Coffee and red wine.
Coffee and red wine are not decorative effects. They are Lisbon materials: domestic, bodily, temporary, and capable of turning paper into something aged, stained, and lived-in.
Oirat-Mongolian painter and sculptor in Lisbon
Rouslam Botiev ink, coffee, red wine.
Rouslam Botiev is an Oirat-Mongolian painter and sculptor based in Alfama, Lisbon, working across ink, watercolor, coffee, red wine, and Mongolian script.
Born in 1963, Botiev has lived and worked in Lisbon since 2002. His atelier is on Travessa de São João da Praça, near the old streets of Fado.
Featured works
Drawn between Mongolian memory and Alfama.
These works show Botiev’s world in a few gestures: Alfama streets, Oirat-Mongolian memory, fast ink lines, and the warm stains of coffee and red wine.
Alfama in a fast black line.
In these works, Lisbon is not only a subject. It becomes movement: steep streets, tiled façades, Fado shadows, and figures caught quickly by the hand.
Faces held close to the hand.
Botiev’s portraits feel immediate because the drawing never disappears. The ink, stain, and color keep the face close to the first gesture.
Practice
Coffee, wine, script, and memory on paper.
Botiev’s practice carries several lives at once: Soviet-era training, Oirat-Mongolian language and script, years of teaching, and the everyday materials of Lisbon.
Script as image.
His background in philology appears through Old Mongolian script, where writing becomes gesture, signature, and visual rhythm.
Pessoa and the self.
Portuguese literary figures, especially Fernando Pessoa, open a space for portraits of fractured identity, memory, and displacement.
City and monument.
Lisbon streets, Catholic monuments, animals, and public works are filtered through a fast line shaped by academic training and calligraphic movement.
Gallery
A working archive from the Alfama atelier.
This preview gathers the main threads of Botiev’s work: public murals, coffee-and-wine paintings, Lisbon views, Pessoa, figures, animals, and Mongolian script.
Atelier in Alfama
An Alfama atelier with the memory of an old pharmacy.
His working atelier on Travessa de São João da Praça carries the memory of the old Farmácia Nacional, now filled with drawings, paper, coffee, wine, and conversation.
The door stays close to the street. Visitors encounter quick portraits, names written in Mongolian script, coffee and wine entering the painting, and the work seen close to the hand that makes it.
Ink
Figure, horse, portrait, movement.
Coffee
Warmth, shadow, aged paper.
Wine
Stain, ritual, deep red.
Biography
From early training to the streets of Alfama.
Botiev's life joins philology, Soviet-era art training, sculpture, teaching, Oirat-Mongolian heritage, and more than two decades of work in Lisbon.
Birth
Rouslam Botiev was born on May 5, 1963. He is Oirat-Mongolian.
Philology
He completed a Bachelor of Arts in philology, grounding his visual practice in language, script, and cultural memory.
Sculpture and painting
He studied sculpture and painting with the master Stepan Botiev, building the disciplined draftsmanship that remains visible in his fast portraits and architectural works.
University training
He continued advanced practice connected to the Universities of Rostov and St. Petersburg.
Lisbon
He moved to Lisbon in 2002 and established his permanent atelier in Alfama, where Mongolian memory and Portuguese subjects meet. In Portugal, he has continued teaching sculpture and painting while developing his own body of work.
Exhibitions and commissions
From street display to institutional recognition.
Botiev's path in Portugal moves from informal public display in Lisbon to academic libraries, cultural centers, religious-history commissions, and institutional exhibition contexts.
Selected Exhibitions
- 2002 · Cascais, Jardim da Luz
The Jangar Warriors and Buddhism. Watercolor. - 2004 · Lisbon
Oriental Graphics. Indian ink. - 2004 · Murça
“Santa Maria Maior” — a watercolor offered to the parish at Christmas. - 2005 · Lisbon
Portugal, My Asian Gaze. Watercolor. - 2006 · Monte Estoril
Portugal and Trás-os-Montes. Watercolor. - 2006 · Évora, Monsaraz and Arraiolos
Portuguese culture of the Alentejo. Watercolor. - 2007 · Caneças
Woman in the World. Watercolor. - 2007 · Verdizela, Foros da Amora, Setúbal
Cultural landscape. Watercolor. - 2008 · Lisbon
The Art of the Nomadic Peoples of Mongolia. Watercolor. - 2009 · Tomar, Murça, Valpaços, Sobredo, Boticas, Alijó, Douro, Noura, Jou and Vila Real
Portuguese culture — the Knights Templar of Tomar and the villages of Trás-os-Montes and the Douro. Watercolor. - 2009 · Carcavelos, Abóboda, Estoril and Cascais
The Atlantic and the life of its people. Watercolor. - 2010 · Library of the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
Man, Cosmos and Myths. Indian ink. Presented by Professor Vítor Serrão. - 2010 · Largo do Carmo, Lisbon (group show)
Mongolia. Indian ink. - 2010 · Évora
Watercolors on religious orders in Portugal. - 2010 · Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Religious Orders and Congregations in Portugal — a commissioned watercolor series (2–4 November 2010). - 2010 · Porto, Braga and Guimarães
Watercolors on the history and culture of northern Portugal. - 2011 · Cuba, Alentejo
Regional exhibition in the Alentejo. - 2011 · Library of the Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
In the Time of Fialho de Almeida. - 2012
Approaches to Saint Anthony — “Aproximações a Santo António.” - 2014 · Pinhel
Approaches to Saint Anthony — “Pinhel and the World.” - 2014 · Macedo de Cavaleiros, Chaves, Torre de Moncorvo and Bragança
Portuguese culture of Trás-os-Montes. Watercolor. - 2015 · Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
The Art of Being Portuguese — Teixeira de Pascoaes. - 2015 · Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
Approaches to Orpheu. Presented by the writer Miguel Real. - 2020 · Cacém
Doctors Without Borders. Watercolor.
Exhibitions in Alfama
- An ongoing series of ink portraits at the artist’s atelier in Alfama — Orientalists, Mongolists and Africanists.
- 2023 · Alfama, Lisbon
Nikolai Gumilyov — poet of the Silver Age, founder of Acmeism (1886–1921). Ink portraits. - 2024 · Alfama, Lisbon
Władysław Kotwicz — Polish-Russian Orientalist and Mongolist (1872–1944). Ink portraits. - 2025 · Alfama, Lisbon
Boris Vladimirtsov — Mongolist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1884–1931). Ink portraits. - 2026 · Alfama, Lisbon
Aleksei Pozdneev — Mongolist, first director of the Oriental Institute (1851–1920). Ink portraits.
Around the World
- 2013 · Geneva
Gallery Tox & Co. - 2014 · Geneva
“À l’envers du décor” — watercolors of Lisbon and Alfama. - 2022 · Brazil
Amazônia — “Amazonias.”
Themes, Series & Projects
- The Great Steppe.
- The Great Silk Road.
- The Nomadic Civilization of the Great Steppe.
- Buddhist Temples.
- Mysteries of the Ages.
- Bumbin Oron — The Land of Bumba.
- Khlebnikov’s Field.
- Poetry, Music and Art.
- The Nomad’s Cosmos.
- Alfama and Fado.
- Africa — the Mandinka and Fula peoples.
- Father António de Andrade — Jesuit journeys to Tibet.
- Scythians, Sarmatians, Sauromatians and Khazars.
- Siberia and the Altai.
- Palácio da Independência, Lisbon
Approaches to Fernando Pessoa, Cervantes and Shakespeare. - Museu da República, Lisbon
The Diplomatic Bazaar — Lisbon Congress Centre. - Teatro Baraca
The Girl Who Won — “Malala.” - Calçada Portuguesa
Ornament across cultures — Greek, Portuguese and Mongol motifs.
Literary Portraits & Tributes
- 2015 · Persian poets
Ferdowsi, Nezami, Navai, Khayyam and Attar. - 2016 · Russian writers
Tolstoy, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Akhmatova and Khlebnikov. - 2017 · Portuguese & Lusophone
Fernando Pessoa (Ode Triunfal, Mar Português), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, Urbano Tavares Rodrigues and Dorival Caymmi. - 2018 · Steppe epic
Jangar and the hero Hongor. - 2019 · Greek epic
Homer — The Odyssey.
Sculpture and Commissioned Work
- Portugal religious orders
A commissioned series of 20 watercolors on Catholic orders, monuments, and historical memory. - 2002 · Murça, private garden
The Sow with Raised Head. - 2003 · Murça, Parish Church
Our Lady. - 2003 · Murça, private garden
The Ram.
Books and covers
Paintings that became book and journal covers.
Beyond the atelier walls, Botiev’s paintings have been chosen to carry the covers of Portuguese books, catalogues, and literary journals — his ink, coffee, and watercolor work meeting the printed page.
Portugal Católico
Teixeira de Pascoaes
A Arte de Ser Português
Lisboête
Justine Dupont
O Esplendor da Austeridade
Dar à Língua
Coelacanto
Letras ComVida
For the literary review Letras ComVida, Botiev’s paintings have returned across many issues — a recurring cover signature for the journal’s essays on literature, politics, and Portuguese culture.
Visit
Visit Botiev’s atelier in Alfama.
Tv. de São João da Praça 57
1100-316 Lisboa
Current nearby location
Visual reference for the relocated atelier entrance, a few meters from the former pharmacy space.
Moved a few meters. The atelier that used to be in the former Farmácia Nacional is now at this nearby location. If you visited the old shop before, use this address and map.
Neighborhood
Alfama, near Clube de Fado.
Works
Paper, ink, coffee, red wine, portraits, mythic figures, and monument studies.
Atelier
His working space on Travessa de São João da Praça carries the memory of the old Farmácia Nacional, now filled with drawings, paper, coffee, wine, and conversation.