Russia | Early Life of Nicholas Roerich

Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich was born in St Petersburg, Russia, on October 9, 1874. His father Konstantin was a notary serving the city’s courts, a fairly important position at the time. The family was well-to-do and lived in a comfortable apartment on the embankment of the Neva River, in close proximity to the homes of the Russian nobility. The Winter Palace of the Czar, on the other side of the Neva, was visible from the windows of the Roerich residence. Later in life Roerich would assert that his own family, the Roerichs, could trace their roots back to Vikings from Scandinavia. He also asserted, perhaps playing on the similarity of their names, that his family were descendants, or at least had some connection with, Rurik, the Scandinavian chieftain who in the year 862 was invited to Novgorod, in Russia, where he founded the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled what was known as Kievan Rus, centered first on what is now Ukraine and later Russia, until the beginning of the seventeenth century (the last member of the Rurik Dynasty  Vasiliy IV, ruled as Czar until 1612). 

Years later, after he had been admitted to the Russian Academy of Arts  and held the prestigious post of director of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Roerich was still harping on the Rurik connection. Prince Sergei Aleksandrovitch Stcherbatov, a painter and patron of the arts who came into contact with Roerich around this time, noted, “He was of northern—Norwegian type and he rather clearly alluded that his family name Roerich was connected with the name Rurik. It was not quite clear though in what way . . .”  One of Roerich’s hagiographers asserts, on the other hand, that Roerich means “rich in glory,” although no one else seems to agree with her. A Latvian researcher and linguist maintains, however, that the name Roerich is derived from either the German word das Röhricht (reed scrub) or the family name Roderich and has no connection whatsoever to the Scandinavian Rurik.

Roerich also liked to point to his family’s coat-of-arms, which included palm leaves, often an indication that members of the family had been involved in diplomacy, and a turban, a symbol often found on the coat-of-arms of Crusaders who had fought against Muslims in the Middle East. All this spoke to a long and distinguished family, a theme often repeated in the voluminous semi-hagiographical literature about the Roerichs. According to one such account:

Wealthy and politically influential, Nikolai’s father, Konstantin Fedorovitch Roerich, was a prominent notary and attorney born in Riga, Latvia. Throughout the centuries, many of the Roerich men had devoted their lives to service as political leaders, military figures, and members of secret societies like the Knights Templar and the Masons.

Most of this is not true. The first Roerich we know about is Nicholas’s great-grandfather, Johann Heinrich Röerich (1763–1820), who was born in Vetzieskate, a small town in the the Duchy of Courland, probably in what is now Latvia.  By profession he was a shoe-maker. Nicholas grandfather Friedrich (1806–1905) moved up a bit in the world and served as the steward on the estate of the Baron Johann von der Ropp and his wife Laura. Friedrich Roerich was an employee of aristocrats and not, of course, an aristocrat himself. Nicholas’s father Konstantin (1837–1900) was the illegitimate son of Eduard von der Ropp, scion of the von der Ropp family, and Charlotte Constantia Schuhschel, a house-maid attached to the family estate. Eduard von der Ropp was a captain in the Engineer Corps in St. Petersburg and he had apparently seduced the young maid while on vacation at his family’s estate. Nicholas Roerich’s later rhapsodizing about the illustrious Roerich family was completely beside the point. By blood he was not a Roerich at all. 

Nicholas’s father Konstantin was entered into the parish records under the family name of the house maid, but his baptismal records gave his name as  Konstantin Christoph Traugott Glaubert. It is not quite clear who Glaubert was. In any case, both names were an attempt by von der Ropp family to hide the child’s true paternity. Eduard von der Ropp did eventually take some interest on the child, however, and when Konstantin was twelve years old his father brought him to St. Petersburg and had him enrolled in the Technological Institute. There was a catch, however. On his admission papers the boy’s father’s name as listed Friedrich Roerich and his own name as Konstantin Roerich. A Latvian researcher has concluded that by this point Friedrich Roerich had adopted the boy and gave him the Roerich family name “‘to cover Edward’s [Eduard von der Ropp’s] sin.’” Friedrich Roerich may not have taken the boy under his wing solely out of the goodness of his heart. Anxious to be rid of the illegitimate child, a stain on the illustrious family’s honor, the von der Ropps apparently gave Friedrich Roerich a considerable sum of money to take the boy off their hands and make him a member of the Roerich family. 

Around this time, Friedrich Roerich, formerly a steward on the von der Ropp estate, rented two estates of his own, perhaps with the payoff money he had received from the von der Ropps. This branching out into the management of rental properties perhaps marks the beginning of the rise to social prominence of the Roerich family, hitherto a rather undistinguished group, and not at all the descendants of the Rurik Dynasty and other distinguished figures as Roerich was wont to claim. Ironically, Nicholas Roerich’s actual paternal line, the aristocratic von der Ropps, were illustrious. The lineage had been founded by in the thirteenth century by Theodoricus de Raupena, whose brother Albert founded the city of Riga, the current-day capital of Latvia in 1201, and in 1202 organized the Livonian Order of Warriors of Christ (Fratres militiae Christi Livoniae), a Christian crusading order dedicated to battling pagans in what is now Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. This was just the kind of prestigious background Nicholas would have liked to claim for himself, but of course he couldn’t. Indeed, he probably did not even know that his father had been an illegitimate child and a von der Ropp by blood. The whole matter had been kept very hush-hush.

For someone who began life as an an illegitimate child from the countryside Konstantin Roerich did quite well for himself in St. Petersburg. Eduard von der Ropp, although he had refused to give the boy his name, worked behind the scenes as his sponsor in the capital. Konstantin was employed first as an accountant in a military uniform factor and then in the Directorate of the Russian Railways. In 1867 he became a notary for the city courts. A 25,000 ruble security was required to take the post, 10,000 of which had to be paid up front.  His sponsors in St. Petersburg helped him come up with the money.  Serving as a notary in Russia at the time was a well-paying and prestigious job, and by 1872, two years before Nicholas was born, Konstantin was able to buy a 3,780 acre estate, complete with house, fifty miles southwest St. Petersburg (the house on the property is now a museum dedicated to the Roerichs). The country estate was known as Isvara. According to one account, the previous owner of the estate, the Russian diplomat Semyon Vorontsov, had given the estate its name after traveling through India, where he had apparently learned the Sanskrit word isvara. Later in life, when he came into contact with Indians from the sub-continent, Nicholas Roerich was told that Isvara was a corruption of the Sanskrit word Ishvara, the Lord. One of Roerich‘s hagiographers, on the other hand, maintains that Isvara means “sacred dwelling” or “ashram” in Sanskrit. The Sanskrit story is repeated in various Roerich biographies, for example:

During the winter holidays, or when mosquitoes and cholera began to cloud the stifling hot, long “white nights” of summer, the family happily moved to their country estate . . . Its name, given by the previous owner, was Isvara, Sanskrit for “Lord” or “sacred spirit.”

Russian linguists have claimed, however, that isvara is a word from the language of the indigenous people who originally lived in the area. It means simply “big hill” and refers to a conspicuous promontory in the area, and has nothing to do with the Sanskrit isvara. 

Nicholas spent considerable time at Isvara while growing up. Early on he took and interest in archeology and at the age of nine took undertook the excavation of burial mounds on the estate under the guidance of a professional archeologist. Another archeologist, A.A. Spitsyn, a member of the Imperial Archeological Committee, got Nicholas permission to conduct further archeological research on the property. Nicholas’s findings were the beginning of what would become a near-museum quality collection of artifacts. While at Isvara he also learned the finer points of horse-back riding and spent a considerable amount of his time hunting wildlife. Essays about his hunting adventures, accompanied by his own pencil drawings, may have been among his first literary productions. 

Nicholas Roerich as a young man

In 1893, at the age of nineteen, Nicholas graduated from an exclusive private secondary school ran by progressive educator Karl Ivanovich Mai, the motto of which was “First love, then teach”. The liberal atmosphere at the school, unusual for the  time and place, made it very popular with the intelligentsia of St. Petersburg. Attending the school at the same time as Roerich was Alexander Benois (1870–1960), the artist and set designer who, like Nicholas himself, would later collaborate with Sergei Diaghilev, the celebrated director of the dance troupe Ballets Russes. Benois would remember Nicholas as “. . . a pretty boy with pink cheeks, very affectionate, a little shy with his older schoolmates. By no means was he influenced by our group, as well as after graduation he remained an outsider for many years.”

After secondary school Nicholas’s father, hoping that one day his son would became pursue a career in law himself,  insisted that he enroll in the law department of St. Petersburg University. Nicholas agreed, but also somehow convinced his father to allow him to also audit classes at the Imperial Academy Arts at the same time. Roerich wanted to study under the realist painter Ilia Repin (1844–1930), the most highly regarded painter at the Academy, but his classes were already full and Nicholas was turned away. Instead he joined the landscape studio of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1841–1910). It was a fateful decision. In a chapter entitled “Guru—The Master” in his book Shambhala the Resplendent Roerich would write:

I recall the most uplifting memories of my teacher, Professor Kuinjy [Kuindzhi], the famous Russian artist. His life story could fill the most inspiring pages of a biography for the young generation. He was a simple shepherd boy in the Crimea [actually he was born near Mariupol, in the Donetsk District to the northeast of Crimea in what is now Ukraine]. Only by incessant, ardent effort towards art, was he able to conquer all obstacles and finally become not only a highly esteemed artist and a man of great means, but also a real Guru for his pupils in the high Hindu conception.

Kuindzhi became Roerich’s guru, at least in the artistic field.  He certainly seemed to have focused Nicholas’s attention on painting and perhaps provided the inspiration he needed to pursue a career as an artist. (In March of 2022 the Kuindzhi Art Museum in Mariupol was destroyed by the Russian military during the invasion of Ukraine. His paintings in the museum may have been removed beforehand, but their fate remains unclear.) Nicholas’ final painting  submitted to the  Academy to fulfill his graduation requirements, “The Messenger: Tribe Has Risen against Tribe”, was heavily influenced by Kuindzhi’s style. The painting was immediately bought by Pavel Mikchailovich Tretyakov (1832–1898), one of the leading art collectors of the day. Overnight Nicholas was catapulted into the ranks of up-and-coming young artists in Russia. 

In 1898 Nicholas Roerich finished law school, having successfully defending his thesis “Legal Rights of Artists in Ancient Russ,” and also completed his courses at the Art Academy. By then it had become clear that he was not going to pursue a career in law. One of the leading art critics of the day, Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (1824–1906), took the promising young artist Roerich under his wing and helped him obtain the position of assistant secretary for the prestigious Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. The Society enjoyed the patronage of Csar Nicholas II and his wife, and its honorary President was Princess Eugenia Maksimilianovna Oldenburgskaya, wife of Prince Alexandre Petrovich Oldenburgsky. Nicholas was soon hobnobbing with the very highest levels of Russian society. 

Nicholas also had other irons in the fire. He was still interested in archeology and in 1899 the Imperial Archaeological Society engaged him to investigate various sites in the provinces of Pskov, Tversk, and Novgorod. While traveling to the sites he stopped for the night at the house of one Prince Putyatin, a fellow archaeologist. It so happened that Prince Putyatin’s wife’s sister, Ekaterina Vassilievna Shaposhnikova, was also visiting the family at the time. The sister had a daughter, Elena Ivanovna, who was five years younger than Nicholas. Nicholas and Elena hit it off, and after a sometimes tempestuous courtship the couple would get married. She would accompany him on the 1925–28 khora through Inner Asia.

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Last Quarter Moon

Last Quarter Moon from my hovel in Zaisan Tolgoi

Last Quarter Moon

The hill known as Zaisan Tolgoi (Nobleman’s Hill) which gives the neighborhood its name

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Third Nine-Nine | Gurvan Ükhrii Ever Khöldönö

The Third of The Nine-Nines—the Nine-Nines being nine periods of nine days each, each period characterized by a certain type of winter weather—begins today, January 9. Gurvan Ükhrii Ever Khöldönö is the nine-day period of Winter when the horns of three-year-old cows freeze. This period is supposed to be colder than the First of the Nine-Nines and the Second of the Nine-Nines. At 1:00 am the temperature was a relatively balmy  —1ºF.  I don’t know if this is actually cold enough to freeze the horns of three-year-old cows.  On the first day of Gurvan Ükhrii Ever Khöldönö in 2013 the temperature was a chilly —33ºF. Global warming?

Also, today is the day Jupiter gets the closest to the Earth it will be all year—only 393 million miles or thirty-five light minutes away. Jupiter is glowing brightly above the ridges of Bogd Khan Uul south of Zaisan Tolgoi as I write this. Just to the right of Jupiter and a bit below the constellation of Orion is ablaze. 

Next up: Tomorrow is the Last Quarter Moon!!!

Russia | Early Life of Elena Roerich

Elena Ivanova Shaposhnikova was born on February 12, 1879. Her father Ivan Shaposhnikov was an well-known architect who had designed many buildings in St. Petersburg, including a synagogue. He had been educated at the Academy of Arts in St. Peterburg, the institute that Nicholas Roerich would later attend. The Shaposhnikovs, Elena claimed, were an illustrious family, originally known as the von Tresslers, from Riga, in what is Latvia. Elena’s great-grandfather had supposedly once been the wealthy burgomaster of Riga. During a visit to Riga in the eighteen-century the Russian Czar Peter the Great had presented Elena’s great-grandfather with a hat trimmed with sable and adorned with jewels as a reward for his services to the Russian state. He also gave the von Tresslers a new Russian name, Shaposhnikov, based on the Russian word for hat (shapka). As least this was the story Elena told. The Russian genealogist I.V. Sakharov and other researchers who have examined the Shaposhnikov family history dismiss this account as highly improbable, however. The actual origins of the Shaposhnikov family remain cloudy. One of Elena’s uncles, Evgenii Ivanovich Shaposhnikov (1814-?) did take part in an expedition to Inner Asia sponsored by the Russian Geographical Society. He never returned and was presumed dead. Elena would later claim that he had actually hooked with the Himalayan Brotherhood and retired to one of their ashrams, where he was living under the alias of Mahometi. Elena also averred that this uncle was a reincarnation of Abu’l-Fazl (1551–1602), grand vizier of the Mughul emperor Akbar (1542–1605), and celebrated author of the emperor’s biography, the Akbarnama. These assertions are difficult to proof or refute. 

Elena’s mother Ekaterina Vasilievna (1857–1913) was an accredited aristocrat who could trace her lineage back to the princely family of Golenistchev-Kutuzov. One of the Kutuzovs, Elena’s great-uncle, Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, was the commander-in-chief of the Russian army that defeated Napoleon in 1812. One semi-hagiographical account also asserts that Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839–1881), the famous composer of the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral arrangement Night on Bald Mountain, and many other works, was Elena’s uncle. Elena also claimed that her great-grandmother, Anastasia Ivanovna Elchaninova (1809–1889), was a descendant of Chingis Khan’s grandson Batu, founder of the Golden Horde, which in the thirteen century controlled a huge swath of Eurasia, including much of Russia. This connection, Elena believed, gave her a special affinity with Asia, and especially with Mongolia. 

In 1949, when she was seventy years old, Elena wrote a letter to Roerich devotee Sina Lichtmann in which she stated, “I have gathered up all of my prophetic dreams and visions, and the ensuing picture is a grand, truly apocalyptic one.” If we are to believe Elena’s account, her specialness was recognized while she was still on the womb: “The girl’s birth [Elena writing in the third person] was undesirable to the dark forces, and measures were taken by them to prevent her birth. During the pregnancy, her mother suffered from acute fits of nausea and vomiting.”

The “dark forces” apparently influenced Elena’s mother. Elena would later tell two of her devotees, Sina and Esther Lichtmann, that Ekaterina Vasilievna had tried to abort her. According to Esther Lichtmann, Elena confessed to her that, “the body of Elena Ivanovna was badly damaged when her mother was trying to exterminate her in the womb.” Esther added that Elena believed that “her mother committed an irreparable crime against her.” In Leaves of Morya’s Garden, Elena would write:

Mothers, in their wisdom, foresee the occult conditions at the birth of a child. The mother’s spirit knows how the enemy tries to harm the new wayfarer. During the transitory time of gestation it is easier to send the poison. It is easy to stir the mother’s anger and to fill the home with the dust of discontent. Mothers try wisely to direct their eyes toward the images of saints or to be comforted through the beauty of nature.

Apparently Elena believed that the “dark forces” poisoned her own mother with negative thoughts and induced her to attempt an abortion, which resulted in what one historian calls “‘perinatal trauma’” (the perinatal period is from the twentieth week of gestation to one to four weeks after birth). According to one psychical researcher such trauma can result in schizophrenia which manifests itself in “‘episodes of relatively pure ecstatic feelings of communication with God’” and other divine beings. Whether or not Elena was affected in such a way must remain a matter of speculation. In any case, the “dark forces” were overcome, at least for the moment, and Elena was allowed to enter this Vale of Tears. According to Elena, writing in the third person:

The girl’s physical development was normal, or maybe even accelerated, for she learned to walk when she was only ten months old and also began to speak at an early age. She soon demonstrated a considerable grasp of and sensitivity to the subtlest nuances of speech and manifestations of harshness and injustice. When she was three, for no apparent reason, she began to have sudden fits of crying, which would end in frenzied shouts.

Elena at age of five or six

Elena was a precocious child. She taught herself the alphabet by studying toy blocks depicting the letters of the alphabet and by perusing picture books and newspapers, and by the age of six she could read and write in three languages—Russian, French, and German. Surrounding by nannies and governesses, she shunned other children her own age and instead sought refuge in books:

At a very early age she developed an interest in books. Books became her best tutors and friends. Her first and biggest joy was a two-volume Bible that had illustrations by Gustave Doré. These volumes were so big that the girl could not lift them. She could enjoy them only when an adult would hand them to her. But since the books were expensive, adults were reluctant to allow her to use them. For many years, these two volumes were a source of genuine joy. When she grew older, she would secretly carry a fat volume from her father’s study, bending under its weight, and bring it to her room, where she could again contemplate in awe and reverie a beloved Image of Christ and suffer His pains with Him.

She also found in her father’s library two huge, richly illustrated volumes about travel in Inner Asia and the Far East. The volumes were so thick she also used them as booster seats on her chair at the family table. These books left an “imprint in her imagination and upon her consciousness, which had not yet been spoiled by dull and deceitful children’s books.” She also devoured books by Alexandre Dumas, Mark Twain, and Jules Verne. 

Then there were the visions. “At a very early age,” Elena tells us, “the girl began having remarkable dreams and visions. When she was only six, she had an unusual experience that was to remain forever fixed in her memory, without the loss of any of its original freshness and intensity of feeling.” While at the family summer estate Elena went out one morning to a small pond to look at the goldfish. Instead she saw on the opposite shore, “a tall male figure dressed in white. A recollection immediately surfaced in her consciousness that it was a Teacher of Light who lives somewhere far away. The girl’s heart began to tremble, her joy turned into exaltation, and her entire being longed to be with that distant, beloved, and Beautiful Being. Elsewhere Elena tells us that around this time “saw a blond man wearing a white Russian shirt. And suddenly she clearly saw a tall figure of a brunette.” Only much later in life would she realize that that the tall figure had been Master Morya, the Mahatma who would become her main teacher.

Along with the visions of a Teacher of Light came a foreboding of imminent doom:

From early childhood, a foreboding that the Earth would face a catastrophe, a destruction, reigned over her [Elena writing in the third person] mind. It might have been cast from biblical illustrations depicting formidable floods, or it might have been that those illustrations awakened her straight-knowledge. But the feeling was so strong that at times she was so completely overcome as to experience strong attacks of anguish.

At one point she had a terrifying dream:

 . . . there is a deafening bang of either thunder or an explosion, and the earth begins to tremble. The terrified girl runs into the adjacent room where her parents are, and says, “Do you not see that the Earth is being destroyed and the end of the world has come?”

At the age of nine Elena was enrolled in Mariinsky Women’s Gymnasium. According to her own account, she was extremely popular:

 . . . for seven years [at the Gymnasium] she suffered the adoration of other girls. Both classmates and senior students would not leave her alone, kissing her until she began to cry. The teachers had to take measures for her protection, and those who had no chance to approach her waited for her outside the gymnasium entrance door in order to continue their torturous adoration. As the girl grew older, the habit of adoration was not extinguished, but, in fact, spread out over her junior grades as well.

There is no indication that Elena returned these shows of affection.

Meanwhile the visions keep reoccurring, and again the Teacher of Light made an appearance:

When she was about twelve years old, an awareness arose in her of the existence of a Teacher of Light. This awareness remained with the girl for a long time and was especially strong during the period between her eleventh and thirteenth year. In her mind there was a vivid Image of a Teacher Who possessed unlimited knowledge. The girl clearly visualized herself as the Teacher’s student, seeing herself living in His house and studying under His guidance. She definitely knew that the Teacher was engaged in speeding up some physiological process in her organism, and that this development was taking place under His direct supervision. This awareness would not leave the girl for long periods of time.

We can see here a foreshadowing of the Masters, or Mahatmas, who would later come to dominate her life and who instructed her and her family to make a khora through Inner Asia. 

Elena as a young girl

Elena’s recollections from her early youth give the impression that she was a strange little girl subsumed in an almost continuous deluge of oracular visions and prophetic dreams—we have only touched the surface here—but as she entered her teens she blossomed into an attractive young woman, one of the “gilded youth” of the Russian aristocracy. One contemporary remembers, “‘She was tall, slim, well-formed, elegant and womanly, full of grace and some inner charm which involuntarily attracted everyone’s gaze . . . She had a very melodious and gentle voice and treated people most kindly and she addressed her close relatives by their pet names.’” Also, “‘she was fond of smart clothes and was always dressed according to the latest fashion, wearing ear-rings, necklaces and other objects of adornment.’” From an early age she began frequenting balls and dances, once attending attended thirty-two balls in a period of two months, often not arriving home until six or seven in the morning. She obviously cut quite a figure, and from the available photos of her it was clear she was a beauty, maybe even a hottie.

Elena as a young hottie

Then another change occurred. “When she was in her seventeenth year . . . she became acutely aware of the banality and emptiness of the surrounding life,” Elena tells us.” Hoping to broaden her horizons, Elena wanted to enroll in Higher Women’s Courses at a St. Petersburg college but her father objected, afraid that she would get infected with the bacterium of revolutionary thought which was then plaguing institutes of higher learning in Russia. Instead she stayed at home, practicing the piano and reading her way through the family library, which included among much else books from IndIa, including the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata, and the Three Vedas—Rig, Yajur, and Sama.

It was at this juncture, in 1899, that she was invited to the house party at the home of Prince Putyatin, who was married to the sister of Elena’s mother. There she had her fateful meeting with Nicholas Roerich. Years later Elena would tell her disciple Sina Lichtmann about this first encounter:

He [Nicholas] arrived in the evening. “The first thing I saw,” says E.I. [Elena], “was a dusty leg, or rather a dusty boot, that stepped through the window right onto the balcony.” E.I. approached the window, and N.K. [Nicholas] asked, “Is this the estate of the Grand Duke Putyatin?” E.I. went to her aunt’s room and told her, “Auntie, there is a courier, or maybe a farmer, here to see you.” Her aunt directed her to the footman who [was told to] take him to see her husband. In the evening at tea it came out that it was some archaeologist; no one had seen him yet. Her aunt says, “An archaeologist? Must be some geezer—let him sleep in the Duke’s office.” And the next day at breakfast, everyone saw the guest and he turned out to be young and pretty, so they decided to move him to the guest bedroom. He stayed there for three days. E.I. said that he won them over by how subtly and diplomatically he discussed the antiquity of the name Roerich and his family, for the entire Putyatin family was interested in genealogy.

Presumably Nicholas told them the story about the Roerichs being descended from Rurik, the ninth-century Scandinavian chieftain who had founded the Rurik Dynasty, and left out the fact that his own father had been born the illegitimate son of Eduard von der Ropp, scion of the von der Ropp family, and a housemaid. He was not necessarily lying. Biographers would later aver that he did not know about his father’s true origins and by then he may have convinced himself that he was in fact a descendant of the legendary Rurik. In any case, their courtship began. Nicholas was twenty-five years old at the time; Elena was twenty.

Mongolia | Khentii Mountains | Asralt Khairkhan

Wanderered by 9183-foot Asralt Khairkhan Uul, the highest peak in the Khentii Mountain Range north of Ulaanbaatar.

Flat-topped peak of Asralt Khairkhan Uul (click on photos for enlargements)

Horseman Zevgee preparing mutton for the trip

Historical consultant and bon vivant Yooton

Yooton upon rising. She is not a morning person.

Yooton is not just another pretty face; she can also cook.

Approaching Asralt Khairkhan

Approaching Asralt Khairkhan

Asralt Khairkhan, with its distinctive flat top, from our base camp

A tuckered out Yooton taking a short snooze halfway up Asralt Khairkhan

The summit of Asralt Khairkhan is actually a flat area some 600 feet long and a hundred feet wide. Local people assert that the original name of the mountain was Asart Khairkhan: according to this theory the word asart means “a flat place”, a description of the distinctive flat top of the mountain. Not all linguists I have spoken to agree with this assertion.

Summit of Asralt Khairkhan

Summit of Asralt Khairkhan

Summit of Asralt Khairkhan. Zevgee, in his early seventies, and his wife, Tumen-Olzii, in her late sixties, may be the oldest people to climb Asralt Khairkhan. As can be seen, Tumen-Olzii was wearing a long deel, not the best garment for extended hikes. She was also wearing old-style Mongolian boots with smooth soles, not the best footwear for climbing mountains. I had assumed she had come along on the trip just for the ride (she also helped Yooton with the cooking) and would wait at our camp at the base of the mountain while the rest of us climbed the mountain. But she insisted on climbing the mountain herself. She and Zevgee beat Yooton and me to the summit.

My posse at Biren Buren Davaa, on the way to Asralt Khairkhan. This 6,768-foot (2063 meters) pass marks the Continental Divide of Asia. The Bürkhiin Gol on the east side of the pass flows into the Kherlen River, part of the Pacific Ocean Drainage. The small creek on the other side of the pass flows west into the Tuul River, part of the Arctic Ocean Drainage.

Mongolia | Soyolmaa

New Painting by Mongolian artist Soyolma  

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Full Wolf Moon | Perihelion

The Full Moon occurs here at 6:02 PM. This is the Wolf Full Moon, so named because traditionally this is thought to be the time when wolves howl at the moon from hunger. This may not be totally accurate, however: “Howling and other wolf vocalizations are heard in the wintertime to locate pack members, reinforce social bonds, define territory, and coordinate hunting,” not necessarily because they are hungry.

Other names for the January Full Moon:

Another fitting name for this Full Moon is the Center Moon. Used by the Assiniboine people of the Northern Great Plains, it refers to the idea that this Moon roughly marks the middle of the cold season. Other traditional names for the January Moon emphasize the harsh coldness of the season: Cold Moon (Cree), Frost Exploding Moon (Cree), Freeze Up Moon (Algonquin), and Severe Moon (Dakota). Hard Moon (Dakota) highlights the phenomenon of the fallen snow developing a hard crust.

There will be thirteen Full Moons in 2026, instead of the usual twelve, with two Full Moons in the month of May (May 2 and May 31). This is possible since the lunar month is only 29.5 days long and two can fit into a 30 or 31 day month. The Wolf Full Moon is also one of the three Super Moons that occur in 2026. The two others will occur in November 24 and December 23. Mark your calendars. Super Moons occur when the moon’s orbit brings it closer to Earth than usual.  Super Moons can appear up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than the faintest moon of the year, according to NASA. 

Today the moon will be a mere 224,403 miles from Earth. The apogee, the farthest the moon gets from Earth, can be up to 252,088 miles, with an average distance between the Earth and the Moon of 238,855 miles. So this Full Moon will be 14,452 miles closer to Earth than the average distance. 

By coincidence January 3 this year is also the Perihelion, the day of the year when the Sun is closest to the Earth. This phenomenon has no connection to the Full Moon and the two coincide only rarely. Today the Sun is 91.4 million miles from Earth. Aphelion, when the Sun is the farthest from Earth, occurs in early July, when the Sun is 94.5 million miles from Earth. It may seem odd the Sun is closest to Earth in wintertime and the farthest from Earth in summertime. The distance of the Sun from Earth actually has little or no effect on the seasons, which are determined primarily by the 23.4° tilt of Earth's axis relative to its orbital plane. 

The dates of Perihelion and Aphelion are not fixed; they gradually progress through the calendar over centuries due to orbital precession and perturbations from other planets—cycles known as Milankovitch cycles. On a timescale of 22,000 to 26,000 years, perihelion and aphelion complete one full cycle through all seasons. The latest January perihelion will occur in 2089, and the latest July aphelion in 2060; by the year 3800, perihelion is projected to occur solely in February rather than January. Mark your calendars. 

As if the Full Moon and the Perihelion are not enough, the Quadrantids Meteor Shower peaks in January 3-4,  and Jupiter is the biggest and brightest it will be this whole year. A refulgent Full Moon and gorgeous Jupiter are blazing in the sky west of Zaisan Tolgoi as I write this. It’s an exciting time to be alive!

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Second Nine-Nine | Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö

I mentioned earlier that the First of the Nine-Nines—the Nine-Nines being nine periods of nine days each, each period characterized by a certain type of winter weather—started on the day of the Winter Solstice, which occurred here in Mongolia on December 21. The second of the Nine-Nines begins today, December 30.  Known as Khorz Arkhi Khöldönö, this is the time when twice-distilled homemade Mongolian arkhi (vodka) freezes. As you will recall, the first of the Nine-Nines was the time when regular, or once distilled, arkhi freezes. As this indicates, the second period should be colder than the first, since twice-distilled arkhi obviously has a much higher alcohol content. This morning at 2:00 it was  —28°F. This may be cold enough to freeze twice-distilled arkhi. The forecast for the night of December 30-31, however, calls for a relatively balmy —11ºF, probably not cold enough to freeze twice-distilled arkhi. The third Nine-Nine begins on January 9. 

Mongolia | Zaisan Tolgoi | Winter Solstice | First of the Nine-Nines

The Winter Solstice, the astronomical beginning of Winter, occurs here in Zaisan Tolgoi at 11:03 pm, December 21. The day before, December 20, the sun rose at 8:38:13 am and set at 5:01:21 pm for 8 hours, 23 minutes, and 7 seconds of daylight. On the 21st the sun rose at 8:38:48 am and set at 5:01:48 pm for 8 hours, 22 minutes, and 59 seconds of daylight. Thus the day of the 21st was eight seconds shorter than the 20th. Normally the day of the Solstice is the shortest day of the year, but this year, because the Solstice occurs so close to midnight, the shortest day of the year is actually the 22nd, when the sun rises 8:39:20 am and sets at 5:02:17 pm for 8 hours, 22 minutes, and 57 seconds of daylight, making it 2 seconds shorter than December 21. On the 23th the day is already two seconds longer—the same as on the 21st—so we are progressing toward the Spring Equinox, which will occur in Zaisan Tolgoi on March 20, 2026, at 10:46 pm. Thus Winter will last 88 days, 23 hours, and 42 minutes.

In Mongolia the Winter Solstice also marks the beginning of the so-called Nine-Nines: nine periods of nine days each, each period marked by some description of winter weather. According to One Source the tradition started in China but became popular in Mongolia during the Yuan Dynasty, founded by Chingis Khan’s grandson, Khubilai Khan:

The history of “counting the nine” can be traced back as early as the Northern and Southern dynasties (420-589). However, it wasn’t until the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) that the “Nine Times Nine to Dispel the Cold” countdown calendar emerged.

The first of the nine nine-day periods is Nermel Arkhi Khöldönö, the time when once-distilled homemade Mongolian arkhi (vodka) freezes. The forecast for tonight calls for a low of –14ºF, cold enough, I think, to freeze once-distilled Mongolian moonshine, which is maybe half as strong as store-bought vodka. The Second Nine-Day Period starts on December 30. Stayed tuned for updates.

Mongolia | Baron von Ungern-Sternberg

Interesting story about a Relative Of Baron Von Ungern-Sternberg (the story says she was a descendant of the Baron; he had no children so the woman in question is actually a relative). I wrote at length about the Bloody Baron in False Lama of Mongolia and also in Wanders in the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia: The Source of the Amur River and the Birthplace of the Mongols.

The world-class psychopath and megalomaniac  Baron in his early years

Quote by the Bloody Baron: 

Depravity of revolution! . . . Has anyone ever thought of it besides the French philosopher, Bergson, and the most learned Tashi [Dalai] Lama in Tibet? In the Buddhistic and ancient Christian books we read stern predictions about the time when the war between the good and evil spirits must begin. Then there must come the unknown ‘Curse’ which will conquer the world, blot out culture, kill morality and destroy all the people. Its weapon is revolution. During every revolution the previously experienced intellect-creator will be replaced by the new rough force of the destroyer. He will place and hold in the first rank the lower instincts and desires. Man will be farther removed from the divine and the spiritual. The Great War proved that humanity must progress upward toward higher ideals; but then appeared that Curse which was seen and felt by Christ, the Apostle John, Buddha, the first Christian martyrs, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe and Dostoyevsky. It appeared, turned back the wheel of progress and blocked our road to the Divinity. Revolution is an infectious disease and Europe making the treaty with Moscow deceived itself and the other parts of the world. The Great Spirit put at the threshold of our lives Karma, who knows neither anger nor pardon. He will reckon the account, whose total will be famine, destruction, the death of culture, of glory, of honor and of spirit, the death of states and the death of peoples. I see already this horror, this dark, mad destruction of humanity.

Relative of the Bloody Baron: “All these people [are] telling me I should reclaim the throne to Mongolia but I’m literally just a girl who drinks matcha.” She’s also a fox!

The Bloody Baron as a young tyke