Plastov was born into a family of icon painters in the village Prislonikha in the Russian Governorate of Simbirsk.

His work is characterized by his knowledge of the life in the villages of the Soviet Union, his love for his native land, strong, live pictures and his skills of painting.

As the reaction to the events, which moved the population of the Soviet Union at that time, Plastov showed in his pictures, how the village life had changed by the collectivization.

It shows a young naked woman dressing up a girl in front of a wood hut (a banya, the Russian counterpart to the Finnish sauna).

For the first time since the introduction of socialist realism a work of art showed an unpolitical everyday life scene in Soviet Union, without bringing any political message, as could be found in Plastov's earlier works that glorified the collectivization.