PROFILE DARIA ZHUKOVA:She knows little about art, but with help from her boyfriend Roman Abramovich, the former model from Russia has seduced the art world
FOR A YOUNG woman accustomed to travelling by private jet and luxury yacht, finding oneself in an abandoned bus depot in a Moscow suburb could be a somewhat lowering experience.
But not, perhaps, if you have just turned the cavernous garage into the most talked-about new gallery in the world, filled it with some of the most famous names in the world of art, and lavished them with French champagne and fine food flown in from London.
Such was the scene in June, when Daria Zhukova invited 300 guests for an exclusive peek at her Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, which opened officially this week.
The 27-year-old Russian heiress was radiant as she clinked glasses with new friends such as artist Jeff Koons, designer Marc Newson and gallery owner Larry Gagosian, and watched Amy Winehouse perform for a reported fee of £1 million.
The event was a feast for the senses. As well as the exquisite food and copious drink, the ebb and flow of famous faces and tunes from the diva du jour, the hostess unveiled a pulsating, cascading light installation by Mexican artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.
But eyes kept returning to Zhukova, in a simple black dress and a hint of make-up, and the man smiling quietly on her arm. He was the money behind the party, and the entire Garage project: the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, Roman Abramovich.
Since meeting Abramovich, a twice-divorced father of five believed to be worth around €16 billion, Zhukova's spending power has increased considerably, but she is not a girl for whom wealth is a novelty.
Her father is another London-based billionaire, oil magnate Alexander Zhukov, and her mother, Elena, is a molecular biologist who took Daria to the United States when the marriage collapsed in the early 1990s.
Pitched into a US school classroom without knowing a word of English, Zhukova adapted quickly to life in Houston and then Los Angeles, where she acquired her West Coast accent and went on to study pre-med courses at the University of California.
Any prospect of following her mother into a career in science was dashed however, when - out of frustration at the lack of simple, stylish, logo-free jeans in the shops - Zhukova and schoolfriend Christina Tang decided to make their own.
Their brand, Kova and T, was born in 1995, and has expanded into a range of "casual luxury" clothing that is now sold in dozens of stores across the US and around the world, and is beloved of the likes Kate Moss and Drew Barrymore.
Kova and T's profile has grown with that of Zhukova, who is now an established "face" on the London social scene, partying with pop stars, television presenters and full-time socialites.
Zhukova also sponsored this year's prestigious summer party at Serpentine Gallery, where Damien Hirst and Frank Gehry were among the guests for an event which she said would help forge a long-term relationship between the London gallery and the Garage.
All this socialising must be wearing for Abramovich, a man who claims to crave privacy and professes no desire to cultivate a public image, and showed no interest in art until he divorced his former wife Irina in a settlement estimated at €200 million last year.
Since then, he has bought Francis Bacon's Triptych for €55 million and Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping for €21 million, and has been linked to purchases of a Degas pastel for €18 million and a Giacometti statue for almost €10 million. Other gifts for his new love have included a €25 million Colorado ranch and a restaurant by the Tiber river in Rome that charmed Zhukova when they dined there.
As a beneficiary of her father's money and her new man's largesse, Zhukova's spectacular entry into the international art and society scene has attracted widespread scepticism and some outright derision.
MANY HAVE MOCKED the former model and homeopathy student's apparent ignorance of the world into which she has plunged, recalling how she responded to one interviewer's query about her favourite artists with a plaintive "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names". Before the opening of the Garage, however, Zhukova admitted to having no formal art history education, but said she was determined to learn as much as possible on the job.
She is certainly surrounding herself with capable people, with Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, a former director of the Gagosian gallery in London and Damien Hirst's agent, likely to co-ordinate programming at the Garage, and Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, reportedly in line for an advisory role in Moscow.
"I have been interested in art for as long as I can remember," Zhukova told one news agency. "We had works of art at home and so I suppose it was quite natural that I should have developed an interest."
Zhukova said Kova and T would have to take a back seat until the Garage was well established, and insisted that her main hope for the gallery - starting with the current retrospective of work by leading conceptual artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov - would "introduce a whole new audience to contemporary art". Zhukova declined to answer questions about her relationship with Abramovich, but acknowledged that he was the "main sponsor" of the Kabakov exhibition.
They are only the latest wealthy Russians to shake the global art market, however.
As the Kremlin cast a suspicious eye over fortunes accumulated through the murky privatisations of the 1990s, many of Abramovich's fellow "oligarchs" sought to boost their patriotic credentials by bringing spectacular art treasures back to Russia.
In 2004, billionaire Victor Vekselberg spent about €70 million on the Forbes family's entire Fabergé Egg collection and repatriated it to Russia; and last year, tycoon Alisher Usmanov paid more than €25 million for the art collection of cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and put it on show at an imperial palace outside St Petersburg.
While these men, and Abramovich, may seek to ward off any investigation of their wealth, Zhukova belongs to a different generation, what Russians call the "gilded youth", who grew up with money and barely remember the Soviet days when high fashion meant a pair of smuggled Levis, and foreign travel was for most people an impossible dream.
Zhukova and her ilk are the closest that Russia has to a modern aristocracy, the sons and daughters of "old money" in a country where that term refers to the magnates who made their millions in the 1990s.
THEY LOOK DOWN on arrivistes who made a quick buck in the oil price boom of recent years, and flaunt their sophistication in the galleries and auction houses of the West and through designers such as Kova and T, whose understatement marks a break with the "bling" that dominated New Russian taste in the first 15 years of post-Soviet life.
Zhukova and friends are as happy in New York, Paris and London as they are in Moscow and, as they and their considerable wealth move around the major cities of the world, they seek to make Russia's capital a little more Western, with projects such as the Garage.
And, in turn, parts of other places - such as Chelsea FC's home, Stamford Bridge, and the area of Knightsbridge where Abramovich and Zhukova are building a €190 million home - become a little more Russian.
Back home, the oligarchs and their offspring are widely loathed for flourishing while tens of millions suffered through the economic chaos of the 1990s.
But then, a century ago, few Americans loved their robber-barons, and critics mocked their extravagant art purchases. Now, the collection of one such magnate, Henry Clay Frick - once dubbed "America's most hated man" - is considered one of the country's greatest.
Whether Zhukova can create something similar with the Garage remains to be seen.
For now, she insists that she just wants to introduce ordinary Russians - so sceptical of her kind and resentful of her wealth - to the modern art that she loves, saying: "If we can achieve that, I'll be happy"
CV DARIA 'DASHA' ZHULOVA
Who is she?Russian "It Girl", girlfriend of billionaire Roman Abramovich
Why in the news?This week she opened her huge modern art gallery in Moscow called Garage
Most appealing characteristic:Admits she has a lot to learn about art
Most annoying characteristic:Has a multi-million-euro gallery as a learning aid
Most likely to say:"You know, Damien What's-his-name . . . the guy who pickles sharks."
Least likely to say:"Really Roman, I couldn't possibly accept another Freud/Bacon/Giacometti . . ."