One unconsciously feels like a participant of the events 70 years ago, having attended the exhibition “Tears of Memory” by a Crimean artist Mr. Valeri Sorokin at the Crimean Historical Museum “Larishes”. Every painting tells about tears, pain and suffering of the entire people.

Valeri Sorokin presented 5 paintings depicting different stages of Crimean Tatars’ life during the deportation.

It took him about a year to finish these paintings. “It was a difficult task for me, as I am not a Crimean Tatar, which means I don’t know many things about their everyday life and ethics. I was just trying to understand people who experienced the tragedy of deportation, feel their pain… It took many emotions to live into that,” - the artist says.

The painting named “Requiem” depicts a Crimean Tatar playing the violin, not yet knowing this was his last accord in his Homeland.

An old lady Abibe Settarova was crying near the painting “From the Mother’s Heart”, shaken to the bottom of her heart. She lived with the pain of losing the dearest people for many decades: “I was six when they deported us, and I grew up in an orphanage. I played outside during one of the stops, and the train left. I saw the car with my family going past me. They got me on the next train, and that was the last time I’ve ever seen my family. That train took my everything...”

Crimean Tatars have been through very hard times; they worked in the mines, at the cotton fields, at the factories. The artist depicted people sent to the mines as a free workforce in his painting “In the mines”.

All the depth of the people’s suffering is depicted on Mr.Sorokin’s paintings. They returned to their Homeland, having left tens of thousands graves of their sons and daughters in the ourland. The “Tears of Memory” Exhibition really shows the people’s bitter tears, which are to be poured by many generations of Crimean Tatars for many years.

Now Mr. Sorokin plfns to paint scenes from the Crimean Tatars’ pre-deportation life.

Ms. Elzara Yunusova