Russian President’s Photo Fetches $1.7M at Auction

ABC's Alexander Marquardt reports from Moscow: President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia’s passion for photography is well-known, many of his landscapes and vacation pictures are featured on the Kremlin’s website. Now, one will hang on a St. Petersburg office wall after selling for $1.7 million at a charity auction on Saturday. The hefty price tag paid by a former colleague of Medvedev’s topped the $1.2 million paid for a painting by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the same event last year. The black-and-white aerial photo taken from a helicopter is of the 18th century Tomolsk Kremlin in Siberia.  It was sold to a board member of the St. Petersburg-based Ilim Group where Medvedev worked in the 1990s as a legal director before moving to Moscow to join the government. “This photo has nothing to do with art, because photography is Medvedev’s hobby” Larisa Grinberg, director of the Photographer.ru gallery, told the Moscow Times. “Buying this photo was a political gesture.” The buyer, Mikhail Zingarevich, told Agence France-Presse that Medvedev’s photography “is very professional and really pleases me.” The auction raised over $2.7 million for World War II veterans, a children’s hospital and a rehab center. Politicians and celebrities are invited to submit paintings for the auction, last year Putin painted a frosted winter window frame titled “Uzor,” or “Pattern.” Putin did not participate this year.