Alexander Malyshkin’s book “People from the backwoods” (1937) had a critical impact on shaping Georgy Shetinin’s artistic conscience and determining his priorities. In his novel set in the late 1920s Malyshkin describes the everyday life of men and women, caught in a monstrous turmoil which disrupts their lives and forces them to leave their homes and seek happiness in far-away regions amidst gigantic construction sites. We see people living in slums, in ramshackle, precarious shelters, where, regardless of the soviet ideological pressure, normal human relationships develop and life makes its way through the hardships and severe conditions.    Shetinin’s illustrations created in the late 1950s and in the 1960s remained unpublished. However, even a quick look at these sketches makes it evident that the artist managed to maintain, throughout the book, a consistent rhythm and a series of powerful graphic figures conveying an atmosphere dominated by anxiety, disarray and the imminence of a great darkness. This experience molded Georgy Shetinin’s complex artistic style and prefigured his future career as both an artist and a novelist, since he gradually turned to writing. In the early seventies he began working on “Martha and Mary”, a novel that he will be working on until the end of his days. From the seventies to the nineties, he mainly drew the characters of his never-to-be-published book and these illustrations are certainly the most accomplished and remarkable work that he has ever produced.