Volume 3. part 1. The state Tretyakov gallery
In June 24, 1941, two days after the attack of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, the art treasures of the State Tretyakov Gallery, began to be prepared for the evacuation in the heartland. In July, Russia sent 634 boxes of paintings, drawings, sculptures by Russian artists 1941by the special train under heavy military guard in Novosibirsk. Together with the property of the Tretyakov Gallery the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, of the Museum of Pushkin, of New Western Art and the Archives of the Museum of Musical Culture of Glinka and others were evacuated.
The second part of artistic treasures of the State Tretyakov Gallery was sent to Novosibirsk by water on the barge. These were paintings by Levitsky Borovikovsky, by Tropinin, by Kiprensky, by Venetsianov, by Briullov by Vereshchagin, by Kramsky, by Perov, by Yaroshenko, by Surikov, by Repin, by Ghe, by Kuindzhi, by Serov, by Polenov, by Levitan, by Vrubel.
The Painting "Morning of Strelets'execution", "Boyarynya Morozova" were rolled on specially constructed wooden shafts, shifting paint layers by the tissue paper and by the soft flannel. The biggest canvas "The Appearance of Christ to the people" by Ivanov (540 × 750 cm), rolled on the shaft, could not fit into any boxcar. The shaft decided to be put on the two open platforms and to be covered with canvas.
Until November 1944 the museum property was evacuated to the newly constructed building of the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.
In autumn 1944 the Government decided to return the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. Their "legitimate" place in the halls of the gallery in Lavrushinskiy Lane was taken by the picture by Repin "Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan", by the masterpieces of Surykova and Vasnetsov, the battle paintings by Vereshchagin, "The Appearance of Christ to the people". In May 17, 1945 the Tretyakov Gallery was opened to the public.
The Museum was to find out the fate of his paintings, sent before the war to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR. In 1930th of the last century on the basis of the orders of higher authorities of the culture the Foreign Ministry had issued 38 pieces of XVIII - early XX centuries of the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery for using temporarily. They were intended to decorate the interiors of plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
At the request of the museum on the fate of the outstanding works the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR stated that in the rooms of the former embassy of the Soviet Union after the liberation of Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland there was no artistic treasures. Lost were "The blind beggars at the fair in Little Russia" by Vladimir Makovsky, "The Winter Evening" and "The stacks" by N. Dubovsky, "Pines over the precipice" by Shishkin, a product of the eighteenth century "Pashkov House in Moscow" by Gerard De La Barth. They lost a few pictures of the sensational in its time series by A. Borisov, made in the north of Samoyeds and acquired by Pavel Tretyakov.
However, they want to believe that the missing paintings will find and they will return to the museum.
