Writing his memoir of Moscow life, singer Feodor Chaliapin remembered the mujik – peasant – who sets out “to make a fortune selling honeyed tea in the Khitrovo bazaar”. Watching “on the sly and from every angle, the life swirling round him, he finds himself spending the night among vagrants, freezing cold, and going hungry. But ... he does not groan ... and before long he’s got himself a shop or a small factory. After that he becomes a leading merchant. A bit later his eldest son is buying Gauguins, becomes the first to want Picassos, the first to bring Matisse to Moscow. We the educated look at one another and go on sneering: little uncouth tyrant! Still, he and his kind have gathered up marvellous artistic treasures ... ”