He did have a "summer home" where he stayed, but apparently neither the property itself, nor hardly any of the furnishings actually belonged to him. Many of his personal possessions are directly related to his function in society, i.e. his party card, which shows his regular payment of dues to the communist party, a writing device which was a gift from the workers of a factory, some stamps with his signature on it, his uniforms and boots, etc.
It's also said that after his death, his daughter was quite shocked to find that her father did not personally own much of anything, and that she had virtually no inheritance. I think that this matches with his personality and life experience, as he spent much of his early life without a stable home or employment, owning only what he could carry with him.
I'm reminded of some remarks on Stalin made by Slavoj Zizek, where he stated that Stalin saw himself as performing a necessary role in Soviet society, that he was an instrument of the will of the people and carried out the duties of his office in their interest. A revealing habit of his is that after he would make a speech, and the assembly would applaud, he would take a step back and applaud with them, as if recognizing that it was not the man that was important in this situation, but the words that were said, and the meaning behind them.
Then, I'm assuming, considering that 900 rubles from 1953 is roughly around ~6,000 UDS, ~4,500 GPB, or ~400,000 RUB in today's currency according to http://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html Keep in mind that the website doesn't have data for the value of the RUB between the years 1919 and 1960, and that it also only has the value of the USD up to 2015, because of this, I had to convert 1961's value of the RUB to 2015's value of the USD, so the final estimated value might be overvalued.
Anyways, here's what the website said:
900 Russian rouble [1961-1998] in year 1961 was the amount a male worker in Sweden received in wage for 260.45464420712125 hours work. A male worker in Sweden in 2015 received 6459.468216512286 US dollar [1791-2015] in wage for 260.45464420712125 hours worked. This comparison should be used if the purpose of the analysis is to compare relative worth over time rather than absolute worth. Stalin had about two month's worth of currency at the time of his death, which certainly isn't $20, but also certainly isn't anywhere near a vast amount.
Comments
http://englishrussia.com/2013/12/19/personal-belongings-of-joseph-stalin/
https://old.reddit.com/r/history/comments/1tctpz/personal_belongings_of_josef_stalin/
He did have a "summer home" where he stayed, but apparently neither the property itself, nor hardly any of the furnishings actually belonged to him. Many of his personal possessions are directly related to his function in society, i.e. his party card, which shows his regular payment of dues to the communist party, a writing device which was a gift from the workers of a factory, some stamps with his signature on it, his uniforms and boots, etc.
It's also said that after his death, his daughter was quite shocked to find that her father did not personally own much of anything, and that she had virtually no inheritance. I think that this matches with his personality and life experience, as he spent much of his early life without a stable home or employment, owning only what he could carry with him.
I'm reminded of some remarks on Stalin made by Slavoj Zizek, where he stated that Stalin saw himself as performing a necessary role in Soviet society, that he was an instrument of the will of the people and carried out the duties of his office in their interest. A revealing habit of his is that after he would make a speech, and the assembly would applaud, he would take a step back and applaud with them, as if recognizing that it was not the man that was important in this situation, but the words that were said, and the meaning behind them.
(Slavo Zizek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np-EUnUmReI&feature=youtu.be&t=1227)
Then, I'm assuming, considering that 900 rubles from 1953 is roughly around ~6,000 UDS, ~4,500 GPB, or ~400,000 RUB in today's currency according to http://www.historicalstatistics.org/Currencyconverter.html
Keep in mind that the website doesn't have data for the value of the RUB between the years 1919 and 1960, and that it also only has the value of the USD up to 2015, because of this, I had to convert 1961's value of the RUB to 2015's value of the USD, so the final estimated value might be overvalued.
Anyways, here's what the website said:
900 Russian rouble [1961-1998] in year 1961 was the amount a male worker in Sweden received in wage for 260.45464420712125 hours work. A male worker in Sweden in 2015 received 6459.468216512286 US dollar [1791-2015] in wage for 260.45464420712125 hours worked. This comparison should be used if the purpose of the analysis is to compare relative worth over time rather than absolute worth. Stalin had about two month's worth of currency at the time of his death, which certainly isn't $20, but also certainly isn't anywhere near a vast amount.