On holidays, those large murals on buildings in the city center — we painted a large Lenin across the entire facade. Oh, everyone made money on those. The sculptors stood there, and in our complex, there was a cashier’s office in the corridor where the money was [kept]. Payday. The sculptors would stand there with chunks of plasticine. So one would [shape the plasticine] behind his back [without looking and mockingly declare the result] a Lenin. Everyone went, “Ha-ha, oh, well done!” That’s how we all lived, what else was there to do?
Then I went to Kyiv. I worked [there]. There was a big agricultural exhibition there. And my father [artist Petro Babak] told me… He took me there so I could [meet] them… They were making projects, this and that. Well, they stuck me somewhere, I had to draw some map for the agricultural [exhibition]. And the map was 600 hryvnias [rubles]. <…> 600 hryvnias [rubles]! Just imagine — I'm telling you — some people earned 100, 90, yeah. If someone made 120, that was an engineer, maybe a really great one, and even then… That’s how it was. Now I understand why. It finally clicked for me why all the graphic designers got paid so much. Why? They were working… for the Russians. Posters and all that. Once, we painted a mural on a building. Two men, something like that. And then they came and told us to take it down and paint over it. Why? Because somewhere in the colors, they found yellow and blue, like the flag, can you imagine? <…> Everyone laughed. No one [gave it much thought], we just earned our money and moved on. What else were we supposed to do? What, starve?.. <…> I never took it all that seriously, somehow.
I was rather worried about my paints for some reason... To hell with the refrigerators and everything else. I was [worried about] the canvases and paints somehow, why was I? And then I remembered, as I already told you, how my grandfather left, just like that, spat on it all, and never [said] a word [about his belongings]. And I thought, well, thank God he was like that, and I will be too. That was happiness. And happiness, it's really about living well and painting. That’s it. No need to go anywhere… And it was so… Well, maybe [the house was built] two decades ago, who knows how many? I don’t remember when and what was built. Well, it was before 2000… But was it? It was, and thank God for that! And besides, you see how much suffering people have, and here I am [worrying] about these paints… I felt so ashamed. I thought, “What am I [doing]?” And there were fur coats, sheepskin coats, everything. So I called the guards, [telling that the house] was hit, “At least take them,” I told them. “There are fur coats and a sheepskin coat, use them.” <…> I don’t know if they took them or [not], I don’t remember. Anyway, I calmed down. My grandfather [left] everything behind without a word. Whatever I had — gone, and [I uttered] not a word, kept silence. I thought so too.
I didn’t want [to paint]. I had no paints, nothing. Though, let’s suppose I could have bought them. But I had no joy in me. I can tell you one thing, I know one thing for sure: when I’m in a bad mood, I can’t do anything, and if I paint, it never turns out good. I need that kind of joy: “Oh, I want to! Oh, yes-yes!” But where was the joy? I was living somewhere, at someone’s place. Well, thank God they gave me a place. But this and that… And what was there to be happy about? So maybe for half a year, or I don’t know for how long, [I didn’t paint]. And then here’s what happened: in Ivano-Frankivsk, there was an artist named Babak… Viktor, Viktor Babak. He found me through the phone, “Oh, we have the same last name. Let’s meet up.” And I told him, “Yeah, yeah, someday… we’ll meet up.” But I didn’t want to meet, you know. <…> Then one day, artists were standing somewhere in the park, on the street, on the “stometrivka” [pedestrian part of Independence Street], and over to the right somewhere… Well, you know where the artists are. I went there to see what they were painting. Some of them even knew me already. <…> So I thought, let me call Babak, I have his number, and tell him I’m here, “Let’s grab some coffee, meet up.” He said, “I’m not there right now, but I’ll come.” <…> He showed up, we walked around a bit. And again, I was stuck on my thing, that I don’t want to and will not [paint]. I couldn’t… He bought me two, or three, or four small canvases. Paints, colored markers, a little suitcase. I painted something with them. And then he said, “Let’s have an exhibition, and you…” I told him, “But it needs to be arranged.” — “I’ll [help with] everything. Let’s go to Oksana.”
Viacheslav Babak is a Kharkiv painter who relocated to Ivano-Frankivsk after Russia’s full-scale invasion. He was born on August 24, 1946, in Kyiv. The son of artist Petro Babak, he began painting as a child. He studied at the Shevchenko State Art Secondary School in Kyiv and, in 1969, enrolled in the graphic arts department of the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute. While still a student, he started working at the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Complex, where he remained until the mid-1990s. With Ukraine’s independence, he focused on painting, working in the genres of landscape and still life. He participated in numerous plein-air sessions across various regions of Ukraine and took part in both Ukrainian and international exhibitions. His first solo exhibition abroad took place in Germany in 1999. He has been a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine since 2003. At the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, when parts of the Kharkiv region fell under occupation, he left Kharkiv for Ivano-Frankivsk. In May 2023, an exhibition of works by Viacheslav and his daughter, Olha Babak (Lysanets), titled Tymchasovo (Temporarily), was held in Ivano-Frankivsk. It was dedicated to the themes of home and forced displacement. Now, in the spring of 2024, he remains in Ivano-Frankivsk with his family, dreaming of returning to the Kharkiv region.
