“Our Street”: Artist Beautifully Illustrates Everyday Life In Small Russian Town

Vladimir Lubarov is a famous book graphic artist who has illustrated more that one hundred books among them there are Voltaire, Rabelais, Gogol, Strugatskie, and main artist of “Chemistry and life” journal and “Text” publishing house.

“Our street” by Vladimir Lubarov has no definite geographic address and where it is located – in town, in village or just field – it is not known. People of different roots and different religions – Russians, Jews and people of indefinite “Caucasus nationality”, inhabit this street.

Personages differ not only by national equipment but time they live: it flows on “Our street” forward and backward, at random, or stands still as the artist wants. And at the same time it is typical Russian out-of-the-way place: you can immediately recognize realities – dirty market, and typical province railroad station, and Park of Culture with permanent “girl with paddle”, and crowded queues, and drinking people in the open air.

And small Jew community, which consists of “Russian Jews” in the whole, also lives on “Our street”: shoemakers, rabbis, and tailors. Quite organic they inscribed in Russian landscapes, they follow their Saturday, eat matzo on Pesy, study Torah, and think more about eternal.