Green cypresses and palm trees cast afternoon shadows, the blue sea is in the distance, and holiday-makers stroll in a leisurely fashion in their brightly coloured clothes. In this picture Georgy Savitsky has captured the joyous carefree atmosphere of a resort town - the painter is, most likely, watching it all from an upstairs balcony. "A Street in Sukhumi" displays the artist’s best qualities: an alertness to the picturesque, the ability to instantly capture mood, and to direct movement so as to preserve the feeling of a single beautiful moment. 1939 was a happy year for Savitsky. He married his muse, the Leningrad artist Maria Polishchuk. In Savitsky’s portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes, a stately brown-eyed brunette with a high forehead can often be seen—that is Maria. Can you see her here? In 1939, the premonition of approaching disaster could already be felt—German troops had invaded Poland. But there isn’t the slightest hint of any of that here. The vicissitudes of history could not take away the artist's ability to find the beauty of nature around him.