This
video shows the winner of 2009's " Ukraine 's Got Talent", Kseniya
Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand
table showing how ordinary people were affected
by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which
admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.

The images, projected onto a large screen, moved many in the audience to
tears and she won the top prize of about
$75,000.

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a
bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy
scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman's face
crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again
war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a
young woman's face appears.

She quickly becomes an old
widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a
monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the
monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing
outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying
goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine , resulted in one in
four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths
out of a population of 42 million.

An art critic said:"I find it difficult enough to create art using paper and pencils or
paintbrushes, but using sand and fingers is beyond me. The art,
especially when the war is used as the subject
matter, even brings some audience members to tears. And there's surely
no bigger compliment."