The landmark exhibition "Moscow — Berlin / Berlin — Moskau. 1900–1950," held at the Berlinische Galerie and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts (1995/1996), had a profound impact on how Russian art was perceived abroad. It continued a new tradition of synthetic, conceptual exhibitions—encompassing visual arts, architecture, literature, design, theater, cinema, photography, and music—that explored the complex web of interconnections, influences, attractions, and repulsions between the two cultures. Its opening was repeatedly jeopardized by economic, censorship-related, and political challenges. The exhibition traced the evolution from avant-garde art to the aesthetics of 20th-century totalitarian regimes, a trajectory during which the Russian avant-garde was repeatedly reinterpreted. The Cold War context helped spark interest in this movement in the West, framing it as a "Great Experiment." Later, the avant-garde was recast as "revolutionary" art, and eventually became a commodity for export—appearing both in museum galleries and at international auctions (a process that preceded its framing as the "Great Utopia" in the 1992–1993 exhibition of the same name). The author examines the relationship between politics and art, the processes by which collective cultural memory is formed—a sphere in which the media play an active role—and the broader question of whether it is possible to write a transnational history of art.