Carl Fabergé, the creator of the invaluable egg of the Tsars, historically began in 1884 when Fabergé manufactured a Easter egg ordered by the Tsar Alexandre III for his beloved wife, the Tsarina Maria. The egg had been designed to point out the empress of its native land to him - an egg of an extreme refinement makes translucent enamel with oyster reflection with incrustations of money, gold, invaluable stones, etc. This egg became legendary and the Tsar named Fabergé imperial provider of jeweled ova; he was to thus create an egg at each year, symbolic of life and resurrection. Alexandre III liked to present one to his wife during 11 years after

With his death, the Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra perpetuated the tradition. The egg was to always contain a surprise which was held secret, even members of the family and this, until the Easter Day. When the Tsar, curious, asked Fabergé to reveal the secrecy or at least to give him an index, Fabergé answered irrevocably and each time: "Your majesty will be satisfied!".

Fabergé took as a starting point the iconography of Byzantine art. Other eggs were added to the collection and commemorated certain important dates like the crowning of the Tsar Nicholas II, the advent of the railroad as far as Siberia, and certain birthdays. Others reflect in scene the imperial yacht, the cathedral Uspensky, the Gatchina palate and, later, during the War, the eggs represented the red Cross and the soldiers. The collection comprises 56 imperial eggs.

Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and Yelena Gagarina, the director of the Kremlin Museum, said their institutions would be the most appropriate homes for the collection. The Kremlin Armory holds 10 Fabergé Easter eggs, the largest collection in the world. Russia's Culture Ministry had said in anticipation of the Sotheby's auction, which now will not occur, that the state could afford to purchase at most "one or two pieces" from the Forbes collection and that it hoped a rich businessman would step in. Last month, the Russian government lifted the 30 percent in taxes and duties that private collectors had to pay to bring artworks into Russia. The fees meant that almost all artworks purchased abroad by rich Russians were left in their London and Paris homes.

"We would really like to have the collection, although this question, unfortunately, does-n't depend on us," Gagarina, who is the daughter of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, told Ekho Moskvy radio on Thursday. But Vekselberg said the list of possible repositories should be left open. "There are options," he said, mentioning Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was blown up at Stalin's orders in 1931 and has been rebuilt in the past decade. "We have consulted with the Moscow Patriarchate."

Vekselberg's Siberian-Urals Aluminum company has major holdings in the Sverdlovk Oblast, of which Yekaterinburg is the capital. Forbes magazine estimates his fortune at $2.5 billion.


He said that the collection would be shown in regions across Russia where his companies operate. He is also the chairman of the Tyumen Oil Company, which merged last year with BP, a deal that Vekselberg said helped finance his acquisition of the Forbes collection.

Vekselberg has not been a target of the government campaign against oligarchs, which has landed the oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail. "Right now in Russia, capital is being accumulated at a huge rate, and there is a question of how to use private property," Vekselberg said. "It's not secret that the BP deal occurred and I as a shareholder got big financial resources." He denied, however, that the Fabergé purchase was any kind of effort to improve the image of oligarchs who have been accused of cashing out of Russia with deals like Roman Abramovich's purchase of the Chelsea soccer team last summer. Vekselberg said he has already "quietly" accumulated a private collection of 19th and 20th century Russian art. Of the Fabergé purchase he said, "I considered it my duty to do this," and said he was mulling over other acquisitions of Russian cultural treasures to bring back to Russia through the foundation he created to purchase the Forbes collection.