 He had a number of talented students in Leningrad, such as Elena Skuin, Victor Teterin, Evgenia Baykova, Lev Orekhov, Ivan Godlevsky, Gleb Savinov, Olga Bogaevskaya, Vasily Savitsky, Evsey Moiseenko and other artists.Osmerkin, as a highly original artist who contributed to development of the Russian avant-garde, risked to suffer from the Soviet officialdom under Joseph Stalin.He saw the destruction of private art collections, even some museums and libraries.