Klim Rogov is a foreign journalist, and when Russia has a Bolshevik coup in 1917, he has a chance to leave the country and escape the violence of the civil war. He tries to take Nina, his fiancée, with him, but precious time is lost. Klim decides to stay with her and protect her while he still can.

Sixteen scholars from Russia, Vienna, and the United States explore the fate of Russian art collections and libraries following the Russian Revolution in 1917, the institutions and individuals responsible for their sale, and the prominent collectors, libraries, and museums that acquired them. Unlike the widely publicized controversy surrounding Soviet-Nazi war loot and its restitution, the sales of the interwar period are not well known outside a small scholarly community. This volume reveals the extent of the Soviet government's voluntary ?realization? of Russia's cultural patrimony between 1918 and 1938 and its consequences for both the international art market and the perception of Russian art. The imperial Easter eggs by Fabergé and Old-Master paintings purchased by Andrew Mellon from the State Hermitage and now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. are the most celebrated works that changed hands. Equally significant are the bibliographic rarities from imperial libraries, icons and liturgical art from churches and monasteries, and antiques, furnishings and fine art from estates, palaces, and private homes. See the review in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/ggantiques/list.html

Selling Russia's Treasures documents one of the great cultural dramas of the twentieth century: the sale, by a cash-hungry Soviet government, of the artistic treasures accumulated by the Russian aristocracy over the centuries and nationalized after the October 1917 revolution. An astonishing variety of objects, from icons and illuminated manuscripts to Fabergé eggs and Old Master paintings, entered the collections of wealthy Westerners like Andrew Mellon and Armand Hammer in the 1920s and 30s. Written by the leading experts in the field and long regarded as the definitive book on the subject, the original Russian edition of Selling Russia's Treasures is sought after scholars and laymen alike. Now, for the first time, it is made available in English, in a revised and expanded edition that includes a new chapter on the secret files of the Hermitage, previously considered lost, as well as new research on the sale of religious art, and of twentieth-century French masterworks from the Museum of New Western Art. Numerous color plates reunite long-dispersed works in a virtual museum that illustrates the powerful blow inflicted on Russia's cultural heritage by these secretive sales, and rare photographs and archival documents help bring this buried history to light.

Published to accompany the exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

A rare look at the exquisite world of Russian treasures that lies beyond Fabergé. Imperial Russia evokes images of a vanished courts unparalleled splendor: magnificent tiaras, gem-encrusted necklaces, snuff boxes and other diamond-studded baubles of the tsars and tsarinas. During that time, jewelry symbolized power and wealth, and no one knew this better than the Romanovs. The era marked the high point of the Russian jewelers' art. Beginning with Catherine I's reign in 1725, in the century when women ruled Russia, until the Russian Revolution of 1917, the imperial capital's goldsmiths perfected their craft, and soon the quality of Russias jewelry equaled, if not surpassed, the best that Europes capitals could offer. Who created these jewels that helped make the Russian Court the richest in Europe? Hint: it wasn't Carl Fabergé. This is the first systematic survey in any language of all the leading jewelers and silver masters of Imperial Russia. The authors skillfully unfold for us the lives, histories, creations, and makers marks of the artisans whose jewels and silver masterworks bedazzled the tsars. The previously unheralded names include Pauzié, Bolin, Hahn, Koechli, Seftigen, Marshak, Morozov, Nicholls & Plincke, Grachev, Sazikov, and many others. The market for these exquisite masterworks is also explored, from its beginnings to today's auction world and collector demand. More than 600 stunning photos reacquaint the world with the master artisans and their creations.