It is not often that famous (and well-loved) film directors visit the remote areas of Russia. And when they do, you would naturally want them to come back again - especially if you are a city governor.

      This was clearly the thinking of Tomsk city governor who decided to reward Emir Kusturica for his visit to this Russian city. Kusturica was in Tomsk for a concert, and had a meeting with the governor.

      As a thank-you gesture and in order to entice the Serbian artist to visit taiga and the oil and gaz reserves of Tomsk Region, the governor presented Kusturica with a copy of the famous painting by Ivan Shishkin, In the Wild North. The copy was specially commissioned to a Svetlensky Lycaeum art student Katya Konovalova as a gift to Emir Kusturica. 

      The painting by Shishkin first appeared as a sketch for a book commemorating the death of Mikhail Lermontov. The title of the painting corresponds to the beginning of the first line of Lermontov's poem:

      

      On a bare hill's top, in the North, wild and cold,

      A lone pine-tree somewhere stands;

      She dozes, swaying, all covered by snow

      With a mantel from feet to a head.

      

      She sees in her dreams: in a faraway desert,

      In lands where the sun enters skies,

      Alone and sad, on a rock's sunburnt lather,

      A beautiful palm-tree abides.

      

      (translation by Evgeny Bonver, 2000). 

      

      An oil painting was painted by Shishkin in 1891 and is housed in Kyiv Museum of Russian Art.