The Grand Hall of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory was aglow with celebrity on November 29 as winter snows howled down the narrow Bolshoe Nikitskie street that abuts the Kremlin walls. Inside, champagne glasses clinked, chandeliers glittered and the great and the good of Moscow stood and chattered in a scene straight out of a Tolstoy novel.

As is usual for Moscow, the evening featured both high culture and preening in equal measure. At its heart was a concert played on three of the most expensive violins in existence. One instrument, known as the “Ex-Vieuxtemps”, was recently purchased by the man behind the event, Maxim Viktorov, a Moscow lawyer who does little to hide his friendship with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president.