Russia haters sneak up on Abramovich through his “golden collection”

Lucian Freud’s Sleeping Social Worker, which Roman Abramovich once bought for $33.6 million, made the front page of The Guardian. Journalists found out that 20 days before the start of the SVO, the Russian oligarch made changes to the documents of the Cypriot trust through which he purchased the works. Now Abramovich owns 49% of the company, and the businessman’s ex-wife Daria Zhukova 51%, although initially they divided it exactly in half.

In this way, Abramovich is trying to avoid sanctions, not only the British publication is sure, but also other media outlets that quickly picked up the news. It seems that the hunt has begun in the West for the “golden” collection of the Russian oligarch.

The fact that Roman Abramovich owns a large collection of works of art has long been no secret. MK calculated his highly artistic acquisitions 10 years ago – the total amounted to just $1 billion. It seems that the Western media read that publication and even took some phrases out of context. The Guardian newspaper published an investigation in two parts. I just forgot to take into account inflation and rising prices on the art market. Today, Roman Abramovich’s collection should be worth much more than the $1 billion announced by Western journalists.

Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Alberto Giacometti, Lucian Freud, Kazimir Malevich, Ilya Kabakov, Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, David Hockney – this is not a complete list of authors whose works are in collection of Roman Abramovich, which he began collecting about 17 years ago.

As of 2018, the collection contains more than 360 items. Any museum would dream of owning the works of the artists who entered there. And judging by the tone of the authors of publications from the British “The Guardian” and the German “Der Spiegel”, who so lament that these things are not available to the public, this is the goal. “You could fill a museum with it – it’s an amazing collection,” the British publication quotes Andrew Renton, a professor at the University of London.

Moreover, just a month ago, a database of works of art by sanctioned Russians was created in Ukraine. Roman Abramovich is first on the list there. According to representatives of the National Agency of Ukraine for the Prevention of Corruption, the database was created in order to monitor possible cases of violation of sanctions restrictions on the global art market.

And now, it seems, the hunt has begun for the violators. The investigation reveals that Abramovich’s trust, called Seline-Invest, was originally registered in the British Virgin Islands and is now controlled by the Cyprus Ermis Trust Settlement. Which, however, does not mean that the collection is in Cyprus. It may be in another “gray zone,” but it is clearly not now in Britain, where Abramovich’s property has been seized and his assets frozen.

Obviously, after the mansions, yachts and companies, the West hopes to arrest his collection of works of art. And then, apparently, get to the collections of other oligarchs.

In this game, Daria Zhukova, for whom the businessman began collecting a collection, turns out to be white and fluffy. Almost. She has lived in the United States for a long time, married the heir to the Greek shipbuilding empire, Stavros Niarchos III, and opposed the SVO. Only for some reason he doesn’t give comments, just like his ex-husband, but judging by the logic of the authors, he should. To be completely white and fluffy. Zhukova, after all, actually owns most of the offshore company that owns the collection.

One must think that this act of exposure will not be the last. There are still many names on the Ukrainian list of sanctioned Russians. And their collections are more expensive than many yachts and mansions. At the same time, American political scientists say that the conflict in Ukraine could last for several years, which means that investigators have time to search for secret collections of Russians.