Zoks and Bada

Once upon a time, a shaggy black Bada lived in a little house by a pond. He lived well, but then zoks appeared — and that was the end of his peaceful life. Bada decided to raise the zoks properly: morning washing, exercise, healthy food. But there turned out to be a lot of zoks, and they had no desire to be raised at all…

The cheerful and instructive guide for children on how to raise their parents, Zoks and Bada, was created by Irina Tyukhtyaeva and Leonid Tyukhtyaev in the late 1980s. After publication, the book immediately became an event. Written seemingly for children, it won the love of many adults as well, and in some families became truly cult. It is a remarkable book, full of paradoxes, humor, and, of course, magic. Layered and full of references, it was instantly broken into quotes.

A special atmosphere is created by the grotesque, slightly psychedelic illustrations by Julia Gukova and Vladimir Burkin, made for the first separate edition of the book. A year after its release, in 1994, the artists took part in creating a short animated film of the same name.

Julia Gukova studied graphics and painting under Alisa Poret, Nikolai Popov, and Sofya Gannushkina. She has worked extensively in magazine graphics, participated in the creation of animated films, and illustrated books.

After productive collaboration with Russian publishers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, books with her illustrations disappeared from the domestic market and became bibliographic rarities. For a long time, her works were not published in Russia, while successfully appearing abroad — in Switzerland, Japan, and Germany. In 2012, the publisher Pink Giraffe Publishing corrected this situation by releasing two books by L. Frank Baum with her illustrations.

By all available means, Julia Gukova constructs a special reality, creating her own magical countries unlike anything else — places one wants to return to again and again.