Russia ? President Dmitry Medvedev has outdone his powerful predecessor — as an artist.

A photograph Medvedev took of the kremlin, or fortress, in a Siberian town sold for $1.7 million at a charity auction Saturday night, surpassing the $1.1 million paid last year for a painting by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Medvedev’s black-and-white photo was snapped up by Mikhail Zingarevich, a board member at Ilim Group, the pulp and paper company where Medvedev once worked as a lawyer. Zingarevich said he planned to hang the 27-by-38-inch picture in his office.

Proceeds of the auction will go to buy furniture for World War II veterans receiving long-promised apartments, equipment for a children’s hospital and a new kitchen for an alcohol rehabilitation center.