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=                          Nicholas_Roerich                          =
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                            Introduction
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Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh (), better known as Nicholas Roerich (;
October 9, 1874 - December 13, 1947), was a Russian painter, writer,
archaeologist, theosophist, philosopher, and public figure. In his
youth he was influenced by Russian Symbolism, a movement in Russian
society centered on the spiritual. He was interested in hypnosis and
other spiritual practices and his paintings are said to have hypnotic
expression.

Born in Saint Petersburg, to a well-to-do Baltic German father and to
a Russian mother, Roerich lived in various places in the world until
his death in Naggar, India. Trained as an artist and a lawyer, his
main interests were literature, philosophy, archaeology, and
especially art. Roerich was a dedicated activist for the cause of
preserving art and architecture during times of war. He was nominated
several times to the longlist for the Nobel Peace Prize. The so-called
Roerich Pact (for the protection of cultural objects) was signed into
law by the United States and most other nations of the Pan-American
Union in April 1935.


Early life
============
Raised in late-19th-century St. Petersburg, Roerich enrolled
simultaneously at St. Petersburg University and the Imperial Academy
of Arts in 1893. He received the title of "artist" in 1897 and a
degree in law the next year. He stayed in Florence in 1906, and found
early employment with the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of
the Arts, whose school he directed from this year to 1917. Despite
early tensions with the group, he became a member of Sergei
Diaghilev's "World of Art" society and was its president from 1910 to
1916.

Artistically, Roerich became known as his generation's most talented
painter of Russia's ancient past, a topic that was compatible with his
lifelong interest in archeology. He also succeeded as a stage designer
by achieving his greatest fame as one of the designers for Diaghilev's
Ballets Russes. His best-known designs were for Alexander Borodin's
'Prince Igor' (1909 and later productions), and costumes and set for
'The Rite of Spring' (1913), composed by Igor Stravinsky.

Along with Mikhail Vrubel and Mikhail Nesterov, Roerich is considered
a major representative of Russian Symbolism in art. From an early
period of his life, he was influenced by apocrypha and medieval
sectarian writings such as the mysterious Dove Book.

Another of Roerich's artistic subjects was architecture. His acclaimed
publication "Architectural Studies" (1904-1905), consisting of dozens
of paintings he made of fortresses, monasteries, churches, and other
monuments during two long trips through Russia, inspired his
decades-long career as an activist on behalf of artistic and
architectural preservation. He also designed religious art for places
of worship throughout Russia and Ukraine, most notably the 'Queen of
Heaven' fresco for the Church of the Holy Spirit, which the patroness
Maria Tenisheva built near her Talashkino estate, and the stained
glass windows for the Datsan Gunzechoinei in 1913-1915. His designs
for the Talashkino church were so radical that the Orthodox church
refused to consecrate the building.

During the first decade of the 1900s and in the early 1910s, Roerich,
largely by the influence of his wife, Helena, developed an interest in
eastern religions, as well as alternative belief systems such as
Theosophy. Both Roerichs became avid readers of the Vedantist essays
of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, and
the 'Bhagavad Gita'.

The Roerichs' commitment to occult mysticism increased steadily. It
was especially intense during World War I and the 1917 Russian
Revolution to which the couple, like other many Russian intellectuals,
accorded apocalyptic significance. The influence of Theosophy,
Vedanta, Buddhism, and other mystical topics can be detected not only
in many of Roerich's paintings but also in the many short stories and
poems that Roerich wrote before and after the 1917 revolutions,
including the 'Flowers of Morya' cycle, which was begun in 1907 and
completed in 1921.


Revolution and emigration to United States
============================================
After the February Revolution of 1917 and the end of the czarist
regime, Roerich, a political moderate who valued Russia's cultural
heritage more than ideology and party politics, had an active part in
artistic politics. With Maxim Gorky and Aleksandr Benois, he
participated with the so-called "Gorky Commission" and its successor
organization, the Arts Union (SDI). Both attempted to gain the
attention of the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet on the
need to form a coherent cultural policy and, most urgently, to protect
art and architecture from destruction and vandalism.

Meanwhile, illness forced Roerich to leave the capital and reside in
Karelia, the district bordering Finland. He had already quit the
presidency of the World of Art society, and he now quit the
directorship of the School of the Imperial Society for the
Encouragement of the Arts. After the October Revolution and the
acquisition of power of Lenin's Bolshevik Party, Roerich became
increasingly discouraged about Russia's political future. During early
1918, he, Helena, and their two sons George and Svetoslav immigrated
to Finland.

Two unresolved historical debates are associated with Roerich's
departure. First, it is often claimed that Roerich was a major
candidate to direct a people's commissariat of culture (the Soviet
equivalent of a ministry of culture), which the Bolsheviks considered
establishing in 1917-1918, but he refused to accept the job. In fact,
Benois was the most likely choice to direct any such commissariat. It
seems that Roerich was a preferred choice to manage its department of
artistic education; the topic is rendered moot by the fact that the
Soviets elected not to establish such a commissariat.

Second, when Roerich later wished to reconcile with the Soviet Union,
he maintained that he had not left Soviet Russia deliberately, but
that he and his family, living in Karelia, had been isolated from
their homeland when the Finnish Civil War began. However, Roerich had
an amply-documented extreme hostility to the Bolshevik regime,
prompted not so much by a dislike of communism as by his revulsion at
Lenin's ruthlessness and his fear that Bolshevism would result in the
destruction of Russia's artistic and architectural heritage. He
illustrated Leonid Andreyev's anticommunist polemic "S.O.S." and had a
widely-published pamphlet, "Violators of Art" (1918-1919). Roerich
believed that "the triumph of Russian culture would come about through
a new appreciation of ancient myth and legend."

After some months in Finland and Scandinavia, the Roerichs relocated
to London, arriving in mid-1919. Engrossed with Theosophical
mysticism, they now had millenarian expectations that a new age was
imminent, and they wished to travel to India as soon as possible. They
joined the English-Welsh chapter of the Theosophical Society. It was
in London, in March 1920, that the Roerichs founded their own school
of mysticism, 'Agni Yoga', which they described as "the system of
living ethics." While in London, Roerich also contributed scenic
designs for LAHDA, a cooperative group of Russian theatrical artists
led by Theodore Komisarjevsky.

To earn passage to India, Roerich worked as a stage designer for
Thomas Beecham's Covent Garden Theatre, but the enterprise ended
unsuccessfully in 1920, and the artist never received full payment for
his work. Among the notable people Roerich befriended while in England
were the famed British Buddhist Christmas Humphreys, the
philosopher-author H. G. Wells, and the poet and Nobel laureate
Rabindranath Tagore (whose grand-niece Devika Rani would later marry
Roerich's son Svetoslav).

A successful exhibition in London resulted in an invitation from a
director at the Art Institute of Chicago, offering to arrange for
Roerich's art to tour the United States. In the autumn of 1920, the
Roerichs traveled to America by sea.


The Roerichs remained in the United States from October 1920 until May
1923. A large exhibition of Roerich's art, organized partly by the
U.S. impresario Christian Brinton and partly by the Chicago Art
Institute, began in New York in December 1920 and toured the country,
to San Francisco and back, in 1921 and early 1922. Roerich befriended
acclaimed soprano Mary Garden of the Chicago Opera and received a
commission to design a 1922 production of Rimsky-Korsakov's 'The Snow
Maiden' for her. During the exhibition, the Roerichs spent significant
amounts of time in Chicago, New Mexico, and California.

Politically, Roerich was at first anti-Bolshevik. He gave lectures and
wrote articles to White Russian populations in which he criticized the
Soviet Union. However, his aversion to communism, "the impertinent
monster that lies to humanity," changed in America. Roerich claimed
that his spiritual masters, the "Mahatmas" in the Himalayas, were
communicating telepathically with him through his wife, Helena, who
was a mystic and a clairvoyant.

The beings from an esoteric Buddhist community in India were said to
have told Roerich that Russia was destined for a mission on Earth.
That led him to formulate his "Great Plan," which envisaged the
unification of millions of Asian peoples through a religious movement
using the Future Buddha, or Maitreya, into a "Second Union of the
East." There, the King of Shambhala would, following the Maitreya
prophecies, make his appearance to fight a great battle against all
evil forces on Earth. Roerich understood that as "perfection towards
Common Good." The new polity was to include southwestern Altai, Tuva,
Buryatia, Outer and Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, with its
capital in "Zvenigorod," the "City of Tolling Bells," which was to be
built at the foot of Mount Belukha, in Altai. According to Roerich,
the same Mahatmas revealed to him in 1922 that he was an incarnation
of the Fifth Dalai Lama.

Roerichs' collaboration with Bolshevik diplomats and aim to gather
intelligence on the British, led several scholars to place Nicholas
Roerich as a participant in the British-Russian colonial Great Game.

In 1923, Roerich, the "practical idealist," set out to the Himalayas
with his wife and his son Yuri. Roerich initially settled in
Darjeeling in the same house that the 13th Dalai Lama had stayed
during his exile in India. Roerich spent his time painting the
Himalayas with visitors such as Frederick Marshman Bailey, Lady Emily
Bulwer-Lytton, and members of the 1924 British Everest Expedition, as
well as Sonam Wangfel Laden La, Kusho Doring, and Tsarong Shape,
influential Tibetans. According to British intelligence, lamas from
the Moru monastery recognized Roerich as the incarnation of the Fifth
Dalai Lama due to a mole pattern on his right cheek. It was during his
stay in the Himalayas that Roerich learned about the flight of the 9th
Panchen Lama, which he interpreted as the fulfillment of the Matreiya
prophecies and the bringing about of the Age of Shambhala.


In 1924, the Roerichs returned to the West. On his way to America,
Roerich stopped at the Soviet embassy in Berlin, where he told the
local plenipotentiary about a Central Asian expedition he wanted to
take. He asked for Soviet protection on his way, and shared his
impressions of politics in India and Tibet. Roerich commented on the
"occupation of Tibet by the British" by claiming that they "infiltrate
in small parties... conduct extensive anti-Soviet propaganda" by
talking about "anti-religious activity of the Bolsheviks." The
plenipotentiary later pointed out to one of Roerich's old university
classmates, Georgy Chicherin, that he had "absolutely pro-Soviet
leanings, which looked somewhat Buddho-Communistic," and that his son,
who spoke 28 Asian languages, helped him in gaining the favor with the
Indians and the Tibetans.

The Roerichs settled in New York City, which became the base of their
many American operations. They founded several institutions during
these years: 'Cor Ardens' ("Flaming Heart") and 'Corona Mundi' ("Crown
of the World"), both of which were meant to unite artists around the
globe in the cause of civic activism; the Master Institute of United
Arts, an art school with a versatile curriculum, and the eventual home
of the first Nicholas Roerich Museum; and an American Agni Yoga
Society. They also joined various theosophical societies; their
activities with these groups dominated their lives.


Asian expedition (1925–1929)
==============================
After leaving New York, the Roerichs, together with their son George
and six friends began the five-year Roerich Asian Expedition that in
Roerich's own words "started from Sikkim through Punjab, Kashmir,
Ladakh, the Karakoram Mountains, Khotan, Kashgar, Qara Shar, Urumchi,
Irtysh, the Altai Mountains, the Oyrot region of Mongolia, the Central
Gobi, Kansu, Tsaidam, and Tibet" with a detour through Siberia to
Moscow in 1926.

The Roerichs' Asian expedition attracted attention from the foreign
services and intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the United
States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. In fact, prior to this
expedition, Roerich had solicited the help of the Soviet government
and Bolshevik secret police to assist him in his expedition by
promising in return to monitor British activities in the area, but he
received only a lukewarm response from Mikhail Trilisser, the chief of
the Soviet foreign intelligence.

The Bolsheviks assisted Roerich with logistics while he was traveling
through Siberia and Mongolia. However, they did not commit themselves
to his reckless project of the Sacred Union of the East, a spiritual
utopia that boiled down to Roerich's ambitious attempts to stir the
Buddhist masses of inner Asia to create a highly spiritual
co-operative commonwealth under the patronage of Bolshevik Russia.

The official mission of his expedition, as Roerich put it, was to act
as the embassy of Western Buddhism to Tibet. To the Western media, it
was presented as an artistic and scientific enterprise. Roerich
reported seeing a metallic oval in the sky over the Tibet; decades
later, UFO enthusiasts would claim the Roerich expedition witnessed a
"flying saucer".

Between the summer of 1927 and June 1928, the expedition was thought
to have been lost, as communication with them had ceased. They had, in
fact, been attacked in Tibet.  Roerich wrote that only the
"superiority of our firearms prevented bloodshed.... In spite of our
having Tibet passports, the expedition was forcibly stopped by Tibetan
authorities." They were detained by the government for five months and
were forced to live in tents in sub-zero conditions and to subsist on
meagre rations. Five men of the expedition died during this time. In
March 1928 they were allowed to leave Tibet, and they trekked south to
settle in India, where they founded a research center, the Himalayan
Research Institute.

His concern for peace resulted in his creation of the Pax Cultura, the
"Red Cross" of art and culture. His work for this cause also resulted
in the United States and the 20 other nations of the Pan-American
Union signing the Roerich Pact, an early international instrument
protecting cultural property, on April 15, 1935 at the White House.


Manchurian expedition
=======================
In 1934-1935, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, then headed by the
Roerich admirer Henry A. Wallace, sponsored an expedition conducted by
Roerich, his wife Helena, and its scientists H. G. MacMillan and James
F. Stephens to Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, and mainland China. The
expedition's purpose was to collect seeds of plants which prevented
soil erosion.

The expedition consisted of two parts. In 1934, they explored the
Greater Khingan mountains and Bargan plateau in western Manchuria. In
1935, they explored parts of Inner Mongolia: the Gobi Desert, Ordos
Desert, and Helan Mountains. The expedition found almost 300 species
of xerophytes, collected herbs, conducted archeological studies, and
found antique manuscripts of great scientific importance. Despite
Roerich's peace activism, reports eventually reached Wallace that the
party had been using American-supplied weapons to threaten locals in
Mongolia and promising American support for an uprising.


Later life
============
Roerich was in India during World War II, where he painted Russian
epic heroic and saintly themes, including 'Alexander Nevsky', 'The
Fight of Mstislav and Rededia,' and 'Boris and Gleb'.

In 1942, Roerich received Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira
Gandhi, at his house in Kullu. Together they discussed the fate of the
new world: "We spoke about Indian-Russian cultural association [...]
it is time to think about useful and creative co-operation."

Indira Gandhi would later recall several days spent together with
Roerich's family: "That was a memorable visit to a surprising and
gifted family where each member was a remarkable figure in himself,
with a well-defined range of interests.... Roerich himself stays in my
memory. He was a man with extensive knowledge and enormous experience,
a man with a big heart, deeply influenced by all that he observed."

During the visit, "ideas and thoughts about closer co-operation
between India and USSR were expressed. Now, after India wins
independence, they have got its own real implementation. And as you
know, there are friendly and mutually-understanding relationships
today between both our countries."

In 1942, the American-Russian cultural Association (ARCA) was created
in New York. Its active participants were Ernest Hemingway, Rockwell
Kent, Charlie Chaplin, Emil Cooper, Serge Koussevitzky, and Valeriy
Ivanovich Tereshchenko. Its activity was welcomed by scientists such
as Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton.

Roerich had a lengthy correspondence with Henry Wallace, the 1948
Progressive Party candidate for US president.


                               Death
======================================================================
Roerich died in Kullu on December 13, 1947. His wife, philosopher
Helena Roerich, wrote about this day: “The day of cremation was
exceptionally beautiful. Not a single breath of wind and all
surrounding mountains were clad in fresh snowy attire.”


                          Cultural legacy
======================================================================
In the 21st century, the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York City is a
major institution for Roerich's artistic work. Numerous Roerich
societies continue to promote his theosophical teachings worldwide.
His paintings can be seen in several museums including the Roerich
Department of the State Museum of Oriental Arts in Moscow; the Roerich
Museum at the International Centre of the Roerichs in Moscow; the
Russian State Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; a collection in the
Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow; a collection in the Art Museum in
Novosibirsk, Russia; an important collection in the National Gallery
for Foreign Art in Sofia, Bulgaria; a collection in the Art Museum in
Nizhny Novgorod Russia; National Museum of Serbia; the Roerich Hall
Estate in Naggar, India; the Sree Chitra Art Gallery,
Thiruvananthapuram, India; in various art museums in India; and a
selection featuring several of his larger works in The Latvian
National Museum of Art. A memorial plaque marks the house in Lahaul
valley where Roerich lived during summers from 1929 to 1932.

Roerich's biography and his controversial expeditions to Tibet and
Manchuria have been examined recently by a number of authors,
including two Russians, Vladimir Rosov and Alexandre Andreyev, two
Americans (Andrei Znamenski and John McCannon), and the German Ernst
von Waldenfels.

A series of his studies on the Himalayan Ranges-donated by the
artist's son (36 works specifically) are even showcased in the
Nicholas Roerich Gallery of the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath Museum
based in Bangalore, India. The hypnotic, immersive nature of his works
truly absorbs the onlooker, leaving one with a sense of peace and
tranquility as one moves with the series through the gallery.

H. P. Lovecraft describes Roerich's paintings of Asian mountain
landscapes as "strange and disturbing" numerous times in his Antarctic
horror story 'At the Mountains of Madness'.

Roerich was awarded Order of St. Sava. The minor planet 4426 Roerich
in the Solar System was named in honor of Roerich. A crater on
Mercury, near the south pole, is also named for Roerich.

In June 2013 during Russian Art Week in London, Roerich's 'Madonna
Laboris' sold at auction at Bonhams shop for £7,881,250, including the
buyer's premium, making it the most valuable painting ever sold at a
Russian art auction.


                              Gallery
======================================================================
File:Roerich 01 Messenger.jpg|'Messenger', 1897
File:Treasure of angels.jpg|'Treasure of angels,' 1905
File:Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg|'Kiss to the Earth', 1912, scenery for
Diaghilev’s 'The Rite of Spring' ballet
File:Николай К. Рерих - Песнь Сольвейг (1912).jpg|'Solveig's Song',
1912
File:Saint Olga by Nicholas Roerich - 1915.jpg|'Saint Olga', 1915
File:Николай К. Рерих - Пантелеймон-целитель (1916).jpg|'Saint
Pantaleon', 1916
File:N. Roerich - And We See. From the «Sancta» Series - Google Art
Project.jpg|'And We See', from the "Sancta" Series, 1922
File:N. Roerich - And We are Opening the Gates. From the «Sancta»
Series - Google Art Project.jpg|'And We Are Opening the Gates', from
the "Sancta" Series, 1922
File:N. Roerich - Monhegan. Maine - Google Art Project.jpg|'Monhegan,
Maine', 1922
File:N. Roerich - The Messenger - Google Art Project.jpg|'The
Messenger', 1922
File:N. Roerich - And We are Trying. From the «Sancta» Series - Google
Art Project.jpg|'And We Are Trying', from the "Sancta" Series, 1922
File:Roerich Book.jpg|'The Pigeon Book' (pigeon being used as an
adjective), 1922
File:Yama no ue.jpg|'Yama no Ue' (Japanese, ), from the "His Country"
series,  1924
File:On-the-way-to-shekar-dzong-1928.jpg!PinterestLarge.jpg|'On the
Way to Shelkar Dzong', 1928
File:Sunset-near-shekar-1928.jpg!PinterestLarge.jpg|'Sunset near
Shelkar,' 1928
File:Shekar zongu.jpg|'Shelkar Dzong', 1928
File:Madonna Protectoris.jpg|Madonna Protectoris', 1933
File:Shekar-dzong-1933.jpg!PinterestLarge.jpg|1933 'Shelkar Dzong'
(fortress) and monastery
File:Sky power.jpg|'Sky power', 1934
File:Kampa-dzong-pink-peak-1938.jpg!PinterestLarge.jpg|'Kampa Dzong
Pink Peak,' 1938


                            Major works
======================================================================
# Art and archaeology // Art and art industry. SPb., 1898.  No. 3;
1899. No. 4-5.
# Some ancient Shelonsky fifths and Bezhetsky end. SPb., 31 pages,
drawings of the author, 1899.
# Excursion of the Archaeological Institute in 1899 in connection with
the question of the Finnish burials of St. Petersburg province. SPb.,
14 p., 1900.
# Some ancient stains Derevsky and Bezhetsk. SPb., 30 p., 1903.
# In the old days, St. Petersburg., 1904,18 p., drawings of the
author.
# Stone age on lake piros., SPb., ed. "Russian archaeological
society", 1905.
# Collected works. kN. 1. M.: publishing house of I. D. Sytin, p. 335,
1914.
# Tales and parables. Pg.: Free art, 1916.
# Violators of Art. London, 1919.
# The Flowers Of Moria. . Berlin: Word, 128 p., Collection of poems.
1921.
# Adamant. New York: Corona Mundi, 1922
# Ways Of Blessing. New York, Paris, Riga, Harbin: Alatas, 1924
# Altai - Himalayas. (Thoughts on a horse and in a tent) 1923-1926.
Ulan Bator Khoto, 1927.
# Heart of Asia. Southbury (St. Connecticut): Alatas, 1929.
# Flame in Chalice. Series X, Book 1. Songs and Sagas Series. New
York: Roerich Museum Press, 1930.
# Shambhala. New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1930
# Realm of Light. Series IX, Book II. Sayings of Eternity Series. New
York: Roerich Museum Press, 1931.
# The Power Of Light. Southbury: Alatas, New York, 1931.
# Women. Address on the occasion of the opening of the Association of
women, Riga, ed. About Roerich, 1931, 15 p., 1 reproduction.
# The Fiery Stronghold. Paris: World League Of Culture, 1932.
# Banner of peace. Harbin, Alatyr, 1934.
# Holy Watch. Harbin, Alatyr, 1934.
# A gateway to the Future. Riga: Uguns, 1936.
# Indestructible. Riga: Uguns, 1936.
# Roerich Essays: One hundred essays. В 2 т. India, 1937.
# Beautiful Unity. Bombey, 1946.
# Himavat: Diary Leaveves. Allahabad: Kitabistan, 1946.
# Himalayas -- Adobe of Light. Bombey: Nalanda Publ, 1947.
# Diary sheets. Vol. 1 (1934-1935). M: ICR, 1995.
# Diary sheets. Vol. 2 (1936-1941). M: ICR, 1995.
# Diary sheets. Vol. 3 (1942-1947). M: ICR, 1996.


                           External links
======================================================================
* [http://en.icr.su International Centre of the Roerichs]
* [http://irmtkullu.com International Roerich Memorial Trust (India)]
* [http://www.roerich.org Nicholas Roerich Museum (New York)]
* [http://www.roerich.ee/index.php Estonian Roerich Society]
* [http://www.yro.narod.ru/druzia.htm Roerich-movement on the Internet
(in Russian)]
*[http://www.roerich.ee/galnew/index.php?l=eng Paintings Gallery]
*[http://roerich-izvara.ru/eng/index.htm Nicholas Roerich Estate
Museum in Izvara]
*[http://histclo.com/Art/ind/r/ro/roer/roer-fam.html Roerich Family]
*
*[http://uartlib.org/en/books/catalogue-of-nicholas-roerichs-works-from-the-collection-of-gorlovka-art-museum/
Catalogue of Nicholas Roerich`s works from the collection of Gorlovka
Art Museum]
*[https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=00150
W.H. Crain Costume and Scene Design Collection] at the Harry Ransom
Center
*[https://findingaids.uncc.edu/repositories/4/archival_objects/49541
Nicholas Roerich Papers], J Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte
*[https://www.wiki-shangri-la.org/mw19/index.php?title=Category:Nicholas_K._Roerich_Lexicon
Nicholas Roerich Lexicon]
*[https://isfp.co.uk/russian_thinkers/nikolay_roerich.html Gallery of
Russian Thinkers on Nicholas Roerich], ISFP Gallery of Russian
Thinkers
*[http://gallery.facets.ru/ Nikolay and Svyatoslav Roerich]


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