Sergei Dreyden’s childhood stories in pictures were presented in Yekaterinburg

2023-12-08 16:51:12

+
A
–

“The military registration and enlistment office did not count the service”

During the International Festival-Workshop of Film Schools “Kinoproba”, which was held in Yekaterinburg for the 20th time, “pictures” of the wonderful actor Sergei Dreyden were presented. Many had no idea that he was also a talented artist with an almost childish and naive worldview. He spoke about serious things easily and wisely, leaving micro-evidence of his time.

The official opening was preceded by the exhibition “Sergei Dreyden. My life in pictures” at the Yeltsin Center. She continues to work after the completion of the Screen Test. Sergei Dreyden passed away in May 2023. His eldest son Kasyan and his son came to the opening of the exhibition.

Sergei Dreyden was, without exaggeration, not only an outstanding actor and an incredible person, but also a talented artist. The exhibition featured about two dozen of his “pictures,” as he called them. They are small – 14×18, 17.4x 25.3, in mixed media on cardboard and paper. The pictures are like childhood dreams – naive, spontaneous, fantastic.

Drayden drew from an early age, fortunately he had a lot of sore throats, as he himself wrote. And colored pencils and a sketchbook were always at hand during home quarantine.

At the age of 13, he entered art school in the sculpture department. His parents bought him a sketchbook, brushes, and paints. Sergei Dreyden never claimed the laurels of an artist; he called himself a drawing artist. He said that he did not compete with any of the artists and wanted everyone to draw cheerfully and with soul, even the saddest pictures.

“The Christmas Tree in 1949” was written by him in 2002. A spacious room with a not yet unpacked Christmas tree, tied with a rope, below there is an open gate through which a car with a grille is driving out. It’s as if a man who looks like Stalin is looking through the window from a giant portrait installed on a neighboring house.

The picture is accompanied by the memories of Sergei Dreyden dating back to December 1949. They say that New Year is coming, and the apartment is being searched. In the morning, the NKVD takes away the “enemy of the people” – Seryozha’s father. His mother goes to the window and pulls back the curtain. It’s snowy outside, electric lamps are shining. It was the leader’s birthday.

Sergei Dreyden. “To the bathhouse” Photo: Svetlana Khokhryakova

The picture “To the Bath” dates back to 1984. It is like an illustration of the memories of the street where Dreyden’s family lived, where the naval cadets’ barracks were located. With a lantern and a loud song “White-winged gulls are flying,” they marched in formation to the bathhouse located not far from the Summer Garden. They hold a change of clean linen in their hands.

“Kaput” of 2004 is connected with Leningrad of 1948. In the backyard of house 43 on Tchaikovsky Street, “a children’s performance of war is roaring with might and main.” The adult winners take a break from battles in the fresh air, while the prisoner restores the destroyed buildings and, in broken Russian, offers “for a sandwich” a piggy bank made of plywood in the shape of a house with ivy painted on the wall.

“House of Defense” was drawn on paper in 2006. Dreyden describes how he participated in the combat operations of the Kovpak partisan detachment, liberated Czechoslovakia and Poland from the Nazis, dealt with various kinds of wooden weapons from pistols to machine guns, was wounded three times, awarded orders and medals of the Motherland, cut out from Ogonyok and pasted on cardboard . By the age of 10, in 1951, he was demobilized and engaged in peaceful activities, but for some reason his “military service was not counted by the military registration and enlistment office,” and he, a ninth-grader, was made a pre-conscript.

“And naked, with a piece of paper in our hand, we passed from one military doctor to another in the hall of a mansion on Fontanka, next to the circus,” – this is how he described imaginary and real impressions and feelings. In the picture, skinny boys stand in front of full-breasted women and colorful men in white coats and show them their frail body parts, sometimes with screams.

In 2016, Sergei Dreyden came to the “Kinotest”, gave a master class, presented a documentary film “Drayden Suite” by Vladimir Nepevny, which was in tune with him, which was shown again in the year of the outstanding artist’s departure.