Tsar Nicholas the II stood in his palace gazing out the windows which displayed a vision of his palace gardens, and the city of Saint Petersburg below. The Winter Palace was the official residence of the house of Romanov and had been since 1732. It was a large and luxurious estate, the type that only the wealth of an entire empire could afford to build.
You see the thing was, the Great European monarchs of the early modern era had built multiple palaces for themselves, each one of which was so grand in size, scale, and opulence that the world's wealthy merchant elite of the 21st century could only gaze upon them with envy as their meager fortunes could not possibly construct such an abode for themselves.
