Vladimir Ovchinnikov

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Ovchinnikov (; 17 February 1938 – 13 May 2026) was a Russian painter, ethnographer and social activist, who was the founder of the wall painting movement in the city of Borovsk.

Life and career Vladimir Ovchinnikov was born in 1938 in Dushanbe. Graduated from Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, he worked on construction sites and was also engaged in scientific work as an academic candidate in Economic Sciences.

In the reading room of the Central Library of Obninsk he met Elvira Chastikova (2003),

Murals by Vladimir Ovchinnikov

During four summer seasons (2002–2005), Ovchinnikov, a self-taught artist, made about a hundred paintings on the houses of Borovsk, creating on the dull blank walls of city buildings, boarded-up windows, fences, about 90 different subjects (his famous countrymen, churches, historical events, genre scenes: a girl walking on the pipe of a pipeline, an old woman with a bucket near a downspout, a naked boy knocking at the locked door, a man with a giant cucumber in the hands, and an old man in his window reading, etc.). His themes were chosen and selected with the help of his wife. Many of the paintings are accompanied by poems written by her.

Ovchinnikov's Star Ship

Ovchinnikov's Star Ship is an art object in Borovsk, representing a 10-meter concrete cylinder with images of outstanding space scientists, writers, and cosmonauts. Ovchinnikov also turned an abandoned building into a 'Space Ark'.

Gallery repressed

A gallery of 20 portraits from photos of repressed citizens Borovsk district was created on the concrete wall in the center of the city of Borovsk in August 2016. The gallery includes portraits of 20 citizens of Borovsk shot in 1937–1938. The memorial contains the inscription – "For whom the bell ringing Borovsk ...". The gallery was destroyed by vandals in three days after the opening of the memorial. The event caused a wide resonance in the media.

Ovchinnikov is not only famous for his frescoes, which for many years have adorned the walls of houses in Borovsk, but for what was his driving desire to install a monument in the city of the repressed: For fifteen years the artist collected materials for the gallery of the repressed people. In August, this monument finally appeared: 18 portraits of the repressed, which the artist has painted... on the fence of his neighbor. But another attempt to create a memorial gallery was smashed by the actions of hooligans and vandals. On the wall of one of the shops in the center of Borovsk, a painting of 20 killed people and the image of Alexander Solzhenitsyn was destroyed after only two days. Ovchinnikov's work was destroyed methodically and carefully.