It is estimated that during the peak of the Great Purge in the USSR some 680,000 to 1,200,000 people were killed by NKVD. An average investigator in Moscow had some 30-40 political cases per month. And sometimes they were bored.
The drawing is inspired by a doodle found in a 19th-century book about Napoleon. I found that volume on a flea market in Amsterdam. Sometimes the most interesting finds do not need any major investment!
Part of an extensive collection of manuscripts, unearthed in the Russian city of Novgorod more than five years ago, these childish writings were produced by an old practice of writing on birch bark.
Things you find on a flea market, season 3, episode 10. That's a first doodle I have in my collection. And what a doddle! I love it! The book is the second volume of Napoléon en exil à Sainte-Hélène by Barry Edward O'Meara printed in 1822.
