Shimla, Oct 1 (IANS) Officials of Himachal Pradesh and the International Centre of the Roerichs (ICR), which manages Russian painter and philosopher Nicholas Roerich’s estate in India, Monday agreed to greater collaboration in future, an official statement said here. The government of Himachal Pradesh and ICR are set to ink a pact Tuesday to this effect.
“Both sides expressed keen desire to collaborate to realise the vision of the Roerichs and expressed hope that the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute would be revived soon,” said the statement.
A team of the state government headed by Chief Secretary Sudripta Roy is currently touring Moscow to collaborate with the ICR. It also met Lyudmila V. Shaposhnikova, IRC vice-president.
It said both sides discussed the roadmap for future collaboration between the hill state, the International Roerich Memorial Trust and the ICR. “An agreement would be signed Tuesday,” it added.
The International Roerich Memorial Trust, which manages Roerich’s estate near Kullu town, has over 8,126 artefacts.
These include 37 paintings by Nicholas Roerich, 12 paintings by his son Svyatoslav Roerich, 1,586 memorial objects, 1,736 books and journals and 3,070 ‘herbarium’ collections.
The Roerich estate located in Naggar, 25 km from Kullu town, where Roerich came in 1927 from St. Petersburg. He made the tiny village his home for more than 20 years.
Roerich’s wife Helena, a famous writer, and sons Yuri, a prominent Oriental scholar, and Svyatoslav, a well-known painter, and Svyatoslav’s wife Devika Rani all stayed with him in Naggar.
Roerichs’ estate comprises the premises of the Indian-Russian Memorial Complex, the Gallery of N.K. Roerich, Helena Roerich Arts College and exhibition halls in the buildings of the Urusvati Himalayan Research Institute.
