Description Born at St.
Petersburg in 1874, Nicholas Roerich was a precocious polymath, excelling at painting, poetry, archaeology, anthropology and botany.
In adulthood, Roerich began a life-long fascination with eastern mysticism, founding (with his wife Helena) his own school of 'Agni Yoga' in 1920, and embarking, six year's later on an epic five-year expedition through Chinese Turkestan, Altai, Mongolia and Tibet, to study the religions and culture of the region and to sea.