Ilya Repin was born in what is now Ukraine and is the most famous Russian artist, and also loved by the Finns. His workshop was located in Finland, in Kuokkala in Terijoki, from 1903 to 1930.
Repin depicted the Russian people, freed from serfdom in the 1860s, as well as the intelligentsia of that era. His works had a strong influence on the modern Finnish perception of the essence of Russianness. “Russianness”, not “Ukrainianness’.