This year on January 31, Nadia Rusheva would have turned 60.
The vivid, active, promising life ended when the girl was only 17. She was born in 1952 in an artistic family. Her father Nikolai Konstantinovich Rushev (1918-1975) was a theatre artist. Her mother, Natalia Azhikmaa-Rusheva(born 1926) is one of the first Tuvan ballerinas. The family lived in Ulan-Bator at the time, as instructors on art duty. They gave the girl a Mongolian name - Naidan - which means "Eternally living" in translation. It turned out to be a prophetic name. in our days, Nadia Rusheva's art is known to practically any cultured person, in Russia and abroad.
Taking a pencil in her hand, the girl rapidly and accurately produced a drawing on paper. There was an impression that invisible lines were already present, and the child was only following them. And the young artist never used an eraser. She produced one illustration once and forever. Each of these creations was a unique picture which showed a fairy-tale hero with astonishing precision.
In her early years, Nadia Rusheva loved the story "The Little Prince" by Antoine Saint-Exupery , French writer and pilot. She made about thirty drawings based on the story. One of the girl's favorite writers was A. S. Pushkin. As her mother remembers, one day, listening to the story "Tale about Tsar Saltan", Nadia right away produced about forty drawings.
Many of Nadia Rusheva's drawings were devoted to the poet A. S. Pushkin himself. She drew him, his wife, their children. There are drawings showing the last hours of the poet's life. All these illustrations characterize the era of the first half of 19th century with astonishing accuracy. One gets the impression that the young artist was a personal participant in those remote events. While she lived in Leningrad, her personal exhibition called "Pushkiniana" was shown.
In 1966, the Rushev family received an apartment in a new district of Moscow, where Nadia attended school No.470. Today this school bears the name Nadia Rusheva Educational Center No.1466. There is a school Nadia Rusheva Memorial Museum. The school always observes memorial dates of the artistic Rushev family, and there are anniversary evenings - jubilea, memorial days, and drawing contests.