Customer Reviews

Hidden Treasures of the Romanovs

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a biography of Albert Stopford, the man who rescued the jewels of Grand Duchess Marie Palvona during the Russian revolution. The title is somewhat misleading in that you might expect a book on the Russian royal jewels and treasures, but in fact what you are getting is the full story of a figure that often appears on the fringes of many Romanov stories during the revolution.

Stopford was a man who led a very varied life. His father was a vicker in an English village but his family had connections to Queen Victoria and he was able to use these connections to eventually become a high class antique dealer and confidential courier to royalty. Stopford was also gay in era when that was enough in itself to land you in jail and it was a fact that was to have unfortunate consequences later in his life.

I found this an interesting book that filled in some gaps found in other books. It also had some interesting information on Marie Pavlovna (who deserves a book of her own), but at the same time I found it slightly disappointing from the image section as it doesn't actually provide a lot of pictures of the jewels Stopford when through so much stress saving. This is a fill-in-the-blanks book for people interested in the Romanov's but not really a must have volume.

I thought this would be more about the hidden treasure with pictures and details. Rather this was a poorly written book about a friend of the royalty who got out some treasure and then somehow did something that made time forget him. I was often bored and confused as the narrative jumped around.

This book does have some interesting spots, but it doesn't have a clear focus- it details mainly Stopford's life, and touches on other areas, including that of the jewellry- but one could be forgiven for wondering where the rest of the book about the jewellry is, as promised by the title, as the book only lightly deals with it. It does have some glaring inaccuracies, too- the biggest howler is claiming that post- World War One, the British royal family chaged their name to Windsor from- as he spells it- Battenburg. For a start Battenberg is spelt with an 'e'- hence the family changing it to Mount Batten after WWI- if it was Battenburg they would have had to change it to Batten Town ( burg=town, berg=mountain) and the British royal family has never been associated with that name- it was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Little things like this put one off.

This book is a terrific story about a little-known but very important person who was friends with all the top Romanovs & helped many of them retrieve their possessions during the Russian Revolution.