70 Years Later, Holders of Czarist Bonds Will Collect

Seventy years after the Russian Revolution, more than 3,000 holders of czarist bonds will receive their first checks in partial settlement of claims against the Soviet Union, the British Foreign Office announced Thursday.

The checks, for about 10% of the bonds’ face value and ranging from a few dollars to over $8,000, are being mailed starting today.

The Foreign Office said about 95% are being sent to people living in Britain and the remainder to residents of various Commonwealth countries including Australia, Canada and Malta.

The partial payments are the first under an Anglo-Soviet agreement signed in London in July, 1986, to settle the claims of thousands of Britons and other foreigners whose property was seized and whose bonds were repudiated by the Soviet government after the 1917 revolution.

Timothy Eggar, Foreign Office undersecretary, said he hopes the final payments will represent between 25% and 30% of the face value of the bonds.

Compensation for property confiscated in the revolution--ranging from parrots and liquor cabinets to farms, mines, railroads and complete towns--would probably start being paid in 1989, he said, adding that more than 2,000 property claims have been received.

The claims are being paid with money frozen in London banks since 1918, when the Soviets repudiated Czar Nicholas II’s debts. With interest, the money has grown to $85 million but represents only a fraction of what was lost during the revolution.

Of the 4,582 bond claims submitted to the Foreign Compensation Commission, he said, just over 3,000, or 71.5%, had been registered by the beginning of October.

He said more than 300 claims, or 7%, had been withdrawn by claimants, 200 claims had been refused registration and just over 800 claims remained to be processed.

Some of the claimants were children at the time of the revolution and are now over 80, he said.

Under the terms of the British-Soviet accord, the Soviet Union will get $4.5 million of the frozen czarist assets to compensate for British armed intervention during the Russian Revolution. The remaining $80.5 million will go to the British creditors.

About 37,000 Britons originally lodged claims for $1.8 billion in the years after the Bolsheviks came to power under Vladimir I. Lenin.

The Foreign Office last year announced the claims procedure, setting March 31 as the deadline for redeeming bonds and June 30 for claiming compensation for confiscated property.