In the first years of the 20th century, citizens of the Russian capital of St. Petersburg embraced mysticism and exotic Orientalism as a stay against the ferment of the coming revolution and the shock of Japan's Pacific victory over the Czar's navy. (Japan having proved all too efficiently "western" in that encounter.) Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) budding archeologist, historic preservationist, ethnographer and set designer for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes, was one of many Petersburg intellectuals to attach himself to the visiting Buriyat Lama, Dorzhiev, and to adopt the occult beliefs of Theosophy.