1It was 18 January 2013 when the exhibition of Saratov artist Alfia Ponomarenko "Waiting for Spring" was opened in Saratov Duma *. The exhibition had included twenty pictures in variety of genres: from portraits to landscapes and from still life to philosophical painting.

The opening ceremony was attended by Saratov government deputy prime minister Yury Moiseev, Duma deputy Sergey Kurihin, Engels district head Dmitry Lobanov, and businessman and maecenas Alexandr Kamaev.

Her another life-long love used to be flowers, she often painted landscapes in Plein Air.

Upon the School graduation Ponomarenko used to work as a workshop portraitist in the Russian Artists Union. Today she is frequently taking high profile private commissions - among her latest works the portraits of some prominent figures from both Moscow and Saratov political establishment; she is also creating images of great historical and religious characters of the past. As artist, she always is trying to capture character and unique features of her subjects. Beside others the exhibition also presents portraits of Petr Stolypin and Vladimir Putin.

Every year Ms Ponomarenko participates in the city, regional and all-Russian exhibitions in Saratov, Samara, Kazan, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Saint-Petersbourg and many others. Personal exhibitions took place in Engels, Moscow, Nice (France) and Monte Carlo (Monaco).

According to Alfia herself, the Saratov Duma exhibition became a sort of "coming back to roots (Saratov)" experience for her. For this event she has particularly chosen the pictures which had been exhibited in Monaco within 3 years but never in Saratov. The pictures symbolically portray seasons of nature as well as plenty of flowers - roses, irises, lilies of valley and poppies.

The name for the exhibition came from one of the artist's own works - "Waiting for Spring": the viewer can enjoy an image of a beautiful snow-covered forest but deep down can be already seen first, shy spring greenness.

As the artist says: "As human beings we always tend to move forward, and after New Year celebrations are over we start waiting for spring and warmth coming back. Of course, physically we still are deep into winter but mentally we are moving towards spring and all good it brings with it. It may sound a bit like fairy tale motive indeed but every winter inevitably turns into spring and miracle of this transformation is what I wanted to paint and share thru my pictures."

Beside "nature" theme, the exhibition can also boast some symbolic and philosophical art - "Slow movement", "Monk's loneliness", "The guard of centuries".

Whilst Duma exhibition had its doors open to grateful visitors, fans and supporters of Ponomarenko's art for several weeks, it unfortunately didn't prevent some annoying episode from happening. During her exhibition visit, Saratov Ombudsman for Children, Erofeeva Y. L. has expressed concern about allegedly "ambiguous nature of one of the pictures". Soon after that, the picture in question "The tears of Autumn" was removed from the exhibition by the members of staff of the Duma administration.

It stays an enigma until now on what exactly made Lady Ombudsman to be so furious, as she later refused any interviews or public comments on the subject. It also stays not really clear whose feelings (and rights?) she tried so zealously protect as children under 16 are not normally admitted in the Duma building anyway, at least not without accompanying them adults.

While the topic of children rights can be highly debatable in the given context, at least it would be safe to say that the world greatest museum collections more than half comprise of genius canvas praising beauty of human (and particularly woman's) body. Moreover, this act of amazing art would be totally impossible unless these female models were not open-minded enough to agree and pose fully naked in front of an artist (often male himself and ironically, compared to his model fully dressed too!)

So the question is the following: either we teaching our children understanding art in its complexity and variety, or we simple close the doors of museums and galleries in front of our younger generation, but if the latter is the case... don't we ourselves come across as primitive and prudish retrogrades then?!

It would not be exaggeration to say that Ms Ponomarenko was quite upset and even scandalized by the incident. The things were particularly aggravated by the fact the picture was taken down by the order of person who has got no authority to give such instructions because let's face it: while the Duma is a political institution, it is definitely not someone's private domain where one can dictate their personal tastes to the rest of us.

Being strongly disagreed with such assertion, Ms Ponomarenko took decision to appeal directly to the President of Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. The complaint addressed to the Head of State was accepted and as early as 6 February 2013 the response by the senior official of Written Appeals Department was received. It said the appeal was redirected to the Saratov Region Government for objective and in-depth inquest, informing all involved persons on results upon completion.

18 March 2013, Ms Ponomarenko got a response from Minister of Culture of Saratov region Krasnoschekova S.V. which said, "Ministry of Culture doesn't support this highly subjective opinion on your pictures. We genuinely believe your work represents the art of a talented and extremely original artist with their own manner and style. The Ministry is also interested to discuss suggestions on popularizing your art, as well as delivering information support of any exhibitions and creative projects you are to take part in the future."

Nadezhda Sviridova, journalist