SHANGHAI architect-turned-artcollector Sha Aide fell under the influence of Soviet culture in China during his youth, and it continues to play a major role in his life through an almost obsessive devotion to a Russian artist's
works, as Nancy Zhang reports.

When art collector Sha Aide acquired his first Russian oil painting it haunted him day and night. He would find himself getting up in the middle of the night to stare at it hanging in his living room, and forget to go to work in the morning to have another look.

When he opened an exhibition to display some of the finest paintings in his collection, a similarly wondrous chord was touched amongst young and old Chinese.

Long lines of people formed around the block to gain entry to the free exhibition when it opened in mid-June. Retirees in their 70s traveled from Shanghai's suburbs to the exhibition venue, the Russian Orthodox Church on Xinle Road, and mainstream Chinese media beat a path to Sha's door.

The stark realism of the Russian paintings harked back to another era when the Soviet culture influence in China was all encompassing. Moscow shaped everything from politics, to art to women's fashion -- an influence which a few short decades later has all but disappeared from popular culture.

The reaction is indicative of what Sha calls a "Russian complex" in Chinese people's hearts.

"An elderly visitor left me a message to say he came three times and another that he came from as far away as Qingpu," says Sha.

"Russian culture touches deep emotions. It had a huge and wide influence on generations of Chinese both before and after me.

"Many of the visitors are in the fine arts circles and were young when the influence was strongest. Younger visitors are influenced by their teachers."

Sha, a successful, serial entrepreneur, was also subject to its influence, consciously and subconsciously.

Born in the 1950s, Sha was an architect by training and had a designer's appreciation for art. As a child, he watched lots of Russian films, read Russian literature and saw Russian ballets. "It probably led to the collecting now," he reflects.

But as one of the first generation of trained architects in modern China, he has spent his career riding the wave of massive construction taking place across the country since the 1970s' reforms.

He remembered when in his early 30s construction projects -- from fabric factories to industrial plants -- so outnumbered architects in the country that he had to work late into the night seven days a week to keep up.

By the 1990s a new trend, that of business entrepreneurship, was encouraged to take root by the government.

Sha by then had made a name for himself as a talented architect working at the architecture branch of the Shanghai Textile Bureau, the largest industrial entity in the city at the time. Again, he was caught in the march of history.

In 1993, he was encouraged by his state employer to set up his own private architecture practice. Construction continued and business boomed so in the next four years Sha set up another two companies, all in the architecture, construction and interior design industries.

Even as a CEO of three companies, Sha hates being called "boss" and sees himself as first and foremost, "a technician poring over the drawing board." After decades of working hard to achieve success, he says he is not used to splashing out.

He wears no designer labels, never touches alcohol or plays mahjong, and drives a simple car. All the money he saved goes into collecting art.

He does however have the risk-taking attitude common among entrepreneurs -- but not so common to technicians.

The project that made his name as a young and relatively inexperienced designer in the 1980s was a huge and complex water treatment plant that others had been too afraid to handle because of Shanghai's unstable soil conditions.

"Actually, I would be too afraid to do it today," he laughs.

Completed just when environmental issues were gaining importance, it became a model for other facilities to follow.

"My father always told me in every life a few big opportunities will come along," says Sha of his success. "You won't get many, maybe only one or two in a lifetime, but if you can manage them properly they can completely change your fate."

His collection of Russian artworks, numbering over 500, is also a tale of risk and timely opportunity.

He started collecting art in 2000. At first, it was Russian-style paintings by Chinese artists. But a chance encounter with a Chinese interpreter and close friend of acclaimed Russian artist Andrei Andreevich Mylnikov, left Sha dissatisfied with imitations.

The interpreter Peng Hongyuan had accompanied Mylnikov on his first visit to China in 1956 as part of a massive official scientific and cultural exchange between the former Soviet Union and China. She offered to arrange a visit for Sha with the master in 2003 to see Russian art of the finest order.

Over seven visits to Russia in the next six years Sha got to know the artist, now 90 years old, and his family, and bought 150 of his paintings.

Though he didn't make the acquisitions as an investment, the paintings have now risen steeply in value, much more than other more deliberate investments Sha made.

"I got a good price for the paintings as we had a good personal relationship, and also because in those days it was a tricky and pretty dangerous operation," reflects Sha.

"Russia was the first country I'd been to outside of China, I spoke no Russian, and knew no one but Mrs Peng who only accompanied me once. The first time I took just a small backpack.

"People laughed at me and said, 'Do you have enough money in there? Where will you put the paintings on the way back?'"

But as collecting became an obsession Sha has returned again and again. Usually unreceptive to foreigners, Mylnikov and Sha have struck up a good friendship. "He says I have the temperament of an artist," Sha remembers proudly.

Over the course of the visits, two which lasted over an hour, the Russian master gained enough trust in Sha to make a very special request. During his first visit to China in 1956 Mylnikov held an art workshop for members of various Chinese art schools.

During that class he painted a portrait of one of the class members, "the youngest and most lively one." When the painting was finished it turned out so well it became one of his favorites and he took it back to Russia.

Nearly 50 years later in 2004, he asked Sha to take the painting back to China, "where it really belongs," and to find the person portrayed in the painting. The artist really wanted to know what became of the young, lively person that once sat for him.

Sha duly brought the painting back and took out ads in Shanghai newspapers to find the man in the painting. However because Mylnikov's original art class was held in Chongqing Municipality, a Chongqing city reporter approached Sha and suggested he put a notice in their city paper instead.

It took no more than three days after the article was published in the Chongqing Morning Post before the man was found.

It turned out to be Professor Cai Zhenhui, the former vice director of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. Cai had just come back from 10 years teaching art in the Phillippines, and was very happy to be found.

Two years earlier he had tried unsuccessfully to visit Mylnikov in Russia and had no idea the master was also looking for him.

"He is still as lively and talkative as ever," says Sha. "And when I told Mylnikov the news, he too was very happy and dedicated two ink drawings to us as a gift."

Back in Shanghai, Sha has selected works from his collection to show at the biggest art fairs every year since 2004. They have caught the attention of many in art circles but Sha is reluctant to part with his beloved paintings.

When late Chinese painter Chen Yifei wanted to buy some Mylnikov paintings from Sha, asking him to nominate any price, Sha was even more determined to sell nothing.

"Chen Yifei came to every exhibition and called me constantly. But I collect for the love of art so I was unwilling to part with my paintings, especially in the early days when I had just a few Mylnikov works."

He wants to keep in his family for later generations the best of the Russian paintings hoping they will also appreciate them as much as he does.

In 2004 Sha started his latest venture, the Shanghai St Peter Culture Exchange Company.

Based on his existing collection of art -- including Russian sculptures, ink drawings and paintings -- Sha wants to open a Russian Art Center in Shanghai and run it full time as a form of retirement. He says there's no such contemporary organization and he would like to contribute to greater Sino-Russo cultural exchange.

He is in the process of transferring his shares in the architecture businesses to concentrate on art in his late years.

"At one point I was running four companies, which was really stressful. I definitely want to be more relaxed. I want to travel to western Europe to widen my art appreciation and knowledge.

"There is something so mysterious about oil paintings, I can constantly find something new. The magic of Mylnikov's paintings lies in the way they are rooted in realism, but they transcend realism -- they capture the subject's soul."