Barge Haulers on the Volga

Above is, without question, my favorite painting of all time. Barge Haulers on the Volga is a nineteenth-century work by Russian painter Ilya Repin . It comes as no surprise to me that I was immediately drawn to it, as, like so many others, I’ve long been captivated by the cultural output of the Russian Empire and its many political incarnations: the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, the…