Opium eaters

This work is one of the most impressive examples of the series created by the famous Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin during his travels and military campaigns in Central Asia (Turkestan). In the painting, the second half of the 19th century, a group of poor people and dervishes who were left in difficult social conditions and fell into numbness and despair under the influence of opium (opium, cannabis) were depicted in the style of realism. In a dim, strange room, men sitting in tattered clothes and sleeping, shoes, tea pots (sand) and small utensils for opium consumption, scattered on the floor, speak of the tragic and bitter reality of that time. The artist's yellow-brown, cloudy colors give a deep impression of the depressing and mysterious atmosphere and the heavy tragedy of human life.