Following her studies in painting, Natalia Nesterova joined the group of artists supported by the Soviet state. Although as an official painter, she did take advantage of the possibilities provided by centrally controlled cultural policy, such as free atelier use or state exhibitions, but at the same time, she rejected heroic depiction and drew on everyday life instead of propaganda. As students of Dimitri Zhilinsky, known as a representative of the “severe style”, whose works had already shifted away from Socialist Realism to a certain extent, Nesterova and her generation shifted even further. Her neo-primitive pastose canvases contrast natural and artificial environments; her metaphorical compositions emphasize human struggles, alienation, anxiety or hope. New Athos on the shore of the Black Sea used to be the spiritual centre of Abkhazia, and is a preferred holiday resort. Among others, Stalin had one of his favourite holiday houses on the ridge of the New Athos Mountain in this paradisiac environment. However, instead of the monastery or the orthodox cathedral, Nesterova’s painting displays the also famous waterfall in New Athos, representing the harmony of proliferating nature and urban citizens.