leaning nonchalantly in his chair, relaxed, unassuming, in tune with himself, his life and the world around him. His right arm is resting on one of his art-historian creations, his left arm cradling the base. The artwork is an assemblage, a composition of assorted Königsberg relics assembled icon-like within a frame …

A book about Victor Ryabinin

On the 75th anniversary of Victor Ryabinin’s birth

Published: 17 December 2020 ~ A book about Victor Ryabinin

The following articles relating to Victor, his life and his art, also appear in this category:

In Memory of Victor Ryabinin
This article was published in memoriam on the first anniversary of Victor’s death. Victor died on 18 July 2019.

Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg

Happy Birthday Victor!

Published: 17 December 2020 ~ Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg

**Young artists! Victor Ryabinin & Marina Simkina** (From the book **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg** (Marina Simkina)

This 198-page commemorative anthology, which has been produced to the highest standards in full colour and landscape format, provides a valuable and affectionate insight into who Victor Ryabinin was and his unique contribution to our understanding of Königsberg-Kaliningrad’s remarkable legacy as a place of dramatic change, an incomparable centre of culture and a magnetic hub for creative talent.

A Victor Ryabinin Assemblage — A Victor Ryabinin ‘Assemblage’ *(From the book* **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg**)

The book contains numerous photographs capturing Victor both in creative mode and at leisure. It also incorporates examples of some of his most memorable works, presenting his sketches, drawings and paintings and includes his idiosyncratic and evocative Königsberg ‘assemblages’ ~ large frames in which random fragments of Königsberg are artistically assembled to form latter-day icons, a symbolic act which enabled Victor to explore his philosophy of universal interconnectivity, in this instance the destiny of two cultures symbiotically fused by time, place and fate.

The book also contains various extracts from Victor’s phenomenal pictorial diaries, which for me are the most fascinating and thought-provoking accomplishments of his career.

Victor Ryabinin's sketch books/diaries — Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg**)

Victor was hardly ever without his sketch book, his ubiquitous fold-over drawing pad, in which he would faithfully and meticulously record everything that interested him. Spanning a period of 50 years, the page-a-day inclusions range from simple sketches and notes, verse and philosophic comments, often entered in a beautifully flowing calligraphic hand, typically sharing space on the same page with a bottle label, sweet wrapper or any other souvenir arbitrarily collected from a restaurant, bar or anywhere else he had frequented on a particular day, to highly intricate and detailed drawings, mostly symbolic in nature.

Victor Ryabinin Königsberg diaries — *Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg*)

Each page, with its distinctively different collage, told him where he had been and what he had seen that day. It also captures his mood and artistic frame of mind at the moment of representation. Whilst functioning as a journal and being works of art in themselves, each sketch book contains pages, and within those pages numerous stimuli, of inspirational material that Victor could use at a later date for a broader and larger canvas.

Victor Ryabinin the Artist's pictorial diaries — Victor Ryabinin’s pictorial diary (From the book **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg**)

The range and scope of artistic expression within these journals alone demonstrate Victor’s acute observation of the world in which he lived whilst revealing glimpses into his inner world, the one shaped by symbolism, in which he worked and flourished.

Book illustrations by Victor Ryabinin

Whenever I mention Victor Ryabinin, I am met with the same reply, “Ahh, you mean Victor Ryabinin the artist!” But I tend to think of him as Victor Ryabinin the social historian, the art-historian, not somebody who studied the history of art but who made the unique history of the ruined city in which he was born and lived his lifelong study, and who made sense of it and articulated his thoughts and feelings about it using art and the symbolist genre as his medium for expression.

Victor Ryabinin was truly a one-off, both in terms of his defined artistic-historical focus and in being one of the most agreeable, charmingly charismatic and humanistic of people that you could ever wish to meet.

(From the book **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg** (Sergey Federov)

Within the covers of this superb publication, thanks to Boris Nisnevich and Marina Simkina, those who knew Victor, loved him, valued his work and everything that he stood for, pay tribute to the artist and the man, the likes of which in all probability we will never meet again.

Victor Ryabinin is a synonym for Königsberg. And this is the book by which he will be remembered.

(From the book **Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg**)

Photographs & inspiration from Victor Ryabinin the Artist Born in Königsberg, compiled, edited and published by Marina Simkina and Boris Nisnevich (2020)