cover image The Lost Fortune of the Tsars

The Lost Fortune of the Tsars

William Clarke, W. Clarke. St. Martin's Press, $24.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-312-13118-0

After the Bolshevik murder of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra and other members of the Russian royal family in 1918, what became of the Romanov jewels, Faberge eggs, yachts, money, gold and investments? Separating rumor from fact, Clarke, former financial editor of the London Times, provides solid answers in an inquiry that reads like a good detective mystery. Tapping Moscow's recently opened State Archives, he documents how the Bolsheviks seized much of the royalist wealth, some of which was later sold to bolster the Soviet regime's finances. Clarke has uncovered new evidence of former tsarist bank accounts in London, Paris and New York City, as well as details of Soviet sales of Romanov jewels in London's diamond district in a secret attempt to subsidize the London Daily Herald in the early 1920s. Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Anastasia, the tsar's youngest daughter, possessed accurate information on tsarist money. Since the recent exhumation of the massacred Romanov family left two of the 11 bodies unaccounted for, Clarke believes that Anderson's claim cannot be dismissed outright even though, in his estimate, her own testimony undermines her veracity. Photos. (July)