Archival documents of the Russian emperors put up for auction in Spain

Thus, lot number 1413 is an important document signed by Empress Catherine I. This is a decree addressed to the Military College. the text is written in black bold ink. The ruler's signature was made on September 18, 1726, with another note at the bottom: "Noon — September 23, 1726." The estimated cost of the document is €15 thousand–€20 thousand.

The next lot, 1414, is a rare signature of Emperor II. The autograph of the ruler is on a letter that was addressed to the governor of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, Charles I of Hesse-Kassel. The cost is estimated from €10 thousand to €12 thousand.

"Peter II sent this letter informing about the death of his sister, Grand Duchess Natalia, who died three weeks earlier at the very young age of 21," the note to the lot says.

Buyers are also invited to purchase lot 1416, a 40 by 26.5 cm document signed by Empress Catherine II on December 31, 1781. It is expected that its cost will range from €2.5 thousand to €3.5 thousand. The text says that the Empress assigns Captain Vasily Selevin a higher rank. The document is sealed with the state seal of the Russian Empire.

"Let it be known and understood by all that We have graciously appointed and confirmed Vasily Selevin, who has served as Our captain, Our Second Major since the first day of January 1782, for his diligence and diligence in Our service ...", reads a fragment of the decree.

Lot 1423 is a partially printed two-page document entitled "Account of the meeting of officers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Life Guards." It lists various items of provisions, including bread, breakfasts, tea, a bottle of madeira and two barrels of oysters, the total amount indicated is 169.55 rubles. At the very end, Emperor Nicholas II put his signature in bold pencil, which means approval of such expenses. The estimated value of the autographed document of the last emperor is €8,000–€12,000.

"A rare specimen. [There is] a small hole in the upper left corner, otherwise in very good condition," the auction organizers estimated.

According to the following number (1424), a letter from Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia was put up for auction. The document was written on April 23, 1917, in Cyrillic, and contains all five signatures. The purchase price will range from €10,000 to €12,000.

"This letter was written during the house arrest of the Romanov family, which began a month earlier, on March 20, 1917, when the Provisional Government, issued after the Russian Revolution, decreed that the imperial family should be held in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo," the description says.

A separate letter from Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna is displayed under the number 1425. The letter was sent to the poet Sergei Bekhteyev's sister, Zinaida Sergeevna Tolstoy, on April 3/16, 1918. Its estimated cost is €7,000–€9,000

"Christ is risen! We all send you and all our congratulations on this holy holiday. Did you receive our letter dated March 13th? We hope that everyone is in good health and that everything is fine," the document says.

The front side of the postcard contains an image of Tobolsk at that time. At the same time, there are minor damages and signs of wear on the sheet.

The first edition of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was also sold for 1.6 million rubles at the Litfond auction on March 14. The starting price of the lot was 300 thousand rubles. The lot itself consisted of a well-preserved set of six books with slight scuffs on the bindings and cracks on the flyleafs.

Izvestia learned in December 2025 that rare editions of classics stolen in Europe could be sold in Russia. The well-known auction house Litfond may be involved in the sale of some of the books. During 2022 and 2023, he put up for auction at least two such books — a collection of poems by Alexander Pushkin in 1829 and the first edition of Nikolai Gogol's The Inspector General, released in 1836. Both books were stamped by the Warsaw University Library.,

The unique underground correspondence of the imperial family with the family of Count Tolstoy after the arrest by the Bolsheviks — letters from the Empress and the royal daughters written in Ipatiev's house just before the execution — were auctioned in Paris in 2007. The letters, which had been in a private collection all this time, have never been published, and their buyer is unknown.

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