INTRODUCTION
   The State Tretyakov Gallery is one of the largest and oldest collections of fine arts in Russia and has a world-wide significance.
   The Gallery was started in the 19th century by the Moscow merchant Pavel Tretyakov. The foundation of the Gallery as a national public museum of Russian art became his life's goal and work. In 1892, Pavel Tretyakov presented the City of Moscow with his collection which comprized about two thousand works, together with the mansion it was housed in and the adjacent garden. After the death of Pavel Tretyakov the creation of his hands and soul continued to live and develop. The collection was steadily growing. The citizens of Moscow as well as of other Russian cities presented or sold to the Gallery works of art preserved at their homes as family relics. The preceding and subsequent generations of the Gallery's staff members would search for and, more often than not, saved from destruction the works by great and undeservedly forgotten Russian artists. They had in mind the creation of a retrospective panorama of national fine art reflecting its century-old evolution.
   The Tretyakov Gallery has become one of the most famous museums where true masterpieces of national art are exhibited to the general public. Its collection comprizes more than one hundred thousand items.
   The path to the Mansion of Tretyakov will never get overgrown with grasses of oblivion: it is hard to find a Russian who, at least once, would not have visited the Gallery which is situated in a quiet lane at Zamoskvorechye. By order of President of the Russian Federation the Gallery was officially recognized as one of the most significant establishments of national culture.
   Like every museum the State Tretyakov Gallery posseses a collection that is an integral whole united by an original conception. The loss of even one work, not to mention part of the collection, may result in irretrievable losses for the museum as well as for the whole of Russia's Museum Fund, reflecting the multinational culture of this country.
   The collection of the Tretyakov Gallery was preserved and saved in the turbulent years of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), during the turmoil of the Civil War and the dramatic 1930s with the earnest efforts of the government as well as of the Gallery's staff, dedicated to their work. The beginning of the war between Germany and the USSR in June, 1941, and the fast penetration of the Nazi troops deep into the country set the government and the museum staff the immediate task to save the collection. They urgently began to pack the works of art. The precious brittle cargo was sent beyond the Urals by two trains.
   In the end of May, 1945, the Tretyakov Gallery opened its doors again with usual hospitality. Yet, not all of the works survived in the ordeals of the war of 1941-1945, part of the collection has disappeared. That is how it happened: during the period from 1930 to 1937, by order of the Committee on Arts the Gallery had to hand over in temporary use its thirty eight works to the Embassies of the USSR in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. The paintings, most of them dating from the 18th, 19th and early 20th century were meant to decorate the interiors of the Embassies. The practice of decorating interiors of state offices with museum exhibits is wrong and vicious but the staff members of the Museum can hardly be blamed for doing so during the terrible 1930s when disobedience might have threatened death.
   Immediately on the return from the evacuation the Gallery started the search for all that had been lost. When the Gallery inquired about the destiny of the pictures that had been previously handed over, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR reported that in 1945 they did not discover any works of art in the former embassies of the USSR abroad, the works of art should be considered as captured during the Nazi occupation or as destroyed in the course of military operations. This answer makes it obvious that they did not make any attempts to search for the lost works of art at that time. According to the order of the Committee on Arts at the Soviet of Ministers of the USSR the thirty eight paintings have been written off the state inventory and excluded from the Gallery's collection.
   Thus, the Gallery has been forever deprived of its inimitable originals, such as Blind Beggars at the Market in Malorossia by V. Makovsky, Winter Evening and Rye Stacks by N. Dubovskoi, and Pines above the Precipice by I. Shishkin - all of them bought by Pavel Tretyakov. These pictures once made part of the 'gold reserves' of the Gallery as well as a rare 18th-century piece The House of Pashkov in Moscow. At the same time the famous series of works by L. Borisov made at the Samoyed settlements in the North of the country and later bought by Pavel Tretyakov as an entire collection, is now incomplete. Nevertheless, as is generally known, "manuscripts never perish in flames". There are numerous examples in the world museum practice when works of art the whereabouts of which remained unknown for decades, could suddenly come to light in the most inexplicable and mysterious way. Perhaps our paintings do survive and await their opportune moment to get returned to their home, to the good old mansion of Pavel Tretyakov.

Chief Curator of the State Tretyakov Gallery
L. Romashkova