The subject of the gathering was not art, but money: specifically, how to sell multimillion-dollar properties to clients from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe.
While the brokers sipped wine and nibbled cheese, a panel of lawyers and a banker reviewed some of the biggest sales made to Russians, including the $188 million spent on properties inFlorida and New York by trusts linked to Dmitry Rybolovlev, who made billions from potash fertilizer; the $48 million that a composer, Igor Krutoy, paid for an apartment at the Plaza Hotel; and the $37 million spent by Andrei Vavilov, a former deputy finance minister, on a penthouse at the Time Warner Center.
The real estate market in the United States may still be slumping, but its high end is enjoying a remarkable updraft, propelled by money flowing in from all corners of the globe, including from developing countries like Brazil, China and India. But no group is consistently writing bigger checks than the Russians
