The Life and Artistic Journey of Nikolay Koshelev Born to a peasant family of serfs, Nikolay Koshelev began his artistic path in the city of Arzamas. His early years were marked by a self-taught determination; after an unsuccessful apprenticeship to a decorative painter in Nizhni-Novgorod, he taught himself to paint while in the service of a local landowner. His talent eventually led him to the art school in Kazan, where he studied under an expatriate Italian artist named Botelli. This period of development, which included independent work on a monastery wall and an iconostasis, paved the way…