Geliy Korzhev

From 1944 to 1950 he studied at the Moscow State Art Institute under Sergey Gerasimov and Vasily Pochitalov.

Unwavering in his political views, in the late 1990s the artist refused a state award bestowed upon him by the government of the Russian Federation, and Korzhev wrote of his motives: I was born in the Soviet Union and sincerely believed in the ideas and ideals of the time.

Now Russia has a social system directly opposite to the one under which I, as an artist, was brought up.

The acceptance of a state award would be equal to a confession of my hypocrisy throughout my artistic career.

The monument on the grave was made by grandson Ivan under the sketches of the artist himself.