ST SERGIUS OF RADONEZH CHAPEL IN NOVOSIBIRSK

In 1926 the Central-Asian expedition, arranged by Roerich, arrived at the Altai. By that time the expedition had covered a great distance from India via the Himalayas, Tibet and China to Russia. The artist’s wife and elder son also took part in that expedition.

Roerich as a scientist was interested in the Altai as the centre of Eurasia, as he said, ‘an equal distance from the four oceans’. Here, in the centre of the Altai, in the most northern point of the Central-Asian mountain range, there is the highest peak of Siberia and the Far East — Belukha. Civilization didn’t change the Altai much and it became a peculiar museum in the open air. Here Roerich studied antiquities, traditions, customs and the history of the great migration of nations.

In Verkhniy Uymon Roerich stayed at an Old Believer Atama­nov’s house.

On the completion of the Central-Asian Expedition the Roerichs planned to come back to Altai and settle in Verkhniy Uymon. ‘Golden is this locality, in five years I’ll be here,’ said Nicholas Roerich to Uymon dwellers. But his fate decid­ed differently, and Roerich returned to Altai only at the century’s turn.

Amazing is the scope of Roerich’s mighty realm. Great number of the paintings, articles, institutions, endeavors... As Academician Okladnikov said, ‘What is done by Roerich, changes one’s conception of human abilities.’ He who came to fulfill the dictate of the Cosmic terms, who gave new evolutionary impulse to human aspirations, he not only brought the Tidings, but also embodied into beauti­ful material forms the entrusted to him pearls of Beauty of the Higher World.

In September, 2007 the Siberian Roerich Society received the documents confirming that reconstruction of the building allotted to it by the Novosibirsk city administration for the Roerich Museum is completed and the building is accepted for exploiting. The people’s construction is finished. We were going to this event for 10 years.

Roerich Museum in the center of Rossasia, which internally grew much more than its materially visible 3 storeys, is unique not only because it has been predestined from Above, but because of how this task was accepted by the co-workers, how this task embodied in their everyday efforts, for ‘by hand and by foot of man’ are the light footsteps to the future being put together.

The Museum, as it has been conceived by its inspirers, had to become an unusual construction. Has it really been like that?

Let us leaf through the filings of our magazine and feel anew this amazing spirit of joy and enthusiasm which were filling these difficult and productive years.

On the 28th of June, 1998 at the ‘Round Table’ of the Siberian Roerich Society Natalia Dmitriyevna Spirina addressed the audience with the following inspiring words:

Everyone of us is striving to make one’s feasible contribution into the cause of spreading the Great Light.

This contribution of our hearts begins with the establishment of the community that was predestined, and without which, as it is said in the Teaching of the Living Ethics, ‘the Earth can not live’ (Community, 29).

October is abounding with especially dear and memorable dates for us: October 5 is Helena Roerich’s memorial day, the 8th of October is the Day of Saint Sergiy Radonezhsky; on October 9, the birthday of Nicholas Roerich, we celebrate the Day of Culture; on October 23, we celebrate Svetoslav Roerich’s birthday. This year we begin to celebrate another date — the 7th of October, the opening day of the Museum of Nicholas Roerich in Novosibirsk. We consider this is an enormous event in the history of culture.

The documents on putting into operation the Museum building were received in September, 2007. Recently, we found a note that was made on August 31, 1997 by Vasili Yefimovich Zhityayev, the co-worker of the Roerich group from Lesnoye: ‘The day is drawing to its close. It’s 20:00 Novosibirsk, Kommunisticheskaya street, 38. Two guys  from the Urals, Anatoliy Mikh and Vasili Zhityayev guided by a Siberian, Victor Gutov, took up to the reconstruction  works of the Museum of Nicholas Roerich. It was a calm evening of the last summer day. In the clear sky, high in the blue, a light silver trace of the plane was going to the East...

And then, in the morning of September the 1st, the builders came, and the work went its usual way’.

Thus, we know for sure the reconstruction dates of the Museum. The construction has lasted for 10 years.

VOSKHOD. English version:

In page of Magazine Voskhod (The Dawn)

In page of Book Shop

Publishing House of Siberian Roerich Society ROSSASIA. (Another publications)

A Peace Bell in Novosibirsk

On June 25, 2009 a solemn unveiling of a Peace Bell housed in an Arch took place in Novosibirsk at the territory of Nicholas Roerich Museum. A pure and magnificent toll was floating over the town calling to all Peace Bells placed in different countries.

All around the world Peace Bells ring for Earth Day to remind the humanity about their unity and inspire them to maintain peace on the Planet and protect the unique beauty of the Earth. Peace Bell symbolizes universality, solidarity, harmony and constructive endeavors of people of the whole world. Besides it fosters people to actively participate in preservation of nature, life, and culture heritage on our Planet. The idea of the ceremony is to make people think about the maintenance of the Earth and all living beings during the time the bell sounds. John McConnel, the Earth Day Founder and creator of the Earth Society Foundation, believes this initiative allows all the humans realize that they are the Earth citizens...