Russian museums display Romanov jewels

MOSCOW, April 19 (UPI) -- The Forbes' Faberge collection, purchased by Russian oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, will go on display at the Kremlin Museum next month.

Vekselberg has said he intends to donate the hoard of precious objects, created by Russian imperial court jeweler Peter Carl Faberge, to a Russian museum, but he has yet to announce which one.

He purchased the collection for a reported $100 million from the estate of publisher Malcolm Forbes. The Kremlin Museum announced this week that after the exhibit in Moscow, the jewels will go on a national tour.

There was also word of the loan to another Russian museum of an imperial diadem through the good offices of another Russian businessman, Artem Tarasov, who fled to England twice in the past 15 years to avoid criminal charges connected with his business activities.

Tarasov convinced the English owner of the elaborate Russian-wrought diamond tiara, made in 1890 for Grand Duke Michael for his bride, a grand daughter of poet Alexander Pushkin, to put the diadem on view at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg before offering it on the open market to a local buyer.

Tarasov has said he hopes the purchaser will loan the tiara, which he values at $5 million, to the museum on a permanent basis.