RUSSIAN CROWN JEWELS INTACT

Manawatu Times, Volume XLXI, Issue 3481, 15 December 1926, Page 7

RUSSIAN CROWN JEWELS INTACT

Public Exhibition in the Kremlin

VALUED AT £50,000,000 [By Electric Cable —Copyright.] (Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.] (Received Tuesday, 9.50 p.m.) MOSCOW, Dee. 13. The amazing vicissitudes of the Russian Crown jewels, wnich were variously reportea as sold in Paris and New York, or as stolen ana broken up by thieves, or by the Soviet anxious to secure funds, reached a climax today, when it was definitely revealed that they are stili in the Kremlin, where they were publicly exhibited for the first time since the Revolution.

They presented an extraordinary spectacle, valued at £50,000,000, and guarded by special police, wearing pocketless uniforms. A curious feature of the collection is the number of jewelled toys, including a miracle of craftsmanship, an eight-inch orange tree encrusted with' rubies, diamonds, and pearls, realistically representing fruit and foliage, set in a mother-of-pearl tub which opens to show a blue-green parrot an inch long able to sing, walk and flutter it’s wings. There is also a miniature train with gold carriages and platinum locomotive. Another exhibit is a perfect watch, no bigger and no thicker than a sixpence. There is also a priceless jade model of Queen Victoria, four inches high, with a suggestion of cariature, as the tiny crown, composed of a single diamond, is atilt on the Queen’s head. One diamond, centuries old, one inch long and half an inch across, was given by the Shah of Persia to the Tsar to prevent a threatened war.

Other items are a wonderful Indian sapphire of 253 carats, tentatively valued at £2,000,000, an emerald of 153 carats, valued at £1,400,000, and another emerald two and a-half Inches in diameter valued at £2,000,000. But overshadowing ail was the Imperial Crown, ablaze with colours, solidly encrusted with diamonds, -with a double row of gigantic matched pearls. In the great sceptre blazed the famous Orloff diamond.