Moscow Guide
The Beliy Gorod
The Roerich Museum
Opening time: Tues– Sun 11am–7pm
Website: www.roerich-museum.ru
Price: R180
The Nikolai Roerich Museum (muzey N. Rorikha) has to be the only museum in Moscow that's scented by joss sticks. Opened in 1997, it is dedicated to the ideals of Nikolai Roerich (1874–1947), an artist and scholar whose passion for Eastern philosophy led him to Central Asia, Tibet and India in the 1920s, and Manchuria and Mongolia in the 1930s. Another aspect of his idealism was the Roerich Pact for the preservation of cultural values during wartime, which became the basis of the Hague Convention of 1954. The museum displays his paintings of mystics, steppes and the Himalayas, intermingled with photos of Ladakh and Tibet and items of gear from his expeditions, on which Roerich was accompanied by his wife Helene and their son Georgi (the only one of the family to return to Soviet Russia, and be buried in the Novodevichiy Cemetery). A shop in the grounds sells Asian handicrafts and philosophical tracts.