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Renowned Russian Collectors

Our camera crew was offered an exclusive opportunity to film rare private art collections. We were allowed inside secret vaults full of antique silver, furniture, glass and paintings. Nowadays many of these treasures are sold at Sotheby's auction in London or exhibited in State Museums. We recorded interviews with people who started collecting antiques during the Stalin’s Regime; some collectors were blacklisted and imprisoned that time.

Valery Dudakov is famous for his Russia avant-garde collection; nowadays he is a consultant to many of the world's major auction houses. Valery says: “I was a friend to the daughter of Kazimir Malevich. She possessed several paintings of her father. Once I had a car accident. Unexpectedly, as a sign of support, Una Kazimirovna decided to sell me a famous painting of Kazimir Malevich known as Three Female Figures in the Field. I was invited to Malevich’ family country house where this work of art was given to me”. Dudakov’ apartment in St. Petersburg looks like an exhibition hall with works of acknowledged artists on each wall.

We filmed Fyodor and Yekaterina Lemkul possessing a unique collection of glass. They say: “We moved to St. Petersburg 1949 and soon after we bough a vase with royal emblem on it. It turned out that it was an Imperial sign of the Russian Queen Elizabeth. And that is how we started collecting glass.”

Two brothers Iakov and Iosif Rzhevski collected Russian art and furniture of the late 18th- early 20th centuries the whole lives. While filming in 1996 their private apartment was furnished with antique furniture of different styles, including estate pieces created by self-craftsmen. Recently they donated more then 500 exhibits to the Russian State Museum. Brothers say: “We were spending all of our money buying those things. Furniture is our obsession. We were interested in antiques dated back to the times of Impress Catherine the Great, tsar Pavel and Alexander the First. Some of the rarity was even found on a scrap-yard and restored… There were times when we were treated as speculators; government officials provoked us in order to confiscate our collection.”

Valentina M. Golod collection is unique even for St.Petersburg. From furniture to mirrors, from paintings to miniatures, from sculptures to elegant little statues with precious stones, to snuff boxes – all this and more is assembled inside an old apartment in St.Petersburg, recreating the atmosphere of the life of the aristocracy of the last century. Part of the collection was left to Valentina by her parents, while she herself bought many objects, even in the 1930’s and 40’s. Through long research, exchanging one piece for another, and complex restorations, over the years the collection has acquired a harmonious style and an enormous artistic value, so much so that the house where these treasures are kept is called “Little palace”. Recently she left her collection to Hermitage and Pavlovsk’s palace museum.

P.S. More then 4 hours of footage on the topic contains numerous interviews and outstanding close up views of rarity. It could be assembled into a documentary according to your channel preferences.