High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Barge Haulers on the Volga or Burlaki (Russian: Burlaki na Volge, Бурлаки на Волге) is a 1870–1873 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian realist painter and sculptor Ilya Repin. The work depicts 11 labouring men dragging a barge on the Volga River. The men seem to almost collapse forward in exhaustion under the burden of hauling a large boat upstream in heavy, hot weather.