The question about Ilya Repin’s letter to the Tula artist Vasily Polenov puzzled the players “What? Where? When?”

0

On Sunday, April 21, Channel One hosted the fourth game of the spring series of the TV show “What? Where? When?”.

In the fourth game of the spring series, the team of the 2023 Diamond Owl winner Denis Elkis played against the television audience.

During the game, experts were shown a question from doctor Alexei Nesterov from Minsk, who wrote that on July 15, 1874, Ilya Repin, who was in France, wrote to the Tula artist Vasily Polenov in Italy. In particular, there were the following lines: “Hurry here, buy yourself a black suit for your shoulders and pants together, and so that it doesn’t stain your dress. It’s not accepted here like in Italy.” The question was: what was not accepted in France and accepted in Italy?

During a minute of discussion, experts put forward a version that it was about a swimming suit. Player of the team of experts Dmitry Akulov replied that in Italy by that time it was customary to use open suits for swimming, which were similar to those that are usually used in our time. Moreover, in France in those years it was customary to use a more closed set of clothes for swimming, covering most of the body, which is what Repin wrote to Tula Polenov.

The answer turned out to be correct and brought the team of experts the fourth point. By the way, the game itself turned out to be unsuccessful for Denis Elkis’ team and ended with a score of 6:4 in favor of television viewers.