A billionaire couple from St. Petersburg has defied the challenging environment for private cultural institutions in Russia by opening a new museum in Moscow on December 2nd. The museum, called Zilart, showcases the extensive collection of Andrey and Yelizaveta Molchanov at a time when many Russian private museums are struggling to survive and some have been forced to close entirely.

Andrey Molchanov, 54, is the owner of St. Petersburg property developer LSR and served as a member of the Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament, from 2008 to 2013. According to the museum's press office, their collection encompasses Russian avant-garde art, Soviet nonconformist works, Russian and international contemporary art, as well as masterpieces of Russian and international photography. The collection also includes furniture in the Russian style from the early 20th century, decorative and applied arts, and many other artistic areas.

Among the notable artists represented in the collection are Vik Muniz, Tony Matelli, Helmut Newton, Mike Kelley, Stephan Balkenhol, and Ron Arad. The Molchanovs also possess more than 1,000 works of African art, ranging from bronze and terracotta sculptures from Nigeria and the Kingdom of Benin to kifwebe masks of the Songye and Luba peoples of the Congo River basin. This impressive African art collection was purchased from Mikhail Zvyagin, a New York-based artist who was born in St. Petersburg.

The opening comes at a particularly difficult time for Russia's cultural sector. As President Vladimir Putin has tightened his grip on power and suppressed artistic freedoms, the country's private museums have increasingly been forced to operate with extreme caution. Any hint of dissent can lead to security raids and harassment from authorities. The situation has become so challenging that wealthy owners of several museums have fled the country, along with many high-profile curators. International sanctions have made collaborations with Western museums impossible.

Despite these challenges, Zilart launches with notable connections to the Russian state. Andrey Molchanov's profile in the Russian Forbes list of billionaires, which estimates his net worth at $1.3 billion, notes that his stepfather, Yuri Molchanov, worked alongside Putin at St. Petersburg State University. The museum's art adviser is Alexander Borovsky, who serves as the head of contemporary art at the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.

According to Zilart's press office, the museum operates as a completely private institution, funded entirely by LSR Group without any financial support from the City of Moscow or the Russian state. Molchanov has stated that while collaborations with other Russian museums are under consideration, the museum's own collection currently numbers around 10,000 works, providing sufficient material for at least the next ten exhibitions.

The establishment of Zilart has not been without complications and setbacks. Originally conceived in 2015 as a modern art outpost of the prestigious State Hermitage Museum, the project's first design was created by New York architect Hani Rashid and drew inspiration from the work of El Lissitzky. However, Rashid was abruptly removed from the project in 2021 and replaced by Russian-born German architect Sergei Tchoban.

Tchoban, who emigrated to Germany in the 1990s, established his Moscow firm, Speech, with Sergey Kuznetsov. Since 2012, Kuznetsov has served as the chief architect and first deputy chairman of the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning of Moscow. Rashid has expressed dissatisfaction with the changes, telling reporters that the museum's current design is "a significantly diluted and distorted version of the original proposal." However, Zilart's press office maintains that Tchoban created an entirely new design.

The Hermitage Museum is no longer involved in the project as of 2023. Dimitri Ozerkov, who was previously in charge of contemporary art at the Hermitage and oversaw plans for the new Moscow branch, left Russia in 2022 in protest of the invasion of Ukraine. As circumstances evolved, the museum's press office explains, "we realized that we had the vision and resources to create a museum independently." Irina Tolpina, who previously managed Manege, an exhibition space near the Kremlin, serves as Zilart's founding director.

The museum's final design, created by Sergei Tchoban, features a striking cube of glass intersected by tilted copper beams. The building is constructed on what was formerly the site of the massive 400-hectare Soviet ZiL car factory. The location is now part of a residential complex developed by LSR, featuring streets named after avant-garde artists including Wassily Kandinsky, El Lissitzky, and Alexander Rodchenko.

In September, a sculpture from the Dump Truck series by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye was installed in front of Zilart, launching the museum's public art program. The Molchanovs acquired this piece approximately ten years ago. The surrounding neighborhood is promoted as an urban renewal achievement on City of Moscow websites, and analysts suggest that Moscow's infrastructure and digital transformation, led by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, has helped to mute protests against government repression and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Architectural historian Anna Bronovitskaya explains that an initial 2011 proposal by Yury Grigoryan of the Moscow architecture studio Meganom envisioned revamping the ZiL factory district while partially preserving its once-imposing 1920s-30s industrial architecture and workers' housing. However, this vision was never realized because the cost of cleaning chemical contamination from the buildings was considered prohibitively expensive, leading to their demolition instead.

The masterplan that was ultimately adopted, also proposed by Grigoryan, aims to create a modern city within a city. Bronovitskaya describes this as "a vast and ambitious project—a completely new residential district on a former industrial site—that was marketed to higher-income families." To compensate for its less central location, the development was branded as Zilart, implying the presence of high-quality public art, architecture with artistic value designed by leading Russian and international firms, and an art museum—a promise that is now being fulfilled with the opening of the Molchanovs' cultural institution.