In 1993, St Petersburg artist Kerim Ragimov presented paintings without stretchers at Borey Art Gallery. He and some friends decided to sell them by weight, rolling up the paintings and selling them for one dollar per gramme. “We had some fun, but of course commercially it was absolutely not successful,” says the 37-year-old.

But the St Petersburg art market has become more serious in recent years, and Ragimov now sells his provocative paintings for at least £25,000 ($49,560). Since 1994, he has been creating large-scale portraits based on long-discarded news photographs, calling the portrait series “Human Project”. One masterful painting recently exhibited in St Petersburg depicts a once-famous musical family from Irkutsk, Dixieland musicians, some time before they tragically tried to flee the country by hijacking a plane in 1988.