“Every night on duty we saw flashes from distant explosions and imagined what it was like there, on the front line.
The Grads arrived and worked on the enemy.
We stood on the second line, from there it was impossible to understand where our arrivals were and where theirs were,” recalls 38-year-old Ivan Shavykin.
His thick red beard goes well with his white T-shirt, adorned with children's drawings.
Ivan points to three glazed painted ceramic disks with jagged edges.
At first it seems that it depicts a fighter looking either at the rising or setting huge sun.
“This is the glow from exploding shells,” explains RT’s interlocutor.
“It impressed me so much that I wanted to do this work.”
Under the triptych with the glow lies another one.
Against the background of black sunflowers that were not harvested before winter, a military man is depicted with the same beard as Ivan’s: “The entire territory of Ukraine is continuous fields.
Somewhere the sunflowers were not harvested.
Nature there in December is like ours in early November: there is almost no snow, a rather dull picture, and I tried to reflect this.
As for the fighter, many believe that this is my portrait.
In fact, this is a collective image, there are both my features and the features of my comrade in arms, a sniper with the call sign Gingerbread.”
RT’s interlocutor did this work during his last vacation, returning from a special operation.
“Now I would do them completely differently.
Our unit has moved forward, and such a contemplative mood no longer exists.
Now it is combative, more active,” explains Ivan.
On the next table are four medals with bas-reliefs depicting scenes from everyday life in battle.
“There’s a sniper here, there’s an infantryman, the call signs of my comrades who are now fighting there are stamped on the dugout,” he lists.
— Here a tank was removed from a copter, and on the tracks of its tracks are Prokhanov’s poems.
And this is the reverse of the medals, a work not yet completed.
Perhaps I’ll have time to complete it during this vacation.”
Ivan Shavykin and Agniya Kozhukhova
"Shock and Joy"
About the semi-basement workshop in the center of Moscow, Ivan says that this is his and his family’s second home.
“And sometimes the first,” adds his wife Agnia Kozhukhova with a smile.
The couple are professional sculptors, both graduated from Stroganov.
After graduation, they worked for some time in a creative plant at the Union of Artists, and then moved to their own workshop - “a great rarity and happiness for young people,” the owners note.
“Our whole life is dedicated to ceramics.
This material is the best because it combines both painting and sculpture; you can work with both form and color, both together and separately,” says Shavykin.
© Photo from personal archive
Agnia and Ivan have three sons - these are their drawings on the sculptor’s T-shirt.
The birth of the youngest child coincided with the “Russian spring” and the beginning of the war in Donbass.
“I remember rocking him at night and reading about all these turning points in history,” says Agnia.
All these years, according to the spouses, it was hard for them to look at the fact that nothing was changing, and the people of the heroic Donbass continued to die.
Therefore, the news on February 24, 2022 caused conflicting emotions in the family: “There was also shock, because this was still a large-scale military operation, but there was also joy because we had decided.”
However, the position of Ivan and Agnia did not meet with understanding among their colleagues.
About 10 thousand users were subscribed to the couple’s Instagram* account—as it seemed to the sculptors, sincere admirers of their work.
“Most of our colleagues acted as their understanding of the situation told them,” says Agnia.
— Namely: they hung up black squares and wrote: “No to war.”
We were probably silent for four days, and then we spoke out: there are historical processes against which we cannot do anything, and if you do not support your army, then you are supporting someone else’s.
Well, we lost most of our acquaintances after that.
But people who are not part of the professional community provided us with great support, writing that finally at least one of the artists thinks differently.”
The decision to partially mobilize in the fall of the same year radically changed the life of the family.
“Although we supported what was happening with all our hearts, we never imagined that the Motherland would require our direct participation.
There was great confusion,” recalls Agnia.
RT
The summons came to Ivan almost immediately after the announcement of mobilization.
The day of reporting to the military registration and enlistment office also became the day of departure to the training unit.
Considering the husband’s age, lack of combat experience and the presence of three children, the wife turned to RT with a request to check the legality of Ivan’s conscription as part of the mobilization.
The editors requested the relevant documents and accepted the application for work.
But a few days later she was forced to stop the check at the request of the family.
“It became clear that the criteria by which the deferment was given simply did not suit us.
So this is fate.
The Lord gave such a test, and we must pass it without doubt,” notes Agnia.
“Do what you must, and what is destined will happen.
I should be with my country, and my country is at war,” this is how Ivan reacted when he learned about his wife’s appeal to RT.
“Admired by the tenacity”
Shavykin took the call sign Chamot - this is the name of fireproof clay, which is also used by sculptors.
“So as not to part with my profession,” he explains.
The creative process does not stop even in a special operation zone, his wife adds: “When Vanya gets in touch, he asks what I’m working on, or asks me to write down his idea for the work he wants to do on vacation.”
After training, Shamot was sent to the front as a rifleman-medic, and later transferred to a medical company.
Over the course of a year and a half of participation in the SVO, the man managed to overestimate a lot: “I have become easier to relate to some everyday problems - where do I eat, for example, or if I get dirty.
At the front this is of secondary importance.”
RT
Separately, he notes how the people around him at NVO showed themselves.
“I saw a lot as a nurse.
Maybe I was lucky, but almost everyone I met acted very honorably in difficult situations.
Many people admired me for their perseverance, no one complained,” says Shavykin.
Chamot was hospitalized twice - the first time due to spinal surgery, and the second time due to a wound.
“I want to say a big thank you to the doctors who put so much effort into restoring the wounded’s ability to work.
They work hard,” he emphasizes.
“This work is probably akin to what we do at the front.”
Once, RT’s interlocutor almost died along with his colleagues.
“We came under tank fire at night.
We were sent to carry out the wounded.
When we had almost reached the front line, the enemy noticed us.
About six shells were fired at us.
The only thing that saved us was that we were in a ditch.
I was praying at that moment, everyone was praying.
Thanks to this we stayed alive.
This incident also influenced my decision to be baptized on this visit home,” says Ivan.
Soon Shamot will return to the front to join his colleagues.
“Russia will win anyway, because there has never been a serious war where we lost.
It just takes time and acceptance by our opponents that victory will be ours,” Ivan is sure.
* Meta Platforms Inc. (owner of Facebook and Instagram) - the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia by decision of the Tverskoy Court of Moscow dated March 21, 2022.