In 1896, he met Feodor Chaliapin who just moved to Moscow from St. Petersburg to sing at the Moscow Private Opera owned by Savva Mamontov.
He was associated with Savva Mamontov-sponsored group of artists and Abramtsevo Colony; these connections helped him secure his first major project - Russian Crafts pavilions at the Exposition Universelle (1900) in Paris, in partnership with Konstantin Korovin.
The first Russian nested doll set was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin from a design by Sergey Malyutin, who was a folk crafts painter in the Abramtsevo estate of the Russian industrialist and patron of arts Savva Mamontov.
When Repin settled in Moscow in 1876, he and Levitsky would travel to the Abramtsevo Colony, the country estate of Savva Mamontov located north of Moscow.
"Contemporaries called Savva Mamontov "Savva the Magnificent" likening him to Duke Lorenzo de' Medici who was known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. But Savva Mamontov was more than a patron of arts and letters, he was a businessman as well, and his contribution to both the national economy and the arts was equally great." (The Russian Cultural Navigator)
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Drama and opera on Russian folklore themes (e.g., Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden) were produced in Abramtsevo by the likes of Konstantin Stanislavsky, with sets contributed by the brothers Vasnetsov, Mikhail Vrubel, and other distinguished artists.
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In 1870, Mamontov purchased the Abramtsevo estate, located north of Moscow, and founded there an artistic union which included most of the best Russian artists of the beginning of 20th century, such as Konstantin Korovin, Rafail Levitsky, Mikhail Nesterov, Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Valentin Serov, Mikhail Vrubel, the brothers Vasnetsov, sculptors Viktor Hartmann and Mark Antokolsky, as well as various others.