International Nicholas Roerich Prize

 The International Nicholas Roerich Prize Ceremony was held at the State Hermitage Museum. The awards ceremony for the 2025 Nicholas Roerich Prize was held in the Council Hall of the State Hermitage Museum. As per tradition, it was held as part of the International Conference “The Roerich Heritage.” Galina Mayorova is the head of the Tsarskoye Selo Icon-Painting Art Studio, an artist, restorer, icon painter, teacher, public figure, and member of the Union of Artists of Russia. Her broad range of activities ranges from research projects and diverse social activities to the creation of icons and paintings, church murals, and the restoration of murals and easel paintings. She directs an icon-painting class and the “Firebird” children’s studio. Her early paintings on religious themes are now in private collections all over the world. Meeting with priest Fr. Nikolai Mochalkin, who became her spiritual father, determined the future direction of her creative work. She enrolled in the icon painting class at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy and Seminary, where she met her teacher, Sergei Ivanovich Golubev, head of the Department of Restoration of Old Russian Painting at the State Russian Museum. After 1995, materials began to be collected for the restoration of the Fyodorovsky Town in Tsarskoye Selo, and Galina became the successor to the Society for the Revival of Artistic Rus', which operated in the town at the beginning of the 20th century. Several hundred icons by Galina Mayorova, as well as those painted under her direction by the staff of the “Tsarskoye Selo Icon Painting Art Studio,” adorn churches in Russia, abroad, and private collections. Dozens of multi-tiered iconostases have been recreated and painted for churches and monasteries in St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo, and the Leningrad Region. Work on recreating the facades of the House-Izba in Talashkino, Smolensk Region, inspired Galina to restore the lost paintings of Nicholas Roerich in the Church of the Holy Spirit. Collected materials and sketches by Roerich himself formed the basis for the color reconstruction of his paintings on the altar and arches of this church. The results of this work were presented at the 2024 exhibition in Tsarskoye Selo and at the Roerich Family Museum-Institute. She has been awarded badges and medals by the Russian Orthodox Church and is a nominee for the 2014 national “Cultural Heritage” award.