Ostensibly, there is no difference between Viatcheslav (Moshe) Kantor's luxurious villa located in the prestigious Geneva neighborhood and the rest of the homes located nearby. They too overlook the beautiful Geneva Lake and they too are surrounded by trees. Yet if you step into Kantor's villa, you'll quickly realize that you are on a different planet.
The expansive house is in fact a museum for great Jewish artists throughout history. It includes Marc Chagall, Grisha Bruskin, Valentine Serov, Haim Sutin, Sonia Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, Ossip Zadkine and Jack Lipshitz.
After the initial shock of seeing such a wealth of paintings and sculptures, Kantor goes on to explain how his life's work took shape just six years ago. At the time, he decided to collect the works of Jewish artists in order to prove that Jewish art in Europe survived the Holocaust and to assure that no further attempts would be made to blur the Jewish identity of artists, as in the dark past.
Kantor's collection, also known as the Museum of Avant-Garde Mastery, is spread across the continents. Works of art are on display throughout his homes in Geneva, Moscow and Hertzliya Pituach and comprise 220 paintings, statues ceramic works and photographs by Jewish artists of Russian descent. Today the collection is considered to be the largest of its type worldwide.
When asked about the value of the collection Kantor smiles and responds: "I really can’t say for sure." However, experts estimate the value of the collection at half a billion US dollars.
He intends to keep expanding his impressive collection. "All means in reaching my objective were kosher," he admits. "Via the collection I seek to prove that Jews possessed and still possess artistic skills in all areas and that they were even among the most prominent artists."
To support his argument, Kantor published an elegant album in Russian and English which among other things includes the biographies of all the Jewish artists of Russian origin alongside articles and hundreds of photographs of their works.
Does it sound like an oligarch's hobby? Kantor prefers that this word not be used to describe him. He stresses that he didn't come by his wealth in wake of the chaos that prevailed in Russia after the fall of the Soviet empire or by special ties with the Kremlin.
Kantor is a graduate of the Moscow Aviation University and has a doctorate in Technical Sciences. He also served as chairman of the board on two of Russia's large fertilizer plants Akron and Dorogobuzh, a position that earned him the title of Russia's "entrepreneur of the year."
Yet while his impressive collection has put his mind at rest regarding perpetuation of the artists' Jewish roots, he find it hard to remain optimistic in face of rampant assimilation and anti-Semitism.
"We must assure intensive education in order to develop a revolutionary attitude aimed at halting assimilation," he says. "Russian and Ukrainian leaders - countries where the level of anti-Semitism is even higher than in Western European and Scandinavia - are trying to fight it, however we should give them the tools to so efficiently and decisively."