In memory of my brother, artist of Vitaliy Zolotukhin

Artists: Vitaliy Zolotukhin, Vladimir Firsov and Alexey Staroszhuk

30 years ago, the day after the Chernobyl disaster on April 27, 1986, left us, my brother, the artist Vitaly Zolotukhin. He was born in Sevastopol’, 23 October, 1929, at the time of delivery of the ship. Our mother worked at the Black Sea Shipyard, and her pregnancy was invisible. In 1941, the father of Mykolaiv went to war, and my mother, being pregnant younger sister, with two small sons hid with relatives to drink. In March 1944, the Germans retreated and blew up the house to the watering, clearing the field for the defense of the city of Mykolaiv. To Vitaliy I’m and Sister owe their lives.

The mother went to the Ingul river to fetch water, but this time the German house he overlaid mine and somehow went into the house. Vitaliy rushed to the icons. The German, having seen it, and drove us out of the house. He immediately set fire to the fuse, and the iron roof of the house after the explosion hung over us for spreading cherry. The mother, seeing that there is no house, threw a yoke with buckets, and when she saw us alive, with two icons in their hands, fainted …

Father after the war, the family did not return, our mother, an invalid of labor, was left with three children. With 14 years Vitaliy, studying at night school, began to work at the Art Works and helped his mother. From 1951 to 1954, served in the army, he worked in the workshops of the Art Fund and was a member of Nikolaev Association of Artists. Beginning in 1955, Vitaly has been a constant participant of regional, and in 1963 – the republican and national exhibitions of artists. Altogether, they have been created and exhibited more than 200 paintings. Since the 60s, he laid the foundations of monumental and decorative art in Mykolaiv, with his participation were decorated steles, monuments, exhibition halls, museum exhibitions. His paintings are kept in the Art Museum of V.V. Vereshchagin, the Regional Museum, the Museum-Olshantsev sailors in the port of Mykolaiv. Blessed memory of my brother, I have devoted the book “Ekzampey” (Mykolaiv, 2005), which presents his major works, and given detailed his biography. Rest in peace!

Mykolaiv comradeship of artists after exhibitions in 1958, up: V. Ezhov, A. Zavgorodniy, S. Brodskiy, P. Alexandrov, V. Zagrebel’niy V. Firsov, A. Zdikhovskiy, Duneman, E. Dol’nik., bottom: A. Gromov, G. Lagutchenko, V. Zolotukhin, V. Zizda, I. Chechenin.