On January, 12^th it was the 140^th anniversary of Grigory Choros-Gurkin (1870 – 1937) – an outstanding Siberian painter and a pupil of Ivan Shishkin.

Grigory Choros-Gurkin managed to combine the traditions in realistic landscape of XIX century and symbolism. He became a prominent local painter thanks to creating epic and full of ancient mythological associations, landscapes of motherland. In 1917-1919 Choros-Gurkin was the head of Altai Republic Government, which tried to set the self-government going and provide the Altai people with national equality of rights.

Choros-Gurkin was also well-known as enlightener, teacher and thinker. His experience in organizing the territorial structure of Mountain Altai was used by Soviet Government in forming autonomous region of the Mountain Altai (since 1922), which was later rearranged into Altai Republic.

Today all his works are kept in museums of Siberia, State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg), in Mongolia and even in France.