The exhibition of the Iskitim Museum of Arts and History features a painting by Ivan Petrovich Popov titled “Srostki. View of Bobyrgan”.

The theme of homeland occupies a prominent place in the art of Ivan Popov. In many of his paintings and graphic works, he depicted his beloved places, including the village of Srostki where he spent the happiest years of his childhood. When he became an artist, Ivan Popov often visited Altai to create plein-eir sketches and paint studies of its beautiful nature which had not changed at all. His unique narrative painting has always found its admirers. He painted only those scenes that he felt emotionally connected to.

The painting depicts a view of Mount Bobyrgan during the spring thaw. It was one of the favorite areas of the two cousins, and Vasily Shukshin was particularly fond of the early spring in Srostki. The landscape was painted in oil, using muted colors. The painting’s main feature is its restrained and refined color palette.

Ivan Popov recalled in his autobiography “Diary of an Artist”, “If you walk from our place to the pasture, you can always see Mount Bobyrgan. I used to look at it on my way to school. It seemed that while I was walking towards it, it was moving further away from me. It is a mysterious mountain. And then there is the question of what is behind it. I wish I could go past this mountain and see what is on the other side. In short, Mount Bobyrgan was the mountain of our dreams. It always aroused curiosity, and we made up all kinds of stories about it. For example, our river, the Katun, flows directly from the Belukha behind the mountain. There is a huge abyss there, and our Katun flows out of it as if from a horn of plenty.”

Elderly residents have preserved different legends about the mysterious mountain. One of them tells the story of an old man called Altai and his daughter Katun. The girl heard about a handsome man named Biy and decided to run away to the north and find him there. Her father was angry and sent strong warriors to bring her back, but they all died on the way. He then sent another warrior, Bobyrgan, to get his daughter. He rode a horse after her for a long time, but Katun ran far away to the valleys, and the warrior remained there and was turned into a huge stone.