Political relations between Britain and Russia may still be in the deep freeze, but when it comes to culture the countries appear not to have noticed anything amiss and are enjoying a rare boom.

The Pushkin Museum in Moscow opened an exhibition of paintings by Joseph Turner yesterday, the first time that the British artist has been displayed in Russia since 1975. The show contains 112 works in a partnership with Tate Britain that has been underwritten by the billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

It follows the success of an exhibition of British dress from the 18th and 19th centuries at the Kremlin Museums, which closed on Sunday after drawing record crowds. More than 65,000 people came to see Two Centuries of British Fashion, which featured 90 pieces from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was the first time that the Kremlin and the V&A had collaborated on an exhibition.

The Kremlin Museums are repaying the compliment by lending priceless examples from the Russian imperial wardrobe for display at the V&A. The Magnificence of the Tsars exhibition, which opens on December 10, will include clothing that belonged to Peter II, the boy king who died aged 14, the coronation robes of seven Russian emperors and a fancy dress costume worn by Nicholas II to the Winter Ball of 1903.

Such a flurry of artistic activity appears to be easing some of the tensions in Anglo-Russian relations that erupted after the murder of the dissident former security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London two years ago.

However, there was a reminder that politics has muscled its way on to cultural turf recently. At the opening of the Turner exhibition Anne Pringle, the British Ambassador to Moscow, emphasised the British Council's role in organising it. The Kremlin forced the council to close its offices in St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg in January over British demands for the extradition of Andrei Lugovoy, the man wanted for Mr Litvinenko's murder.

Mrs Pringle said that exhibitions such as the Turner were “important manifestations of how much attention both sides give to cultural co-operation”. She added: “The British Council does a lot of good work in Russia and Russians like the British Council.”

The Turner exhibition is expected to be one of the most popular in Moscow for years. Mr Usmanov, an oligarch with close Kremlin connections, paid about £1.5 million to underwrite the insurance costs of taking the artist's work abroad.

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