Historical facts.
The perilous financial state of Russia under the Tsars. > source History Orb. org.
Between 1893-1896 foreigners invested [in Russia] 144.9 million roubles compared to 103.7 million from domestic sources. In the next three years the gap reached unprecedented levels with foreigners investing 450.7 million roubles and domestic sources only 111.8 million. The large increase in investment allowed the Tsars Russia to boast one of the fastest growing economies with an annual growth rate per capita of 3.5%.
The fortune of the Tsar a Myth >
See Lost fortune of the Tsars by W Clarke. >
William Clarke's book takes off where Harvey Pitcher's stops, with the collapse of Tsarist Russia. He had produced something like a 'financial history' of the fall of the Romanovs. Mr. Clarke's researches have been conducted over many years and in many places and his description of his own detective work lets readers share his own excitement in unravelling a combination of mysteries. He uses a vast array of sources and puts his own financial acumen - he was at one time Financial Editor of The Times and head of the British Invisible Exports Council - to good effect in disentangling the complicated financial questions involved in the collapse of one of history's greatest empires.
Mr. Clarke discusses a wide variety of questions but first re-tells the story of the collapse of 1917-1918 and of the murder of the Imperial Russian Family. (For some odd reason the Romanovs are frequently referred to as a 'royal' family.) The real value of the book lies in Part III which is labelled, 'Fortune'. William Clarke tackles the question of the alleged wealth of the Romanovs' - in gold, jewels and 'hidden' bank accounts in Europe and America. Here his research is quite amazing even if his conclusions are, to those who prefer legends to facts, disappointing.
The author's conclusion is that the 'Romanov fortune' outside Russia amounted to investments in Germany in the names of the Tsar's children and in that of the Tsarina along with some investments by the Court, also in Germany. In addition there were investments by the Tsar's government. These last investments were large and have often been confused with the Imperial Family's investments. The Tsar himself had closed his foreign accounts because of the war. There is, in short, no vast Romanov fortune waiting to be claimed. Even the Imperial Russian government's investments were set against Russian indebtedness to Allied powers. One is also grateful that he has laid to rest once and for all the story that Queen Mary 'cheated' Russian exiles out of their jewels by buying them below their true value.
Why should anyone be surprised that Nicholas II wished to invest in war loans after his abdication? He was a very patriotic Russian who wished to win the war into which he had led the Russian Empire. To say that Alfonso XIII's wishing to co-ordinate with George V about helping Russian emigres is a sign of 'male chauvinism' is peculiar to say the least. It really was a ease of common sense. Like so many modern books, English clergymen are referred to by the American use of that nomenclature. Thus we have 'The Revd Tann's ...' for 'The Rev Mr Tann's ...'.
* Sources suggest that the mining of Gold under the Tsars reign was in *world terms minimal*, and that Russia was not a major producer then. >Source> The History of Gold Mining in Russia.
The total output of gold in the Russian Empire between 1719 and 1800 made up 22,491.1 kg.[55 000 Lb] 25 ton> One truck load. Amazingly the famous Russian gold placers were yet to be found. Actually presence of gold in river sediments was known but nobody possessed the skills to extract it! Needless to say crushing and grinding only led to dilution of paydirt and kept making it uneconomic.
In 1813 a little girl Katerina Bogdanova found a gold nugget in the basin of the Neiva River (Mid-Urals) and brought it to a local official. Instead of an award she received a punishment (whipping) and was ordered to keep her mouth shut. Probably, the local authorities did not want any social disturbance and feared to ignite an uncontrolled gold rush in the area populated by serfs . Nearly at the same time a hunter who lived next to the Berezovsky gold diggings found a nugget when digging a trap for a deer and failed to keep silent. Somebody reported to the authorities, the hunter was then severely whipped and died shortly after that having taken the mystery of the locality of his find to grave.
But a talented local mining foreman Lev Brusnitsyn got interested in this story and convinced the director of the local mine to send a party to explore the probable gold occurrence. The party had been stubbornly test pitting the toe of a slope of a river valley for several months until Brusnitsyn chanced to place several pits in the river bottom. Then he tested the dirt in different portions of a hard rock metallurgical circuit and found that sluicing was good enough to extract payable gold! Thus the first Russian alluvial gold deposit was found.
Brusnitsyn discovered several placers in the vicinity of the Berezovsky hard rock diggings and in 1823 there were already about 200 alluvial operations in the Urals. Privately owned operations produced twice more than the state owned ones. 11500 workers were employed by them and the annual output totaled at about 1600kg (2000kg with hard rock operations).
Due to the alluvial gold the output of this metal in the Urals grew up to 8.2t in 1870, 9.8t in 1880 and reached its peak in 1892 - 12.8t. Later with depletion of the richest placers it began to decline and in 1913 made up 8.2t.
Many famous nuggets were found in the alluvial deposits of the Urals in the XIX century. The biggest one (36.02kg) nowadays may be seen in the Russian Diamond Fund in Moscow, Kremlin.
The newly grown Russian gold mining business began to look at the vast Siberian territories already in the mid-twenties of the XIX century. In 1826 the Crown granted the first permissions to search for gold to several entrepreneurs and in early 30-s a wave of gold rush inundated mountainous areas of the Southern Siberia. The main method of prospecting was digging of test pits. Private companies did not bother about employment of educated professionals and many placers were discovered by simple prospectors who had never read a book on geology or mining in their lives. Those were prospectors (staratels) Masharov (nicknamed for his bush craft and luck The Napoleon of Taiga (Siberian bush), Ivanov, Shipalin, Zhmayev, Familtsev and many others who could recognize quartz, greenstones, ironstone and were able to see mineralized lineaments and knew basics of geomorphology.
Hundreds of alluvial deposits were found in late 20-s and 30-s of the XIX century in the mountains of Altay, Sayan, Eniseysky Kriazh. The discoveries and newly opened diggings attracted dozens if not hundreds of thousands of people many of which were former serfs who had run away from their landlords and factory owners. Most of them were the first free people out of many generations of those who belonged to the ìhostsî. The quest for freedom and gold went together! It was a gold rush not smaller than any of those glorious ones which would occur a bit later in Australia, California, Alaska or South Africa.
The gold output in the south of Western and Central Siberia grew up from 4.8t in 1842 up to 17.4 in 1855 (absolute record) and then began to decline (9.2t in 1875 and 6.3t in 1913). It put Russia to the first place amongst the gold mining nations for more than a decade before discoveries of gold in Victoria (Australia) and California.
Up until 1860 the alluvial gold mining was conducted very unprofessionally by numerous open cuts targeted at the riches pods and paystreaks. Human muscles and horses predominantly did earthmoving and the paydirt was washed on primitive sluices. After 1861 with the abolition of serfdom and rapid industrial development the gold mining became more and more advanced and mechanized. It was in the 60-s when disintegration and screening bowls and trommels were introduced. But horsepower remained the main earthmoving force till the end of the XIX century when dredging was successfully introduced with assistance of the Western professionals.
This confirms all my suspicions - that the people were breaking free of thier own accord and were enterprising individuals. These people might well have built the new Russia if the situation was different.
