"It was, said Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, the head of Marka:ff, a private foundation promoting Russian contemporary art, "a Russian Biennale"."

"But Fedor Pavlov-Andreevich, the head of Marka: FF, a foundation in Moscow that raises funds for arts projects, disagreed. "Contemporary art is not just a weird trend. It's fun for them," he said. He believes that Russian tycoons want to become the 21st-century equivalent of the 19th-century art patrons. "We' ve had nearly 100 years without such patronage. The Russians now want their names known through art. They want their children to become collectors and have respect from that."

"This collection as of today is larger and better than Tretyakov's was at the time he opened," Markin said at Art4.ru's opening late last month. The museum's offerings include installations by Ilya Kabakov; stark still-lifes by Dmitry Krasnopevstev; paintings by the Paris-based artist Erik Bulatov, who often mixes words and hyper-realistic images; and a painting depicting Andy Warhol and exotic animals in front of the Cathedral of Christ the Savor by Alexander Vinogradov and Vladimir Dubossarsky, a contemporary painting duo who are among Russia's most fashionable artists.

The opening night drew a hip, tanned nightclub-ready crowd - and pale, bearded, bohemian Soviet-era underground artists. It was the trendiest of a weeklong blitz of events on Moscow's growing commercial art scene, fueled by increasingly wealthy and fervent collectors, and it preceded an en masse departure for the Venice Biennale.

Fyodor Pavlov-Andreyevich, an arts promoter working with both Markin and Chigirinsky, speaking at Chigirinsky's news conference, said ST Development's new spaces could serve the function of a European Kunsthalle - an art space for temporary exhibitions - and could play host to touring international blockbuster exhibitions.