Thanks to my great obsession with the wealth of Russian nobility, i have been researching heavily on this topic. One of the most surprising findings of my research has been that the Stroganoff wealth on eve of the revolution is greatly exagerated. I dont even think that Stroganovs were among the top five richest families on eve of the revolution.
In the beginning of my argument, i would like to clearly state that i am not talking about the 16th and 17th century when Stroganovs were indeed among the richest in the world. This is specifically on eve of the revolution. My assumptions of wealth are based on four criteria as defined by Dominic Lieven in his book -
Agricultural land, Forestry, Urban property and Industry.
1) Agricultural land- It is true that Stroganoffs were largest landowners in Russia on eve of the revolution. They owned 14,00,000 desyatin of land. However, as Dominic Lieven states most of this land was arid Ural land. The land in Ukraine was valued almost 10 times as Ural lands. DL states that the most valuable lands as per their valuation belonged to Yussupovs followed by Orlov-Davydovs and then Sheremetevs. Thus, Stroganoffs did not have any agricultural land to derive income from.
2) Forestry - This was the only source of income for Stroganoffs. They owned large Perm forests which brought good income.
3) Urban Property - Surprisingly, Stroganoffs did not own any large real estate investments. They owned just the Stroganoff Palace on Nevsky and the Pavel Stroganoff palace. This brought no income. The biggest landowners in StPetersburg were Princes Beloselsky-Belozersky who owned the entire Krestovsky Island which brought in fantastic income. Biggest Landowners in Moscow were Sheremetevs. Another family with very valuable real estate were Counts Stenbock-Fermor who owned hotels and shopping arcades. Shuvalovs owned six apartment buildings.
4) Industry - This brought in large income for nobles. While it is true that Stroganoffs owned large iron plants and mines, they were all bankrupt. In 1908, Count Stroganoff closed down all his mines and factories and decided to concentrate on forestry (Aristocracy in Europe , Page no: 48 ) . Even Demidoffs were facing heavy losses. The Nobles with highest income from industry were Princes Abamelek-Lazarev. Also Yussupovs, Shuvalovs, Sheremetevs and Orlov-Davydov had large industrial investments.
Thus what we see from above is that Stroganoffs did not have large investments nor land. Their "Wealth" was only their art collection and palaces. They paled in comparison with the other nobles.
