Irina. Of all flowers prefers lilies. 'There is a moment when a whiff of air from the window brings this fragrance and you realize that there are flowers around somewhere'.
Braille description of the portrait: A girl with long dark hair falling down in heavy threads, almost like a waterfall, is holding a lily with three closed buds and two half-opened blossoms. With her left hand she is gently touching the flower. Her eyes are half-closed, her dreamy gaze is directed at the lily. She seems to be in a silent communion with it. She is beautiful.
Maria. Loves roses, especially white ones. 'They remind me of my wedding day'.
Braille description of the portrait: A girl with long fair hair is standing with her head inclined sidewards, so as to let the hair fall along her right shoulder and arm. In her left hand she is holding a bouquet of write roses. The girl's eyes are half-closed and her face is tilted down towards one of the flowers. She is inhaling its fragrance and seems to be taken away: into a dream or a revery. She is beautiful.
Natalia. Prefers roses. 'Some people will say that they don't like red roses, but I love all kinds. Flowers change an ordinary day into a festive one'.
Braille description of the portrait: A woman with fine and delicate features that would remind connoisseurs of early Renaissance painting some characters from Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi and Jan Van Eyck paintings, is holding a bunch of roses. Her hair is short, she is wearing white clothes, she is positioned in profile, facing to the right. She is holding the flowers just the way one might be holding something precious, something one wants to feel intimately close but is wary of damaging or disturbing. Her left hand is sliding over the roses, her fingertips are gingerly touching the petal edges. It looks as though she is reading the bouquet and the text is filling her with calmness and quiet joy. She is beautiful.
Anastasia. Likes different flower kinds but prefers orchids, she likes the waxy surface of their petals and their relative longevity. 'They are unlike other flowers, they are more mysterious, they have a strange, complicated scent'.
Braille description of the portrait: a girl with a short haircut wearing a white blouse sits facing the camera, holding an orchid branch in her hands. She is inhaling the floral fragrance: there are a lot of blossoms on the long stem: maybe ten, maybe twelve. Very delicately, with her finger tips, she is bringing the flowering branch close to her face in order to smell the fine, elegant scent and feel the silky touch of the petals. She is submerged into a meditation, her dialogue with the flowers does not require any words. She is beautiful.
Tatiana. Most of all she loves tulips, white ones. She likes to touch them, feel the shape of the buds, the waxy firm surface and very delicate, barely perceivable fragrance - the smell of early spring.
Braille description of the portrait: A young woman is smiling gently as she stands facing the camera, her figure is symmetrically positioned against a light background and her gaze is directed strait. With her left hand she is pressing a bunch of tulips to her body. The flowers are very fresh, their firm stems and leaves don't allow her fingers to grasp them, so she is holding them with the whole palm of her hand. The young buds are still closed, there are a lot of them in the bunch: maybe fifteen. With her right hand she is hugging a small boy with enormous, luminous eyes, he looks almost like an angel from a Byzantine fresco. The palm of the mother's hand is under his chin: she seems to support his head as the most delicate of the world's flowers. Both mother and child are very beautiful, their image radiates calmness and some kind of universal knowledge-about-everything that one might feel from ancient icons and paintings by Old Masters.
Galya and Lucia, the twins. Most of all like peonies. They love the scent and the heavy, silky flower heads. 'They remind us of our mother'.
Braille description of the portrait: Two ladies in fair-colored clothes are sitting close to one another, facing the camera. Their faces are slightly turned towards the center of the frame. Together they are holding a large bouquet of peonies. We can see three hands: the woman on the right, with long hair gathered into a knot at the back of her head and locks on the sides of her face, is holding the bouquet with her both hands while the woman sitting on the left is supporting it from the front with her right hand. The three hands symbolize the sisters and their mother who seems to still be with them and invisibly supports them. There are peonies of different sizes in the bouquet: those that are completely open, with double furry middles, those that are half-open, and completely closed buds that look like small balls. The sisters appear to be contemplating the flowers and having a silent conversation with one another and someone else whose presence in the picture is invisible. They are beautiful.
Nadezhda. Most of all loves flowers that grow in her summer-place (in Russia it is called dacha): bluebells, turkish carnations, peonies, irises, daisies. For her they are associated with her husband, Victor, who built a house, planted a garden, brought up a daughter and worked for a few decades of years in the industry being completely blind one-handed - he only had his left left after an accident that also made him blind. 'He was an amazingly easy-going person, the soul of any company. Once we were to go to the theatre, I arrived at the date in a tram, got off - and he was waiting for me with a huge bunch of roses. So I had to ask him: 'How are we going to go to the theatre with all these flowers?'
Braille description of the portrait: A woman with thick, laying in beautiful waves grey hair and soft, kind features is holding an enormous bunch of garden flowers. All the flowers in it are white: white peonies, white bluebells, lungwort, daisies, red-and-white turkish carnations. She is holding the bouquet with both hands, very delicately, as if it were a newborn baby. Her dark sunburnt during garden work hands are in stark contrast with light tones of the flowers and her light, inspired face. She is very beautiful.
Girl with daisies. Most of all loves field flowers, daisies and lilac.
Braille description of the portrait: this is the portrait of the girl with daisies but you cannot see it because people with eyesight interfered and imposed their subjective opinion about what is beautiful and what isn't on someone who cannot have her own opinion on physical reasons.
This picture was censored by a blind person because of a negative feedback from a third party: a friend, a relative or someone else.
