Igor Larin, a conservatoire-educated musician, sacrificed a classic music career to become a businessman, but was unable to suppress his creative drive, sold a successful business and went back to music. Today he combines two normally mutually exclusive ways of life - serving the muses and doing business; very few people were ever able to do that.
- Igor, who'd you say you are in the end, an artist or a businessman?
- Originally I was trained as a musician: I graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire's Academic Musical School and the Teachers' Training Institute. But even as I studied I started selling used American cars. That career seemed a much more promising earner than music at the time (mid-1990’s). That's how I started in business, though by nature I'm more of a creative person than a businessman. And my creative drive did make itself felt occasionally, making conflicts with the logic of business. In the end I sold the logistics company I've built from scratch and went full-time into music: restoring the vocal, regular rehearsing, performing. I even sang in duet with our famous diva Elena Obraztsova.
- Is it easy to combine art and business?
- I like to play, to act. Sometimes I may even play a simpleton at negotiations. Actually, my whole life is rather unusual. Sometimes it even seems to me I live contrary to everybody else. I go to work when the whole country is already busy producing gross national product, and I come back when all the good workers have been relaxing at home for quite some while. So I only rarely hit traffic, only when there's really an urgent need... Is it easy to live like that? It is to me, I enjoy it very much.
- How did you get interested in antiques, then?
- I like the antiques business because it's closer to music than to business with its pragmatism. A while ago I developed a habit: when I travel to Europe I go into antiques shops and buy stuff. Then I thought it would be nice to have something like that at home and opened my own salon. I like it that this quiet and engaging occupation makes my life much more interesting: I started to read a lot, got interested in history. After all, any object from the past is history. It's not even a business, it's a way of life: a measured, unhurried one. You've got to run around and fuss to sell cigarettes or vodka, but here there's no need to fuss at all: some items take months or even years to sell. And we deal in unique things so we don't really compete with other galleries: what we have, they don't, and vice versa. We also started to work with old-timer cars, in addition to antiques. Actually, these are complementary activities.
- You must have a lot of interesting stuff going through your hands?
- There used to be more. Take Imperial china, for example: there's almost none of that around any more, and what there is costs so much one is afraid to get involved. The same goes for paintings: just five years ago you could buy good names - Polenov, Korovin, Makovsky and others. But now it's veritable madness, and as a result there are quite a few fakes. The hullabaloo in the press also creates a negative background against which the sellers find it rather hard to work. We now have a few interesting works in the gallery: Klever, Korrodi, Nesterov, Kolesnikov, Kasatkin. But I think art isn't just expensive names. One example is Soviet pre- and post-war paintings. They're amazingly good quality, nobody fakes them yet and they cost less than Russian classics though they also get more expensive, naturally.
- And what about cars?
- I think our most interesting car now is the Triumph Bermuda Roadster. It's a unique designer car made by a British designer Roger Cawthorne who now lives in America, on the basis of a 1967 Triumph GT 6. Cawthorne created a unique body using yacht-building technology: rib frame, copper riveting, yachting varnish - a veritable boat on wheels. This art-deco car has won various awards at several international exhibitions in America and Europe. I'd call it a piece of furniture, a decor item on wheels. It should be kept not in garage but in a country house with something like an atrium or a conservatory in art-deco style, with the car as the centrepiece. But it actually moves, and quite nicely too. So the owner will be able to go for a ride in good weather, causing a sensation on the road and making all their neighbours die of envy. By the way, it can't be washed at a car wash: you have to polish it like a piece of furniture.
But generally, I concluded that dealing in expensive collector's items is not easy, just like with antiques. You've got to sweat to find a client, and success is not guaranteed. It's not enough to have money to buy a car like that: you've got to have the right attitude. You can't just own these cars, you have to love them. This hobby must give you pleasure. Just getting a present like this and putting it into garage - it simply won't do.
- Do you have an old-timer car?
- I have a Mercedes Pagoda. To me it's a perfect car to enter the world of old-timers. Pagodas have a regular injector engine which can be serviced at any dealer's, plus it's comfortable on the level comparable with that of modern cars. They are fast, they have very comfortable seats, an automatic gearbox and air conditioner: in other words, for a relatively small amount of money you get incomparably more joy and comforts quite close to those offered by modern cars.
- Why is your car branch called Jockey Club?
- That's from my partner who's a great connoisseur of horses. He just loves equestrian sport and promotes horse races. Jockey Club is quite popular among horsemen too. During the season at the weekends our horses are always at the racecourse, and they win. Believe me, horse racing is a very beautiful spectacle.
- Do you have any favourite pieces of luxury?
- I don't have a craving for luxury. I don't wear gold jewellery, rings, super-watches. I'm just not interested in that, it's tinsel. I'm interested in different things, have other priorities. I'm not a slave of things. Things should be functional. Even my old-timer car - it's not an extremely rare Bentley but a much cheaper production Pagoda. Making a splash doesn't mean a thing to me. There are lots of truly interesting things in life, and I don't think one should waste one's time on shallow stuff...
Ilya Kalinov
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