mikeky
02-05-2004, 01:16 PM
This seemed like a nice <a href="Fabergé Collection Bought by Russian for a Return Home">story</a>:
A Russian billionaire has bought the entire Fabergé collection owned by the family of Malcolm Forbes and is taking it back to Russia.
Just two months before the nine imperial Easter eggs, along with some 180 other pieces, were to be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York, Victor Vekselberg, one of a new generation of Russian industrialists, bought what he called "perhaps the most significant example of our cultural heritage outside Russia," according to a statement released by the auction house yesterday.
The works are a legacy of czarist Russia that was scorned by the Bolsheviks and sold to the West for currency to support the new regime. Now Russia's newly monied class is proudly bringing these trophies of the aristocracy back home. Mr. Vekselberg, 46, intends to put the eggs on public view, his spokesman said.
Seems good that the collection is going home.
But it did make me wonder, of the millionaires/billionaires in the former SU like Mr. Vekselberg, are most self-made because of good business foresight, etc., since the collapse, or did they use previous government connections to position themselves in critical industries after the fall?
A Russian billionaire has bought the entire Fabergé collection owned by the family of Malcolm Forbes and is taking it back to Russia.
Just two months before the nine imperial Easter eggs, along with some 180 other pieces, were to be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York, Victor Vekselberg, one of a new generation of Russian industrialists, bought what he called "perhaps the most significant example of our cultural heritage outside Russia," according to a statement released by the auction house yesterday.
The works are a legacy of czarist Russia that was scorned by the Bolsheviks and sold to the West for currency to support the new regime. Now Russia's newly monied class is proudly bringing these trophies of the aristocracy back home. Mr. Vekselberg, 46, intends to put the eggs on public view, his spokesman said.
Seems good that the collection is going home.
But it did make me wonder, of the millionaires/billionaires in the former SU like Mr. Vekselberg, are most self-made because of good business foresight, etc., since the collapse, or did they use previous government connections to position themselves in critical industries after the fall?