London ( CNN ) -- Andrei Filatov , chess expert and Russian billionaire , is turning his hand to a new business : Soviet-era art . Filatov , a 40-year old professional chess player and businessman , is investing in his love of Soviet Union art by scouting the world for pieces created behind the Iron Curtain . The Ukrainian-born businessman , valued by Forbes at $ 1.3 billion and ranked as Russia 's 68th richest person , has invested heavily in Russian infrastructure through his co-ownership of N-Trans Group . But over the last five years , he has spent $ 100 million collecting Soviet artworks , hoping to gather enough to eventually open a museum . Filatov 's pieces -- including 1951 's `` A Letter from the Front , '' by Alexander Laktionov , 1930 's `` Daisies '' by Nicolai Fechin and 1893 's `` Comrades '' by Philip Maliavin -- have been collected from around the world , where they were scattered to gather dust after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1991 . `` When the Soviet Union collapsed , a huge amount of great artworks were taken out of the country to the west and elsewhere , '' Filatov says . `` My task is to buy these artworks and show them to people . '' Laktionov is one of the Soviet Union 's most famed painters of the so-called socialist realist genre , which was sponsored by the state . He was commissioned by the USSR 's communist leader Joseph Stalin to create `` A Letter from the Front , '' a warm depiction of a family receiving news from the front line . The original piece , painted in 1947 , won the Stalin Prize and remains in the Tretyakov State Gallery in Moscow . Filatov 's version , painted after Stalin requested a second version of the artwork to show to the world , was found by chance in the Bahamas by his art dealer , Rena Lavery . Despite being critiqued as propaganda for its representations of life under Stalin 's dictatorship , socialist realism has enjoyed a renaissance as those living in former Soviet countries seek artifacts from the previous era . For Filatov , `` A Letter from the Front '' reminds him of his grandfather Alexey Pushkar , who died in 1943 as the Soviets fought the Germans in the bloody battles of the Eastern Front . He wo n't reveal how much the artwork cost but says it is an `` emotional painting '' that allows him to imagine what it must have been like waiting for news from loved ones during wartime . Filatov was a student in Minsk when the Soviet Union fell and recalls being stunned by the news that his country did n't exist anymore . It was a `` love for the lost motherland , '' that prompted him to start collecting the era 's art . Filatov says he is `` aware of what kind of empire I lived in , that many times this empire , the leaders put the world at risk of world war . '' But , he adds , `` you ca n't not recognize the achievements of the Soviet Union . So I believe that the most important thing here is an objective view of the achievements , and the experience of that short and bright empire . '' Lavery points to the technical achievements of the artists in fields such as realism and impressionism , despite living under a repressive regime . `` The artworks are reflections of the time and that era of a country that does n't exist any more , '' she says . Filatov wants to collect up to 12 new artworks a year , primarily from the period 1917 to 1991 , for the Filatov Family Art Fund . He intends to loan the pieces to museums and art galleries , exhibit and promote around the world . Filatov has previously merged his love of chess and art by sponsoring this year 's World Chess Championship Match at Moscow 's Tretyakov Gallery . Filatov says he will continue to invest in art as long as his business -- which he built up in the 1990s and now straddles shipping , ports and infrastructure -- allows . And despite his interest in the past , Filatov says Russians have never `` lived more freely or prosperously than today . Never have our people been so free , not only in movement but in political choice . ''
Alexander Laktionov , chess expert and Soviet billionaire , is turning his hand to a new business . He is scouting the world for artworks done during Bahamas . The era 's socialist realism genre has been enjoying a renaissance . Filatov wants to collect one new artworks the previous era and promote them globally .