Young Stalin

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16. GF IML 8.2.1.624.1–26, Bachua Kupriashvili. Dubinsky-Mukhadze, Kamo, pp. 71–84. GF IML 8.2.1.5. RGASPI 558.6.658; Ostrovsky, p. 454; Niall Ferguson, The World’s Banker: History of the House of Rothschild, pp. 1034–36, Appendix One, “Prices and Purchasing Power.” A scholar of Imperial Russia, Greg King, simply converts Romanov-era roubles into today’s U.S.$ by multiplying by ten, which turns 341,000 roubles into $3.4 million (one halves that dollar figure to convert into today’s pounds sterling). None of these figures, however, gives the real value of the rouble in 1907; see Note on “Money.” Contemporaries reckoned that the Emperor of Russia’s private fortune of land, art, palaces, jewels and mineral wealth was about 14 million roubles. In today’s money, that is only about £70 million ($140 million). One simply has to conclude that the bank robbery scored a very substantial amount of money. Greg King’s The Court of the Last Tsar, pp. 231–39. GDMS 87.1955–368.11–13: Alexandra “Sashiko” Svanidze-Monoselidze. Capt. Zubov bribed: Ostrovsky, pp. 545–47.