The collection of Faberge eggs, purchased from the Forbes family in February, will be touring Russia beginning in May.

The tour will begin in the Kremlin, where a collection of 10 imperial Faberge eggs, the world’s largest, already sits.

A total of 200 Faberge’ objects, including 12 Easter eggs, are now owned by the Svyaz Vremyon Foundation (loosely translated “Connection/Communication with Times/the Ages”). It was established by Viktor Vekselberg of Moscow, who recently purchased the collection in New York for an undisclosed sum.

The collection will also be shown in Moscow and the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. From St. Petersburg, the eggs will go to Yekaterinburg, where the Russian imperial family was executed in 1918.

When he purchased the eggs, Vekselberg said Yekaterinburg would be logical for a display because Czar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra, to whom he gave the prized Coronation Egg, were executed there.

Malcolm S. Forbes, the late publisher and editor of Forbes magazine, collected the eggs from the 1960s until his death in 1990.

The eggs and other choice pieces from the collection, including stone carvings, gold cigarette cases, and gem-studded picture frames, will remain on display at Sotheby’s New York galleries before Vekselberg returns the collection to Russia.

JCK