China, Crystal, and Silver Used at Mealtime

[Sanochka]

They took a whole trainload of household goods with them to Siberia.  Furniture, carpets, paintings, linens, etc, etc.  There is an inventory of items the IF took with them elsewhere in this forum.  It's not very detailed but provides enough information for the reader to get a good impression of just what they took with them.

[Rodney_G.]

I remember reading somewhere that they were allowed to take their own china and bed linen into exile. Whether it was returned from the Ipatiev House is anyone's guess. Perhaps another reader knows the answer?

There is no chance that any of Nicholas and Alexandra's (the AP's) china and bed linen was returned to the Palace from Ipatiev House. What was recovered by the Whites ended up  lost or dispersed in the West (some , very little to Romanovs in exile). What  little was taken away by the Bolsheviks in late July, 1918 , if it had any value, was sold for valuta (hard currency) within fifteen years , or  possibly held  briefly in soviet museums or archives. Some items of bed linen or china were  grabbed from Ipatiev House immediately after the murders, and it's unclear how much, if anything ,  was recovered. But again, it wouldn't have gone back to the AP in that way.

[Forum Admin]

Actually, Rodney, you are not correct.  The Whites rounded up everything stolen from the Ipatiev House by the guards, and packed it up in the original trunks.  The trunks were full of their clothes, dishes, table linens and small personal things.  The trunks were eventually sent to England, to the family who had escaped there.  Their clothes were burned.  The trunks remained in the Romanov family. Bob and I have seen three of them, including their contents of blue bordered china (mostly chipped and cracked) and the personal napkins and towels, all monogrammed, which were inside.

[Maria the Beautiful]

FA, from your reply I'm assuming these trunks and their contents are still in the possession of family members.   Do you know if they have any inclination to return them to the AP at some point?

[Forum Admin]

I am not in a position to answer the questions.  Partly I dont have permission and partly I don't have first hand knowledge. Again, sorry

[Maria the Beautiful]

Thanks for your reply.   I understand your position.   It would be a shame if the items were not eventually returned to be a part of the AP collection.  The fact that these were items that went to Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg with the family makes them very special, no matter what condition they are in.

[Sanochka]

I think their return to the AP after 94 years without their owners would make a heartbreaking display - perhaps even too painful to view.

[Rodney_G.]

Actually, Rodney, you are not correct.  The Whites rounded up everything stolen from the Ipatiev House by the guards, and packed it up in the original trunks.  The trunks were full of their clothes, dishes, table linens and small personal things.  The trunks were eventually sent to England, to the family who had escaped there.  Their clothes were burned.  The trunks remained in the Romanov family. Bob and I have seen three of them, including their contents of blue bordered china (mostly chipped and cracked) and the personal napkins and towels, all monogrammed, which were inside.

 FA, I thought that's what I said. "What was recovered by the Whites...some, very little to the Romanovs('the family who had escaped there{England}'". As for the Whites rounding up everything stolen from the Ipatiev House, how would 'everything' be known?  They certainly didn't have an inventory of all the original Romanov possessions in Ipatiev House.  In fact only the carelessness  and loose talk of those who had walked away with  the Imperial Family's possessions allowed the Whites to track them (I believe four of them, Kuzma Letemin, et. al.)down.There could have been more; in fact the White investigators could only have tracked down those minor individuals who were still stuck in Ekaterinburg. Yurovsky and all of the dozens (shooters plus many of the guards at the time ) were long gone. I'm sure Nicholas and Alexandra's personal china service would have made  a pretty attractive souvenir of the Ipatiev House events for dedicated Bolsheviks.

[Forum Admin]

The Whites searched homes rather extensively for anything relating to the IF.  As for owning "imperial china", it was illegal to possess anything with any Imperial Eagle on it under the early Soviet regime.  Somewhere between 10 and 15 full trunks were sent to England.

[Alixz]

I thought I remembered reading that when the trunks were opened they didn't include much of value if anything. The family (I read) were disappointed in the contents of the trunks.

Does anyone else remember reading that and where it might have been?  Something so small as a reference to returned trunks could be in any book.

[Forum Admin]

I only know it from the Romanov family's personal accounts to us.  I don't know off hand which book it is in, but can confirm that after many months of waiting, and the arrival of the trunks in England, and opening them, all the family found were clothes, table linens, bath towels, broken and chipped plates and cups, sewing items, etc etc. Little every day personal things and nothing else.

[Alixz]

It might have been Once a Grand Duchess or a book about King George V. I will have to look around, but what you just posted seems about what I had read.

Nothing of monetary value but things of intrinsic value to the family.

[Brassov]

Are you at liberty to tell us who today owns these trunks and the contents ?

[Forum Admin]

I am not. Sorry.

[Brassov]

My apologies for coming back to my previous question F.A., only now. I cannot understand the great secrecy about a few old suitcases that have been lying around somewhere for almost 100 years. What happened to them ? I know that M.F. and G.D. Xenia Alexandrovna waited anxiously for them to arrive, and when they were brought to B.P. by King George V to be opened in the presence of the R.F. they contained basically rubbish, much to the disappointment of everyone. But the containers themselves must surely be quite an interesting exibit, and one wonders what happened to the contents. Perhaps in an attic in B.P !  I just cannot understand the secrecy after all this time, these people are all dead anyway.