Restitution for Russian Nobles?

Their descendants are on a quixotic mission to recover property seized by the Bolsheviks over a century ago

by Galina Stolyarova

Vera Obolenskaya stood looking at an ornate, cream-colored 19th-century mansion that sits on the Mytninskaya Embankment along the Neva River.

"I want to live here," she said, smiling.

In another world, she would have. The mansion belonged to her family nearly a century ago. It overlooks the State Hermitage Museum in the Winter Palace and offers a stunning view of St. Petersburg.

The next moment Obolenskaya looked away, biting her lip. The flats in this plum property now belong to government officials, she said.

The historical center of St. Petersburg is studded with palaces once owned by Russian nobility. The Menshikov Palace, above, was built in the early 18th century by an aide to Peter the Great. It is now used by the Hermitage Museum.

The elegant, petite Obolenskaya is a descendant of nobles whose property was nationalized by the Bolsheviks following the 1917 Revolution. By her count, she is part of the 34th generation of the Obolensky family, a line of princes descended from the Rurik dynasty, which ruled Russia until the 16th century and is credited with founding the country.

In August, Obolenskaya will go to Moscow to attend the Russian Nobility Congress and try to raise the sensitive issue of restitution with the Russian government.

The restitution initiative comes as a response to recent proposals seeking to demolish many of St. Petersburg's crumbling historical mansions to vacate space for business centers.

Some of the land that comes with those mansions has gone into private hands, with the blessing of Governor Valentina Matviyenko. St. Petersburg has already lost many dozens of charming historical mansions as a result of this policy, which has infuriated thousands of St. Petersburg's residents, regardless of their origins.

For the few families that, like the Obolenskys, but is t, survived the Bolshevik purges, the story has the flavor of a personal drama.

MANY VICTIMS

"Descendants of some former owners of these places are still alive, and naturally they're all penniless, having been completely robbed by the Bolsheviks," Obolenskaya said with an indignant shrug. "Forcing them to compete with new Russians at auctions for the right to regain what was unfairly taken from them is very unfair."

Obolenskaya's feelings, however, are not widely shared in Russia, where generation after generation has been treated unfairly by the state.

"Restitution in Russia is not going to work for one simple reason: almost every family in the country has suffered from the state in one form or another," said Mikhail Amosov, a member of the liberal Yabloko party and former chairman of the Town Planning Commission of the St. Petersburg legislature. "After the Bolshevik Revolution the country went through the war, mass repression, ethnic discrimination, and much more. If everyone can't be compensated, then it would be unfair to do justice just to one category of people."

The experience of post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the Baltic region shows that restitution can take different forms and does not necessarily involve the physical return of lost properties. Victims of totalitarian regimes may receive financial compensation, land, or bonds.

The Russian government has offered nothing so far, not even an apology.

Galina Arkhipenko, head of the real estate department of St. Petersburg's Culture Committee, cited a number of palaces and mansions that house museums and theaters and said it would be a disaster if these buildings were returned to their former owners.

"The former owners are remembered through the names of the buildings. Take, for instance, the Shuvalovsky Palace or the Sheremetev Palace," she said. "It's a sign of respect."

Not many aristocrats feel that respect.

"Respecting a person means at least talking to them, but the authorities speak about this as if we don't exist," Obolenskaya said. "They speak as if communists themselves built loads of palaces and estates, and now there are too many of them, so the state wants to share the burden of maintaining them. But they didn't build them, they expropriated them. A huge difference, isn't it?"