Andrei Ananov is the most famous contemporary jeweler in Russia. More than this, he is a social phenomenon, symbolizing our life in recent decades; he could almost be the hero of a work of fiction - his biography incorporates experience of theatrical direction and underground jewellery work, and in his character one can sense both the drive of a young capitalist and the confidence of New Russian affluence.

Sometimes people accuse him of imitating the work of Faberge. Fortunately, this is not the case. He is continuing not Faberge's distinctive elan, but the St. Petersburg style in art, which Faberge's traditions came to be a part of. The St. Petersburg style was born when the national styles of architects from various countries united to create the unique world of St. Petersburg architecture. Later, the St. Petersburg Silver Age became synonymous with a mixture of different historical styles, reflected in the fantastic play of enamel and diamonds decorating the exquisite jewellery of that period. This refined beauty, akin to decadent degeneration, was always close to the city, built on marshland by chance and force of will.

Today, this style is blossoming in the hands of Ananov and his master craftsmen, and acquiring new aspects without surrendering the heritage of its celebrated predecessors. New tendencies give a fresh, less orthodox and more purely decorative, quality to even traditional Easter eggs, unlike Faberge's famous Easter eggs of the turn of the century. Mosques, crescents and Arabic legends have appeared among egg themes. However, it is possible that this represents a return to a universal symbol of life, to a celebration of life itself.

Ananov's favourite architectural themes are currently buildings which have come to symbolize the 'Muscovite' spirit: the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and St. Petersburg's Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ (on Blood). I think that this is no stylistic betrayal, but rather an expansion of the style's limits, the conquest of new territory.

The fabulous creations of Ananov's workshop promise us countless aesthetic joys and just as many contentious discussions - to hotly debate the nature of beauty is also a part of the traditions of St. Petersburg, the city that gave Russia Ananov, the city this Master devotes his strength and talent to embellishing.

Mikhail Piotrovsky
DIRECTOR OF THE STSTE HERMITAGE,
CORRESPONDENT MEMBER OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
CORRESPONDENT MEMBER OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS

Her Majesty Elizabeth II in Mariinsky Palace.
A. Ananov presents the English Queen "A twig of blackberry"
Saint-Petersburg, 1994

The luxurious main staircase of a house on the coner of Vladimirsky and Stremiannaya, with traces of original plasterwork, empty spaces vacated by statues that once perched in the arched recesses, pockmarked marble windowsills, empty wine bottles, pressed-glass tumblers carefully hung on the radiator tap (a symbol of the common brotherhood of drinkers), a puddle of urine, retaining the irrepressible aroma of 'Agdam' reinforced wine, scraps of used newspaper, discarded wrappers, indecent graffiti on the walls, all this appeared to be part of the scenery of this horrific Soviet tragifarce.

On the second floor I felt for the smashed light-switch in the dark, and drew a final smile from the dusty electric light-bulb, slung from a length of wire protruding from the ceiling where a chandelier once hung. Now there was nothing left of the chandeliers but a hook on each staircase lobby, gloomily anticipating the logical destiny of the staircase regulars who kept their tumblers on the heating pipe.

Flickering for a moment, the light-bulb dimly illuminated a once luxurious carved wooden door, tortured by an endless confusion of bells, television cables and name-plates bearing exotic surnames. Like a crooked grin from the past, a brass plaque with a clearly legible inscription still cung to the door: 'Professor Shuster. Venerial Diseases'.

A. Ananov with his daughter Anna on the day of awarding to the Large European Medal
Genoa, 1992

My friend Yura, 'artist of the Imperial theatres', as he liked to call himself, occupied a room to the left of the entrance, formerly some sort of servants' room, or rather a dissector's office, long and dark like a blind gut.

On that day, as usual, he wanted to drink but, as usual, he had no money. And 1 was invited or, more precisely, summoned by telephone - just as one calls an ambulance - with a half-litre injection in my pocket.

God guided me up the filthy staircase, brought me to the communal flat and some time after the second glass directed my attention to the comer of Yura's long, poky room. There, in between an aquarium full of sickly goldfish and a home-made secretaire book ease with a portrait of its owner carved into the folding desktop, there stood a small, curious horne-made workbench, covered with tools.

-"Yura, what's that?"

Yura became embarrassed, and clammed up. I could see that he had not had enough time to clear away the tools and cover the bench, and now he had to 'spill the beans'.

"My father was a jeweller. He taught we when I was a kid - I even worked as an engraver. Now I just play around, making some rings, fixing a pair of earrings for someone at the theatre... but don't you tell anyone... you must know that this is illegal."

The first thing was that, naturally, I didn't know that. But the second thing was that we had run out of vodka and in those days we could down a fair amount. There was noone to borrow from: we were already in debt to everyone we knew.

"Yura, what's the problem! You're a jeweller! Let's make something quickly, say a ring, I'll help, twisting or polishing, and off we go!"

"I'm not in the mood now... and anyway, where can you sell it... I'm not sure about this..."

"Oh, come on! 'No guts, no glory!' as Comrade Beria used to say!"

We sat down side-by-side. I picked up a compli-cated jeweller's tool for the first time ever, cut a piece of real silver wire with a file, polished it on a hair wheel, ran to the "Moskva" restaurant around the corner, and soon reappeared with two bottles of vodka and a string of sausages.

Since then, twenty five years have passed.

The Introduction presents excerpts from Andrei Ananov's autobiography, 'Two Leading Aces'

The few jewellery lessons I was given on Stremiannaya Street were not wasted. Then, twenty five years ago, I was infected with this disease. Moving from theatre to theatre to produce stage performances, I always took a heavy suitcase of tools with me.

Madam Chirac, the wife of the President of France,
at the exhibition of Ananov's artworks
Paris, 1995

By the start of the eighties, I had become an experienced jeweller and worked at home, receiving private commissions. I was torn between my love for my work in the theatre and for my new hobby. After an evening rehearsal I would race home as fast as I could and then work without lifting my head, often all through the night, and then in the morning run back to the theatre..

In the autumn of eighty-one the KGB burst into my flat with a search warrant.

Strange as it may seem, this intrusion decided the course of my life. I made a choice: I left the theatre.

For seven years I worked with complete, unfailing and bloody-minded dedication; my goal was as grandiose as it was presumptuous. I decided to become the new Faberge, to weave back together threads ripped apart by the Bolshevik Revolution, that lead back through the depths of time, right from the great Russian jewellers Scharff and Pausier, Rappoport and Perkhin... I loved this style, perfect in the alluring brilliance of delicately mounted diamonds and mirror-like polished enamel, reminiscent of the bygone epoch of palaces and high society gatherings, smart, gentlemanly officers and ladies in elegant decollete gowns. I was seduced by the beautiful illusion of a once rich and influential world power.

Soon, my own two hands were not enough. Pupils appeared, and the fifteen square meter flat I was renting, and which housed my workbench, a lathe and the cot of my new-born daughter Aniuta, was often filled by the students I was training in the tricks of the trade that I had already mastered.

The company's best craftsman, Vladimir Ratushev, passed through that flat, as did the courageous Yura Babkov, who managed to turn himself from a cripple with burnt hands into a first-class jeweller, and many others...

I remember from childhood a wise tale of two frogs in a basement who fell into a pot of milk.

"Farewell, brother," said one, folding his legs and sinking down to the bottom.

"I will always have time to drown," thought the other, and floundered until, exhausted, he felt resistance and climbed out; the milk had turned into butter.

We floundered as much as we could, and churned the milk into butter. We became masters and then, suddenly, perestroika began. But this was just the beginning, light had only just appeared at the very end of the tunnel. I was yet to become the first Russian jeweler to receive official permission to make jeweler from gold and silver.

For a long time after perestroika had begun, the resilient Soviet system kept an iron grip on its concessions and privileges. One privilege was a state monopoly on precious metals, and the Precious Metals Committee was governed by strict instructions - 'No private operators!' And they did not let anyone in, holding us back in any way they could, with rulings and delays, bureaucracy and sabotage.

I cut through that knot. I took the risk. I brought a collection of unique pieces of jeweler, made with my own hands, to the Gokhran, and put them down on the desk of Precious Metals Committee Chairman Yevgeny Bychkov. The pieces all had just one hallmark - 'Ananov', and the absence of a hallmark from the State Assay Inspectorate was illegal.

"If you are a bureaucrat and only follow other people's rules, then pick up the phone and call the KGB," I said "But if you are a professional, and you are not indifferent to the fate of the art of jewellery in Russia, then help me to get permission to make these pieces."

Bychkov frowned, went red, and reached for his magnifying glass. Time passed slowly. Finally, he finished his inspection and picked up the telephone receiver. I froze.

Bychkov turned out to be a professional, and neither he nor his friend, the head of the Russian State Assay Inspectorate, Valentin Nikitin, were indifferent to the fate of the jeweller's art in Russia.

I was the first to be issued a license to produce works using gold. Mandate number one.

That was how the Soviet monopoly on precious metals collapsed, and it was I who destroyed it. Then others followed in my footsteps. It was easier for them; I had gone ahead and cleared the way.

Her Majesty the Queen of Spain Sofia at the exhibition of Ananov's artworks
Madrid, 1993

In fact, the world has plenty of good people: I managed, in spite of all lengthy proceedings, to register a small-business and to rent premises as a workshop. The people who gathered there were the first to trust me. Here are there names: Vladimir Ratushev, Vitaló Kharlamov, Victor Murov, Yury Babkov and then, later on, Vladimir Kovaliov, Viacheslav Leonov, Mikhail Navrotsky, Valery Linsky, Andrei Shevchenko, Vadim Gusev, and the unique mechanic Pavel Smolkin.

We sat side by side at our benches, nailed together with our own hands from old office desks found on the rubbish tip. We had no money, there were draughts all over the place and rats living under the floor. I fantasized aloud of the time when we would travel all around the world, showing our work at exhibitions, when we would be the first and the best. And we would live well, taking holidays abroad.

I have the knack of persuasion. I learnt this art in my work as a theatre director, and I made use of my skill in the workshop. Perhaps not immediately, but my colleagues began to trust me.

Only now can I admit that I was the last one to believe in this glorious dream. I convinced others, inspired optimism in people, and at the same time I did not believe it was possible to make my grandiose plans come true. But I never showed that, and 1 transferred my confidence onto the team.

And we did it.

Our relations were built on trust and respect, I never checked my craftsmens' pockets. I eliminat-ed the concept of 'waste' gold which inevitably leads to theft in jewellery workshops, because how-ever honestly a worker reports to his boss how much precious metal is used, a few grams always collect up over a period of months. And what is he expected to do with it? Hand it to the boss?.. I am no idealist. I know that the temptation is great, and that accumulated 'waste' gold eventually turns into bars or jewellery 'on the side' and 'leaks' out of the workshop. Now there was officially no longer any 'waste' in our workshop, and a craftsman worked with the metal he was given from the store until he had made it into the final product, and then he was given a new issue from the store.

In Grimaldi's Palace: Prince Albert examines carefully Ananov's work.
In the morning Monte Carlo will learn about the sensation - the Easter egg from Russia becomes the Main prize of the Red Cross Ball, having removed to the second position the diamond necklace made by firm Cartier. 1994

I created an atmosphere in the company, in which the main requirement is to love one's profession and to follow the canons of the old masters, who said: The face of your work, naturally, is beautiful. But this is not where a master's worth is to be found. You should look for it on the reverse side.

And the mastery of a jeweller can be judged by how precise and perfect a piece looks 'inside-out'.

And another thing. I have never deceived the people I work with. I have never hid from them my own bitter experience of many years of alcoholism, from, which I was saved by love for the jeweller's craft and for my daughter Aniuta, I have never withheld the prices at which I sold works to clients, I have never concealed my viewpoint on life, my opinions, or my ways. This holds both for day-to-day issues, and for the crucial moments in our nation's troubled history.

The workshop has now been in existence for ten years. New people have come to us one after another. The main criterion for recruitment was love for their chosen profession. Most of the jewellers who learnt the heights of mastery here were previously engineers, doctors, soldiers, but they were all united by one thing - in the kitchen, in their free time, they made things with their own hands.

Once in Monte Carlo I bought a Mercedes on money I had won at the roulette table. I took it as a revenge for the stud farm my grandfather had lost there, at Monte Carlo. And what about the art of jeweler, lost by Russia in 1917? I think that I won that back, too, by resurrecting the country's best jewellery traditions of years gone by. And this is my second revenge.

Had I followed the advice of my sailor friends, I could have become a professional sailor

I could have completed my university studies and become a qualified physicist.

With the education of theatre director, I could have put on shows or taught students at the Theatrical Institute.

Ultimately, I could have drowned myself in the bottle, committed suicide and vanished, just as many talented people of my generation vanished

But I was lucky, I survived. I found my path and managed to create a formula for immortality: a few grams of gold, a little enamel, a few diamonds, a little bit of one's soul and a dusting of inspiration. And on all this, the Russian hallmark "Ananov"