5/29/2023 0 Comments The family romanovMeanwhile, outside of the palaces:“Often there was little to eat but dark bread. His vaults overflowed with a fortune injewels.” And if he needed more, he simply appropriated it.He owned thirty palaces estates in Finland, Poland, and the Crimea (allpart of Russia at the time) millions of acres of farmland gold and silvermines, as well as oil and timber reserves an endless collection ofpriceless paintings and sculptures and five yachts, two private trains, andcountless horses, carriages, and cars. Every yearhe drew an income of 24 million gold rubles ($240 million today) from thestate treasury, which derived most of its income from taxes and fees leviedon the tsar’s subjects. The richest monarch in the world, his family wealthwas once estimated at $45 billion (in today’s U.S. His realm stretchedfrom Poland to Japan and from the Arctic Ocean to the borders of Turkey, theHimalayas, and China. And yet this unassuming manreigned over 130 million subjects and one-sixth of the planet’s landsurface-an area so vast that as night fell along the western edge of histerritory, day was already breaking on the eastern border. “Short, with a neatly trimmed beard and large, soft blue eyes, Nicholashardly looked like the imposing ruler of Russia.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |