Roman Abramovich is spending more than $400 million (£250 million) on his own personal island, "in the heart of St Petersburg with plans to build a contemporary art museum," the UK Telegraph reports.

Roman Abramovich Buys Island to Store Art: Pays $400 Million.

The plans will include space for galleries and a museum, including a possible permanent home for Abramovich's own art collection, which has been acquired with Miss Zhukova's guiding hand.

A source close to Abramovich told the Sunday Telegraph: "There is a plan for traditional art spaces and cultural spaces within the complex. Daria will be involved."

Abramovich announced his arrival on the art scene in 2008 after spending £60 million in just 24 hours at two auctions in New York. He first spent £17 million on a painting by Lucien Freud - the most ever spent on a work by a living artist - and then followed it up the next night with the £43 million purchase of Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976 - a record for the artist and a record for any contemporary art work.

It is not clear what other major works Abramovich, who is deeply private, has spent his money on but ARTnews, the world's oldest fine arts magazine, named the oligarch in the summer as one of the world's top 10 art collectors based on intelligence gathered from auction houses, art dealers, curators and other experts.

Abramovich owes his interest in contemporary art to Miss Zhukova, his girlfriend for the past three years and the mother of the youngest of his six children. The oligarch divorced his second wife Irina in 2007 - paying her a settlement in the region of £150 million. Miss Zhukova - known as Dasha to friends - has since become a permanent fixture in his life. Miss Zhukova, who at 29 is 15 years' Abramovich's junior, runs her own gallery - the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture (GCCC)- in Moscow. Set up in a former bus garage, it is said to have been paid for by Abramovich.

The island is the latest of Abramovich's lavish spending sprees. In September last year he brought a £54 million 70-acre estate on St Barts in the most expensive deal ever for a Caribbean island. He also spent a reported £300million on the world's biggest private yacht, Eclipse. The yacht is so large, it too has its own art gallery.