In his opinion, the artist managed to convey "sincere passion of the Siberian game", as well as the image of the people, in which "huge reserves of heroic forces, cheerfulness, fun are bubbling".

[16] In the summer of 1887, after completing the painting Boyarda Morozova, Vasily Surikov, together with his wife Elizaveta Augustovna and daughters Olga and Elena, went to his native Krasnoyarsk, where his mother Praskovya Fedorovna and brother Alexander lived.

There he stayed until late autumn, made many sketches of urban and peasant life, and painted a large portrait of his mother (now in the State Tretyakov Gallery).

[19][20][18] Surikov was deeply affected by his wife's death; in a letter dated April 20, 1888, he wrote to his brother: "Since February 1, Lisa's illness began, and I have not had a moment of peace to write a word to you.

[25][26] Life among people close to him, familiar surroundings, trips to the countryside and fresh impressions of Siberian nature: all this contributed to the acquisition of peace and health, the restoration of creative forces.

Surikov returned to work — painted portraits of his relatives and friends, old Krasnoyarsk houses, mountain landscapes and views of the Yenisey, as well as various scenes from the life of Siberians.

[28][29][30] It was then that Vasily Surikov had the idea of painting a large canvas on the theme of "taking a snow city" — an ancient folk game popular among the Siberian Cossack community.

[6] According to some sources, the staging of the capture of the Snow Fortress took place in the courtyard of the Surikovs' house-museum in Krasnoyarsk[40][41] — there local Cossacks took part in the construction of the city.

[49] In addition, the surprise (and sometimes confusion) of the artist's contemporaries was caused by the fact that in the new painting Surikov departed from his "tragic role", which could be attributed to his previous large-format works — The Morning of the Streltsy Execution and Boyarda Morozova.

[51] The author of an article about the exhibition, published in the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti, wrote: "It is a pity and a nuisance that the current picture of Mr. Surikov causes nothing but determined confusion; it is difficult to understand how the artist could place such a trifle in such a dimentional framework".

In its whole is like a carpet, which is hanging in it on the back of the sleigh on the right, and the individual figures of the crowd merge with it into something motley, solid, multi-headed, like a hydra ..."[51] Surikov's work was highly appreciated by the critic Vladimir Stasov.

[10] In a letter to his brother Alexander dated June 3, 1899, Vasily Surikov reported that the painting had been sold to von Meck in May, "the money part he gave me, and the rest in September".

[11] In the catalog of the Paris exhibition, the canvas appeared under the French title "L'Assaut d'une ville de neige" and was the only work by Surikov presented.

[57] In July 1941, the museum's exhibits, prepared for evacuation, were sent to the Moscow railway station, then on a special train accompanied by military guards to Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), and then along the Volga and Kama rivers to Molotov (Perm).

[67] The exhibition also included seventeen traditional folk carpets from the collection of the Tyumen Museum of Fine Arts, the drawings of which contained various improvisations on the theme of a bouquet of flowers.

All the figures in Surikov's multi-figure painting "create a solid, unified impression of a jubilant crowd actively participating in a successful game and joyfully welcoming the victory of their comrade".

[75] Art historian Vladimir Kemenov noted that "the rider and horse are depicted in the most difficult perspective, flying straight at the viewer, surrounded by heaving clumps of snow.

[77] According to one data, the main character of his painting —"the winner of the city"— Surikov wrote by the Krasnoyarsk stove-maker Dmitry, according to others — by the Torgoshinsky Cossack Strizhnev;[78][79][80] it is possible that the image of the horseman combines the features of both sitters.

The horse's eyes were still excited by the shouts of the crowd and the blows of the city's defenders, but "at the same time, an expression of some cheerful mischief was already shining" — its nostrils were wide and its mouth was open, so that "a semblance of a smile appeared on its muzzle".

[42] With her back to the audience, in the same sled sits a woman in a blue hat with beaver trim and stoat pelerine — the artist painted her after his great-niece Tatiana Domozhilova, a teacher at the Krasnoyarsk Diocesan Women's School.

[77] At the very right edge of the canvas there is the yellow back of a light city sleigh (the so-called "visors"), in which there is a man in a fur coat and a beaver hat (his surikov was written by Ladeysky Cossack Ivan Perov).

[77] Surikov painted one of the spectators —a man in a dog's coat in the woodpile on the left, raising both hands in joy— from the peasant Mikhail Nashivoshnikov (according to some sources he was from the village of Dronino, according to others — from Ladeek).

[77][80] Among other viewers, the writer Gennady Gor and the art historian Vsevolod Petrov emphasized the girl in a blue coat with a border of white fur depicted in the left part of the painting, according to them, in her poetic appearance "one feels something fairy-tale", "she looks like Snegurochka and reminds one of those lyrical, full of true beauty creatures of folk imagination, which is so rich in Russian folklore".

[90] The art historian Vladimir Kemenov wrote that in this "wonderfully written tapestry" with a special power "exuberant joy of colors and at the same time a fine artistic taste"[51] are expressed.

In the State Tretyakov Gallery there are four sketches for the oil painting Taking a Snowy Town: Portrait of a Young Woman in a Coat, with a Muff (1890, 31×26,5 cm, inventory no.

Assuming that this sketch was intended to work on the image of one of the female spectators on the left side of the painting, Kemenov wrote that it "remained essentially unused", as the artist refrained from detailed psychological characterization of the representatives of this group.

[97][98][95] In the collection of the Vyatka Art Museum, named after V. M. and A. M. Vasnetsovs, there is a sketch Rider (1890, oil on canvas, 35×26 cm), where the "winner of the city" is depicted galloping not on a black, but on a white horse.

[107] In the 1890's, the art critic Vladimir Stasov wrote that Surikov's painting Taking a Snow Town depicts "a modern domestic scene, interesting and characteristic".

[4] Durylin called this canvas "the only cheerful" painting of the artist, which quite surprised his contemporaries, "who were accustomed to see in Surikov a gloomy, picturesque Dostoevsky, immersed in Russian history.

[111] Art historians Dmitry Sarabianov and Vladimir Kemenov agreed with Durylin that "the spirit of history" can be felt in the painting Taking a Snow City.