Today, the artist Nadia Rusheva would have been 58 years old.
All her age-mates are now mature people, most of them grandmothers and grandfathers, but she remained a 17-year-old schoolgirl. Nadia became famous for her special young understanding of classical works of world art, which was expressed in huge numbers of drawings. She attracted a following of similar young people who gathered around her, she had an active social life at school, and she led an active correspondence with friends.
The young artist invited people to follow her, and believed that anything can be achieved only by personal example: “If you want them to burn a little, you have to burn to ashes…It is terribly hard, but necessary.”
The mystery of Nadia Rusheva became an inexhaustible theme of films, exhibitions, publications, research. All of these are united in their awe before this astonishing young girl-legend.
Her early formation took place in a supportive environment in a family of artists,
the Russian painter Nikolai Rushev and Tuvan ballerina Natalia Azhikmaa,
and within the milieu of general cultural upsurge in the country of the 60’s.
It seemed monstrously unjust that such a brilliant beginning of the road for the young artist was cut short. But Nadia’s fate was to become a person of Great Service, and,
it appears, that the main in this predetermination was – early appearance of genius,
flight, and…eternal youth, unspoiled by life collisions and mistakes of an adult person.
She became the role model for every new maturing generation, having broken through the barriers of her time.
