It is well known that the powerful of this world today do not need anything. At the same time, it is considered a sign of good form to hide the true income, so as not to irritate the common people. It was much easier in this respect for monarchs who could live in a big way and at the same time not hide anything. How did the royal family of the Romanovs, who ruled one of the largest and richest empires on the planet, live?
Disputes about the true financial situation of the imperial family have been going on for a long time. Experts assess the state of Nicholas II in different ways, from fabulous wealth to poverty, which forced them to save on literally everything. In 2012, the Celebrity Net Worth edition published a rating of the wealthiest people of the 2nd millennium, in which the autocrat of all Russia occupies a very honorable 5th place.
The magazine's experts estimated the fortune of the imperial family at an incredible 300 billion dollars, in terms of modern money. The rating also mentions that the Russian tsar not only got into the top five richest people of the millennium, but also, due to his canonization, became the richest saint in the history of Christianity.
It is necessary to clarify right away that American researchers did not provide any documentary evidence of a fantastic state of the tsar, so let's try to independently analyze the income and expenses of the Romanovs, in other words, we will count other people's money.
The February Revolution of 1917, during which the Provisional Government came to power, removed Nicholas II from the political arena. But at the same time, for millions of inhabitants of the empire, he continued to be the king-priest, given to the people by God. In this regard, the new government faced a responsible task - to discredit the Romanovs in order to reduce their influence in society.
For this, a proven method was chosen, which is used to this day - the people were told about the incredible luxury of tsarist life and about the family's huge accounts in foreign banks. The first head of the Provisional Government, Prince Georgy Lvov personally supervised the revelations.
Prince George Lvov.
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In 1920, while testifying in the Omsk District Court in the case of the royal family, Lvov told the investigator for especially important cases Nikolai Sokolov the following:
There is information about the royal budget and in the writings of some historians. In particular, Igor Zimin, in his book “Tsar's money. The income and expenses of the Romanov family”, cites specific figures. The author writes that as of May 1, 1917, the family of the last Russian emperor had the following funds:
Thus, the total amount that the members of the royal family had at that time was 12,471,811 rubles 69 kopecks, which, at the current dollar exchange rate 1/11, was 1.13 million US dollars. There is information from other sources, which are also not very reliable.
In the summer of 1917, one of the Petrograd publishing houses published the book The Fall of the Romanovs, the author of which is still unknown. It is quite obvious that the publication came out not without the support of the Provisional Government, or rather Commissioner Golovin, who was directly responsible for all information about the royal income. The book indicated the following figures for personal capital:
It also shows that, despite the desire to discredit the name of the Romanovs among the masses, the members of the Provisional Government could not attribute a colossal fortune to the august family. True, the author of The Fall of the Romanovs, who wished to remain anonymous, mentions some foreign accounts of the royal family. What were these bills?
Now on domestic and foreign sites you can find a variety of information about the capital of Nicholas II and his relatives in banks in France, Great Britain and Switzerland. But the most correct way to get information is not from journalists and bloggers, but from serious researchers. British financier and historian William Clarke investigates this issue in his best-selling book, The Lost Treasures of Kings.
Bank of England building.
The financial expert found out that the main deposits were kept by Nikolai's father, Alexander III, in the Bank of England. But when he ascended the throne in 1894, Nicholas II made an informed decision to close the accounts of his family abroad. This was due to the fact that during this period the Russian Empire was forced to take substantial loans abroad and it turned out that the state borrowed the Romanovs' money from a British bank. Closing an account with a large amount of money was not easy at that time and therefore the process was delayed for almost 6 years.
The famous historian Oleg Budnitsky, who investigated information about the foreign accounts of the autocrat, spent a lot of time in the archives of European countries. In one of the English institutions he was lucky - he got into his hands a folder signed "On the foreign property of the late emperor." It contained reports on this issue, compiled by people directly connected with the finances of tsarist Russia and the money of the sovereign himself.
An important document was a note from Prince Sergei Gagarin, who served in the Ministry of the Court. In it, a government official wrote the following:
Thus, it became clear that during the days of the first revolution, Nicholas II transferred abroad money that he planned to keep for his children. This German bank was also mentioned by the attache in the United States, Huget, who disposed of the monarchists' money in exile:
The question of tsarist capital was raised, including in the case. In the 1920s, the first "Grand Duchess Anastasia" appeared in Germany, who, in addition to fame, also thirsted for the Romanovs' money. The Russian emigrants were alarmed by the phenomenon of the heiress, and it was decided once and for all to solve the financial issue of the royal family. For this, a special commission was assembled, which began work on February 26, 1929.
The result of the investigation was an unambiguous verdict: the royal family did not have any supercapital in foreign banks, not counting the accounts of the Grand Duchesses in the Mendelssohn bank in Berlin, each of which had no more than 1 million German marks.
One of the members of the commission, Boris Nolde, a former adviser to the foreign minister, also clarified that the inflation that began during the First World War turned this money into nothing. In March 1930, the minutes of the meetings of the commission with the corresponding conclusions were published in Paris, in the monarchist edition of the Renaissance.
In 1934, the Central Court of Berlin identified the heirs of the Tsar's money held in German bank accounts. They were recognized as the Grand Duchesses Olga and Ksenia, Countess Brasova, as well as several relatives along the line of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.
Boris Nolde turned out to be absolutely right - by the time all the papers for the entry into inheritance rights were ready, and this happened in 1938, only 25 thousand pounds were on the accounts. Given that the amount was divided equally among all the heirs, the share of each turned out to be ridiculous. The Grand Duchess Xenia, having learned about the inheritance, did not even want to waste time getting it and simply refused the money.
