For decades, legends about the treasures of the Russian tsars have been walking around the world. Russian gold, invested in foreign banks long before the revolution, excites the minds of people. They say that access to it is opened by the numbers of mysterious accounts, either encrypted in the toys of the tsar's children, or reliably hidden in the memory of possible heirs. Is there some truth in these statements?
Percentage from allotment
In order to determine the true state of affairs, we will try to use information as close as possible to the original sources, namely: the memoirs of one of the members of the royal family, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, published back in 1933. As the closest friend and relative of the royal family (he was a great-uncle and at the same time brother-in-law of Nicholas II), the Grand Duke was well aware of all the income and expenses of the last Russian emperor.
So, from what sources did the royal family receive their income? First of all - appropriations from the state treasury for the maintenance of the emperor's family. The amount was considerable - eleven million rubles a year went to the share of the royal family. Then - interest on capital invested in British and German banks, and, finally, income from specific lands.
Specific estates, acquired by Catherine II, were numerous mines and industries, orchards and vineyards, which occupied hundreds of thousands of acres of land. Their total cost reached one hundred million gold rubles, but they brought relatively modest income - 2-2.5 percent per year.
This modesty is explained by the well-known scrupulousness of the ruling dynasty in matters of diplomacy and domestic politics. For example, the Russian champagne "Abrau-Dyurso", the raw material for which was grown in the Tsar's vineyards, was never widely advertised, as this could cause criticism from the French sparkling wine producers.
Fruits from the royal gardens were sold locally, cheaply. This was done so that the Russian leftist press did not see competition from the imperial family to private gardeners and carriers.
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For the same reason, the emperor categorically forbade the Minister of Finance to invest the tsar's savings in Russian or foreign private enterprises - so that there would be no talk that the autocrat was personally interested in any industrial branch.
The powers that be of that time were very scrupulous about all such issues, and therefore the tsar's money was kept, albeit in foreign, but exclusively state-owned banks.
So, in total, the royal family received about twenty million rubles annually - a huge amount! But in order to understand whether this is a lot or a little, it is necessary to estimate the costs.
The palaces have tempting vaults …
The lion's share of this money went to the maintenance of the Russian heritage - palaces, palace museums and parks. For example, the Winter Palace was served by a staff of 1200 people. Despite the fact that the tsar himself did not live in the Winter Palace in recent years, this was necessary, since solemn receptions and balls for foreign guests were held here. According to etiquette, the ruler of one-sixth of the land is simply obliged to receive his guests in an atmosphere of splendor. In addition, the palace was then a museum, where valuable collections were kept in need of protection and care.
The maintenance of the Tsarskoye Selo Alexandrovsky and Catherine palaces and the adjacent parks demanded huge expenses. The personnel of the Tsarskoye Selo palace administration alone reached six hundred people. We must also not forget about the Peterhof Palace and its famous fountains, about the Livadia Palace in Crimea, about the Big Anichkov Palace, where the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna lived.
The maintenance of the Kremlin Palace in Moscow cost a pretty penny. Three thousand palace employees had to pay a monthly salary, feed, give out uniforms, and those who retired had to pay pensions. In addition, all the gamekeepers, grooms, footmen, cooks, gardeners, head waiter, maids and other servants twice a year expected gifts from the royal family - at Christmas and on the day of the sovereign's namesake. It could be a watch, a ring or a gold cigarette case - things are inexpensive for the tsar, but with a quantity of several thousand pieces, they made a hefty sum.
Next came the imperial theaters: three in St. Petersburg and two in Moscow, with all five theaters causing losses. To support Russian art, the tsarist family spent two million rubles a year on the maintenance of theaters and a ballet troupe.
The Imperial Academy of Arts also demanded serious financial support. Officially, she was listed in the state account, but since members of the imperial family were her trustees, they, accordingly, bore the costs.
Little things
In his memoirs, the Grand Duke lists a long list of additional costs incurred by the emperor. For example: “The Red Cross Society was going to finish building a hospital department in a large commercial and industrial center, but it lacks funds.
The adjutant wing lost 25 thousand rubles at cards, he was given 24 hours to pay the loss.
The grandson of one honored general applied to the Highest name with a request for the issuance of 1,500 rubles for graduation.
The policeman on duty was killed by robbers, leaving his family without funds … and much, much more.
The costs directly to the royal family looked like this: each Grand Duke of these twenty million was entitled to an annual rent of two hundred thousand rubles. Each of the Grand Duchesses was given a dowry in the amount of one million rubles upon marriage. At birth, a member of the imperial family received a capital of one million rubles. As a result, after the issuance of all pensions, settlement with relatives who were born or married, contractors and employees, support for theaters and other charity, about two hundred thousand rubles were left to the emperor annually for personal needs. Here it would be necessary to add the great-grandmother's inheritance of four million rubles, which Nicholas II received in his youth, but this money was sold out already three years after his coronation.
How much do matches cost?
Fortunately for the royal children, their money remained intact until adulthood and reached a fairly impressive amount. But with the last imperial family, things turned out completely differently. According to the "competent" order of the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count B. V. Fredericks, before the First World War, "children's" millions were placed in a Berlin bank and lay there until 1923. In 1923, German bankers were ready to settle accounts with the heirs of the imperial family, giving them, at will, seven million in paper tsarist money, which no one needed anymore, or sixteen million in paper German marks. It should be noted here that in November 1923, inflation in Germany rose to record levels - the German mark fell to four billion two hundred million marks for one dollar. In other words,the royal sixteen million would not have been enough for a box of matches.
There was still money invested in the British State Bank - a huge sum of two hundred million gold rubles. But, according to the testimony of the Grand Duke, this money was completely “eaten away” by the First World War: “Nobody expected such a terrible expenditure of shells, which was revealed in the very first days of the war. The units that had not yet fired on were nervous and wasted a lot of shells in vain. Where it would have been enough to fire two or three bursts of shrapnel to drive away the enemy, hundreds of thousands of rifle bullets were wasted aimlessly. Rifles were lost, guns were thrown. The artillery parks moved too close to the front line and fell into the hands of the enemy. A couple of months after the start of the war, in the process of “saving Paris,” the Russian Second Army, which consisted of Guards regiments, was completely destroyed and required replacement.
Everyone knows that war is a very expensive undertaking. And, I think, one can believe the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, who asserted at the end of his story that if the last Russian emperor had a chance to survive and leave, for example, to England, then in order to exist, he would have to work as a simple emigrant.
Igor Saveliev. Secrets of the XX century, no. 9, 2009