The Jewels

[TheLionandTheEagle]

What happened to the jewels found amid the clothing and belongings of the family?  I know Fate of the Romanovs describes them as being sent to Moscow, but where are they now?

[Forum Admin]

long gone. Stones were put into the diamond fund, the gold melted, some sold.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

Ahh okay -- so I've seen some of them then, perhaps.  (Been to the Diamond Fund in the Kremlin Armory.) 

[Forum Admin]

No you misunderstand. The stuff on display at the Diamond fund is a tiny fraction of what is in the fund. Mostly the Imperial Jewels, not the personal items.  The Ekaterinburg jewelry was BROKEN DOWN. The loose stones put with all the others and the precious metal was melted for bullion. Very little remains intact of what Yurovsky sent to Moscow.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

Gottcha -- are some of the loose stones on display from Yekaterinburg or no?

[Forum Admin]

No way to know for certain, but highly doubtful given the huge number of gem quality stones in the Fund. You seem not to know that the Diamond Fund is the largest amount of diamonds on the planet.  Far larger than DeBeers, South Africa, Australia or England.  If Russia released all their stones to the free market the price for best quality diamonds would plummet to less than $100 per carat.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

True -- though I was thinking perhaps that they would show them because of the historical significance -- but perhaps that is the exact reason they WOULDN'T want to, because it is such a morbid and shameful aspect of their history.  Much more morbid than the Crown Jewels and such that are not directly related to the murder.

[Forum Admin]

The Bolshevik government refused to acknowledge the murders even happened and found nothing of the Nicholas II era to be of any "historical value".  They just dumped the stones into the large bags of similar size/color/quality diamonds and the gold was melted down with any other gold they had at the time.  There never was a way to identify the origin of the diamonds much less the identity of the original owner.

The Soviet regime kept pretty much the same attitude.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

Yikes.  Not sure why I'd expect better from that lot, though.

[JamesAPrattIII]

Read the book "The Greatest Heist" which deals with how the Bolsheviks sold all the loot they took and how it enabled them to stay in power.

[TheLionandTheEagle]

Read the book "The Greatest Heist" which deals with how the Bolsheviks sold all the loot they took and how it enabled them to stay in power.

Ooo, interesting!  Thanks!

[BobAtchison]

Soloviev told me he assumed the jewels that were stripped from the bodies were still being kept in the files of the KGB somewhere.

[Превед]

Read the book "The Greatest Heist" which deals with how the Bolsheviks sold all the loot they took and how it enabled them to stay in power.

You mean "History's Greatest Heist".
https://www.amazon.com/Historys-Greatest-Heist-Looting-Bolsheviks/dp/0300135580

[Andrei Beanov]

A lot of the "Jewellery" pieces were sold on the market , lots of it was purchased by Queen Mary of England........