Nekrasov gathered his impressions from his journeys to Italy and the United States (1960) in a diary: Po obe storony okeana. All through the XIX century and up to the beginning of the XX century Russians approached the Italian peninsula through the pictorial code of Renaissance art which allowed them to transfigure an everyday space into an aesthetic space. In the 1960s Nekrasov is part of this tradition continuing to use an aesthetic code although it is applied to cinema. But shifting the finality of beauty to a social ideal. The cinematographical representation seems to offer a direct grasp on everyday life which is recognized and felt as one’s own. But the description of Florence, codified thanks to some scenes from Germi’s Il ferroviere, corresponds to a certain model of Italian life in which Russians could see the realization of those expectations which inspired Soviet culture during the The Thaw with their ideals of humanism, brotherhood and the realization of authentic socialism
