I have been fortunate to hear about Itkind from people who were his friends, who knew him and his family, and who could shed light on the misconceptions largely introduced into circulation by a popular sketch by the journalist Eduard Topol, who met Itkind

The brief biography of the truly extraordinary sculptor Isaac Itkind runs as follows: he was born in 1871 in the small town of Smorgon in the Vilna Governorate, into a family of Hasidic rabbis. He led a fairly ordinary life until he discovered a desire to practise sculpture. The remarkable works in clay and wood with which Itkind's house soon filled drew the attention of the community, of visitors to the town and of local intellectuals.

By the age of 40 Isaac Yakovlevich had realised that he wished to receive a professional education, and he entered the drawing school in Vilna; two years later he was already studying at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Before long Gorky would arrange a solo exhibition for Itkind, and with this his success began. Itkind's works found their way into the collection of Savva Morozov, into other private collections and into museums. His name acquired an international reputation, and one of his works was bought by the brother of the American President Roosevelt.

Stalin's terror crept up unnoticed. In 1937 the 66-year-old sculptor, who was a friend of Meyerhold and Yesenin, Gorky and Mayakovsky, had worked with Chagall, had earned the nickname of the Van Gogh of sculpture, had exhibited at the Hermitage and spoke Russian with a strong Yiddish accent, was arrested and put into Kresty prison.

During the tortures the old man's teeth were knocked out and his health was badly undermined, but he was not sent to Siberia, contrary to the legend, since he confessed to nothing. Itkind was exiled to Kazakhstan, to the village of Zerenda in the Akmola region, where his trail vanished for his acquaintances in Moscow and Leningrad.

In exile he lived in a tiny mud-walled hut, likewise crammed with sculptures in clay and wood. The old fellow was lucky that a Leningrad journalist, Yevgenia Sinelnikova, happened to be in Zerenda too; she began to petition on behalf of the artist, who was fading away in the back of beyond, and eventually secured his transfer to Akmolinsk, where Itkind taught sculpture in a pioneers' club and was given a room.

In 1944 he moved to Alma-Ata, where, of course, he did not live in any dugout. But the whole city really did talk about him: a white-bearded old man in a red checked shirt with a large white bow at his neck could not fail to catch the attention of the people of Almaty. Itkind did indeed hunt for centuries-old trees felled by storms, dragging uprooted stumps and trunks to his house. And he made from them portraits of the friends of his youth, of famous writers and dancers, of everyone who had inspired him in some way.

Natalya Sats, who lived in Alma-Ata in those years too, learned that Itkind himself was living in the Kazakh capital, met him and helped him obtain a major state commission: a monumental bust of the poet Dzhambul for the Youth Theatre under her direction. Unfortunately the work has not survived, although for many years it was one of the finest features of the city's public interiors. It burned down together with the old theatre building in 1989.

Apparently forgotten in Moscow and Leningrad (on many of his works a date of death, 1937, even appeared), Itkind became a vivid figure in the life of the city and an Alma-Ata celebrity. He gathered around himself outstanding personalities, artists, musicians and scholars, worked hard, creating sculptural portraits for the republic's museums, worked as a theatre designer, and helped many acquaintances who had fallen into difficult material circumstances. In his lifetime Kazakhfilm even made a documentary about him, «A Touch of Eternity» by Ararat Mashanov.

Even at the age of ninety Itkind went on working actively, and hundreds of original sculptures came out of his studio. In his last years Isaac Yakovlevich joked that he did not want to die, because then some old lady of eighty would be buried next to him, and he would have to lie with her for the rest of time. He lived to be 98. He died in Alma-Ata, leaving an enormous creative legacy.