It's rather off topic but it might explain why Russians are paying crazy money these days:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/co...1,6865553.story
Full Version: OT - where Russians are spending money on
wow sounds to me i need to move over there and start painting!!!
QUOTE
Yuri Tyukhtin, 39, a banker who also runs a gallery specializing in Soviet art, said such paintings were now trendy because "people feel nostalgia for the USSR."
"They forget everything that was bad, and people are homesick for the good things."
So, it's a longing for "the good old days"?
As Jim Morrison sang, "People are strange...".
No different than anywhere else where people were suddenly enrichened, and previously forbidden to own luxury items. I saw the same phenomenon in China last year. Some of the stores there had VERY expensive items.
"In a change from the early 1990s, when foreigners were buying much of the art, it is now Russians who are most willing to spend money, although Chinese dealers also have started coming to Moscow to buy works from that period, Shishkin said.
"Foreigners can't pay the money that Russians can pay," Shishkin said. Foreigners at auctions spend $100 to $2,000, whereas Russians often buy paintings in the $50,000-to-$70,000 range and beyond, he said.
The competitive fervor at auctions sometimes gets out of control, with bidders running the price well past what items are worth, Shishkin said.
"It's the Russian character," he explained. "We're talking about the Russian new rich. They don't want to give in. I had a case where the price skyrocketed from $1,000 to $50,000.""
Just substitute "coins" for "art" (some would argue, myself included, that Russian coins ARE art!)
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