Do you know who worked hard and became rich? Peter Carl Fabergé. He turned a small family jewelery business into an operation that employed over 500 highly skilled craftsmen. Between 1882 and 1917 the firm created between 150-200,000 pieces of jewelry and other rare objects. The work of the company created a sensation at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, and orders poured in. Then in 1918 the Bolsheviks siezed the House of Fabergé, and that was the end of that. That's why the eggs and other Fabergé items are so rare. Fabergé himself died in 1920 in exile, his family said of a broken heart.

The reaon why Fabergé was so successful in a land that was full of peasants and ruled by a nobility was because his skill as a jeweler and an artist were extraordinary. He traveled throughout Europe studying art, and learning from master jewelers. who paid for his studies because he was so good. Of course he worked really hard too, because if you don't work hard you are pretty much guaranteed to get nothing. Master a skill people will appreciate and pay for like Fabergé, or accept your serfdom.