Mikhail Lyadov was an amateur painter, landscape and drawing artist, son of Anatoly Lyadov, a composer. He was born in the Borovichsky District’s Polynovka estate, where the composer’s family spent its summers. Mikhail started painting at an early age. He fought in World War I. His works can be found in St Petersburg History Museum, the St Petersburg Conservatory Museum, as well as in a museum at the Rakhmaninov Musical College in Veliky Novgorod. The Borovichi local history and lore museum holds a collection of about 40 watercolours by Lyadov, donated in 1986 by his widow, Olga Prigorovskaya. Most of them show Leningrad and its suburbs, but there is a watercolour titled Road to Polynovka, which Mikhail Lyadov painted as a young man, in late 19th century.
