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Russian Tsar descendants officially entitled to royal family property in Russia
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by Yuliya Talmazan | October 6, 2008 at 09:39 am
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Just recently the Russian Supreme Court has ruled in the case of the Russian royal family, which was brutally murdered in 1918 by Bolsheviks, to officially declare Tsar Nikolay II and his family victims of Soviet Regime. With the official recognition of the killings come the legal rights of entitlement for the descendants of Romanov family clan. Being a Royal family, Romanovs held a lot of private property and land that upon formation of Soviet Union became state-owned. Now, the palaces and castles where Russian royals used to reside are part of the historical landscape of modern Russia, visited by millions of tourists every year and considered part of cultural and historical heritage by many Russians. As for the Romanovs themselves, publicly they do not seem very eager to lay claim to property once owned by their royal ancestors. Whether they will actually make attempts to recover what is lawfully theirs remains to be seen.
Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna (the head of Romanovs' House in Spain) and the lawyer of the Romanov family, German Lukyanov, have confirmed that restitution is not something that they were aiming for when pushing for the court's decision. According to them, their sole aim was to restore the "good name" of Nikolay II and take another step towards the House of Romanov's return to Russia.
The potential return of the properties to the royal family is made even more unlikely by the unambiguous nature of the Russian law on the issue. The law “On the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repression” does mention that all confiscated property must be returned to the owner, but does not stipulate for any compensation for the descendants of the deceased.
In her interview with the Interfax newsagency, Maria Vladimirovna confirms that restitution has never been her intention:
"There is no connection between the rehabilitation of Emperor Nikolay II and members of his family and any sort of property questions. I sought rehabilitation of the royal passion bearers so that the crime committed by the totalitarian theomachist regime is condemned, and there is no repeat of such horrors in Russia. I pity those who cannot understand that some things in this world can be done for truth, honour and dignity and not for financial gain".
Interestingly, the restitution initiative was launched just yesterday. It did not come from Moscow though. In fact, it was Israel who made the first step toward returning property that belonged to Romanov family. Ironically, the property was not returned to royal descendants, but rather Russian state.
The Israeli government voted on Sunday to hand over Sergei House, a Jerusalem property of the Romanov family which ruled Tsarist Russia, to the Russian state, government spokesman Mark Regev said.
"This property belonged to Prince Sergei. It was a private property ... so the Russian state was not necessarily entitled to recover the property," Alexandre Zanemonets, a university professor in Byzantine history, told AFP.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 11:27 on October 6th, 2008
Good story. I didn't know that there were descendants of the Romanov's left.
at 11:38 on October 6th, 2008
Yeah, amazing. Apparently, there is still quite a number of them, headed by Maria Romanova in Spain.