Author Topic: Loot  (Read 7906 times)

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timfromengland

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Loot
« on: September 26, 2010, 06:39:24 PM »
 Wonder who got all that loot... all the Royal  treasures... jewels  etc.... where did it all go ?
not to mention all the loot the  Csar had stashed away in foreign banks .

At least a lot has survived  ... for eg  the palaces built by Catherine the Great and no doubt much of the huge
collections she put together.   Russia can profit from these assets in a big way in the tourist trade... much as
modern Bavaria  gets huge income  as  tourists  flock  to  see Mad Ludwigs castles and palaces.

I heard an estimate that  money  the  Csar  deposited  in  banks  of  New York, London etc... today would be worth
 at least $150 billion  !   and I dont think any of the banks ever repaid Russia  one penny.

I also heard that the name  Romanov  actually means  ... New Rome ...  am I wrong ?

Offline TimM

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Re: Loot
« Reply #1 on: September 26, 2010, 11:17:14 PM »
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not to mention all the loot the  Csar had stashed away in foreign banks .

I think that was just a rumour.  No trace of any accounts have ever turned up.

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Constantinople

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Re: Loot
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2010, 05:30:26 AM »
Actually the Tsar had no money to speak of outside of Russia.  During the first Wolrld War, the allies made Russia pay for all of its war materiel in cash and as Russia was always short of supplies, any money depositied in foreign banks would have been spent of armaments.

As for the riches owned by the Tsar and his family, a lot of the jewels were sold overseas, some was melted down and others were dismantled. Some was retained in places like the Kremlin treasury.

Elisabeth

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Re: Loot
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2010, 11:08:08 AM »
For comprehensive, detailed accounts of what happened to the cultural and artistic treasures of imperial Russia under Lenin and his successors, see the journal Canadian American Slavic Studies/Revue Canadienne Americaine d'etudes Slaves, Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter 2009, v. 43, nos. 1-4. The theme of the 2009 edition was "Treasures into Tractors: The Selling of Russia's Cultural Hertiage, 1918-1938."

"We now know that plans to nationalize private art collections (including those of the Romanovs) and sell them off to the West began almost immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917. We know the sales mechanism was extensive, including Antikvariat, the Commissariat of Foreign Trade, museums, the Diamond Fund, and even the police. Virtually every museum in every major city lost works of art to the massive campaign to sell art for hard currency to the West. So did private collections, churches, monasteries, and libraries.... The Soviet Union, a nominally Marxist and revolutionary society, sold art in the capitalist marketplace it hoped someday to demolish, and thereby helped finance its own drive for socialism in one country" (Robert C. Williams, "Preface," Canadian American Slavic Studies, Nos. 1-4, 2009). The volume also includes an article, "The Czar's Library: Books from Russian Imperial Palaces at the Library of Congress," by Harold M. Leich, as well as two other articles about books currently held in United States libraries that were once owned by Romanovs or Russian nobility.

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Re: Loot
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2010, 11:19:51 AM »
See also William Clarke's "The Lost Fortune of the Czars" for the definitive research showing that the rumours of huge sums of Nicholas II's money were outside Russia in European or US banks were just that, unfounded rumours.

timfromengland

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Re: Loot
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2010, 12:23:27 PM »
Sounds a bit like the  French Rev  when  priceless art was sold at knock down prices.... probably
mainly to  the English Aristocracy.

Offline londo954

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Re: Loot
« Reply #6 on: September 27, 2010, 12:49:30 PM »
YES the tsar had accounts abroad mostly in for ue by the various embassies and legations around the world. He invested his money wisely from what I have seen. However at the beginning of the war he encouraged all Russins to bring foreign investments back into the country to help with the war. he set the example himself. Some investements remained abroad to be used to purchase things from the allies. By the end of the war Nicholas's funds outside the country were drained except for a small amount in a English Bank (Barings I believe) which went to his sisters and mother. Th stories of vast funds are exactly that stories.

PS there were some investments in Germany that could not be repatriated in time !!!


Offline TimM

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Re: Loot
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2010, 02:13:18 AM »
No doubt this mythical fortune is what all the phony Anastasia's and others were after.
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Re: Loot
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2010, 10:05:49 AM »
YES the tsar had accounts abroad mostly in for ue by the various embassies and legations around the world. He invested his money wisely from what I have seen. However at the beginning of the war he encouraged all Russins to bring foreign investments back into the country to help with the war. he set the example himself. Some investements remained abroad to be used to purchase things from the allies. By the end of the war Nicholas's funds outside the country were drained except for a small amount in a English Bank (Barings I believe) which went to his sisters and mother. Th stories of vast funds are exactly that stories.

PS there were some investments in Germany that could not be repatriated in time !!!



Actually, not the case.  Not one ruble of personal funds was outside of Russia after the Revolution and end of WWI.  What little money was left was "governmental" used for purchasing war materials and therefore became Bolshevik property and was recognized as such.  The German "investments" were intentionally left in Germany, as they were dowery accounts for OTMA. Worth $250.000 each at the time before the war, the total value was about $25,000 TOTAL by the time it was given to Xenia and Marie Feodorovna in the 1920s.  There was also some real estate in Darmstadt which was Alexandra's personal property, and that was about all there was for the Romanovs to inherit. Not much.


Alixz

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Re: Loot
« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2010, 02:57:34 PM »
Inflation was rampant in Germany after the fall of the Kaiser and at the beginning of the Wiemar Republic.  Any money left by anybody was practically worthless.

The Berlin police were paid many times a day and not once a week because the inflation was running so high that money earned and paid at one time was not worth what it had been worth only hours before.

Hence the dowries of the Grand Duchesses were reduced from 250,000 each to a total of 25,000 for all four.

Sad but fact.  It would have been nice to be able to say that there was a fortune to be found, but Dowager Empress Marie even fought with her nephew King Christian X over the cost of living in Denmark and was subsidized by her nephew George V.  She did have her precious jewel box (which she refused to sell), but not much else to live on.

Offline TimM

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Re: Loot
« Reply #10 on: September 28, 2010, 09:30:19 PM »
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and was subsidized by her nephew George V

No doubt his way of making up for letting poor Nicky and his family down.  If George had kept his big mouth shut, the British Parliment might have let them come to Britain.  They should have let them come anyway, it's not like George could have done anything, the monarch has no say in British government decisions.  They can advise, but that's it.

Apparently, George never forgave himself.  He couldn't help Nicky, so he stepped up and helped his mother.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2010, 09:11:08 AM by Alixz »
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Alixz

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Re: Loot
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2010, 09:12:02 AM »
He also "helped" Xenia by giving her the "grace and favor" house that she and her exiled family lived in.

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Re: Loot
« Reply #12 on: September 29, 2010, 12:14:58 PM »
I started a thread a long time ago which was titled something like:  if   GD Anastasia had survived,  what would she have inherited?   Because the subject was always difficult,  the thread wasn't very popular. But it did discuss the "loot" in great detail.   So, I went looking for it this morning and couldn't find it.  Perhaps I wasn't looking in the right place.  I wanted to copy a couple of my posts, mainly from Clarke's book,  that would answer some of the question voiced here.  As FA has posted,  the book THE LOST FORTUNE OF THE TSAR by William Clarke has a great deal of information which you'd find helpful.

AGRBear

PS  Found it at: http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=948.0


« Last Edit: September 29, 2010, 12:29:28 PM by AGRBear »
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Re: Loot
« Reply #13 on: September 29, 2010, 01:00:53 PM »
Bear, I found the topic. Here it is:

"Anastasia's Inheritance Would Have Been What?"  http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=948.msg317010;topicseen#msg317010

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Re: Loot
« Reply #14 on: September 29, 2010, 01:18:22 PM »
I did find it and added it to my post which you didn't see because you were looking for it the same time I was.

I just read all those posts.  Some good information in that discussion.  And,  again, thanks everyone for digging out all that information.

AGRBear
"What is true by lamplight is not always true by sunlight."

Joubert, Pensees, No. 152