They are indignant that the state intends to sell "their" property. The members of the best-known noble families in Russia - the Obolenskys, Shakhovskois and others - have decided to hold a meeting in St. Petersburg, where their ancestors once lived.
Boris Turovsky, the head of the St. Petersburg department of the Russian Imperial Union-Order (an organization of Russian aristocrats living abroad), says there are legitimate claims to virtually every building in the city center. Now that the sale of historical buildings is beginning in Russia, the state is faced with new problems. It looks like these buildings will have two owners: the purchaser and the "heir," who will be able to prove his rights to this property in an international court, Turovsky said.
"We simply want the state to admit officially that nationalization in the 1920s was unlawful and to apologize officially for driving people from their own houses and their own country, humiliating them," Turovsky said.
Princess Vera Obolenskaya, a citizen of France, says the Russian state should recognize the right of the heirs to play a role in deciding the fate of the buildings. "We are of Rurich stock and over eleven centuries became accustomed to doing something for our country," said Prince Dmitry Shakhovskoi, also a French citizen.
There can be two approaches to the aristocrats' claims, said Alexei Komech, one of Russia's most competent experts in this sphere, who heads the Art History Institute. Real estate may be returned to them under a general denationalization law, but this law does not exist. The other option is to do this in keeping with the present privatization laws by using privileged restitution procedures.
