The history of the Ryabushinskys' commercial, industrial and financial dynasty is a vivid example of the combination of personal and public interests, private business energy and national economic needs.
The famous Russian commercial and industrial dynasty of the Ryabushinsky originates from the economic peasants of the Kaluga province, the settlement of the Rebushinskaya Pafnutyevo-Borovsk monastery, one of which, Mikhail Yakovlevich Denisov (1787-1858), arrived in 1802 in Moscow, where he began trading in woolen goods in Canvas row of Gostiny Dvor. He was married to Efimia Stepanovna Skvortsova, the daughter of a peasant from the village of Shevlino, who owned a large tannery and a factory in Moscow. From this marriage, Mikhail Yakovlevich had three sons and two daughters: Pelageya (born in 1815), Ivan (born in 1818), Pavel (born in 1820), Anna (born in 1824), Vasily ( B. 1826). Mikhail Yakovlevich changed his old surname to Ryabushinsky (after the name of his native settlement) in 1820. This event was associated with his transition to the Old Believers, to which the largest Moscow merchant families belonged.
The war of 1812 dealt a heavy blow to the Moscow merchants, and our hero did not escape this fate. It took a quarter of a century of hard work for M. Ya. Ryabushinsky to become a full-fledged owner of his own business. By 1845, he owned five shops selling cotton and woolen fabrics purchased from artisans near Moscow. The ebullient energy of a born entrepreneur did not allow the elder Ryabushinsky to limit himself to reselling fabrics, and next year he opens his first small factory in Moscow. In the last years of his life, when his sons Pavel and Vasily became adults and proved to be reliable assistants in their father's business, he opened two more factories of woolen and cotton fabrics in the Medynsky and Maloyaroslavsky districts of the Kaluga province.
After his death in 1858, the founder of the dynasty left his sons a fortune of 2 million, which they invested in the establishment of the "Trading House of V. and P. Ryabushinsky brothers", which opened in 1867. Pavel Mikhailovich (1820 - 1899), who in 1869, together with his brother Vasily, bought a cotton mill in Vyshny Volochyok in the Tver province, where all the brothers' factory business was soon concentrated.
In 1884 Pavel and Vasily Ryabushinsky were granted hereditary honorary citizenship by a decree of the Governing Senate. The next year, after receiving it, on December 21, 1885, Vasily Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky died, leaving no instructions on the distribution of his property.
Thus, the legal heirs were Pavel Mikhailovich and the daughters of the brother of the late Ivan Mikhailovich. At the same time, the trading house was transformed into the "Partnership of P. Ryabushinsky's Manufactories with Sons". In 1882, for the high quality of products (yarn from Egyptian and American cotton, multi-colored patterned fabrics), the company received the right to use the image of the State Emblem for commercial purposes. In the 1890s. the share capital of the Partnership was already 4 million rubles.
P.M.Ryabushinsky was married twice, and the second time - at the age of 50 - to the daughter of a Petersburg grain merchant A.S. Ovsyannikova. From this marriage numerous offspring were born - 16 children (three died in infancy). Third generation of the dynasty after death 
father inherited a huge capital - 20 million rubles, divided approximately equally among all.
The most prominent representative of the third generation of the dynasty was undoubtedly Pavel Pavlovich (1871 - 1924), who became the head of a large family. Initially, he was only engaged in banking and industrial affairs of his family, but then, from about 1905, he was actively involved in social activities and took a prominent place in it. Subsequently, he was the chairman of the Moscow Exchange Committee, a member of the State Council for elections from industry, chairman of the Cotton Industry Society, chairman of the All-Russian Union of Industry and Trade. He was also a prominent Old Believer figure, on whose money Narodnaya Gazeta and the Slovo Church magazine were printed. He also created the newspaper "Utro Rossii", which was considered the organ of the progressive Moscow merchants.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ryabushinskys turned their attention to another area of \u200b\u200bfinancial activity - banking. The Kharkiv Land Bank, which was the third largest joint-stock mortgage institution in the country, came under their control. In 1902 they founded a banking house, which was transformed in 1912 into a joint-stock commercial Moscow bank with an authorized capital of 20 million rubles. The banking sector was under the control of Vladimir and Mikhail Ryabushinsky. The bank building on Birzhevaya Square in Moscow was built according to the design of F.O. Shekhtel and was a symbol of the financial success of the dynasty. A characteristic feature of the Ryabushinskys' banking was that capital, which had grown on the basis of industrial capital, was focused primarily on lending to production and creating new jobs. The brothers were actively involved in charity work: at their expense in 1891, a people's canteen was established in Moscow, where up to a thousand people dined every day.
Before the outbreak of the World War, the Ryabushinskys made an attempt to monopolize the Russian flax market. To this end, in 1908 - 1914. they open a network of branches of their bank in the areas of its production. With the help of the Moscow textile manufacturer S. N. Tretyakov, the Russian Flax Industrial Joint Stock Company ("RALO") was organized with a capital of 1 million rubles (later increased to 4 million rubles). On the eve of the 1917 revolution, the Ryabushinskys negotiated with Tretyakov to create a Len cartel with a fixed capital of 10 million rubles, but these plans were not destined to come true.
The Ryabushinsky brothers are known not only as outstanding industrialists and financiers. The youngest of the brothers, Fedor (1885 - 1910), spent 200 thousand rubles to organize a scientific expedition to Kamchatka, the purpose of which was to study the natural resources of the region. The expedition brought to Moscow a rich collection of rare minerals, plants, etc. The young explorer hatched plans for a whole series of similar expeditions to Siberia, but tuberculosis cut them off along with his life.
Dmitry Pavlovich (1882 - 1962) also devoted his life to science. After graduating from the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences, a secondary educational institution, and then the Physics Department of Moscow University, in 1904, with the help of a teacher at the Practical Academy, "father of Russian aviation" N. Ye. Zhukovsky, he founded the Aerodynamic Institute on the Kuchino family estate near Moscow. In a research laboratory on the Pekhorka River, he carried out thorough research in the field of the theory of screws.
Stepan Pavlovich was known as a collector of Russian icons. Already in immigration in Paris in 1925, the "Icon" society was created, which for a long time was permanently headed by Vladimir Pavlovich and which did a lot to popularize abroad and Russian icon and icon painting. The society held 35 exhibitions in various countries of the world, which contributed to the acquaintance of Western people with the Russian spiritual and artistic heritage.
The revolution scattered the Ryabushinskys around the world, only two sisters - Nadezhda and Alexandra Pavlovna - remained in Russia, where a tragic death awaited them on Solovki. Pavel Pavlovich died in France in 1924 from tuberculosis. Vladimir, Sergey and Dmitry Pavlovich also settled there. Being far from Russia, the Ryabushinskys retained a sense of deep patriotism, neither Vladimir nor Dmitry, who had a chance to survive the Nazi occupation of France, did not stain themselves with cooperation with the fascist regime.
Despite the loss of their capital and enterprises, having lost their homeland, the Ryabushinskys, nevertheless, remained in history as an unusually gifted family of Russian entrepreneurs, distinguished by amazing business energy and enterprise, united by mutual support and trust. Relying in business practice on domestic economic traditions, the Ryabushinskys were among the first to declare that entrepreneurship in Russia is more than trade, industrial or financial activity. It is an integral part of the cultural, scientific and political life country, its intellectual potential and historical heritage
The Ryabushinskys are one of the most famous dynasties of Russian entrepreneurs. A conditional and very relative rating, formed by Forbes in 2005 on the basis of archival documents, puts the Ryabushinskys 'fortune in 9th place in the list of the 30 richest Russian surnames of the beginning of the 20th century (before the First World War, the Ryabushinskys' aggregate fortune was 25-35 million gold rubles) The history of the family business lasted for about 100 years. Founder of the famous dynasty of bankers and industrialists shortly before Patriotic War 1812 year. All the Ryabushinsky brothers had to leave Russia in 1917, immediately after the October Revolution.
Despite the fact that the Ryabushinsky surname is primarily associated with the brothers Vasily and Pavel Mikhailovich, the founder of the dynasty is rightfully their father, Mikhail Yakovlev, who was born in 1786 in the Rebushinskaya settlement of the Pafnutiev-Borovsky monastery in Kaluga province. It was he who was the first in the family to go in the trade business, and at the age of 16 he was enrolled in the "Moscow third guild of merchants" under the name Glaziers (his father earned by glazing windows). He also made a decision that not only radically changed his own fate, but also largely determined the further fate of his entire family. In 1820 Mikhail Yakovlev joined the community of Old Believers. After the business that had begun to develop (its own chintz shop in the Kholshchov row) was decimated by the war of 1812, "in the absence of merchant capital" it was "transferred to the bourgeoisie." Then for a long time - for 8 years - I tried to get to my feet on my own. However, he was able to do this only after in 1820 "went into a split", taking the name Rebushinsky (the letter "I" will appear in it in the 1850s). The community was already at that time not only a religious community, but also a commercial one. Its members from among the well-established themselves enjoyed considerable support of merchants-Old Believers, freely received large interest-free, and even irrevocable loans. One way or another, Ryabushinsky's life went uphill with the transition to schismatics, and in 1823 he was again enrolled in the third guild of merchants. In the 1830s, he already owned several textile factories.
In fairness, it should be noted that Rebushinsky was a true zealot of the faith and was respected in the community. He was firm in convictions, and he brought up children in severity. The eldest son - Ivan - he excommunicated from the family, removed from affairs and left without an inheritance because he, against his will, married a bourgeois woman.
And so it happened that the youngest of three sons - Paul and Basil - became the successors of his work. But at first, their fate was not easy. In 1848, in accordance with the decree of Emperor Nicholas I, the acceptance of Old Believers into the merchant class was prohibited. Pavel and Vasily, instead of being accepted into the merchant's guild, could have been recruited. Under such conditions, many merchants adopted traditional Orthodoxy and left the Old Believer community. However, here too Ryabushinsky's character and acumen affected. He did not abandon the faith, but made his sons merchants. Just at this time it was necessary to urgently populate the newly founded city of Yeisk. And in connection with this, the schismatics were relaxed: they were allowed to be assigned to the local merchants. It was there that the Ryabushinskys' sons became the "Yeisk of the third guild of merchants," soon after returning to Moscow.
After the death of Mikhail Yakovlevich (it coincided in time with the cancellation of that same ill-fated Decree), the management of the case passed to the eldest son, Pavel. Soon the brothers became "the second Moscow guild of merchants", and in 1863 - the first. By the mid-1860s, the Ryabushinsky owned three factories and several shops. In 1867, the P. and V. Ryabushinsky brothers ”. In 1869, thanks to Pavel Mikhailovich's phenomenal instinct, the brothers sold all their assets on time, investing the proceeds in an unprofitable paper mill near Vyshny Volochy, which was on fire due to a sharp decline in cotton exports from the United States. And they paid off: after the end of the war, the volume of cotton exports steadily increased, and soon the factory began to bring huge profits. In 1870, her products received the highest award of the Moscow Manufacturing Exhibition. In 1874, a weaving plant began work, and in 1875 the Ryabushinskys controlled the entire cycle of fabric production thanks to the fact that they were able to open a dressing and dyeing factories.
Meanwhile, the question of heirs became more and more urgent for both brothers. The Old Believer way of life played its role here too. At one time, apparently remembering the example of his older brother, Paul, according to the will of his father, married Anna Fomina, the granddaughter of the Old Believer teacher. The years passed. The marriage turned out to be unhappy for the young. The first-born son died without even living a month. After that, six daughters and not a single son were born in the family, which could not but affect Paul's attitude towards his wife. After a long ordeal, the couple divorced. The remaining in the arms of Ryabushinsky's daughters from 6 to 13 years old, he gave to the boarding school. Pavel, however, found family happiness. Although for this he destroyed the personal life of his younger brother. Vasily was wooed to Alexandra Ovsyannikova, the daughter of a famous St. Petersburg millionaire bread merchant, also an Old Believer. To resolve issues related to a possible marriage, fifty-year-old Pavel Mikhailovich went to St. Petersburg. But after meeting the alleged bride of his brother, he decided to marry her himself. The marriage turned out to be happy: sixteen children were born in it (eight of them are boys). And Vasily Mikhailovich never married until the end of his life. He died on December 21, 1885, leaving no heir. After his death in 1887, the P. and V. Ryabushinsky Brothers ”was reorganized into the“ Partnership of P. Ryabushinsky's Manufactories with Sons ”. Pavel Mikhailovich outlived his younger brother by exactly 14 years and died in December 1899. The family business was continued and expanded by his numerous sons.
RYABUSHINSKY RYABUSHINSKY
RYABUSHINSKIE, Russian industrialists and bankers. From the peasants-Old Believers of the Kaluga province. Brothers Vasily Mikhailovich and Pavel Mikhailovich in the 1820s and 1930s. started with small trade, then opened a small textile factory in Moscow, then several in the Kaluga province. In the 1840s. were already considered millionaires. In 1867, the brothers established the P. and V. Ryabushinsky brothers ”. In 1869 they bought a paper mill near Vyshny Volochok, in 1874 they built a weaving mill at it, and in 1875 also a dyeing and dressing factories. After Vasily's death, Pavel Mikhailovich reorganized the trading house in 1887 into the "Partnership of P. Ryabushinsky's Manufactories with Sons" with a fixed capital of two million rubles. The family of Pavel Mikhailovich had 13 children, eight brothers and five sisters. After the death of their father, the sons (they all received a good education) expanded the business and acquired enterprises of the glass, paper and printing industries; during the First World War also timber and metalworking enterprises. In 1902, the "Banking House of the Ryabushinsky Brothers" was founded, which was transformed in 1912 into the Moscow Bank. Among the brothers, the most prominent social position was occupied by Pavel Pavlovich (cm. RYABUSHINSKY Pavel Pavlovich).
Only one of the brothers - Nikolai Pavlovich (cm. RYABUSHINSKY Nikolay Pavlovich) - was not involved in family businesses. He and his brothers Stepan Pavlovich and Mikhail Pavlovich are also known as collectors of works of art. Particularly famous was the collection of icons by S.P. Ryabushinsky, who also dealt with the restoration of icons (his collection was used in the preparation of his works by I.E. Grabar (cm. GRABAR Igor Emmanuilovich)). He was going to open a Museum of Russian Icon Painting in Moscow, but the outbreak of war interfered with these plans.
Dmitry Pavlovich Ryabushinsky founded the Aerodynamic Institute in Kuchino with the assistance of N.E. Zhukovsky (cm. ZHUKOVSKY Nikolay Egorovich).
All brothers emigrated after the October Revolution of 1917. In foreign banks, they retained capital (about 500 thousand pounds sterling), which allowed them to continue their business. But in the late 1930s, most of their businesses went bankrupt due to the Great Depression. (cm. THE GREAT DEPRESSION).
encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .
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Modern encyclopedia
Ryabushinsky - RYABUSHINSKIE, a family of Russian entrepreneurs. Mikhail Yakovlevich (1786 1858), one of the peasants, from 1802 a merchant, in 1846 founded a wool and paper-spinning factory in Moscow. Pavel Mikhailovich (1820 99), acquired in 1869 a cotton factory in ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Ryabushinsky. The Ryabushin dynasty of Russian entrepreneurs. The founders of the dynasty were Kaluga peasants, Old Believers brothers Vasily Mikhailovich and Pavel Mikhailovich, ... ... Wikipedia
Russian industrialists and bankers. Natives of the peasants of the Kaluga province, where in the middle of the 19th century. P. M. and V. M. Ryabushinskiy had several small textile factories. In 1869, R. bought cotton factories in Vyshny Volochyok. ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Rus. industrialists and bankers. Coming from economical peasants of Kaluga province. Already in mid. 19th century PM and VM Ryabushinskiy had several. small textile factories. In 1869 R. bought and then significantly expanded chl. boom. enterprises in Vyshny Volochyok. ... ... Soviet Historical Encyclopedia
Ryabushinsky - mos. merchants, entrepreneurs, bankers. Micah. Yak. (1786 1858) founder of the dynasty. OK. 1802 enrolled in Moscow. merchants. In 1818 he switched to the Old Believers. His sons Pavel (1820 99) and Vasily developed an active entrepreneurial activity ... ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary
Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky ... Wikipedia
Coordinates: 55 ° 41'41 ″ s. sh. 37 ° 38'26 ″ in. d. / 55.694722 ° N sh. 37.640556 ° E etc ... Wikipedia
Wikipedia has articles about other people with this surname, see Ryabushinsky. Stepan Pavlovich Ryabushinsky Date of birth ... Wikipedia
Vladimir Pavlovich Ryabushinsky Occupation ... Wikipedia
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- Old Believers Center behind Rogozhskaya Zastava, E. M. Yukhimenko. This book will be produced according to your order using Print-on-Demand technology. This edition is the first detailed study of the history of the largest ...
On July 24, 1924, the Parisian newspaper "Latest News" reported: "The body of P.P. Ryabushinsky, who died on July 19 in Cambo-les-Bains, will arrive at the Batignoles cemetery on Saturday, July 26 at three o'clock in the afternoon."
RYABUSHINSKY Pavel Pavlovich. Industrialist, banker .
On the last journey of one of the richest and most influential people of pre-revolutionary Russia, only the closest relatives and several old friends saw off. It seemed that Pavel Pavlovich himself and the work of his whole life would be forgotten forever.
But fate was pleased to dispose of quite differently.
The founder of the famous family of manufacturers and bankers Ryabushinsky was "Mikhail Yakovlev, son of Denisov". He was born in 1786 into a peasant family who lived in the Rebushinskaya settlement of the Pafnutevo-Borovsk monastery in the Kaluga province. Little documentary evidence remains from that time.
KALUZHANIN FROM CANVAS ROW
The future founder of the dynasty, 12 years old, was apprenticed to trade. Four years later, in 1802, Mikhail enrolled in the 3rd Moscow Merchant Guild. It is not entirely clear where the 16-year-old peasant son got the considerable money at that time. After all, to join the guild it was required to "declare" capital from 1 to 5 thousand rubles. Perhaps his older brother Artemy, who by that time was already trading in Vetoshny Ryad, helped him. Gostiny Dvor... Having entered the merchant class, Mikhail takes a place not far from his brother in the Kholshchov row and begins to sell fabrics. He bought them from village handicraft weavers who were engaged in stuffing calico - cotton fabric on which an ornament was applied and in this way chintz was obtained. In Moscow, the newly minted businessman was lucky, he profitably marries Evfimia Skvortsova, the daughter of a wealthy Moscow merchant who had his own leather business and owned several houses.
The outbreak of the "thunderstorm of the twelfth year", the fire of Moscow brought ruin to more than one trading family of the First See.
Fire in Moscow in September 1812
The Ryabushinskys' ancestors did not escape this fate. Returning in 1813 to his native ashes from the Vladimir province, where the family fled "from Bonaparte," he submits a report to the Merchant Council about the impossibility of remaining in the merchant class: "Due to the devastation I have endured from the invasion of enemy troops in Moscow, I find myself not paying interest money in a state, why I humbly ask, in the absence of my merchant capital, to transfer to the local philistine. "
The "bourgeois period" in the life of Mikhail Ryabushinsky lasted ten years. What must a barely fledged businessman feel, forced by circumstances to move to the lower class? But the ability to endure, overcoming the whims of fortune, was the Ryabushinsky family trait. Years of trials did not break the enterprising nature of the elder of the clan, and the changeable merchant happiness smiled at him again.
In December 1823, the "Moscow bourgeoisie" Mikhail Yakovlevich Rebushinsky (just like that, through the "e") again asks to enroll him with his family in the 3rd merchant guild and announces 8 thousand rubles of capital. Apparently, the change of the nickname "Yakovlev" to an official surname is associated with the adoption of the Old Believers. The spelling "Ryabushinsky", habitual for us, was established later, towards the end of Mikhail Yakovlevich's life.
The Ryabushinsky family house is an architectural monument of the 19th century. - located at the corner of the 1st and 3rd Golutvinsky lanes (No. 10/8). As it turned out from archival documents, the house was acquired by the Ryabushinsky in December 1829, and earlier it was hired, as it is written in the confession statement of the Church of Nicholas in Golutvin, "freedman Mikhail Semyonov son Schepkin", the famous artist of the Maly Theater, who was in his youth, as you know , a serf peasant. He has lived in Zamoskvorechye since his move to Moscow, renting apartments on Bolshaya Yakimanka. In the 1st Golutvinsky lane, Schepkin settled in 1828. The passage of the house to the Ryabushinsky, obviously, was the direct reason that he moved into his own house, bought in 1830 in Bolshoy Spassky lane.
In 1846, M. Ya. Ryabushinsky founded a small textile factory in Golutvin, which in 1865 passed to other owners. In 1895, they donated their house to the Imperial Humanitarian Society, which opened a shelter in it for widows and orphans of the merchant and bourgeois class, and later established a circle of care for working women, which conducted various cultural and educational work - organized musical evenings, reading rooms and libraries. In the late XIX - early XX century. The "Partnership of the Moscow Golutvinskaya Manufactory of Central Asian and Domestic Products", as it came to be called, significantly expands production and builds large factory buildings in Golutvinskiye lanes. In 1911 - 1912. the main building is being erected at the corner with Yakimanskaya embankment according to the project of the architect A.M. Kalmykov. The striking silhouette of its red-brick tower - it was intended for the water tanks of the fire extinguishing system - is visible from afar.
At the end of the 1920s, the Ryabushinskys already had their own house on Yakimanka, where the next generation is growing - two daughters and three sons: Ivan (1818 - 1876), Pavel (1820 - 1899) and Vasily (1826-1885). The eldest, who married against the will of his father, was set aside "from the family and capital" as a punishment, and until the end of his life he traded independently. The two younger sons worked with their father.
Mikhail Yakovlevich, his eldest son, Ivan, rather early brought him outside the family business, making him an independent and successful merchant, and two other sons - Pavel and Vasily - became his father's assistants.
Pavel, who grew up in the always noisy and busy Kitai-Gorod, was a very mobile and sociable child. After his musical career ended in complete collapse (his father in his hearts smashed his son's violin on the roof rafters), he was forced to engage in a rather boring task - to draw up an annual inventory of property for Easter. But Pavel's lively mind demanded something more, and he gladly got acquainted with the technique of his uncle Artemiy Yakovlevich, who in 1830 set up a small paper mill on the Yauza.
The technical side of factory production fascinated him so much that he soon grasped it in every detail. By the 1850s, Pavel Ryabushinsky became his father's main assistant, opening two new factories in the Kaluga province - in Novonasovnov in Medynsky and in Churikovo in Maloyaroslavsky districts.
MOSCOW millionaire
As before, Mikhail Yakovlevich sells fabrics. The trade is going well, and Ryabushinsky buys several shops in the Kholshchovy row. Now he sells 57 types of woolen fabrics and 42 types of cottons: from the unassuming rough home-made "armyak" and "bumazey" to the elegant "croise with embankment" and the unknown "Lanzi Woolzi". This is not homemade calico!
Gostiny Dvor
In the mid-40s, Mikhail Yakovlevich started a manufactory for the manufacture of semi-woolen fabrics. It is located in his own house. Here, in the old fashioned way, "at 140 mills without machines" employs about 200 workers. The factory gives an annual income of up to 50 thousand rubles in silver. The beginning of the future industrial empire was laid.
Like many other famous entrepreneurs of pre-revolutionary Russia, they forged the country's economic power. The Ryabushinskys boldly tried innovative ideas, looked for new areas of application of forces and capital, argued with the authorities and with each other. All this was long ago. But this is our story. History of Russian business.
This scene took place in the house of the Moscow Governor-General Arseny Andreyevich Zakrevsky. The Chief Chief of Police of Moscow, Major General Ivan Dmitrievich Luzhin, filed a report against Mikhail Yakovlevich Ryabushinsky for self-righteousness in setting up a factory in his own house: “The factory was established by him in 1846 in the house of the Committee of the Humanitarian Society, and from there in 1847 he was transferred to his own house , but he, Ryabushinsky, has no permission for the existence of this institution, except for the merchant certificates he receives from the House of the Moscow City Society of merchants ... "
Zakrevsky Arseny Andreevich (1786-1865
Ivan Dmitrievich Luzhin
(Cornet L.-GV. Equestrian regiment.
From the standard-junkers of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, cornet - 19.2.1823.
According to A.A. Pleshcheeva Luzhin in 1825 knew about the existence of the Northern Society and was ready to join it, but this was prevented by his departure on vacation. The Investigative Committee ignored this.
Participant in the suppression of the Polish uprising in 1831 (awarded the Order of Vladimir 4 class with a bow), adjutant wing - 19.2.1832, captain - 1833, colonel - 26.3.1839, expelled to his retinue - 16.1.1841, commander of the Kazan Dragoon regiment - 10.11. 1843, correcting the post of the Moscow chief police chief, major general of the suite - 03/14/1846 with confirmation in office, Kursk governor - 10/13/1854, Kharkov governor - 5/5/1856, lieutenant general - 8/26/1856, dismissed from office - 11/9. 1860.)
Zakrevsky stopped reading and, postponing the report, turned to its submitter:
- What is it, Ivan Dmitrievich, therefore, does Ryabushinsky have any permission for the factory?
- No, Arseny Andreevich! Chief of Police Biring checked everything for sure, ”Luzhin replied, and twisted the dapper mustache, which, as a former cavalryman, he was allowed to wear.
- Tek-s-s-s ... - Zakrevsky pondered.
What did the report threaten with? Oh, here you need to know what kind of person the Governor-General was! Zakrevsky, former adjutant general of Alexander I and governor general of Finland, has earned the reputation of a very stern leader. When a wave of revolutions swept across Europe in 1848, Emperor Nicholas I, extremely concerned about the situation in Moscow, said: "Moscow needs to be tightened up." And he appointed Arseny Andreevich governor-general.
Patriarchal and good-natured Moscow was quickly horrified by the methods in the German manner of the tough Zakrevsky. In addition, Nicholas I handed him ... blank papers with a two-headed imperial eagle signed by him. This meant: the new governor-general could send anyone at any moment, as Saltykov-Shchedrin put it, "to catch seals." But, showing truly German pedantry in relation to his subordinates, Zakrevsky was completely deprived of German respect for the Law. For him, the only law was his own decision. And no one dared to utter a word. No, Zakrevsky was not a tyrant - Arseny Andreevich checked all his actions with the benefit of the Fatherland and with nothing else. Only the main qualities of a good state, according to Zakrevsky, were ideal order and discipline. And violation of order is one of the gravest crimes.
That is why the unauthorized opening of the factory could end very badly for Ryabushinsky and his family. The Moscow merchants generally suffered greatly from ebullient activity Zakrevsky, who considered this estate only as a bottomless source of funds. No, Arseny Andreevich did not take bribes. He was incorruptible and maniacally feared any act that could somehow be associated with covetousness. There is a known case when Zakrevsky offered the merchant V.A.Kokorev to buy his house in St. Petersburg for 70 thousand rubles. Kokorev examined the house and wanted to pay its owner 100 thousand. The Moscow governor-general, apparently suspecting a hidden bribe, said that he was offered 70 thousand for the house, and even with an installment plan, so he did not want to hear about a larger amount, and the only thing he asked for was that all the money should be paid immediately ... Kokorev did not object and bought Zakrevsky's house for 70 thousand. And later he resold it for 140 thousand.
Without taking any grease, Zakrevsky resolutely fought against bribery of Moscow police and civilian officials. However, suppressing bribery, he himself imposed unprecedented extortions on the merchants for the needs of the city, since there was always not enough money in the city budget. It was not for nothing that Nicholas I, sending Zakrevsky to the Moscow governorship-general, said: "I will be behind him like a stone wall."
At the time when the report on Mikhail Ryabushinsky was received, Arseny Andreevich was extremely concerned about the felling of the forests near Moscow. Russian industry, growing at an accelerated pace, required more and more fuel for cars, so that the forests around Moscow were ruthlessly destroyed. Zakrevsky tried to force the manufacturers to abandon firewood in favor of peat. Be that as it may, the Governor-General not only left Mikhail Yakovlevich's self-righteousness unpunished, but even issued a permit for the factory, in which it was said in a separate clause: “So that no more than 130 fathoms of a three-quarter measure should be consumed per year for heating the factory, and even those try in every possible way to replace peat. " The “underground” factory of Mikhail Yakovlevich Ryabushinsky was legalized.
Soon Ryabushinsky opened two more manufactories in the Kaluga province - in 1849 in the village of Nasonovo in the Medynsky district and in 1857 in the village of Churikovo near Maly Yaroslavna. The latter is equipped with a steam engine discharged from Manchester. In 1856 in Moscow, not far from the house, in Golutvinsky Lane, a four-story factory was built, where fabrics were made from paper yarn, English and Russian wool on 300 looms. They are sold mainly in their own shops and annually bring income up to 75 thousand rubles.
The banking house of the Ryabushinsky brothers
The Sudakov's tavern, where the workers of the AMO plant at Ryabushinsky were grubbing
A bathhouse built for workers at the beginning of the 20th century
Mikhail Yakovlevich died in 1858 and left the children property, which was estimated at 2 million rubles in bank notes - a colossal amount at that time! His descendants had every reason to proudly assert: “It seems that there were many thousands of people who possessed a thousand rubles, but there were very few people who created two million of them over 40 years of work, and they would hardly fill one dozen with their own account. ... To stand out among the general conditions, one must carry something special, individual in oneself. ”The peculiarity of Mikhail Yakovlevich was an iron will, combined with the worldview of a“ business man ”.
Yeisk merchant PAVEL MIKHAILOVICH RYABUSHINSKY
In his will, Mikhail Ryabushinsky handed over "all the acquired movable and immovable property ... to the Yeysky 2nd guild merchants Pavel and Vasily Ryabushinsky." Why did his heirs find themselves assigned to the merchants of the provincial town of Yeisk on the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov? By decree of Nicholas I, who sought to end the "schismatics", when registering in a merchant guild, they began to demand a certificate of belonging to official Orthodoxy. Old Believers were prohibited from admitting to the guild, their children were threatened with a 25-year recruitment, from which the merchants were legally exempted. In connection with the decree, lists of Moscow schismatic merchants (more than 500 families) were prepared. Mikhail Ryabushinsky and his family also got into this register. Some merchants, unable to withstand the pressure, filed an application for withdrawal from the "split" (Guchkovs, Nosovs, Rogozhins). But the Ryabushinskys did not succumb to government pressure. The case helped. For the early settlement of Yeisk, founded in 1848, the Old Believers were given a privilege - they were allowed to be assigned to the local merchants. Pavel Ryabushinsky immediately sets off for 1400 miles for a guild certificate for himself, his brother and son-in-law. And until 1858, when under the new emperor Alexander II, the persecution of the Old Believers was weakened, the brothers were listed as Yeisk merchants, and in this rank they were included in their father's will.
"FOR USEFUL!"
The children of Pavel Mikhailovich were struck by his flair, intuition, the ability to "recognize, often contrary to appearances, what is the root of the institution," with which he was "offered to enter into any business relationship." He could calmly continue the business established by his father, however, with his usual perspicacity, he makes a decision that drastically changed the sphere of the family's business interests.
In the 50s - 60s of the XIX century, Moscow textile companies en masse passed from hand weaving to mechanical production using steam engines. The establishments founded by Mikhail Ryabushinsky were losing in the competition with mechanical factories - much was done in the old fashioned way, the share of manual labor was too great. The refurbishment was more expensive than buying a new plant "on the fly." Closely following the latest technical progress (he repeatedly visited England for this purpose, at that time it rightfully bore the high title of "workshop of the world"), Pavel Mikhailovich in 1869 looked closely at a paper mill in the Tver province in the village of Zavorovo near Vyshny Volochok. The factory was built in 1857 by the Shilov and Son trading house. In the early 1860s, when the crisis in cotton production broke out (due to the Civil War, the United States sharply reduced the export of cotton - the main raw material of the Russian cotton industry), the factory had to be stopped, and an administration was established over the owners. But Ryabushinsky assessed the situation correctly. The factory was located very conveniently, half a verst from the railway station on the Nikolaevskaya road, at an equal distance from the two capitals - Petersburg and Moscow, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe floating Tsna river. It's a promising business! Pavel Mikhailovich sells all his manufactories and buys a "unprofitable" factory for 268 thousand rubles - it becomes the only industrial enterprise of the Ryabushinsky clan. But how! In 1870, for participation in the manufacturing exhibition, Pavel Mikhailovich was awarded "a gold medal for wearing around his neck with an Anninskaya ribbon and the inscription" for what is useful. "
FABRICS WITH TWO-HEADED EAGLE
The fire - the scourge of the Russian industrialists of the last century - almost ruined the initiative of Pavel Ryabushinsky. In 1880 Zavorovskaya factory burned down - equipment, stock of goods disappeared, the buildings themselves were badly damaged. But the restored enterprise was equipped with the latest foreign machines. In 1882, at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Moscow, products of Vyshnevolotsk weavers for their high quality work received the highest award - the right to label goods with the image of a two-headed eagle, the state emblem of Russia. In 1887, the Vyshnevolotsk factory dyeing, bleaching and dressing) was reorganized into the "Partnership of P. Ryabushinsky's Manufactories with Sons" (brother Vasily died in 1885). The fixed capital of the partnership consisted of 2 thousand shares of 1 thousand rubles each. Pavel Mikhailovich retained a controlling stake (787 out of a thousand shares, 200 - from his wife). Leading employees of the company received one share as an incentive. The shares were registered (the name of the owner was recorded on them), they were not traded on the exchange, they could be sold to the side only if other co-owners did not buy. Such a partnership on shares, preserving the family nature of the business, was the Russian analogue of a joint stock company. This business practice was widespread among Moscow entrepreneurs.
Over time, the Ryabushinskys textile partnership became one of the leading banking institutions in Moscow. At that time, only four commercial banks and the Merchant Society of Mutual Credit operated here, which could not cover the financial needs of such a huge commercial and industrial center. Numerous private banking houses found clients easily. "We have always been a union of industrialists with bankers," wrote one of Pavel Mikhailovich's sons. By the end of the 90s, the volume of the partnership's bill transactions reached 9 million rubles. They say that the Ryabushinsky bills were always "accounted for cheaply, which made it possible to take best material", and the main principle of their banking activity was caution.
Ryabushinsky Bank. on Exchange Square
And yet the industrialist in Pavel Ryabushinsky prevailed over the banker. According to the unspoken, but generally accepted in business Moscow hierarchy, "an industrialist, a manufacturer stood at the top of respect, then a merchant-merchant, and below there was a man who gave money in growth, counted bills of exchange, made capital work. He was not very respected, no matter how cheap. his money was not, and no matter how decent he was.
The element of Pavel Ryabushinsky was the factory business. Thanks to his efforts the Vyshnevolotsk factories by the end of the 19th century. became a notable size of the Russian cotton industry. In 1894, factories equipped with four steam machines and ten boilers, there were 33 thousand spinning spindles, 748 weaving looms, and the annual production cost more than 2 million rubles (in 1899 it was already about 4 million rubles). The company employed 1,410 men and 890 women. A whole factory town has grown up around the plant. In 1895, a new building for a paper-spinning mill was built, two years later - a sawmill, where high-grade wood rafted along the Tsna River began to be processed. "Forest dachas" of the partnership covered an area of \u200b\u200bmore than 30 thousand dessiatines. In 1898, a technical novelty was introduced at the factory. Electric lighting is installed in the weaving and spinning buildings - an unusual thing in the quiet life of a provincial county town.
Pavel Mikhailovich died in December 1899, on the threshold of a new century. He was buried at the Rogozhskoye cemetery next to his father. Leaving the house to his wife and ordering to give 5 thousand rubles to the footman who followed him during his illness, and 3 thousand to "the spiritual father Efim Silin", he bequeathed everything else to his eight sons. A huge fortune passed to them - 20 million rubles, which the descendants of the economic Kaluga peasant could rightfully be proud of.
The world has changed once again, and at the beginning of the XXI century. we more and more often return to the images of the Ryabushinsky brothers - the brightest characters of the Russian business community a century ago. Their endeavors were tragically interrupted, their experience was unclaimed, but without its revival it is difficult to imagine a new and prosperous Russia.
Brothers
In the fall of 1913, a few days after the official completion of the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the "Partnership Pavel Ryabushinsky and Sons", in the mansion of Stepan Pavlovich Ryabushinsky on Malaya Nikitskaya, - in the same Shekhtelevsky, recognized as a classic of Moscow Art Nouveau and after the October Revolution, given to a professional tramp Maxim Gorky, - the Ryabushinsky millionaires, one of the most famous Russian families of the early twentieth century, gathered.
Mansion S.P. Ryabushinsky in Moscow. Arch. F.O. Shekhtel. Fragment of the facade
Sitting at the head of the table was Pavel Pavlovich, the chairman of Tovarishchestvo, the owner of the Moscow Bank, the constant inspirer of numerous meetings and committees of representatives of industry and trade, the editor-in-chief of Utra Rossii, one of the leaders of the Party of Progressists, an embodied image of the "Russian big capital" - as he was called by the German socialist Karl Kautsky. Together with him are his closest comrades in business, brothers.Their names were known everywhere - from Riga to the Baku oil fields, from Arkhangelsk to Tiflis. Stepan, Sergey and Vladimir stood at the origins of the domestic automobile industry; the future founders of the first Russian automobile plant AMO (now ZIL), and besides, archaeologists, collectors and specialists in Old Russian icon painting, they organized in 1913 a unique public exhibition of old letter icons.
Pavel Ryabushinsky
Stepan Ryabushinsky
Vladimir Ryabushinsky
Mikhail is also a collector, but of a slightly different kind. His collection of Russian and Western European artists will soon become a pearl in the collections of several leading Soviet museums. Nikolai, a famous writer, founder of the Golden Fleece group, who published poetry and prose under the pseudonym N. Shinsky in Musageta and other fashionable publications of the beginning of the century, challenged the legendary Apollo and Jack of Diamonds as an equal.
Nikolai Pavlovich Ryabushinsky (1877-1951)
Exactly one hundred years ago, the exhibition "Salon of the Golden Fleece" was held in Moscow. The patron of the arts Ryabushinsky gathered all the most prominent artists and writers of that time in the editorial office of the Golden Fleece magazine so that they could talk about the new art. They not only talked, but also showed.Nikolai Ryabushinsky, the son of a famous manufacturer and businessman, realized very early that the continuation of the family business was not for him, and took up charity. Nikolai Ryabushinsky tried to participate in the cultural life of the country not only as a philanthropist, but also as an artist and even a poet. True, his poems were not popular. The situation was better with painting. It is known that he participated in exhibitions abroad. But Ryabushinsky went down in history precisely as a benefactor and organizer. Contemporaries were amazed at his eccentricity and passion for bright and expensive things. He had his own villa. She was even given the name "Black Swan". But the swan burned down, and with it most of the paintings collected by the collector. However, the famous portrait of V. Bryusov by M. Vrubel survived. The artist felt bad and was in an insane asylum for treatment, but he responded to Ryabushinsky's request and painted a portrait of the poet.
V. Bryusov by M. Vrubel
Dmitry, one of the world's largest experts in the field of aeronautics theory, set up the world's only private "Aerodynamic Institute" in the Kuchino family estate back in 1904, and later, having emigrated to France, continued his research and became a French academician.
D.P.Ryabushinsky
The first aerodynamic research institute in Europe (and in fact - in the world!) Arose from the thought, will and funds of its creator, director and owner D.P. Ryabushinsky (1882-1962), with the moral and organizational assistance of Professor N.E. Zhukovsky (yes, the "grandfathers of Russian aviation"). It arose just a few months after the first flight of the Wright brothers. Arose to study and assimilate the laws of the air element, simulating it on the ground, so that you can fly reliably, quickly, high. The pioneer of the exact sciences of the Moscow region fulfilled his task with honor.
Aeronautical station, arranged by D.P. Ryabushinsky near Moscow
Zhukovsky, P.A. Ryabushinsky, D.P. Ryabushinsky.
According to good Russian custom, the brothers dined tightly, lit cigars in the European manner, they were offered brandy, and a long leisurely conversation ensued.
This evening, already in emigration, Vladimir Pavlovich Ryabushinsky recalled in detail: “It just so happened that it was one of our last quiet meetings, in the family circle, without strangers. True, our younger brother Fedor, a passionate explorer of Kamchatka, has not been with us for a year now.
Ryabushinsky Fedor Pavlovich
But we gathered, as in our youth, all together for a conversation. What were they talking about? Yes, about the same thing as everyone in Russia in those days. About the future, about the country, about its possibilities, about the new century. But they also spoke about the old faith, which our grandfather accepted by his own choice, out of conscience and without compulsion. They recalled how in the father's house there was a prayer house with ancient images and with service books, also ancient. The service was ruled by an instructor, and in Great Lent ... Mothers came from the Zavolzhsky sketes, and then from Rzhev. Then they ruled the service. And we thought that we were far from all this, that we should also arrange such a prayer meeting at Stepan's or Paul's, so that our fellow believers would not be embarrassed and soothe our hearts. And then Paul said:
- I have remembered for the rest of my life what Russia is holding on to. On the readiness to accept the new, but only by reconciling it with the paternal foundations. And also on responsibility. So that the peasant forgot the damned serfdom, he hoped not for the master, someone else's master or his co-worker, but for himself alone.
It was a great thought. She united him with Stolypin. Russia - they thought - will be driven by the energy of strong business people who do not forget their Patronymic, and with it the Fatherland ... "
Rod and business
In contrast to the majority of the population of Russia, which almost everywhere turned in the twentieth century. in "ivbns who do not remember kinship", the Ryabushinsky cherished their patronymic as the apple of their eye, sacredly kept family memory.
They came from the economic (that is, preserving personal freedom) peasants of the Borovsko-Panfutievsky monastery. Once one of the first spiritual centers of Russia, Borovsk became by the beginning of the 19th century. to an ordinary provincial town halfway between Kaluga and Moscow.
Anatoly Zhlobovich Borovsk
It was there that the grandfather of the famous Ryabushinsky brothers, Mikhail Yakovlevich, grew up. However, already at the age of twelve he was sent to Moscow, to study in the trade part.They spoke of him as one of the prominent Moscow "rich men". Mikhail Yakovlevich died in 1858, leaving his children about 2 million rubles in banknotes. Remembering his grandfather, Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky will say with pride:
- It seems that there were many thousands of people who possessed a thousand rubles, but there are very few people who created two million of them over 40 years of work, and they will hardly fill a dozen with their account ... To stand out among the general conditions, one must carry something special, individual in oneself. A feature of Mikhail Yakovlevich was an iron will, combined with the worldview of the "economic man". The business of Mikhail Yakovlevich was inherited by his sons, Vasily and Pavel Ryabushinsky. The brothers were brought up at home, very traditional. My father preferred to teach them the way he studied himself. From 13-14 years old teenagers are already in the shop, mastering the basics of accounting, the basics of trade. On Sunday the clerks came to interpret the Scriptures. Anything else was considered superfluous. Wanting to protect his sons from the wicked modern influences, Mikhail Yakovlevich was cool. A family tradition has preserved the story of how Paul, a receptive and artistic boy, decided to learn to play the violin. However, when his father caught him doing this "demonic occupation," a scandal broke out and the unfortunate musical instrument was smashed to smithereens. But, despite all the conflicts with his father, it was Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky, this romantic Pavlusha, because of whom his mother's heart so often seized in anxiety, was destined to continue the family business. He was sympathetic, sociable, and ambitious for good, but his brother Vasily clearly lacked good arrogance, business acumen and decisiveness.
Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinski
Meanwhile, the textile production of Mikhail Yakovlevich gradually fell into decay. A technical revolution was brewing, and the enterprises of Ryabushinsky the Elder, arranged in the old manner, could not withstand the competition.
In this situation, in the 1860s. Pavel Mikhailovich decides on a drastic renewal: he sells all his father's manufactories and buys a single factory in the Vyshny Volochyok region, on the banks of the Tsna River, just half a mile from the Nikolaev railway station.
The factory was unprofitable, but Pavel Mikhailovich spared no expense, re-equipped it with the latest technology. The new machines provided an immediate effect, the losses were forgotten. Furthermore. At the 1870 manufactory exhibition the Ryabushinskys were awarded “a gold medal for wearing around their necks, with an Anninskaya ribbon and the inscription“ for the useful ”," and in 1882 - the right to mark their fabrics with the state emblem - a two-headed eagle. That was the highest honor that an industrialist could have received in the Russian Empire.
In 1887, the Vyshnevolotsk factory, or rather a whole network of factories (paper spinning, weaving, dyeing, bleaching and dressing) was reorganized into the "Pavel Ryabushinsky and Sons Partnership". According to the charter, "the equity capital of the partnership is 2 thousand shares of 1 thousand rubles each." Pavel Mikhailovich retained a controlling stake (787 out of a thousand shares, 200 - from his wife). Leading employees of the company received one share. The shares were registered (the name of the owner was recorded on them), they were not traded on the exchange, they could be sold to the side only if other co-owners did not buy.
In the 1890s. The "Partnership" also launched banking activities. By the end of the century, the volume of his bill transactions was already 9 million rubles. Vladimir Ryabushinsky recalled:
- We have always been a union of industrialists with bankers, and bills were counted cheaply, which made it possible to take the best material.
However, Pavel Mikhailovich still preferred production to banking. His son Stepan Pavlovich later explained to the French historian Claude Grease:
- In Russia, an industrialist, a manufacturer was always at the top of respect, then a merchant-trader came, and only below was a person who gave money in growth, took into account bills of exchange, made capital work. He was not very respected, no matter how cheap his money was and no matter how decent he himself was. Percentage!
The heir to M.Ya. Ryabushinsky, a believing Old Believer, Pavel Mikhailovich, could not and did not want to be a pawnbroker. Yes, and his spiritual mentor Yefim Silin would never allow such an outrage.
But in his makeup P.M. Ryabushinsky was already very different from his father, the founder of the dynasty. This was the second generation of Russian entrepreneurs, and they wore not a Russian caftan, but a foreign dress, were interested in "sociality", arts and sciences.
P.M. Ryabushinsky was no stranger to political ambitions; he was elected from his estate to a member of the Moscow Duma, the Commercial Court, and the Moscow Stock Exchange Society. But the main thing is that the sense of self has changed. This was especially evident in his personal life.
A romantic story in the Old Believer way
Early, at 23, his father married Pavel Mikhailovich to Anna Fomina, the granddaughter of the famous teacher Yastrebov, the founder of the Old Believer Rogozhskaya Sloboda. The bride was several years older than the groom, and their marriage did not work out right away. The husband and wife often quarreled, loud scandals happened, but the saddest thing is that Anna never gave birth to an heir to Pavel Mikhailovich - a son.
And at the end of the fifties, almost immediately after the death of his father, Pavel Mikhailovich started a business that was almost unheard of in the Old Believers' environment - a divorce. He, apparently, indiscriminately, accused Anna of treason and achieved divorce. The old people from the Rogozhskaya Sloboda saw this as an unhappy omen, but their predictions were not destined to come true.
For almost a decade Pavel Mikhailovich was single, until in 1870 he went to Petersburg to woo his brother Vasily. The chosen one of her brother, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a large grain merchant Ovsyannikov, Sasha, so captivated the imagination of the matchmaker that he despised all fetters and obstacles, and he married her himself.
Despite the difference in age of more than thirty years, the alliance with Alexandra Stepanovna Ovsyannikova turned out to be extremely happy for Pavel Mikhailovich. They gave birth to sixteen children, eight of them sons, lived in perfect harmony and died, if not in one day, then almost in one year.
Pavel Mikhailovich
Alexandra Stepanovna Ovsyannikova
Pavel Mikhailovich Ryabushinsky died at the very end of the 19th century - in December 1899. He bequeathed several tens of thousands of rubles to his spiritual father, left the house in Maly Kharitonevsky Lane to his wife, and passed on to his sons a perfectly debugged and vigorously developing business, as well as 20 million in bank notes - the state of the world at that time ...
The third generation of Russian entrepreneurs is a special milestone in the history of the country. Unlike their fathers, they had already received an excellent European education (the Ryabushinsky brothers, for example, graduated from the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences, knew two or three European languages) and came to the acquired ancestral wealth. Most of these people were smart, active, ready for large-scale activities and broad charity. But the era - the beginning of the twentieth century. - came out unstable, heavy.
The industrial revolution attracted to cities and towns huge masses of rural population unprepared for mobile and autonomous urban life.
They settled on the outskirts, in barracks, living conditions there were terrible, there were no foundations, and the mass of the eternally half-starved, uneducated, who had no cultural interests in the suburbs constantly put pressure on the city center. “There are frequent fires here. The outpost is on fire ”- these lines of the great Russian poetess could have been an epigraph to the era.
When they talk about the proletariat, about the "class in itself" and about the "class for oneself" and all other Marxist casuistry, they often forget what reality lies behind these terms. It was not the old working people with whom the merchants and industrialists of the middle of the 19th century were accustomed to deal with social life, but young people cut off from all roots and principles, easily becoming the prey of all kinds of agitators and provocateurs. Europe, and with it Russia, faced several decades of instability. For Russia, everything ended tragically. Vladimir Ryabushinsky noted with sadness already in exile:
- The divergence of the upper and lower classes, disastrous for the very existence of property in Russia, ended in a rupture with the grandchildren of the founder of the family ... The old Russian merchant died economically in the revolution, just as the old Russian master died in it.
Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky took over the management of the paternal partnership on the border of the twentieth century, when, it would seem, no one could even think about the impending trials. The world economic crisis did not affect the "textile workers", capital of Russian origin: only "Petersburgers, Westerners" suffered, those who were tightly connected with financial institutions. The Ryabushinskys, on the other hand, were part of the core of the “national group,” oriented towards the Russian market and behaving in it insolently and aggressively.
Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky (photo from “Historical Bulletin” 1916).
By the early tenths, Pavel Pavlovich was already heading the largest financial monopoly, whose appetites far exceeded the limits of the production and sale of fabrics. Wherever possible, his Central Russian Joint-Stock Company confronted foreigners: geological exploration in the North, in the Ukhta region, logging and logging, expanding interests in the oil industry, the first steps of domestic engineering, the automotive and aviation industries - this list is far from full. The opportunities were enormous, the ambitions even greater.
Messrs. Ryabushinsky and company discuss the plan
On August 2, 1916, the AMO (Automobile Motor Society) plant was founded in Moscow on the initiative of Sergei Pavlovich Ryabushinsky.
The elder brother of Sergei Pavlovich, the head of a huge financial and industrial empire, the owner of the newspaper "Utro Rossii" Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky was initially against investing money in the manufacture of cars. Glass factories, sawmills, a banking house with branches in many cities of Russia and, of course, textile factories, from which the founder of the dynasty, grandfather Mikhailo Yakovlevich, began, brought good income. At family dinners, Pavel Pavlovich used to say that cars are a windy fashion, investing in it is risky, and "you can't go out into the street without trousers, sorry." But brothers Sergey and Stepan stood their ground: all over the world, car production brings income, and considerable. In addition, a part of the money is provided by the military department, and in the future state orders are secured.
In the end, the brothers got down to business thoroughly and on a grand scale. Immediately after signing an agreement with the Military Department, the Ryabushinskys bought for 4 million rubles a "forest dacha" from von Derviz - a plot of 138 square fathoms (64 hectares). This location for the plant was not chosen by chance: near the Moskva River, two railway branches (one, parallel to Simonov Val, was laid recently), not far from the Kozhukhovo station.
The Ryabushinskys invited almost the entire flower of Russian engineering to manage the plant. The thirty-eight-year-old Dmitry Dmitrievich Bondarev was appointed director. A native of the Don village of Razdorskaya, a graduate of the Kharkov Institute of Technology (by the way, he was expelled for free-thinking, so he finished the course only in 1909), he headed the automobile department of RBVZ. The Ryabushinskys offered Bondarev 40 thousand annual salaries (nine times more than the general's salary), the same amount of lifting and one hundred rubles for each car produced. The director could choose employees at his discretion. Bondarev's capital apartment turned into a design bureau, where former RBVZ employees worked on plans for a plant unprecedented in Russia - for 1,500 and later 3,000 cars a year.
On August 2, 1916 (according to the old style - July 20), on Ilyin's day, a symbolic stone was solemnly laid in the foundation of the plant. By this day, the construction site has already gained full speed. They willingly went to work at the AMO: the salary was high, the exemption from military service, for nonresident Ryabushinskys rented an eight-story house on Bolshaya Andronovka. Along with the workshops, dwelling houses were erected: for single ones - apartment buildings, for families - small ones with plots for a garden and a vegetable garden. At the end of the summer, Major General Krivoshein inspected the construction site and reported to the Military Department that the work was going "in excellent order." In September, equipment was already delivered to the workshops where the interior was being finished.
But meeting the planned deadline was incredibly difficult. European factories, loaded with military orders, disrupted deliveries, two steamboats with machine tools were sunk by the Germans, Russian railways struggled to cope with military supplies. In order not to violate the terms of the contract, the Ryabushinskys and Bondarev decided to buy vehicle kits from FIAT. The cheaper and simpler one and a half ton FIAT-15 Ter was preferred to the three-ton. These cars proved to be excellent during the colonial wars in Africa; quite a few of these trucks worked in Russia. The army was supposed to receive the first cars on time - in March 1917.
But in February there was no time for cars: strikes, rallies, endless elections to various councils began at the plant. On the third of March, amid the hooting and whistling of the crowd, Bondarev was kicked out of the factory - taken in a dirty wheelbarrow to the tram stop. True, soon he was asked to return, but the proud descendant of the Don Cossacks did not agree. He left for his homeland, served with the chieftain Kaledin.
In 1917, the plant was on the verge of closing. In order to somehow continue the business, even the autorot soldiers had to be involved. Nevertheless, by the fall, the construction of the buildings was almost completed, about 85% of the equipment was delivered, half of them were assembled. However, the plant could not work at full capacity. Having assembled FIATs from Italian parts, AMO then began to repair assorted cars. In 1917, 432 cars left the factory gates.
In May 1918, even before the decree on nationalization, the plant was taken over by the government. Formally, the anarchy ended, but there were still six long years left before the actual launch of the plant. Over the years, AMO has been repairing tractors, motorcycles and cars, mostly American White trucks. The equipment purchased by the Ryabushinskys made it possible to make serious parts, even cylinder blocks. In 1917-1919. the plant assembled and repaired 1,319 vehicles. In 1920, they tried to take on tanks, and in 1924 they built five bus bodies on "White" chassis.
Since then, the plant has undergone reconstruction, change of directors, and in the last decade even owners. And yet, in the foundation of the current AMO-ZIL, which is going through hard times, there are the very stones that were laid 85 years ago ...
Printed at the Ryabushinsky printing house
And yet the main thing that distinguished P.P. Ryabushinsky from among his colleagues and partners was an acute, almost painful self-awareness, a sense of responsibility for the inheritance business and for the country. He, perhaps, was the first to publicly declared: entrepreneurs are people capable of providing prosperity and prosperity, and they are the true masters of the coming Russia.
But even not entrepreneurship, but politics became the focus of P.P. Ryabushinsky's active passion. He formulated the code of his convictions at the beginning of the century.
He combined consistent patriotism and no less consistent transformation of the country based on national interests. Precisely from specific interests, and not some abstract principles.
Military Industrial Committee - created during First world war (beginning with May 1915) by the proposal russian entrepreneurs for facilitating the government. Their creation was initiated byin may 1915 at the IX Trade and Industry Congress Ryabushinsky P.P., which with june 1915 he himself became the chairman of the Moscow military-industrial committee... They were guided by the slogan "Everything for the front, everything for victory." Placed by the military state orders for private enterprises, tried to plan and regulate production. July 25, 1915 gathered for my convention
At the same time, the experience of his family, his Old Believers, surprisingly coexisted with inquisitive curiosity, an open view of modernity. So, insisting on the development of civil society and the strengthening of political freedoms, he at the same time proposed to separate from the West with an "iron curtain" (Pavel Pavlovich was the first to introduce this wonderful expression into circulation), to fight for markets, to look for partners and rivals outside of Europe, "Where no one loves and waits for us", and in the East, "where there is no end of work." They say that at the beginning of the century he often met with the ideologist of early Eurasianism, Prince S.S. Ukhtomsky, sent his emissaries to Mongolia and China, looked for contacts, economic and political ...
During the years of the crisis of 1905-1907. P.P. Ryabushinsky finally goes into public politics. He is an elective of the Moscow Stock Exchange Committee, a member of the ministerial Commission for the ordering of life and the situation of workers in industrial enterprises of the Empire, actively, "both by means and by labor", participates in the movement for the rights of the Old Believers.
It is characteristic that it was at the 1906 Old Believers' Congress in Nizhny Novgorod that Ryabushinsky first presented his vision of the reorganization of Russia, based on the unity and integrity of the state, the continuity of state power, evolving towards developed parliamentarism, the abolition of class advantages, freedom of religion and the inviolability of the person, the old bureaucratic apparatus by others - people's institutions accessible to the people ", universal free education, the allotment of land to peasants and the fulfillment of" the just wishes of the workers regarding the order that exist in other states with developed industrial life. "
It's funny that most of the provisions of this program are still relevant today, almost a century later. In our "democratic" society, we would probably call it "right-wing liberal", while contemporaries called it "bourgeoisist".
Gradually, in the business environment, a tendency was formed to attract more specialists who graduated from commercial educational institutions. So, the famous entrepreneurs Ryabushinskiy were reluctant to take outsiders and tried to create their own cadres of employees, for which they took them very young, right from school, mainly from those who graduated from the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences, where they themselves studied. In a speech at the VII regular congress of representatives of industry and trade, held in June 1914, P.P. Ryabushinsky reproached the government for the fact that it never cared about training the necessary cadres of workers, and “at the present time, putting forward a grandiose program of shipbuilding and rearmament, it takes away from us, who have created and trained our workers, our workers, pays a huge salary even those of them who are not sufficiently prepared, and artificially exacerbates the labor question. "
The necessary measures to combat economic backwardness P.P. Ryabushinsky considered care for the lower vocational education, as well as about medium and small industries.
After the stabilization of 1907, Pavel Pavlovich took part in the creation of the Party of Progressists, publishes one of the most popular daily newspapers - "Morning of Russia", together with P.B. Struve holds monthly meetings with the best minds of the country - develops a long-term strategy of economic development.
- By the fifties of the twentieth century. By all accounts, we are called to become the first and richest industrial power in the world, - he says.
And few people undertake to challenge this statement. Except, of course, the Social Democrats, the Bolsheviks ...
Family finances in the interior
Pavel Pavlovich Ryabushinsky deliberately built his image - an active, mobile, understanding his own and wider state interests of the Russian capitalist. The peculiar business ethic of the Old Believers' environment, the broad nature of the Russian merchant and philanthropist with the iron tenacity of an educated entrepreneur of the 20th century, coexisted in him in an amazing way. A most interesting document has survived: "Report and balance sheet of P.P. Ryabushinsky for January 1, 1916". Pavel Pavlovich owned property for a total of 5,002 thousand rubles, including shares in the Moscow Bank for 1905 thousand, a family textile company for 1066 thousand, a printing house where Morning of Russia was printed - 481 thousand, and a house on Prechistenka (now Gogolevsky Boulevard, 6), estimated at 200 thousand rubles.
Pavel Pavlovich's annual income was about 330 thousand, and the director's salary in the bank and various family companies was about 60 thousand.
Of the expenses, in addition to 24 thousand for the maintenance of the family, 84 thousand went to cover the deficit of "Utra Rossii" (!), 30 thousand - to other publishing projects. Pavel Pavlovich spent up to 20 thousand on various donations (ten thousand - to the Old Believer magazine, five thousand - to a decadent publishing house).
The spouses of our hero, E.G. Ryabushinskaya, are no less curious about the expenses. In 1905-1912. She, according to the old Russian habit, wrote down in detail all her expenses, down to the penny for a cabman or a servant for tea. But then there are records of a completely different kind: "my trip to Switzerland - 6 thousand, according to the bill for dresses - 4 thousand" and, perhaps the most amusing, - "to a French artist for a drawing - 500 rubles." By the way, the money at that time was not at all small ...
Before the abyss
The patriotic upsurge that has seized Russia since the beginning of World War I turned out to be extremely consonant with Pavel Pavlovich. He spent the whole of 1915 in the army, set up several mobile hospitals, and was awarded orders.
But already from the winter of 1916 the feeling of catastrophe thickened. The rear was crumbling, the front was kept out of the latter, besides, the government seemed to completely cease to take into account the opinion of society: Nicholas II refused to accept the deputation of industrialists, the Duma members demanded, the ministers were irritated. “Only the feeling of great love for Russia, - wrote PP Ryabushinsky in 1916, - makes me resignedly endure the insults inflicted by the authorities, which have lost their conscience, every day”.
At the beginning of 1917, the crisis deepened. In the end, riots broke out in St. Petersburg, the soldiers fraternized with the demonstrators, General Khabarov was powerless, and V.V. Shulgin and A.I. Guchkov signed the emperor's abdication.
The Ryabushinskys embraced the revolution of February - March 1917 with hope. Pavel Pavlovich then even allowed himself to joke:
— We are now saying that the country is facing an abyss. But look through history: there is no day when this country does not face an abyss. And everything is worth it.
However, by the summer, the mood had changed dramatically.
It was not possible to stop the decay.
The Provisional Government yielded to the dictatorship of the Soviets and leveled each month. On August 3, speaking at the Congress of Industry and Trade Representatives, P.P. Ryabushinsky said:
- Social reform went not creatively, but destructively, and threatens Russia with hunger, poverty and financial collapse ... this moment commercial and industrial class influence the hand
The history of the Ryabushinsky trading house dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. Mikhail Ryabushinsky came to Moscow from the village as a twelve-year-old boy even before the Patriotic War of 1812 and began peddling. At the age of sixteen, he already had his own shop in Moscow. The invasion of the French ruined him, and he was forced to enter someone else's service, but then again improved his affairs. His son Pavel Mikhailovich, who was born in 1820, began by selling cheap goods with his mother, delivering it to the villages, but then he opened his own "factory", which grew "into a factory in Golutvinsky Lane." 1 In the 1840s biennium The Ryabushinskys are already millionaires. The beginning of their banking activities dates back to this time.
The Ryabushinsky were Old Believers and were listed as belonging to the schism in the Rogozhsky cemetery, that is, "to the priest's sect." Mikhail Yakovlevich Ryabushinsky by the beginning of the 1850s. - a well-known Moscow merchant of the third guild, who worked together with his sons Pavel and Vasily Mikhailovich.2 After the death of their father, the brothers, having received "hereditary and indivisible capital", declared themselves in 1859 as merchants of the second guild. In 1860 they moved to the first guild, in 1861 - to the second, in 1863 - again to the first.
Having spent fifteen and a half years in the first guild, the Ryabushinsky brothers made an attempt in 1879 to obtain hereditary honorary citizenship for themselves and their children. The Senate refused them this request, because on the basis of a secret imperial command of June 10, 1853, the schismatics, no matter what sect they belonged to, were given honorary titles only as an exception. "1 The Ryabushinskys' long-term efforts were crowned with success on July 11, 1884. ., when they were finally issued a diploma from Alexander III about "raising them with their families into hereditary honorary citizenship."
In 1867 Pavel and Vasily Mikhailovich opened a Trading House in Moscow in the form of a full partnership and under the firm “P. and V. Ryabushinsky brothers ”. In 1869, they bought from a Moscow merchant Shilov a paper mill, which he opened in 1858 near Vyshny Volochok. In 1874 a weaving factory was built in the same place, and in 1875 a dye-bleaching and dressing factory.
After the death of his brother, which followed on December 21, 1885, Pavel Mikhailovich “singled out the remaining heirs of Vasily Ryabushinsky” and remained the sole and full owner of the house. “In 1887 he reorganized
promoted the trading house into the Partnership of Manufactories of P.M.Ryabushinsky and his sons with a fixed capital of 2 million rubles, divided into 1000 registered shares. At that time, 1,200 people were already employed at the Ryabushinekys factories. The partnership of P.M.Ryabushinsky's manufactories with his sons became the owner of a paper spinning, weaving, dyeing, bleaching and dressing factory at the village. Zavorove of the Tver province of the Vyshnevolotsk district, as well as an enterprise selling manufactured goods, yarn and cotton wool in Moscow, on Birzhevaya Square, in his own house.
On June 15, 1894, with the permission of the Committee of Ministers, the share capital of the Partnership was doubled.9 At that moment, out of 1000 shares of the Partnership, 787 belonged to P.M.Ryabushinsky, which gave him 10 votes at the general meeting of shareholders, 200 shares (10 votes) wife of A. S. Ryabushinskaya, 5 shares (1 vote) - to the eldest son P. P. Ryabushinsky, 5 shares (1 vote) - Kolomna tradesman K. G. Klimentov. Thus, 997 shares were in the hands of four persons, the remaining three shares were in the hands of three holders (each with one), who did not have the right to vote. In connection with the increase in fixed capital in 1895, another 1000 shares of 2 thousand rubles were issued. each. All of them were acquired by P.M.Ryabushinsky, who thus became the owner of 1,787 shares out of 2000. | 0 By 1897, the fixed capital of the Partnership was officially 4 million rubles, and the spare capital was ~ 1 million 680 thousand rubles.11
P. M. Ryabushinsky died on December 21, 1899, having outlived his brother by 14 years. His eight sons - Pavel, Sergey, Vladimir, Stepan, Nikolai, Mikhail, Dmitry and Fedor - received a multimillion-dollar inheritance. The father bequeathed them 200 shares of the Partnership each (worth 2 thousand rubles) with dividends due on them. In addition, each of the sons received 400 thousand rubles. in interest-bearing securities or in cash.12 By the extraordinary meeting of shareholders on April 19, 1901, the brothers held 1,593 shares: Pavel - 253, Sergey - 255, Vladimir - 230, Stepan - 255, Nikolai - 200, Mikhail - 200, Dmitry - 200 .u The eldest son Pavel became the Managing Director of the Partnership. 14
A significant event in the development of the Ryabushinskys' business was their takeover of the Kharkov Land Bank.15 From the very foundation of the Kharkov Land Bank in 1871 and until 1901, a major representative of the Yuzhnozavodsk industry, the Kharkov first guild merchant and commerce advisor A.K. Alchevsky. He appeared in Kharkov in 1867 and opened a tea shop. I) A little-known philistine from Sumy very soon acquired the reputation of the first entrepreneurial person in southern Russia.17 In 1868 A. K-Alchevsky was among the founders of the Kharkov Trade Bank ... It was the first joint-stock bank in Russia, created on a private initiative, for its earlier founded Petersburg Private Bank was created with the help of the government.18 In 1895, A. K-Alchevsky resigned from the position of a member of the board of the Kharkov Trade Bank, but continued to accept participation in the conduct of his affairs "and left his nephew VN Alchevsky in the board."
The Kharkov Trade Bank was the first major case of A. K-Alchevsky. In 1871, he established the Kharkov Land Bank - the first in Russia
this establishment of a mortgage loan of this type.20 According to the testimony of contemporaries, A. K-Alchevsky at that time did not yet have significant capital and, rather, was<чдушою дела», а устав банка был составлен управляющим Харьковской конторой Государственного банка И, В. Вернадским.21 Однако уже вскоре подавляющее число акций банка принадлежало А. К. Алчевскому, членам его семьи и родственникам.22 А. К- Алчевский «являлся полным фактическим распорядителем обоих банков», между ними установилась самая тесная связь. «Земельный банк переливал огромные суммы в торговый, а оттуда они шли на поддержку разных предприятий Алчевского».
In September 1875, on the lands that were in the personal ownership of A.K. Alchevsky, the Alekseevskoe mining company was founded with a board in Kharkov. In 1895, Alchevsky was among the founders of the Donetsk-Yuryevsky Metallurgical Society with a board in St. Petersburg and became a member of its directorate.24
During the industrial boom of the 1890s. Alchevsk's enterprises began to widely attract foreign capital and reached their heyday. In 1896, at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Kharkov Land Bank, Alchevsky made a big speech on the prospects for the development of the industrial South. “We must mention that bright phenomenon for our entire vast state, which has recently affected the awakening of our Donetsk basin,” he said. - The influx of foreign capital, mainly Belgian, marks a new era in this region. ... ... This rapid and decisive rise in industry causes some fears about the seizure of this region by foreigners, but these foreigners, together with capital, carry their experience and knowledge of the metallurgical business, which, unfortunately, our capitalists and entrepreneurs do not yet have. "
During the period of industrial growth, A. K-Alchevsky was "almost the only owner of the Alekseevsk mining company", he owned about 1/3 of the shares of the Land and Trade banks and other securities. Alchevsky's fortune was supposedly estimated at that time at 12 million p. 2 (i
The picture changed dramatically with the onset of the economic crisis, which at the beginning of 1901 gripped the enterprises of Alchevsk. Trying to save himself from bankruptcy, he made an attempt to get a government order for rails for the Donetsk-Yuryevsk Metallurgical Society, as well as to obtain permission from the Ministry of Finance to issue bonds for 8 million rubles. on the security of the property of the enterprises belonging to him.2 "In April 3901, he came to St. Petersburg to petition through the Special Chancellery for the credit part of carrying out the operation he had planned. However, Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte refused to grant Alchevsky an order and did not give permission to issue bonds, although Alchevsky hoped to place them in Belgium.
On May 7, 1901, A.K. Alchevsky sent his last letter from the Varshavsky railway station in St. Petersburg to one of the employees of the Kharkov Land Bank and threw himself under a train. million ".
The death of A.K. Alchevsky served as a signal for the announcement of the collapse
his businesses. The audit of the Kharkov Land Bank, carried out by the Ministry of Finance on May 22-31, 1901, revealed the insolvency and gross abuses committed by the members of the board and the audit commission. On June 3-13, an audit of the Kharkov Trade Bank was carried out. On June 15, he was declared an insolvent debtor. This was followed by the collapse of the Ekaterinoslavsky Commercial Bank associated with the Kharkiv banks. On June 24, 1901, a government administration was established for the Donetsk-Yuryevsk Metallurgical Society. 3 "
Even before the completion of the audit of the Kharkov Trade Bank, the Minister of Finance on June 8, 1901 received the emperor's permission to convene, under the chairmanship of a person appointed by the Ministry of Finance, an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders of the Kharkov Land Bank to consider his cases and select a new board.
The Finance Minister's request for "supreme permission" to convene an extraordinary shareholders meeting was unusual. According to the rules, the convocation of such a meeting could be carried out either by the decision of the bank's board, or at the request of shareholders who had a total of 100 votes. In both cases, the day of the meeting was to be announced six weeks in advance. But Witte was in a hurry, and in his most resigned report even the date for the appointment of an extraordinary meeting of shareholders was stipulated - no later than June 25.3 "
On June 13, the day of the completion of the audit of the Kharkiv Land Bank, the Minister of Finance prepared a submission to the Committee of Ministers on streamlining the bank's affairs. In it, Witte emphasized that the funds of the Land Bank, not only free, but also those that were necessary to repay its urgent obligations to pay coupons and mortgages issued in circulation, in a total amount of almost 5.5 million rubles, were placed in Kharkov Commercial Bank, which turned out to be insolvent. In addition, the Kharkiv Land Bank pledged mortgages in various credit institutions and private individuals in the amount of 6,763,500 rubles, presented in extra-urgent repayment and subject to destruction, as well as loan securities of reserve capital for 2,727,325 rubles. Finally, Kharkiv Land Bank incurred losses on its ordinary operations in the amount of 785,475 rubles. According to the Minister of Finance, the difference between the liabilities of the bank and its funds was determined in the amount of up to 7.5 million rubles. However, since there was a "transfer of one short-term loan, which was registered on a large land property, from the Kharkov Land Bank to the State Bank" with the issuance of an industrial loan for this property in the amount of 1 million 500 thousand rubles. with interest, then Witte considered it sufficient to open a loan to the Kharkov Land Bank in the amount of 6 million rubles so that it could pay off its urgent obligations. June 3-20, 1901 Nicholas II approved the decision of the Committee of Ministers to open a loan to the Kharkov Land Bank in the State Bank in the amount of 6 million rubles. for payment of urgent obligations and appointment of a special authorized representative of the Ministry of Finance to monitor the actions of the board of the Kharkiv Land Bank until the end of settlements on this loan.
So, the help that A.K-Alchevsky sought from the government,
was provided shortly after his death. This time, the Ministry of Finance and the Committee of Ministers showed enviable efficiency in pulling the Kharkiv Land Bank out of the crisis, although only a month before that they had not lifted a finger to save it from insolvency. Having refused to support A.K. Alchevsky, S. Yu. Witte announced his readiness to finance the new board of the bank, for he, of course, was well aware that the affairs of the collapsed enterprise were being transferred into the hands of the influential Moscow trading house of the Ryabushinsky brothers.
The Ryabushinskys have been lending to the Kharkov Land Bank since at least the 1880s, and on more favorable terms than some other banks, such as the Moscow Trade Bank, did. According to the employees of the accounting department of the Kharkov Land Bank, millions of transactions with the Ryabushinsky were carried out through their hands.34 The collapse of the enterprises
A. K. Alchevsky threatened Ryabushinsky with the loss of “about five million
rubles pledged in the south, in Kharkov. ”35 Vladimir and Mikhail Ryabushin
skies immediately left for Kharkov with a large staff of their assistants
to "save" the Kharkiv Land Bank. "lh
The suicide of A.K. Alchevsky led to a sharp decline in the price of shares of the Kharkov Land Bank. Within two or three weeks, their cost fell from 450 to 125 rubles. The Ryabushinskys began to buy up these shares, and as a result, at an extraordinary meeting of shareholders, which lasted two days, on June 25 and 26, 1901, they managed to collect the majority of the votes and take over the bank's affairs. Members of the Board were elected
B. P. and M. P. Ryabushinsky. V.P. Ryabushinsky became the chairman of rights
lazy bank. M.P. Ryabushinsky later recalled that he was
the youngest director of a large bank in the world. In 1901 he only
that he has reached the age of majority, he turned 21.3 "At the general meeting
shareholders of the Kharkov Land Bank in March 1902 was elected
his reign, consisting of three Ryabushinsky brothers - Vladimir, Pavel
and Mikhail - and their two relatives - V. Kornev and M. Antropov. 33
At an extraordinary meeting of shareholders on June 25 and 26, 1901, the Ryabushinskys not only took possession of the Kharkov Land Bank, but also achieved the initiation of a criminal case against the former members of its board. They were accused of committing loans at the expense of a bank secured by interest-bearing securities of reserve capital, pledging in other banks and selling mortgages presented in early repayment of loans and therefore subject to immediate repayment, concealing bank losses with the help of fictitious accounts and balances and, finally, in direct deception of shareholders: in the bank's reports, it was announced that the shares of the IX and X issues were fully sold, while in reality some of these shares remained unrealized.
The trial and the war between the Ryabushinskys and former members of the bank's board began. Desperate resistance to Ryabushinsky was put up by At. A. Lyubarskaya-Pismennaya, wife of the actual state councilor E.V. Lyubarsky-Pismenny, a member of the boards of both Kharkov banks and the chairman of the board of the Yekaterinoslav Commercial Bank. M. A. Lyubarskaya-Pismennaya, who, according to the sarcastic remark of M. P. Ryabushinsky, was the "first lady of Kharkov" for many years and did not want to part with this situation, opened against the Ryabushinsky
campaign in the newspaper Kharkivskiy Listok, which it published.40 The newspaper accused the Ryabushinskys of bringing with them two carriages of dummy shareholders and with their help seized the board of the Kharkiv Land Bank, violating the law on incompatibility in one person of the creditor and the debtor, then used their new regulation and received from the bank's cash desk 2 million rubles, which were once lent to the bank on not entirely legal grounds, and refused to present the documents on the basis of which these transactions were concluded to the shareholders' meeting. "1" The charges contained an obvious hint that that the Ryabushinskys themselves took part in dubious transactions with the Kharkiv Land Bank, and when the bank crashed, they rushed to send their business partners to jail, seize the bank and cover up the traces of their involvement in breaking the laws. The Ryabushinskys' litigation with M. A. Lyubarskaya-Pismenny dragged on for several years.4 "She managed to achieve that S. Yu. Witte was forced to submit a" detailed motivated report "on this case to Nicholas II and confess to the recklessness and thoughtlessness of his "Orders in relation to Kharkiv banks", as well as to recognize "that there is no crime in the actions of the members of the bank's board and that the deviations from the bank's charter committed by them are the result of a common misfortune: the financial and industrial crisis..."
However, these belated confessions by the finance minister were worthless. E.V. Lyubarsky-Pismenny, the second most influential member of the board of the Kharkov Land Bank after A.K. Alchevsky, did not live to see the end of the protracted litigation, and his wife was ultimately forced to leave Kharkov and go to Paris, where, according to carefully who followed her fate, the Ryabushinskys, “died, stabbed to death by her pimp.” 44
Having transferred the Kharkov Land Bank into the hands of the Ryabushinskys, the Ministry of Finance consistently continued to provide them with the necessary assistance. On January 11, 1902, Witte again decided to bring the question of the bank to the discussion of the Committee of Ministers.40 On January 15, its meeting was held, which satisfied the main requests of the new board of the Kharkov Land Bank.10
Kharkov Land Bank was allowed to exchange all previous shares for new ones, as well as to make an additional issue of shares for 1.4 million rubles. The partnership of P.M.Ryabushinsky's manufactories with his sons paid a pledge of 3.1 million rubles to the Moscow office of the State Bank. and "undertook a guarantee of the exchange of shares of the Kharkov Land Bank and their new issue." In exchange for this, the Partnership received the right “to retain unassembled new shares at a price of 105 rubles. per share regardless of their exchange price: -: .. 4 "The Committee of Ministers allowed the Kharkiv Land Bank already in 1902 to resume operations for issuing loans and issuing mortgages, without waiting for the completion of exchange operations and additional issue of shares. 46
Thus, by the middle of 1902 the Kharkov Land Bank came out of the crisis and began to engage in regular operations. Vladimir and Mikhail Ryabushinskiy spent two years at the bank, working every day, including Sundays, from 1 () a.m. to 7 p.m. and then from 9 p.m.
until midnight.44 However, the game was worth the candle. Success in Kharkov strengthened the position of the Partnership of Manufactories of P.M.Ryabushinsky with his sons.
Even before the members of the Kharkov expedition returned to Moscow, the Ryabushinsky brothers began to discuss the issue of legalizing their banking operations at the expense of the funds left by their father.
For some reason, a week before his death, P.M. Ryabushinsky made a significant change in his spiritual will. Initially, he was going to leave all his real estate and shares to his wife, but then changed his mind and bequeathed shares to his sons on certain conditions. They had to go to increase the share capital of the Partnership through additional issue of shares. New shares came into the ownership of the sons in proportion to the number of shares already at their disposal. The operation was supposed to be carried out within five years / 0, and in case of its failure, the money had to be divided equally.5 "" The older four brothers had more shares than the younger four ", they were interested in the increase in the share capital of the Partnership, and they hurried 19 April 1901 to hold a general meeting of shareholders and decide on an additional issue of shares.On April 25, 1902, the board of the P.M.Ryabushinsky's Manufactories Partnership with his sons applied to the Ministry of Finance with a request to allow him to increase the share capital through a new issue of 2,750 shares. provided that each share was paid in cash in the amount of 2000 rubles and, in addition, for each share a special bonus was paid in the amount of 840 rubles, credited to the reserve capital. As a result of this operation, the share capital of the Partnership was to increase to 9 million . 500 thousand rubles (1000 shares of the first issue of 2 thousand rubles each, 1000 shares of the second issue of 2 thousand rubles each, and 2,750 shares of a new issue of 2 thousand rubles each) .52 The spare capital was also supposed to increase by 2 million 310 thousand rubles.
In their petition, the Ryabushinskys drew the attention of the Minister of Finance to the fact that this capital was to be used to expand the factory and banking operations, which had long been introduced into practice by the late founder of the Partnership, P.M. Ryabushinskiy. In this regard, they asked the Minister of Finance to allow them to officially engage in banking operations and "in accordance with the legal provisions for private banking offices" to make the necessary changes to the charter of the Partnership and henceforth call it not the Partnership of Manufactures, but simply the Partnership of P.M. Ryabushinsky with his sons.
Thus, the brothers intended to turn the Partnership of Manufactures into a banker's office. However, this plan failed. On May 15, 1902, the petition was reported to the Minister of Finance and rejected by him. To conduct banking operations, the brothers were offered to open a separate banking house.
On the secondary appeal of the Partnership to the Ministry of Finance to increase the share capital, it was again refused. After that, the remaining capital was divided by the brothers in equal shares, and on May 20, 1902, they decided to create a banking house for the Ryabushinsky brothers, also based on the principle of equality of its participants.
Vladimir and Mikhail joined the board of the banking house. With its creation, the brothers "divided the management of affairs among themselves." Fab-
pavel, Sergei and Stepan took up business activities, Vladimir and Mikhail took up banking, Dmitry took up academic activities, "and Nikolai -" a fun life. "55 By the time the banking house was created, the youngest of the brothers, Fyodor, was still a teenager.
The Moscow historian Yu. A. Petrov managed to find in the fund of the St. Petersburg branch of the Moscow Bank a copy of the agreement dated May 30, 1902 on the formation of the banking house of the Ryabushinsky brothers.5 "1 Thanks to this, we have a fairly clear picture of the organization of this house. His complete comrades are six brothers were announced as co-owners: Pavel, Vladimir, Mikhail, Sergey, Dmitry and Stepan.The first five contributed 200 thousand rubles each, and Stepan - 50 thousand rubles. Initially, the fixed capital of the house was, thus, 1 million 050 thousand rubles. In 1903, the seventh brother, Fedor, was admitted to the number of co-owners, and the share of each was increased to 714,285 rubles. Later, the fixed capital of the banking house was also increased to 5 million rubles.
The agreement signed by the Ryabushinsky brothers is interesting in many ways. First of all, attention is drawn to the fact that the agreement announced the opening of a full partnership trading house in Moscow under the name "Banking House of the Ryabushinsky Brothers", that is, the parties to the agreement viewed their institution as a trading house engaged in banking operations. 08 Brothers Agreement The Ryabushinskys are also distinguished by the fact that it lists the main operations of the banking institution, namely: the purchase and sale of dividend securities, insurance is winning; -: tickets, acceptance for accounting of bills of exchange with two or more signatures, and solo bills with security and goods, opening loans (special current accounts) against various collateral, issuing loans for certain periods and on call (on call) secured by securities, issuing loans for real estate, issuing advances against duplicate railway bills, receipts from transport offices, bills of lading, etc. other documents for the dispatch of goods and loans under the certificate va about cash on delivery, accounting of coupons and values \u200b\u200b\\ u200b \\ u200breleased in circulation, receiving payments on instructions (collection), accepting valuables for storage, accepting money to current accounts and interest deposits, issuing and paying transfers, accepting cash and goods for commission and other legal cash, bill and commodity transactions.59
The agreement specifically stipulated that the banking house would not be credited with direct bills and would use a blank loan to a limited extent. The main office of the banking house and the accounting department were to be located in Moscow, all documents of the banking house were signed either by three of the fellow co-owners, or by one on the basis of a power of attorney. For documents for the acquisition of real estate, the signature of at least four members of the Partnership was required. The management and management of the firm's affairs should have been carried out with general consent, but in conflict cases, the decision was made by a majority vote. The agreement stipulated that "if in the further course of the case the capital of the participants is unequal," then the majority will be determined "by the amount of capital."
Of the banking house's net profit, 25% went to reserve capital, and the remaining 75% went to dividend. Provided that 75% of the net profit was more than 6% in relation to the fixed capital, then at least 6% of the fixed capital should have been paid in dividend in proportion to the capital of each participant, and the remainder was supposed to be distributed by the decision of the majority.
The term of the trading house was not stipulated in the contract. He could be eliminated at any time. The consent of more than 3/4 of the participants was enough for this. But the agreement specifically stipulated a condition according to which none of the participants had the right to stand out from the common cause during the first five years after signing it. None of the signatories to the agreement had the right to receive loans in their banking house and enter into “loan obligations for personal matters.” &! 1
The banking house "Brothers Ryabushinsky" was included along with some banking offices in Moscow ("Juncker and 1C", "Volkov with sons", "Osipov and Co.", "Brothers Dzhamgarovs") among the shareholders of the Kharkov Land Bank, who had the right to participate in its general meetings.01
In 1907, the Ryabushinskys made an attempt to increase the size of their banking house by acquiring three Pole banks. At the end of 1907, they applied for the transfer of their banking house to the category of joint-stock enterprises. However, then they took this request back, according to Yu. A. Petrov, in connection with the failure of negotiations on the acquisition of Polish banks.
When the banking house of the Ryabushinskys on July 1, 1902 opened its operations with a fixed capital of 1,050,000 rubles, its influence was not yet so significant. After six months of activity, he had deposits and current accounts for only 6909 rubles. 85 K. However, the banking house grew. In 1903 the Ryabushinskys increased their fixed capital, and by 1912 it was already 5 million rubles, while current accounts and deposits reached 18,946,431 rubles. Over the ten years of the existence of the banking house, the brothers gradually and with varying success increased its capital, and profit grew, as evidenced by the summary data given by M.P. Ryabushinsky in 1916 for almost 14 years
The Ryabushinsky Banking House was widely engaged in accounting operations ^ was a regular buyer and seller of foreign slogans (funds in foreign currency intended for settlements), both checks and three-month bills. By 1906, the house had a wide range of foreign correspondents who accepted the works at the expense of Ryabushinsk, including Deutsche Bank in Berlin, the Lyon credit in Paris, the Directorate of Discount
selschaft in London, Bank Central Anversoise in Antwerp, Brussels International Bank, Hope & Co. in Amsterdam, Anglo-Osterreichische Bank in Vienna, Italian credit in Genoa, Swiss Creditanstalt in Zurich. "5
The development of the operations of P.M.Ryabushinsky's spun-off from the Partnership of Manufactories with the sons of the banking house proceeded in parallel with the expansion of the activities of the Partnership itself. The brothers' repeated attempts to increase its fixed capital were crowned with success only in 1912. On March 8, 1912, the tsar approved the decision of the Council of Ministers on the additional issue of 500 shares of the Partnership for 2000 rubles. each. As a result, the fixed capital of the enterprise reached 5 million rubles. In addition, its new name was approved "Commercial and industrial partnership of P. M. Ryabushinsky with his sons" and the issue of bonds for 2.5 million rubles was allowed, that is, for an amount not exceeding the value of the property belonging to the Partnership. "6 However, the brothers The Ryabushinskys took advantage of this permission only in 1914, having bargained for the right to issue a 5% bond issue for 3 million 750 thousand rubles with a 25-year maturity.
Approximately equal participation of the Ryabushinsky brothers in the P.M.Ryabushnsky's commercial and industrial partnership with their sons survived until the First World War. This is evidenced by the data for July 5, 1914:
On July 20, 1914, the directors of the Board of the Partnership were Pavel, Sergey and Stepan, the candidate for director was Vladimir. Mikhail and Dmitry were members of the revision committee.69
The composition of the Partnership on the shares of the Ryabushinskys Printing House in Moscow on Strastnoy Boulevard (Putinkovskiy Pereulok, 3) looks somewhat different. The charter of the Partnership was approved on April 28, 1913, its founders were Pavel, Sergei and Stepan Pavlovich. However, the main figure in this Partnership is undoubtedly P. P. Ryabushinsky. He owned 963 shares, while Stepan and Sergei Pavlovich had only four shares each / "
In 1912 Ryabushinsky became “cramped within the framework of a private enterprise,” and they “decided to reorganize it into a bank.” 1 “They called friends among their friendly textile workers, all Muscovites.” In 1912, the Moscow Bank was founded “with the initial capital in 10 million rubles ", then it was increased to 15 million, and before the war itself - up to 25 million rubles. As in the banking house, the bank's board was headed by Mikhail and Vladimir Pavlovichi, having invited A.F.Dzerzhinsky as the third board member .7 "P. P. Ryabushinsky became the chairman of the bank's council, the council included large Moscow capitalists.73 So
thus, starting in 1912, the banking house, in the words of MP Ryabushinsky, “continued its activities in the form of the Moscow Bank,” which in fact largely retained the features of a family enterprise. The Ryabushinsky brothers acted together in the overwhelming majority of operations, following, however, the principles of the division of labor established from the very beginning. And after the creation of the bank, Vladimir and Mikhail Pavlovichi retained their priority in dealing specifically with banking. The youngest brother, Fyodor, when he came of age, concentrated his activities in the paperwork business organized by the brothers ("Partnership of Okulov paper factories") and invested "their free capital" in it, although the other brothers also continued to participate in this business.
The factory in the town of Okulovka was a fairly large enterprise. Several hundred people worked on it. The youngest of the Ryabushinsky brothers died on March 8, 1910 at the age of 27, leaving a large fortune and having managed to gain a reputation as one of ... enlightened businessmen "in Moscow. In 1908, on his initiative and at his expense, the Imperial Russian Geographical Society organized a large scientific expedition to explore Kamchatka. The expedition collected a wealth of scientific material. F.P. Ryabushinsky donated 200 thousand rubles. for the work of the expedition. His widow T. K. Ryabushinskaya, in accordance with her husband's will, continued to finance the processing of the materials of the expedition, as well as the publication of her works.7 "1
Apparently, MP Ryabushinsky became one of the ideologues of family business among the brothers. “Even before the war,” he wrote later in his memoirs, “when it became more and more difficult to find a place for our money, we took into account only first-class accounting material, and there was, of course, not much of this on the market, we began to wonder where and in how to find use for free money. ”“ 3 A brochure about flax fell into the hands of MP Ryabushinsky, he was struck by the “disorganization and some inertia” in the production of flax. “6 ^ In the autumn, when the flax was ripening, - wrote MP Ryabushinsky, - tax farmers from factories and exporters, mainly Jews, Germans and British, bought it in the villages, took it out or took it to factories, it was scratched there, about 60% of them turned out to be fires that had no consumption, 20-25 percent of the counts, the remainder is combed flax. From it, the manufacturer took the varieties he needed, sold the rest ...
Like lightning, two thoughts came to me. Russia produces 80% of all world raw flax, but the market is not in the hands of the Russians. We, we will seize it and make it a monopoly of Russia. The second thought is, why bring all this dead weight to factories? Isn't it easier to build a network of small factories and factories in the flax regions, to scratch on the spot and sell the already needed combed flax and hairs that meet the needs of factories and foreign exporters. No sooner said than done*."""
The Ryabushinskys decided to start a new business by studying the regions of flax production. We started with Rzhev, the central flax district of the Tver province. In 1908, a branch of a banking house was opened in Rzhev. In 1909, such a department was opened in Yaroslavl, in 1910 - in Viteb-
sk, Vyazma, Kostroma and Smolensk, in 1911 ■ - in Ostrov, Pskov and Sychevsk, in 1914 - in Kashin.
The formation of branches, in particular in Rzhev, from which the Ryabushinskys decided to start their experiment, allowed them to establish relations with local flax merchants. However, the main object of negotiations for the Ryabushinskys was the Moscow linen manufacturers headed by their "leader" SN Tretyakov, the owner and chairman of the board of the Big Kostroma Linen Manufactory. ". ... .If you don't come with us, - MP Ryabushinsky told him, - we will go separately; we have money, you have factories and knowledge, together we will achieve a lot. ”9
As a result of these negotiations, the Russian Flax Industrial Joint Stock Company ("RALO") was organized with a fixed capital of 1 million rubles. The Ryabushinskys contributed 80%, the manufacturers 20%. SN Tretyakov was elected chairman of the board, MP Ryabushinsky was elected chairman of the board.8 "At the end of 1912, a factory for the primary processing of flax was put into operation in Rzhev. However, the Ryabushinskys encountered difficulties in selling their products. Even the shareholders refused to buy it. “RALO” - the manufacturers referred to the fact that they had their own flax cards and they did not intend to close them for the “beautiful eyes” of the Ryabushinskys. I “In the first year of operation, the Rzhevskaya factory brought 200 thousand rubles. loss.
In response, the Ryabushinskys increased RALO's fixed assets to 2 million rubles. Most of the factory shareholders did not take new shares. The Ryabushinskys were forced to change their tactics, they decided to focus on exports and at the same time declare war on the manufacturers and start "buying up the factories themselves." Fixed capital was doubled again - up to 4 million rubles. - and became "almost the sole shareholders" of "RALO" .82 In 1913 the Ryabushinskys bought the AA Lokolov's factory, one of the best factories in Russia for the production of the highest grades of flaxseed goods. S. N. Tretyakov was made the Chairman of the Board of the Society A. A. Lokolov. The Ryabushinskys introduced him to the board of the Moscow Bank, trying to get closer to him and enlist his support.8- Meanwhile, “the Ralo brand quickly became a first-class brand both in the domestic and foreign markets,” the Company's profits were growing. The February revolution, the Ryabushinskys bought the Romanovskaya manufactory for 12 million rubles. 17.5% of all flax factories were concentrated in the hands of the Ryabushinskys.84 The last stage in the Ryabushinskys' struggle to monopolize the flax production industry was their attempt to create the Len cartel the main capital of 10 million rubles) with the benefit of the same SN Tretyakov. For this, an agreement had to be concluded between SN Tretyakov and the Moscow Bank "on the conduct of a joint linen policy." It was assumed that "Flax" will buy up the enterprises of both the Ryabushinskys and SN Tretyakov and the share of participation in the cartel of the Moscow Bank will be two-thirds, and SN Tretyakov - one-third. The board of the cartel was to include four representatives an agent from the Moscow Bank, including the chairman of the board, and three from SN Tretyakov. The negotiations on the creation of the cartel were interrupted by the revolution.8; "
The second important object of investment of the Ryabushinskys' capital was the forest. Russia exported about 60% of the world's timber production.
The partnership of P. Ryabushinsky's manufactories and his sons "bought forests, created the necessary forest fund for heating the factory", later the partnership began to engage in timber trade. As a result, by the beginning of the war it possessed 50 thousand acres of forest. With the acquisition of Okulovka, the Ryabushinskys began to intensively purchase forests for this enterprise as well ”. By 1916, their forest fund reached 60 thousand dessiatines.
During the war the Ryabushinskys developed a program to seize the timber industry and timber exports. The stake was placed on the fact that Europe will need forest materials to rebuild war-torn areas. In October 1916, the Ryabushinskys bought up shares of the largest forest enterprise in the north of Russia, the partnership of the White Sea sawmills “N. Rusanov and Son ". Rusanov's factories were located in Arkhangelsk. Mezen and Kovde. The Ryabushinskys bought a plot of land of several hundred dessiatines near Kotlas for the construction of a paper mill, began negotiations in Petrograd on obtaining from the state in the basin of the Northern Dvina, Vychegda and Sukhona "a concession for forest areas of several million dessiatines."
At the beginning of 1917 the Ryabushinskys created the Russian North society for the development and operation of forest dachas, peat deposits and the production of stationery.88 “Kotlas is connected to Vyatka by a railway. From Vyatka - with Russia, - wrote MP Ryabushinsky. - Three mighty rivers serve a colossal unused area. With Arkhangelsk communication through the Northern Dvina. Sukhona will supply us with timber, part for Kotlas for a paper mill, large timber will go to Arkhangelsk along the Northern Dvina for sawing at our factories and export. We decided to attract friends and gradually invest up to one hundred million rubles in this business. That was roughly our plan. The revolution cut it off. "
The attempts of the Ryabushinskys to monopolize the production and export of flax and timber, of course, also required the strengthening of their banking system. On the eve of the war, the Ryabushinsky brothers decided to increase the fixed capital of the Moscow Bank to 25 million rubles. and distributed contributions among themselves and other shareholders. When the time came to deposit money for the shares, the war broke out and “some of the brothers got scared” and did not contribute their share. MP Ryabushinsky “laid down. ... ... all his papers and shares ”and paid for everything“ at his own expense. ”90 As a result, he became the largest shareholder of the bank: out of 100 thousand shares, he owned! 2 thousand for 250 rubles. each, for a total of 3 million rubles. The war brought the Ryabushinsky great profits. The bank's deposits and current accounts have reached almost 300 million rubles. “There was a lot of work,” wrote MP Ryabushinsky about the first war years. “Volodya went to war, I was left alone, and besides, I had to work in the headquarters where I served.” 91
Extensive purchases of new enterprises prompted the Ryabushinskys to create a “handy” organization at the Moscow Bank for the general management of their activities. In 1915, for this purpose, the average Russian commercial and industrial society "Rostor" was created with a capital of 1 million rubles. Later it was increased to 2 million rubles. The Moscow Bank was the owner of all the shares in Rostor. Rostor, in turn, “was the owner of RALO, Lokalov and Rusanov.” 92 “Rostor was ours, Holding Company,” wrote MP Ryabushchinsky, “and Sergei Aleksan-
drovich Pavlov, a lawyer by profession, was the secretary of the board of the Moscow Bank and at the same time the managing director of Rostor "".
The development of banking operations during the war years followed the same lines as before the creation of the Moscow Bank, that is, "accounting for first-class promissory notes, ordinary banking operations on an asset and attracting current accounts and deposits on a liability", the development of a network of branches, mainly in “Flax and forest areas. ... ... Central and Northern Russia. ”94 The scale of banking operations became so significant that the Ryabushinskys were concerned about the lack of the necessary number of workers for their enterprises. They were "reluctant to take outsiders" and tried "to create their own cadres of civil servants, for which they took them very young, right from school, mainly from graduates of the Moscow Practical Academy of Commercial Sciences, where they themselves studied." To replenish the "junior staff" they took village and city boys, -<в свободное от занятий время посылали их в школы на вечерние классы», а затем через несколько лет «производили» в служащие. «Но дело развивалось быстрее, - писал М. П. Рябушин-ский, - чем мы успевали создавать нужные кадры. Приходилось посылать на ответственные места не совсем еще окрепшую молодежь, не впитавшую еще традиции нашего дома. Многие из них из-за этого погибли. Молодой человек около 22-25 лет, попадавший в управляющие или помощники отделения и получавший сразу ответственный пост и социальное положение в городе, терял равновесие. Соблазны и почет, незнакомые ему до этого, кружили голову, и он тел вниз по наклонной плоскости. Приходилось его сменять. К счастью, таких было меньшинство. Те, кто выдерживал, становились первоклассными и верными работниками дома.
The most difficult of all posts was the Petrograd one. There, many of our youth turned off the straight path and died. To replace them, they had to send more and more new ones from Moscow, until finally the composition of the Petrograd branch became first-class. Petrograd was a terrible city in terms of temptations. Stock exchange bacchanalia (unscrupulous brokers, mainly from Jews, / women - all this is in the way of "r ~ destructively on the weak of our youth."
The war enriched the Ryabushinskys. and they have already become "narrowly within the framework of the Moscow Bank." Vladimir and Mikhail developed a project for the merger of the Moscow Bank with the Russian Commercial and Industrial and Volzhsko-Kamsky banks. Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank attracted the attention of the Ryabushinskys as the “best” bank in Russia. He "enjoyed great confidence and had large deposits and current accounts," but the bank's shareholders were small, scattered throughout Russia, and the bank, after leaving the post of manager AF Mukhin, did not have a "real owner." As for the Commercial and Industrial Bank, it was the only old bank whose charter gave "the right to vote in proportion to the number of shares (but not more than one tenth, while others had a maximum of 10 votes for themselves and by proxy)." Perhaps the Ryabushinskys hoped that this feature of the charter would help them take over the bank. In addition, the Commercial and Industrial Bank had a developed network of branches. If the merger of the banks took place, then the Ryabushinsky would be able to create
"World-class bank" "" with a huge fixed capital of over 120 million rubles.
However, the Ryabushinskys' attempt to form a superbank by involving in their affairs two large joint-stock banks with fixed capital and turnovers significantly exceeding the capital and turnover of their own bank, failed. The largest shareholder of the Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank was "a certain Kokorev, who permanently lived in Crimea, one of the heirs of the bank's founder." Negotiations with him yielded no results, and the Ryabushinskys decided to just slowly buy up the shares of the Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank. They entrusted the conduct of this operation to a large Moscow broker A. V. Beru, who delegated the matter to his assistant. The latter turned out to be connected with a group of speculators, who, having learned about the Ryabushinskys' intentions, themselves began to buy up the shares of the Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank with the aim of reselling them later to Ryabushnsky. The price of shares of the Volzhsko-Kamsky Bank jumped sharply, and the Ryabushinskys, having bought "only a few thousand" of them, were forced to postpone the implementation of their plan "until a more favorable moment: -."
At the head of the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank was the former manager of the State Bank A. V. Konshin. He himself turned to the Ryabushinsky (through D.V. Sirotkin, the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod, who was a member of the Moscow Bank Council) and sold them a batch of shares of the Trade and Industrial Bank in the amount of 25 thousand shares. As a result of this transaction, the Ryabushinskys introduced one of their trustees, V. Ye. Silkin (the former chairman of the board of the Voronezh Commercial Bank), as director of the Trade and Industrial Bank, and sent him to Petrograd to study the state of affairs in the bank. Silkin presented a report to Ryabushinsky. It followed that many employees, including Konshin, shamelessly "profited from the bank, taking for themselves colossal courtesies when buying and selling enterprises: -". There were rumors that Konshin "personally took one million rubles" when buying the Tereshchenko factories.1110 The "insane bacchanalia" that reigned in the Commercial and Industrial Bank embarrassed the Ryabushinsky. They had to make a choice - "either leave the bank," or acquire another block of shares, increase their influence in the Commercial and Industrial Bank and put things in order there.10 "The famous English banker Crisp was a major shareholder of the Commercial and Industrial Bank. According to one version, the Ryabushinskys wanted to buy shares of the Commercial and Industrial Bank, which belonged to Crisp, but they failed.102 According to another, they threatened Konshin that if he did not buy back 25,000 shares of his bank from them, they would enter into a deal with Crisp and "throw away" Konshina from the bank. 103 Anyway
otherwise, Konshin agreed to the Ryabushinskys 'proposal and "bought the entire package at the price of the day," which gave the Ryabushinskys "a very large profit," but the project of the banks' merger was buried. However, according to MP Ryabushinsky, the brothers were not going to abandon their idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a powerful banking association and would have put it into practice “if it had not been for the collapse of Russia.”
The history of the Ryabushinskys' case can be considered as a model of the development on a family basis of commercial entrepreneurship in the banking industry and its evolution from the simplest forms to more complex ones, known in Russian conditions. At the initial stage - within a trading house, then - the Partnership of Manufactures and, finally, in the form of a banking house, with its subsequent transformation into a joint stock bank. However, at all stages of the development of the banking industry of the Ryabushinsky brothers, it retains its family basis, and the Ryabushinsky themselves perceive this development as a transition of the appropriate family form of cooperation into a more convenient form that meets the needs of the day. That is why it is in 1902 about the creation of the banking house "Brothers Ryabushinsky", and in 1912 about the "reorganization" of the banking house into the Moscow Bank.
The Ryabushinskys began to engage in banking operations quite early, judging by the remark of M.P. Ryabushinsky, back in the 1840s, and initially this type of trade was only one of the sources of income for a trading house, and then a manufacturing partnership. Over the years, a banking house was created, and it turned into a financial center for all kinds of family-based businesses. Unlike the Polyakovs or Gunzburgs, for whom the accumulation of initial capital was not associated with trade and manufacturing, the Ryabushinskys were much less involved in grunders and speculation in securities. This, apparently, can explain the well-known stability of the Partnership of Manufactures and the Banking House during the crisis years.
Manufacturing and trade as sources of initial accumulation, operations within Moscow and the Moscow province left a certain imprint on the Ryabushinskys' entrepreneurial ideology. We have before us a type of entrepreneurs with a certain touch of local, Moscow "patriotism" who prefer to deal with their like-minded people - Moscow bankers and manufacturers. For them, the capital is a city of "stock exchange orgies and unprincipled brokers", where many Moscow youth "perished" and "turned off the straight path", sent by the Ryabushinskys to their Petrograd branch. National Moscow Old Believer coloration of Ryabushinski's entrepreneurial ideology: -: manifested itself in the most diverse forms. During the war years, the Ryabushinskys openly demonstrated a certain opposition to the government, which from their point of view preferred foreign entrepreneurs from England, France and Belgium in organizing the post-war timber trade.105
Unlike many representatives of the contemporary Russian business world, the Ryabushinskys were by no means one of the enthusiastic admirers of American entrepreneurship and pinned their hopes on the revival of Europe. “We are experiencing the fall of Europe
and the rise of the United States. - wrote in 1916 M.P. Ryabushinsky. - The Americans took our money, entangled us with colossal debts, enriched themselves immensely; the clearinghouse will move from London to New York. They have no science, art, culture in the European sense. They will buy their national museums from the defeated countries, for a huge salary they will lure artists, scientists, business people to themselves and create
_ ^ _ to themselves what they lacked.
The fall of Europe and its cession of its supremacy in the world to another continent - after so much heroism, genius, perseverance and intelligence displayed by old Europe! One hope is that Europe, which was able to display so much fierce energy, will find the strength to revive again. ”1 (b
j The Ryabushinskys hoped that it was in this case that Russia would also receive an opportunity to widely develop its productive forces and enter the “broad road of national prosperity and wealth” .10 "
Already on the eve of the pre-war industrial upsurge, the Ryabushinskys felt themselves to be representatives of the ideology of national entrepreneurship, which was reflected in the support and financing of such
"- publications like" Morning of Russia ", and in the construction of a large modern printing house in Moscow, which was turned into a joint-stock company during the war years, 108 in the organization of so-called economic conversations in Moscow with the invitation of Petersburg participants, in particular from the Society of Breeders and Manufacturers, 109 and, finally, in the creation of a party of progressives.
However, Moscow's "patriotism" did not prevent the Ryabushinskys from maintaining and developing business ties with their foreign correspondents, among whom were the largest banks in Europe, and from entering into transactions with St. Petersburg banks. During the war years, the Ryabushinskys widely and freely went beyond the interests of traditional Moscow entrepreneurship. They begin to operate in the oil industry, buying the pan of the Nobel Brothers partnership and showing interest in the Ukhta oil fields, their attention is attracted by the mining industry and gold mining, they are studying the state of navigation on the Dnieper and Volga and domestic shipbuilding, they are starting the construction of the first automobile plant, finance expeditions not only to explore Kamchatka, but also to find radium. "10
In 1917 the Ryabushinskys were one of the founders and leaders of the newly created organization of the Russian bourgeoisie - the All-Russian Union of Trade and Industry.