Go you don't know where....

This large rectangular box has been painted by the talented Palekh artist, Veronika Chibisova. The subject is based on the Russian folk fairy-tale "Go to the place which location is unknown, and bring something that nobody has never seen". 
In this fairy-tale the court rifleman Andrey finds the turtledove in the forest and wants to shoot it. But the bird says in a human voice: "Don't kill me! I will be a faithful wife!" Saying these strange words, the bird turned into a beautiful maiden. Andrey marries her and they live happily till the Tsar of the kingdom falls in love with Andrey's wife. But the maiden loves Andrey, and rejects the Tsar's proposal of marriage. The persistent Tsar decides to get rid of the rifleman and marry his wife. To realize his plan, the Tsar forces his adviser to contrive ways of killing Andrey. The tsar adviser meets a barfly in a tavern, who helps him to contrive these ways. At first the tsar orders Andrey to go to the next world and find out how the deceased tsar's father is getting on. Afterwards the Tsar orders to catch him Cat the Lullaby Singer, and at last he orders Andrey to fulfill the unrealizable task: "go to the place which location is unknown, and bring something that nobody has never seen". The end of the fairy-tale is happy. Andrey manages to perform all these tasks, to punish the tsar and become the ruler of the kingdom.
The box depicts the main characters of this thrilling fairy-tale. Here we can see the Andrey the Rifleman, his wife, the tsar's adviser, the barfly and different people of the kingdom.
The scene is masterfully painted in beautifully combined tempera paints. Brilliant gold and silver paint is applied with a very thin brush to enhance various details. On the box's sides Chibisova created the magnificent floral ornamentation completed with the images of fantastic animals using gold metal leaf. On the box's front side the artist has painted an additional composition that features a fantastic world of the fairy-tale using tempera paints.
The box is made out of paper-mache. Red lacquer covers the interior of the box and black lacquer is used to paint the exterior. The lid is hinged at top, and the box rests on legs. The work is signed with the artist's name, the village of Palekh, the year of 2010 and the title.