Mongolia | Roerichs | 1927 Expedition | Shambhala

Scarpered out to the eastern suburbs of Ulaan Baatar to see the house where Nicholas Roerich and his family stayed while in Ulaan Baatar in late 1926 and early 1927. Currently there are plans to turn this building into a museum dedicated to the Roerichs. Spearheading this endeavor are the renowned Professor Bira, who was a student of George Roerich in Moscow back in the 1950s, and Ulaan Bataar-based Savant and Badarchin-Gazarchin Glenn Mullin. For more information see Roerich–Mongolia Museum. How You Can Help.

The Roerich House, future site of the Roerich-Mongolia Museum

Glenn Mullin

The Roerichs at the house in the winter of 1927

After the Roerichs left Ulaan Baatar they continued on across the Gobi Desert. A few years ago I retraced part of their journey . . .

On March 6, 1925 the Roerich Expedition, led by painter, theater set designer, mystic, occultist, alleged spy, and dedicated Aghartian-Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich, left Darjeeling, India on what would be a three-year cirumnavigation of Inner Asia. Accompanying the expedition were Roerich’s wife Elena, a Theosophist and follower of Master Morya who would translate The Secret Doctrine of Madame Blavatsky into Russian, and his Harvard-educated son George, a world-class translator of Tibetan texts (see The Blue Annals). Roerich claimed he was looking for inspiration for his paintings, and his son George was supposedly engaged in various ethnological and linguistical researches, but from the three books churned out by Nicholas Roerich about the expedition it is pretty clear that they were actually looking for Shambhala. In The Secret Doctrine Madame Blavatsky had posited the idea that Shambhala might be found somewhere in the Gobi Desert. The Roerichs were also aware of the Tibetan version of the Shambhala mythologem, which placed Shambhala somewhere north of the Himalayas, possibly in the deserts of Inner Asia. Their journey would eventually lead them through the deserts of Mongolia where some believed the fabled kingdom could be found . . . Continued . . .