After leaving America, the Roerichs settled at Naggar in the Kullu Valley from which their estate looked towards the Himalayas. Here they established the Urusvati Institute which remains in Naggar with an exhibition about the pact. Nicholas Roerich died on 13 December 1947. An idea about the protection of cultural monuments was formulated for the first time by Nicholas Roerich in 1899. During his excavations at Saint-Petersburg province, Roerich began to point to the necessity of protection of cultural monuments, which reproduce a world-view of ancient people for us. In 1903, Roerich together with his wife Helena Ivanovna Roerich toured through forty ancient Russian cities, including Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir, Suzdal, Yuriev-Polsky, Smolensk, Vilnius, Izborsk and Pskov. In 1904, proceeding the expedition, Nicholas Roerich has visited Uglich, Kalyazin, Kashin and Tver. During these travels Roerich created a large series of architectural studies, created near 90 paintings of the visited sites. Later many Russian churches were destroyed and these paintings remain the only documenting images. Summarizing this trips, the painter admired the beauty of the ancient monuments. Roerich, expressing his feelings for the state of their protection, in his article "Along the old times" (1903): "Last summer I had an occasion to see many our true antique and little love to it". In 1904, Roerich gave a report to the Emperor's Russian Archeological Society about the sad state of historical monuments and the necessity to take prompt actions to protect them. During the Russo-Japanese war (1904–1905), Roerich expressed an idea about the necessity of a special treaty for the protection of institutions and cultural monuments. In the course of several years after his travel in 1903–1904, Roerich repeatedly pointed out the state of antique monuments. He wrote several articles dedicated to the poor state of the churches. In the article "Silent Pogroms" (1911) Roerich wrote about the unskillful restoration of St. John the Forerunner Church at Yaroslavl: "Who would defense a beautiful antique from mad pogroms? It is grievously when the antique dies. But it is more terrible when the antique remains disfigured, false, imitation ...". In 1914, Roerich appealed to the high command of the Imperial Russian Army, as well as the governments of the United States and France with an idea of conclusion of an international agreement aimed on the protection of cultural values during armed conflicts.