Russian billionaire Abramovich to spend $394 million on art project

2010-12-08 11:00:47 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOSCOW (BNO NEWS) -- Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich spent approximately $394 million on an island in St. Petersburg in order to build a contemporary art museum.

Abramovich bought the old buildings on New Holland island for about 12 billion rubles. The 300-year-old former military base which belonged to the Russian admiralty will be transformed into a modern museum that will include the billionaire's vast art collection.

The art project is overseeing by Abramovich's girlfriend Daria Zhukova. The plan involves transforming the 18th century warehouses into a cultural and commercial center and will include galleries and a museum.

The cultural an commercial center will also include offices, retail spaces, hotels and restaurants. It would offer Abramovich the opportunity to leave his legacy in a similar way as J. Paul Getty with his museum for his art works in Los Angeles.

Abramovich, the owner of English football club Chelsea, got involved in the art scene in 2008 after spending about $95 million in just 24 hours at two auctions in New York. He bought a painting by Lucien Freud for $26.7 million and then followed it up the next night with the $67 million purchase of Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976.

Zhukova, the billionaire's girlfriend for the last three years and mother of the youngest of his six children, is responsible for Abramovich's interest in art. Zhukova runs her own gallery, the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (GCCC) which is said to have been paid by her boyfriend.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2010-12-08

How about he spends $393 million on this art-project and give me $1 million to run a proper micro-finance/loan-bank here in Thailand?