Snow in His Sketches

Yakov Ivanovich lived in a dilapidated apartment building along the frozen Moskva River, his bedroom sparsely heated, with only a dim desk lamp and a lone cracked window lighting it. He used to work at a factory, welding together train components during the Soviet Union, then sweeping floors after its downfall. Now, retired and all but forgotten, he spent his days drawing people at the metro stop on cheap paper with charcoal.

Every day, without fail, he sat on the cold bench near the red “Park Kultury” line and drew—rushing commuters, tired mothers, stoic policemen. Most ignored him. Some offered curious glances. A few children stared in awe. For Yakov, drawing was not just pastime—it was survival. He barely spoke to anyone. But with every face he captured, he felt strangely less alone.

One day, a young woman named Irina, an art student, approached him. She had noticed his sketches and asked if he would attend a local exhibition. He declined. "I am no one," he muttered. But she insisted, eventually gathering his best sketches and placing them on display at a winter art walk in Gorky Park, anonymously titled “Faces of Moscow.”

Crowds gathered. Strangers found themselves staring at their own portraits. Mothers cried seeing their children immortalized. Even stern bureaucrats paused, surprised to find dignity in their daily rush reflected on paper.

Irina revealed the artist’s name only at the end. Yakov, shy and trembling, stood amid applause, utterly overwhelmed. Someone asked him, “Why do you draw?”

He whispered, “Because it reminds me I’m not just one man in a city—but part of something larger.”

That night, walking home through the snow, Yakov felt warm for the first time in years.

Moral: 

True art makes us feel not isolated, but connected—to each other, and to something greater than ourselves.

Inspiration:

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life. - Leo Tolstoy