How rich was Nicholas II really?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Like the globalist elite today, the tsar held significant capital abroad: for example, in England - 200 million of those rubles (2.5 billion of today's dollars), 220 million rubles in France, significant funds in Germany and the United States. The general state of the royal family is financial assets abroad, shares, bank deposits, land, enterprises, buildings, jewelry, etc. - can be estimated at 16-18 billion "those" rubles. Or 15 trillion. current rubles (200-250 billion modern dollars). With such a state, the family of Nicholas II would be the richest in the world today.

During the Second Census, Tsar Nicholas II wrote about his occupation "Master of the Russian Land". And this corresponded to the truth - the patrimonial system of ownership in Russia, when the tsar, in a figurative sense, was the absolute owner of everything that was in Russia.

At the same time, Nicholas II was nominally Russian. He is German by birth. His wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, is also German, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, niece of King Edward VII of Great Britain, cousin of the German Emperor Wilhelm II. Nicholas II was a cousin of the German Emperor Wilhelm II and King of Great Britain George V. All the official relatives of the Romanovs were foreigners and made up the ruling monarchical circles of European countries: Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Spain, etc. Today Nicholas II and the circle of his relatives would be called the globalist elite. And this, as we will see below, was so - a significant part of his fortune was abroad.

But how to measure the personal financial condition of the last tsar of Russia? This question is answered in two works by the historian Vladimir Fetisov. The first one is “On the question of monetary resources and financial policy of Emperor Nicholas II” (the journal “Symbol of Science”, No. 9, 2015). The second one is “Assessment of the value and role of the property of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II” (the journal “Symbol of Science”, No. 7, 2015).

Finances of the royal family

Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich names three sources of income for Nicholas II: 1) annual allocations from the State Treasury - 11 million rubles; 2) income from specific lands - 2.5 million rubles; 3) interest on capital held abroad in British and German banks. This statement, repeated by many historians and memoirists, clearly testifies to a superficial understanding of the sources and true amounts of the tsar's monetary resources. First, income from cabinet property and gifts from domestic and foreign individuals should be added to the sources. Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the figures themselves: since 1900, more than 16 million rubles have been allocated from the state budget to the Ministry of the Imperial Court, and income from the estates already in 1896 reached 20 million rubles, while 5 million rubles were spent on the maintenance of members of the Bolshaya Romanovskaya families.

The size of the monetary assets of the royal family, including currency, securities and gold, are shrouded in mystery to this day. Nevertheless, you can get a general idea of them. We subdivide the monetary resources of Nicholas II into the following three main groups:

1) domestic currency and securities in Russia;

2) foreign currency and securities abroad;

3) domestic and foreign gold.

The Romanovs kept most of the money in profitable government securities. The volume of the legal banking money capital of Nicholas II can be judged from the data of the report of the Ministry of the Imperial Court. So, in Chapter 1 "Interest on the reserve capital and profit on current accounts", received in the budget of the Ministry, the figures are given: 3.053.648 rubles in 1885 and 2.825.056 rubles in 1906. Hence, with an average rate of return on government securities of 4%, which was the most widespread at that time, the banking money capital of the royal family should have amounted to 76 million rubles in 1885 and over 70 million rubles in 1906. The Ministry of the Imperial Court also had secret funds and accounts for tens of millions of rubles, in particular, the so-called "Reserve Capital", "Capital of the Tsarskoye Selo Farm", "His Imperial Majesty's Own Capital", etc.

In his memoirs, the executive officer of the Ministry of the Court, V. Krivenko, notes that the head of the Control, Baron K. Kister, managed to create a reserve fund of 43,411,128 rubles. ("By the account of special funds"), respectively, by January 1, 1881 in the box office of the Ministry of the Court there were: by the account of general funds - 36.625.82 rubles; on the account of special funds - 43,411,128 rubles; on the account of deposits - 17.652.585 rubles. Total - 64,762,295 rubles. At the same time, he emphasizes that "there were no millions of sums in the" London Bank ", which were then talked about." It follows from this that the sums quoted in 1881 and similar ones in 1885, 1906 and other years were of an official nature and were in Russia.

Along with public funds in Russia, the emperors had deposits in British, German, French and American banks, information about which was strictly confidential. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich mentions 20 million pounds sterling (200 million rubles) in British banks. It is known for certain that in 1882 in the Bank of England the accounts of Alexander III in English interest-bearing securities were 1,758,000 pounds. Art. (1.600.000 in 4.5% consols + 78.000 English 3% consols + 80.000 Sfalian 5% Rentes), or 18-20 million rubles, which did not go through any of the official financial reports of the Ministry of the Imperial Court, that is, they were secret capital of Russian emperors.

To ensure the welfare of children abroad, from November 1905 to July 1906, £ 462,936 were deposited in ten secret anonymous accounts at the German Reich Bank. Art. and 9,487,100 German marks (about 8, 76 million rubles). In 1906-1913, the Romanovs opened their own anonymous secret accounts for huge amounts in banks in Germany, England, and France. In France before the World War, according to W. Clarke's research, there were 648 million francs of royal assets (approximately 220 million rubles).

It has now been established that in the period from 1905 to 1917, Nicholas II exported gold in bars and coins to the USA, Great Britain and other countries in the amount of several tens of millions of rubles.

Thus, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the royal family abroad had from 100 to 300 million rubles in securities, foreign currency and gold, the annual interest of which ranged from 4 to 12 million rubles.

The shadow budget allowed the emperor to annually dispose of additional 20-30 million rubles, which were secretly used for all sorts of personal purposes (placing deposits in domestic and foreign banks, exporting gold abroad, buying new estates, etc.). In just twenty years of his reign, Nicholas II received 400-600 informal million rubles (350-500 billion modern rubles; i.e., an average of 17-25 billion per year), which formed the basis of the growth of foreign and domestic monetary wealth of the Tsar.

Real estate

1. According to the 1905 census, the imperial family owned 7 million 843 thousand dessiatines (8.6 million hectares) of specific lands in 50 provinces of the European part of Russia. The personal property of Nicholas II was 135 million hectares of cabinet land (26 million hectares of the Trans-Baikal District, 40 million hectares of the Altai Mountain District, 67, 8 million hectares of Siberia, the Loviche Principality in Poland).

2. Immovable consumer property. The royal family owned hundreds of estates, dozens of palaces, theaters, museums. What is the cost, for example, of the Great Catherine Palace? Estimates can be different, but in any case it is not millions, but tens of millions of rubles. The total cost of real estate consumer property was in the range of 500-700 million rubles.

3. Real estate and movable industrial property consisted of the management of the estates and the production base of the Cabinet of the Ministry of the Imperial Court. The royal family owned the Nerchinsk, Altai, Lena enterprises for the extraction of gold, silver, copper, lead, the Kuznetsk iron and coal basin, tea, sugar beet and grape plantations, hundreds of trading establishments, factories, factories and other formations in Russia. The size of the working capital of the enterprises managing the estates reached 60 million rubles. The total cost of industrial real estate and movable property can be estimated at 400-600 million rubles.

4. Movable consumer property should be subdivided into two groups: a) general consumer goods, b) art and jewelry. Most of this property was represented by exclusive items, often works of art and museum pieces. Take, for example, a collection of 54 Imperial Faberge Easter eggs. Their cost at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries was over 300 thousand rubles.

The value of the collections of the Hermitage and other Romanov museums can hardly be overestimated.

The royal jewelry property was exceptional. One large imperial crown alone was valued at $ 52 million in the 1920s. The collection of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, according to contemporaries, reached $ 50 million in 1917 prices.

The total value of the Romanovs' movable property and valuables was at least 700-900 million rubles. Or 600-800 billion modern rubles.

4. The Russian emperor, together with the ROC, owned huge assets of immovable and movable property abroad.

Vladimir Fetisov concludes that the general state of the royal family is financial assets abroad, land, enterprises, buildings, jewelry, etc. - can be estimated at 16-18 billion "those" rubles. Or 15 trillion. current rubles (200-250 billion modern dollars). With such a state, the family of Nicholas II would be the richest in the world today. For comparison: the richest person in the world today is the head of Amazon Jeff Bezos with a fortune of $ 140 billion.