Where did the British Queen Elizabeth II get the tiara from the lost family treasures of the Romanovs?

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The last Russian monarch possessed untold wealth, and the Romanovs were the richest family among all European ruling dynasties. After the overthrow of the tsar, the Romanovs took their jewelry and many valuable things with them into exile in Tobolsk - it was there that Nicholas II and his family members were sent. According to the official version, their treasures, packed in several chests, left with them. The rest of the treasures remaining in the Alexander Palace were transferred to the museum.

Immediately after the execution of the king and his family, an investigation was launched to find the missing treasures of the dynasty, but there is still not a single intelligible version that would explain the disappearance of untold riches.

What treasures the royal family owned

Peter the First, by his decree, forbade giving, changing or selling valuables that belonged to the royal treasury. This happened back in 1719, so since then the family's wealth has only grown and multiplied. For almost two hundred years, the collection has been replenished with unique jewelry and values. In addition, it was Nicholas II, who has good taste and a clear craving for luxury, who contributed to the replenishment of the collection.

During this historical period, there is a fashion for the Russian kokoshnik in Europe. Despite the fact that tiaras were worn by all the ruling dynasties of the world, the Russians were difficult to confuse, they even received a specific name tiare russe or simply "kokoshnik". They differed from the usual tiaras in rich decoration and versatility of use. If the usual European tiara is nothing more than a bezel that can be worn on the head and nothing more, then the Russian version could be worn around the neck like a necklace, on the kokoshnik itself, fastened on it as an adornment. Russian stylized tiaras are found in almost all monarchies in the world. There is a similar one for Elizabeth II, once she was presented to the British princess - Alexandra of Denmark. All ladies of noble birth and, of course, women of the royal family had similar jewelry. It is impossible to say exactly how many of them should be in the collection, but definitely not less than two - one had a sharper fringe, the other somewhat rounded. In any case, they are considered lost, perhaps their versatility ruined them, such a decoration was easier to disassemble.

The wedding tiara was more fortunate than the kokoshniks; it is still kept in the Kremlin's Diamond Fund. It is believed that it was made in 1800 for the wife of Paul I; in the original version, there were still dangling diamonds around the edges, stylizing the jewelry and giving it Russian charm, the total weight of these diamonds was more than 1000 carats. The main stone of the tiara is a diamond of over 13 carats. Initially, foil was put under it, this simple technique was often used by jewelers of those years in order to give the stone a different color. By the way, this is the only official tiara of the Romanov family, which is located in Russia.

Another tiara, which was also owned by the wife of Paul I, is also kept in the diamond fund, but this is only a copy. The original survived the revolution, but at that time was not interested in its uniqueness and was sold at auction. His further fate is unknown. Although contemporaries appreciate the tiara, which they called "Spikes". The originality of the composition and the filigree performance are mesmerizing. And most importantly, how deeply the author put the meaning in the gold jewelry, having made spikes of rye and flax from metal. Another tiara with the working title "Russian Beauty" has a similar fate; now the collection contains a copy of it, and the copy contains artificial pearls, unlike the original.

The curse of the Romanov gold

At that time, difficult for the whole country, which was on the verge of change, the loss of jewelry was an insignificant price. Then, on a terrible night from July 16 to July 17 in Yekaterinburg, when the executioners, themselves stunned by their own courage, because they had to shoot those whom they would not even dare to look at before, they decided that God himself was protecting the royal family, because from The princesses literally bounced off the bullets. It turned out that the matter was not in a miracle, but in the family jewels that the princesses sewed and put into their clothes, believing that in the exile for which they were preparing, the values would help them survive. Alas, their plans were not destined to come true. More than two kilograms of stones were found on one of the girls. Diamonds were not officially recorded anywhere and went into the pockets of the Bolsheviks. Who apparently themselves understood the degree of horror of what happened, but since then the treasures of the Romanovs began to be considered damned.

After the incident, it turned out that only a small part of the Romanov family treasures survived. A couple of boxes and those decorations that were on the members of the royal family. For a long time, no one seriously engaged in the search for the missing valuables, because the situation in the country did little to worry about the fate of diamonds and gold. The Bolsheviks, being people of a completely different circle, had little idea about how many jewelry and values they were talking about. One of the ladies-in-waiting nevertheless gave information that the royal family had a huge amount of gold jewelry. Part was carried away by the servants, the other was taken away by the Red Army. But the Romanovs somehow managed to hide most of their treasures. For two decades the Bolsheviks were looking for the treasure, but they attacked its trail in Tobolsk, when the property of the churches was plundered, and it was there that they stumbled upon the "royal trail". It turned out that the treasures were transferred to the custody of the abbess, who died right during interrogation, without giving any valuable information.

Another nun, on whose trail the Chekists managed to get out, for almost 8 years constantly hid the treasures, in the end, buried them in barrels under the foundations of the house of a local fisherman. However, during interrogations, both the fish merchant and the nun indicated the exact burial place, so 154 more treasures were revealed. Among the most valuable jewelry of this treasure is a diamond of almost 100 carats and a brooch - a gift from the Turkish Sultan to Nicholas II. Despite the fact that the total weight of the treasures exceeded һ kilograms and the find became the largest, it is not necessary to talk about the fact that all the jewelry was found. The Romanovs collected treasures in a breath and no inventory of their property was made, there are still a number of well-known treasures that have not yet been found. For example, the sword of the emperor.

Bolshevik plunder

What was collected and carefully preserved by the tsarist dynasty, the Bolsheviks sold out very quickly. It is difficult to find in world history a similar example of such a cynical sale of world treasures. At first, the sale was clandestine, diamonds and gold were exported abroad and sold, and the proceeds were to be used to sponsor the work of underground groups. Gokhran was created to suppress such attempts, but soon the famine began, there was no money to buy bread. Jewelry was the first to fall under the distribution. However, at that time there were simply no specialists capable of assessing the scale and uniqueness of the treasures in the country, which is not surprising, given the fact that people from the people came to power. Jewelry was kept simply in chests, without any inventory. The appraisal was made in a hurry, and the final amount was clearly underestimated. A small example - the gift of Nicholas II, the Easter egg "Lilies of the Valley" was sold for seven thousand rubles, and a hundred years later it was put up for auction for $ 12 million!

Russian tiara and her British mistress

For ten years, 569 items out of 773 treasures of the Diamond Fund were sold for next to nothing. Now they are abroad, some are in private collections and it is not possible to return them to their homeland. At the same time, the Vladimir tiara fell into the hands of the British heiress Mary, according to the official version, it was bought just during the October Revolution. Elizabeth II - the granddaughter of Mary, the tiara was inherited. This luxurious piece of jewelery consists of 15 diamond rings with teardrop-shaped pearls in the center.

The tiara "Knots of Love" is a wedding gift for Princess Maria Pavlovna. After the bloody events, she fled to Kislovodsk, and from there moved to Europe, later people close to her sent money and her jewelry there. After her death, the tiara was sold to the British monarchy. At the same time, pearls were replaced by emeralds. However, like many other Russian tiaras, the Vladimir tiara very successfully endured many alterations and is still periodically worn with different stones. By the way, this is one of the favorite pieces of jewelry of Elizabeth II. The fate of the dynasty, which first decided the fate of the country, and then became the personification of the changes that have come, still seems too cruel. However, it was not possible to finally interrupt the Romanov family, the modern descendants of the Russian imperial dynasty live and prosper.