LAWSUIT OVER £35,000,000

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1935, Page 3

LAWSUIT OVER £35,000,000

RUSSIAN FAMILY’S PALACES. PARIS, July 5. The last stage of a lawsuit over an inheritance of £35,000,000 is to begin tomorrow at Nico. The fortune was left by Count Serge Stroganoff, who died at. Eze-sur-Mer. on the Riviera, in 1923. Count Sergo was the undisputed heir of the ancient Russian family of Stroganoff. Even after his family's grout .possessions in Russia were confiscated during the Bolshevik revolution. Count Serge owned a palace and a picture gallery in Rome and several houses in Italy. He also left £600,00'1 in a Xc« York hank and several mansions in France. At his villa at Eze-sur-Mer ho possessed valuable art and historic treasures. Much of this property had been given to the Stroganoff family by ihe Tsars. Count Serge's will imide his widow, now Mme. Lc" ieuze, his side legatee. The will stipulated that his trustees, should re; peel the Tsarist law by which certain of the endowments passed into the possession of the eld est male representative of the family 'The heir to these endowments at th time <>f Count. Serge Stroganoffs death was regarded by the family, it is alleged, as his nephew Prince George Scherbatoff. Some time after the Count's death a colonel in the White At my, Count Nicolas Slrogan off. claim'd that he wa- the b--Hf tnate heir. The Nice Court mu-t d»-< ide v. lother he is the eldest mule member ,>f tin*. Stroganoff family. Mme I.<wicoze and Princess (Hca S< herb. Hoff, mother of Prince George, .iaim th,a he is not. a member of their lutnih