Grigory Eliseev - gastronomes and great love. The last love of the merchant Grigory Eliseev "Who does not risk ..."

Grigory Grigorievich Eliseev was a successful successor to the famous merchant dynasty that founded the legendary grocery stores in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Until 1914, the business of the entrepreneur went uphill: the cash turnover of the trading company was about 60 million rubles a year, a new store was opened in Moscow on Tverskaya and the anniversary of the trading activities of the Eliseevs' house was celebrated. But one meeting became fatal both for the trading business and for the family of Grigory Grigoryevich.

Over the 200 years of its history, the shops of the merchants Eliseevs have gained fame as a "paradise on earth", where no one could remain indifferent at the sight of such a variety of overseas goods - wines, tropical fruits, ocean fish, elite chocolate. The prosperity of the trading business, founded by the former state peasant Pyotr Eliseev, was facilitated by the outstanding commercial talent of his descendants.

Father and uncle of G. G. Eliseev

Dynasty heir

The sons created the Eliseev Brothers Trading House, bought Dutch high-speed ships to transport goods from South America and received “honorary citizenship” as patrons and leaders of Russian trade. The case was continued by one of the grandchildren of the resourceful peasant Pyotr Eliseev, Grigory.

Gilyarovsky describes the famous grocery store as "a slender blond man in an impeccable tailcoat," who at first glance had little in common with the founders of the merchant dynasty - the stocky, bearded "Eliseev brothers." Nothing in the billionaire of the early twentieth century betrayed a peasant origin.

Eliseev did not have a higher education. The family of St. Petersburg merchants did not depart from the tradition of home education, so the father dedicated the wisdom of the commercial activities of the future grocery store. Eliseev himself believed that the experience of the famous baker I. M. Filippov, whose name in the second half of the 19th century became a guarantor of the quality of baking, could also be added to the number of “his universities”. The said baker was honored to be called the "Supplier of His Imperial Majesty".

By the way, in the 1830s the Eliseev dynasty also had the right to supply the imperial court with its main product - wine. However, they failed to achieve the right to a monopoly for 4 years, despite the promise to provide preferential terms that would reduce the cost of the treasury by 30%.

It is possible that, based on the experience of Filippov, Grigory Grigorievich learned the very commercial acumen and adventurism, thanks to which the income of the Eliseev trading house multiplied several times.

"Who does not risk..."

Grigory Eliseev was not afraid to take risks and make decisions that at first might seem like an unjustified adventure. So, in 1900, the heir to a dynasty of merchants who had their cellars not only in St. Petersburg, but also in Mallorca, presented his collection in Paris at the World Exhibition.

The European public was so amazed by the richness and quality of wines that had been stored in family cellars for several decades that Grigory Eliseev was awarded France's highest award - the Order of the Legion of Honor.

Most of all, Grigory Eliseev is famous for the opening in 1901 of a grocery store, which in the future, as soon as it will not be called - both Gastronome No. 1 and Eliseevsky.

It is this store, the construction of which became the main intrigue of the capital at the beginning of the 20th century, that is the clearest example of the revolution that Grigory Eliseev made in trade. The grocery store was not just a place to buy products, but rather a palace where the eyes of the buyer rejoiced, and the shopping process itself was supposed to be a real pleasure.

Fanciful stucco, gilding, crystal chandeliers - this is the interior that captured the spirit of any buyer or just a passerby staring at the window. Both the service and the product had to be of an appropriate level.

Judging by the restructuring of the mansion chosen for the future grocery store on the corner of Tverskaya, Grigory Grigoryevich did not suffer from sentimentality. He was a man who could, for example, destroy the historical halls of the former literary salon, where Pushkin read his poems, and the white marble staircase for the sake of a wine cellar.

Maecenas

Unlike his predecessors, Grigory Eliseev did not limit himself to trade. This active person took an active part in the development of public education. He was a member of the City Duma for 16 years and was an honorary trustee of the St. Petersburg Pedagogical University. In addition to sponsoring the university, he also paid for the most talented, but underfunded student.

The scale of Grigory Grigoryevich's hobbies corresponded to the scale of his outstanding personality. Interest in the emerging motoring eventually resulted in participation in the creation of the first automobile plant in Russia, Frese and Co.

The love for horses led Grigory Eliseev to the development of horse breeding: the trotters of the Eliseevsky estate won world awards and increased the prestige of Russian horse breeds. For merits in the development of Russian industry, Eliseev was granted the hereditary nobility.

Family of G. G. Eliseev

Irreversible family conflict

However, the main hobby captured Grigory Eliseev when he was 50 years old. Until 1914, he was a merchant, billionaire, philanthropist, father of 5 children and not a very exemplary husband of Maria Andreevna Durdina. Their marriage was concluded by calculation, as often happened in the merchant environment.

Petty love affairs of Grigory Grigoryevich did not end with anything, but in 1913, a successful grocery store, by the will of fate, met a woman for whom he left everything - both business and family.

The conflict in the family, in fact, has matured even earlier. Children who received an excellent education and developed themselves in science, art and oriental studies did not want to continue the work of their father. Maria Andreevna sided with the children in this conflict, which, of course, did not help strengthen her relationship with her husband.

Under such circumstances, Vera Fedorovna Vasilyeva appeared in the life of Grigory Grigorievich, who was 20 years younger than him. Rumors spread around the capital about the connection between the famous grocery store and the jeweler's wife, and Eliseev himself openly asked his wife for a divorce and left the family. Mad with love or tired of scandals in the family? One way or another, such an impulsive act does not fit with the image of a practical and reasonable businessman.

Maria Andreevna suffered from nervous breakdowns and blackmailed her unfaithful husband with suicide. After several unsuccessful suicide attempts, Maria Andreevna hanged herself.

After her death, Grigory Grigorievich finally lost contact with his sons and hope for the continuation of the merchant dynasty. The children abandoned their hereditary nobility and inheritance, blaming their father for the death of Maria Andreevna.

The youngest - daughter Masha - was secretly stolen from her father, despite increased security. Subsequently, one of the sons, Sergei Eliseev, the future founder of American Japanese studies, recalled that, having matured, Masha "tried to make peace with her father, but nothing came of it."

Grigory Eliseev did not come to his wife's funeral, and three weeks later he was already married to Vera Feodorovna. The affairs of the company almost ceased to interest him, and in 1917 he emigrated to Paris with his second wife, where he died 30 years later.

The trading business, which was at the peak of its development thanks to the talent and enthusiasm of Grigory Grigorievich Eliseev, died before the revolution came. The only thing left for the Soviet government was to nationalize the shops and capitals of the Eliseev dynasty, for which no one else was going to fight.

Russian entrepreneur, horse breeder of Russian trotting breeds, Honorary Consul General of Denmark in St. Petersburg, Acting State Councilor

Biography

He was educated at home, studied winemaking abroad. After returning to Russia in 1893, he headed the Eliseev family business. In 1896, he transformed the family firm into the Eliseev Brothers trading partnership (equity capital - 3 million rubles). Until 1914, along with A. M. Kobylin and N. E. Yakunchikov, he was a member of the Board.

Under him, the case reached its greatest extent: in 1913 in St. Petersburg. The Eliseevs owned a confectionery factory, 5 stores (the most famous - on Nevsky Prospekt) and two shops in Apraksin Dvor, where wines, fruits, gastronomy, confectionery and tobacco products were traded. GG Eliseev was in 1903 assistant to the General Commissar for the organization of the international. exhibitions in San Louis. In 1898-1914 he was a member of the St. Petersburg City Duma.

He was also the Chairman of the Board of the Partnership of the Peterhof Shipping Company, a member of the Board of the Society for the Construction and Operation of Crews and Cars Frese and Co., the Director of the Board of the St. Petersburg Brewery New Bavaria Society (670 thousand buckets of beer worth 1 million rubles were produced in 1909) , was a candidate member of the Board of the Society "St. Petersburg Chemical Laboratory" (founded in 1890). The society owned a perfume factory, opened in 1860. He owned houses on Birzhevaya line, 12, 14 and 16 (in house 14 - the administration of the t-va, cond. f-ka, etc., in house 16 - wine warehouses), in Birzhevoy per., 1 and 4, on emb. Makarova, 10, Nevsky prospect, 56, emb. Admiralteisky Canal, 17, emb. R. Fontanka, 64 and 66.

He was the owner of the Gavrilov stud farm in the Bakhmut district of the Yekaterinoslav province, had a large stake in the St. Petersburg Accounting and Loan Bank. In 1882 he founded in the Mogilev province. Stud farm of trotting breeds "Privalions". In the last years of his life in Russia, he made a great contribution to the breeding of trotting horse breeds.

In 1910, he was elevated to hereditary nobility. In 1914, after a divorce, the suicide of his first wife and a new marriage, he left for Paris.

He was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris.

It is interesting to learn about quite familiar things in detail. Yes, even if these details take us far into the past of our homeland.

Could one family in 46 years in Russia in the 19th century make a chic Trading House with a capital of 8,000,000 rubles out of 100 rubles and a box of oranges.

The son of a serf who belonged to Count Sheremetyev, Pyotr Kasatkin proved that all this is very possible.

In 1914, the wife of Grigory Grigoryevich Eliseev, Maria Andreevna, nee Durdina, committed suicide. This was the end of the history of the Eliseev brothers' trading house, the oldest in Russia. Let's find out more about this story...

In the 19th century, a new form of entrepreneurship arose in Russia - partnerships. Partnerships could be complete, that is, sole or covering the circle of the closest persons, often relatives, and “on faith”, as the “Code of Laws of the Russian Empire” said, “with the addition of one or many investors who entrust certain amounts of their capital for trading more or less." They became the most common form of entrepreneurship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1893, 50% of all partnerships in the country were concentrated in St. Petersburg. Many of them were created on the basis of old trading houses. Merchants, a resourceful and resourceful people, skillfully adapted to new circumstances. The old principle, expressed in the proverb: “If you don’t cheat, you won’t sell”, has been replaced by a desire for accuracy in calculations, correctness and reliability, and a culture of trade.

One of these trading houses was the house " Brothers Eliseev”, which has long been thundering throughout Europe, famous for the quality of its wines and other products. The wine cellars and pantries of the Eliseevs on the Birzhevaya line of Vasilyevsky Island occupied 4.3 thousand square sazhens. After aging, their wines were not only sold in St. Petersburg, but also sent to Bordeaux, London, New York. In 1892, the Eliseevs received a gold medal at an exhibition in Paris for aging French wines.

The first of the Eliseevs was Elisey Kasatkin. It was under this surname that the serf of the Novoselki village of the Rodionov volost of the Yaroslavl district, which belonged to Count Sheremetev, was listed in the revision tale. And his son was recorded in the house book as the count's gardener Pyotr Kasatkin. The same Pyotr Kasatkin, the son of the Eliseevs, who on Christmas evening in 1812 surprised the count's guests with real fresh wild strawberries. This story is so famous that it hardly makes sense to tell it in detail. Well, the gardener grew strawberries in his greenhouse, well, treated them to those who came to the estate to celebrate Christmas, the count, his wife Praskovya Zhemchugova and his girlfriend Varya Dolgoruky. Well, the gentleman said foolishly: “Pleased! Ask for whatever you want!"

As it turned out, 36-year-old Peter had long wanted one thing - freedom. For myself and for the family. About what he hastened to inform the master. And he did not dare to violate the nobleman's word, given in the presence of witnesses. Already at the beginning of 1813, Peter himself and his entire family (wife Maria Gavrilovna and three sons - 12-year-old Seryozha, 8-year-old Grisha and 6-year-old Styopa) received free and 100 rubles for lifting. After that they went to the capital, to rich St. Petersburg.

Having settled down with old acquaintances, the next morning Peter bought himself a tray, bought a bag of oranges from the merchants and, having filled the tray with unusual fruits, went out to Nevsky Prospekt.

Oranges on Nevsky among the aristocrats who made the promenade went with a bang. By autumn, they managed to collect the amount needed to rent a shop in the house of Katomin (Nevsky, 18) for trading "on a modest basis ... raw products of the hot zones of the Earth." And in 1814, Peter became so rich that he bought his brother Gregory out of the fortress.

The business was successful, and by the end of the second decade of the 19th century, the brothers had accumulated capital sufficient to enter the merchant class. They signed up, noting the good memory of their father, Yelisey Kasatkin, as the Eliseevs.
And at the beginning of the third decade, Pyotr Eliseev, in order not to pay too much to resellers, decided to go to those very “hot belts” for goods himself. On the way, his ship landed on the island of Madeira. Loaded with drinking water, food, seized mail and "forgotten" on the island of Peter Eliseev. Tom liked the local wine so much that he decided to shift the responsibility for the purchase of Spanish fruits to the shoulders of the clerk who accompanied him, while he himself remained in Madeira, wanting to get to know the winemaking process better.

The meeting went on for several months. During this time, Petr Eliseevich made friends with all the port loaders, learned to distinguish “early Madeira” from “early Madeira”, went around almost all the island wineries, squeezed out more than one bucket of grape juice with his feet and was taken aboard the ship returning home in a semi-conscious state. But the merchant remained a merchant - two dozen barrels of the best Madeiran wine were brought on board with him.

Since the brothers' shop warehouse was small, a special wholesale warehouse had to be rented at the St. Petersburg customs for the new goods. Eliseevskaya "Madeira" came to the taste of the capital's public, and on the brothers' signboard, the word "food" was added "and wines." In the next two years, Petr Eliseevich made three more expeditions: to the French port of Bordeaux, the Portuguese Oporto and the Spanish Sherry. Soon the brothers' shop turned into the main wine trade center of St. Petersburg. The size of the premises did not allow fully satisfying the growing needs of the clientele, and in 1824 the brothers bought their first own house (Birzhevaya linija, 10), in which they opened their first own store of "colonial goods".

Grigory Grigorievich Eliseev

In 1825, after the death of Pyotr Eliseevich, according to his spiritual testament, the management of the company passed to the widow Maria Gavrilovna and the eldest son Sergei, who introduced the tradition of evening fruit eating by clerks in his shop. In his opinion, in the “brotherly” company, all products should be the freshest, and therefore, before putting the fruit on the window, they were carefully examined and, at any hint of marriage (a speck, a burst peel, a green barrel) were put aside. In the sale of such products did not go under any circumstances. But it was impossible to throw them away either (God forbid, whoever sees that the Elisevs' “product has gone bad”). And he was not given home to employees for the same reason. And therefore, after the store closed, the clerks, employees and loaders gathered together and ate oranges, peaches, passion fruit, papaya and other, other, other ...

shop clerks Eliseevs.

In 1841, Maria Gavrilovna died, and three brothers took over the reins of the company: Sergei, Grigory and Stepan Eliseev. However, equality was only on paper - everything in the company was led by the eldest of the brothers, Sergei, who conducted business according to the "father's method" and was not going to enlarge it. Only after his death in 1858, Stepan and Grigory managed to turn around with might and main. Within a couple of months after Sergei Petrovich left this mortal world, the brothers established the Eliseev Brothers Trading House with a fixed capital of almost 8,000,000 rubles, then bought giant warehouses in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, as well as in wineries. areas of Europe, brought their own fleet.
All this allowed the brothers by the beginning of the 1860s to buy wine not just in large quantities, but in whole crops. For almost twenty years in a row, the brothers have purchased the best grape harvests from all the best European wine regions. As a result - gold medals received by Eliseev wines at the Vienna and London exhibitions. And in 1874, the company "for many years of useful work for the benefit of the Fatherland" was awarded the highest favor to be called "suppliers of the court of His Imperial Majesty" and place signs of the state symbols of the Russian Empire on its signs and labels. In addition to high prestige, such a privilege also gave good protection against forgery. The fact is that if, according to the laws of that time, a dishonest merchant was punished by a fine simply for counterfeiting someone else's products, then for the illegal printing of the state emblem it was very realistic, having lost all means and rights, to go to hard labor.

In 1879, Stepan Eliseev died, and his only son, Peter, took his place in the company. However, he did not manage the family business for long: the energetic and impudent uncle Grigory Petrovich quickly pushed him out of business, and already in 1881 Pyotr Stepanovich officially left the company.

The Eliseevs had the freshest goods. Before laying out the fruits for sale, the clerks meticulously examined them, and if they found at least a slightly spoiled berry, they immediately cut it off and removed it from the eyes of the buyer. And in the evening, after the store closed, the owner forced the employees to eat the goods that had begun to deteriorate, but it was forbidden to carry overripe fruits in the shop, home. But most importantly, in the Yeliseyevsky shops you could buy the best wine. Petersburgers and Muscovites were attracted by overseas bottles of intricate shapes with strange names. Even during the life of Peter Eliseevich, wine supplies were established from the island of Madeira, from Portugal, Spain, from the south of France, German wine was also purchased - Rhine, Moselle.

Shop on Nevsky

By the way, it was the brothers who called the wines delivered from the Iberian Peninsula “port wine”, i.e. wine from Portugal. For the quick delivery of goods to St. Petersburg, the Eliseevs purchased three ships from Holland: the Archangel Michael, St. Nicholas and Concordia. The firm traded for cash and had an excellent reputation abroad. Grigory Petrovich quickly established direct relations with the best trading houses in Europe and developed trade within the country in the "major provincial" cities. Purchased batches of red and white wines, after aging in their own cellars of St. Petersburg and bottling (up to 15,000 pieces were bottled a day), the Eliseevs were also sent abroad - to London, Paris and New York. In 1873, the Eliseev Brothers company participated in international exhibitions in Vienna and London, Grigory Petrovich, who presented his collection of wines, received honorary diplomas, and in London - a Gold Medal.

Already his son - Grigory Grigoryevich - in 1900 at the World Paris Exhibition will present a collection out of competition - "Retour Russie", for which he will be awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor - the highest award of France. Since 1830, the Eliseevs were honored with the highest favor to be called "suppliers of the Court of His Imperial Majesty." This year food and various wines worth 82,177 rubles were delivered to the court, the next year - 135,376 rubles, and already in 1838 - 555,562 rubles. Placing signs of the state symbols of the Russian Empire on their signs and labels, the Eliseevs left their competitors far behind, and most importantly, protected their goods from fakes.

In 1879, Stepan Petrovich Eliseev dies, and his children leave the family business. All rights to the Trading House began to belong to Grigory Petrovich and his sons - Grigory and Alexander. After the death of his father in 1892, a quarrel took place between the brothers, after which Alexander moved away from the management of the company, devoting himself to financial activities. Grigory Grigoryevich becomes the sole owner of the Eliseevsky enterprise. Two years later, the new owner of the company established the Eliseev Brothers Trading Partnership on shares with a capital of 3 million rubles, G.G. Eliseev himself owned 479 shares out of 500 possible.

It was then that he transformed his trading house into a joint-stock company - a trading partnership for 600 shares with a fixed capital of 3 million rubles. There was an expression “the empire of the Eliseevs”, and for good reason: they owned not only shops and goods, but also their own transport - ships, cars, horse carts; had their own candy and fish workshops, vineyards in the Crimea, a stud farm in the Oryol province, 117 tenement houses in St. Petersburg, shares in banks. It was, in fact, a well-established and nurtured on Russian soil commercial and industrial syndicate of world significance. The turnover of the partnership for 15 years (1898-1913) amounted to 396,104,800 rubles, duties were paid 404,469 rubles, customs duties - 11,832,206 rubles. The annual net profit of the Eliseevs was expressed in the amount of 200 - 250 thousand rubles. 20% of it constantly went to charitable causes.

Here is a report on one of the balls placed "Petersburg leaflet".

“The ball attracted the “lion's share” of our St. Petersburg eminent merchants. Among those present were the families of the Smurovs, Polezhaevs, Menshutkins, Zhuravlevs, Shcherbakovs and many others. etc. Representatives of the financial world were also present, there were also many military men and young people who were especially zealous in dancing. Ladies, as befits the rich St. Petersburg merchants, flaunted luxurious dresses ...

The diamonds sparkled. One of the ladies present even appeared wearing a corsage made entirely of diamonds. The value of this corsage, according to the calculations of one of those present, is equal to the value of the entire Volga province! The mistress of the house and her daughter-in-law were wearing an unusually luxurious toilet: the first was dressed in a dress of white lace with an orange train, a diamond diadem on her head, the second was in a white dress with embroidered flowers with a train of the color of the Nile River.

During the cotillion, all the guests were given very valuable surprises: the ladies were given gold bracelets studded with stones (moreover, blondes received bracelets with sapphires, brunettes - with rubies). Cavaliers were given gold monograms, key rings ... "

The son of Pyotr Stepanovich, Stepan Petrovich Eliseev, followed in his father's footsteps and even surpassed him in his financial career, becoming vice president in the same "for foreign trade bank" and heading the board of the Russian Lloyd, the largest insurance company in the empire.

After the death in 1892 of Grigory Petrovich, his sons Grigory and Alexander were actively involved in the business. The trading house was transformed into the Eliseev Brothers Share Partnership with a fixed capital of 3,000,000 rubles.

But, of course, the main event of Grigory Grigorievich Eliseev was the opening of a superstore in Moscow on Tverskaya. The palace of Princess Beloselskaya-Belozerskaya at the intersection of Tverskaya Street and Kozitsky Lane was bought by Grigory Eliseev on August 5, 1898.

A few days later, he asked a longtime friend of the family, the architect Baranovsky, “to take on the task of managing all the construction work in the current premises as an architect ... draw up and sign plans, acquire the necessary materials, hire and remove workers. The trading partnership believes you, it will not argue and contradict ... "
The grand opening of the "Eliseev Store and cellar of Russian and foreign wines" on Tverskaya took place in the summer of 1901.

At the beginning of the century, G.G. Eliseev opened new luxury stores in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kyiv. For the St. Petersburg store, a somewhat clumsy house was specially built in the very center of the city, on Nevsky, opposite the monument to Catherine II, with huge figures of Greek gods - patrons of trade and crafts - on the facade, with a luxurious trading floor and inside - two floors high. At the back of the hall, a full-length mirror enlarged the space and repeated the artistically laid out and placed on the shelves and counters of ham, sausages, salmon, mysterious ocean-like lobsters and crabs, barrels with black and red caviar and the famous Finnish oil, mountains of fruits and coconuts, bottles with bright labels gleaming in the electric light. It was the kingdom of gluttony, a hymn to wealth. At 6 pm, at the entrance to the store, a gunner in a suit of the time of Peter the Great loaded a cannon, and a shot was heard - a daily salute to the Eliseevs' house.

In 1905, Eliseev opened a chocolate and candy factory. In St. Petersburg, the Eliseevs kept a vodka distillery.

In 1910, Grigory Grigorievich Eliseev received hereditary nobility. His sons shied away from trading affairs: against the will of their father, one of them became a surgeon, another a lawyer, and a third an orientalist. For this they were deprived of his material support.

By the end of the 20th century, the Eliseev brothers had a regular net annual income of up to 250 thousand rubles. Of the 500 shares of the partnership G.G. Eliseev owned 479. In 1911-1912, the turnover of the company was 7.3 million rubles, the sale of goods was carried out at 3.8 million rubles a year.

The size of the turnover of the Eliseev Brothers trading partnership from 1898 to 1913 can be judged by the following figures:
duties paid - 404469 rubles
for capping materials - 2363068 rubles
for employee remuneration - 3413833 rubles
for customs duties - 11838206 rubles
The total turnover is 369104800 rubles.

The apotheosis of the trading house was the celebration of its centenary on October 22, 1913, which boldly coincided with the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. The celebration took place in the office of the partnership, in Eliseev's own house on the Birzhevaya line. It was attended by 3.5 thousand people. The head of the house made a solemn speech in which he said that the Eliseev family trait is “selfless devotion to the Orthodox faith, the Russian Tsar and Russia.” Silver wreaths were laid on the graves of the ancestors in the family crypt, in the Church of the Kazan Mother of God at the Bolsheokhtinsky cemetery, built with the money of the Eliseevs.

But a brilliant story Eliseev trading house ended tragically. Grigory Grigoryevich was a man with a stormy character, passionate, addicted. Among his hobbies was, for example, sailing: he founded in Galernaya Harbor, in the premises of the yacht club, a sailing school for teenagers, where naval officers taught. In 1914, Grigory Grigoryevich seriously fell in love with the wife of a famous St. Petersburg jeweler. He announced this to his wife, Maria Andreevna, offered her a divorce and compensation - a lot of money, but she firmly stated: "I will not sell my love for any money." Soon she hanged herself; the sons broke with their father and abandoned their father's millions. Grigory Grigoryevich got married to his beloved and went abroad forever. His two sons emigrated in 1917 and settled in Paris, but never reconciled with their father. All of them now lie in the same cemetery - Saint-Genevieve de Bois ...

In St. Petersburg at the beginning of the century, of course, there was no other trading house like Eliseevsky, but there were many merchant associations known for the scope of their affairs, striving for entrepreneurship at a new level, with the introduction of the latest technologies. Durdins, for example, by origin, like the Eliseevs, peasants from the Yaroslavl province, created two first-class breweries. The partnership "Ivan Durdin" was registered in 1876 by the grandson of the founder of the plant near the Kalinkin bridge I.A. Durdin. He graduated from a real school, studied the technology of brewing in Germany, knew European languages. Durdin was “a businessman in the European sense of the word. Culture and commerce are synonymous for him,” a contemporary wrote about him. In 1894, he sold his share in the partnership to his uncle and brother and, together with G. G. Eliseev, bought a loss-making brewery on Petrovsky Island, establishing the New Bavaria joint-stock company. Every year he traveled abroad, followed all the innovations in the brewing business.

The merchants were united by merchant councils, created at the initiative of the government. These councils resolved various citywide affairs, handled large merchant money, and took on charitable concerns. Petersburg merchant council had its own house on Nevsky, not far from the Anichkov bridge; her foreman's annual salary was 5,000 rubles. There was also the Gostiny Dvor Management Committee, the Apraksin Dvor Society of Merchants and the like. The merchant council had its own charitable institutions, in addition to them, it financed the Chesme military almshouse and the Mariinsky orphanage. Many well-known metropolitan merchants were members of the Board of Trustees of the Petrovsky Merchant School, located on the Fontanka, near the Chernyshev Bridge, which was well equipped and trained future Russian merchants. In the premises of the St. Petersburg Merchant Assembly at the corner of Malaya Sadovaya and Manezhnaya Square, 9 mugs were set up for charitable collections.

Private merchant charity reached enormous proportions in St. Petersburg at that time. To some extent, it was a way to receive orders and titles from the government, to improve one's social status; but at the same time, the merchants also had a need to "atone for sins", to justify themselves in this way in their excess profits before God.

If you list the charitable undertakings of the Eliseevs alone, you get a long list: the Elizabethan almshouse on the 3rd line of Vasilyevsky Island - for 100 women and 25 men, a charity home for widows and orphans of the clergy on Georgievskaya, the vocational school of Tsarevich Nikolai (in the 1st Izmailovsky company), a free women's handicraft and economic school on the 4th line, the hospital of the Intercession Community of Sisters of Mercy on Bolshoy Prospekt of Vasilyevsky Island, the Eliseevskaya People's Reading Room on Bolshoy Prospekt and much more.

Eliseevsky in 1956 year

The class of new entrepreneurs entered life confidently. But he still felt some of his infringement, the timidity of the nouveau riche before the nobility. The feuilletonist of the Moscow newspaper Morning, funded by Ryabushinsky, T. Ardov wrote: “If there was an excuse and there was even poetry in the world of coats of arms and mansions, in the world of heroes and nobles, then is this new world of plebeians, the world of raznochintsy and merchants from the townspeople and peasants , the world of the Lopakhins, that the "cherry orchards" are buying up, has no justification? And isn’t there poetry, high poetry in their life, in this noise of grandiose cities, in the hum of thousands of factory machines, in the horns of countless trains? ..”

The new class was greedy for knowledge, sought to quickly eliminate its ignorance and callousness. In his midst there appeared many highly educated people, initiators of new things for Russia. Many merchant children studied at St. Petersburg and foreign universities. Nikolai Vasilyevich Solovyov, for example, the son of a famous restaurateur - millionaire, owner of the old restaurant Palkin, hotels and apartment buildings, having graduated from the historical and philological faculty of St. trade. In the end, his father bought him a room for a bookstore on Liteiny, in the house of Count Sheremetev, and he completely immersed himself in the world of old books, shimmering with gold inscriptions on the spines and smelling of the unique smell of decaying paper, leather, and dust. He became a fine connoisseur of second-hand book publications, later created the Antiquarian magazine, the Circle of Lovers of Russian Fine Editions, and in 1911 he founded the Russian Bibliophile magazine.

World-famous economist, Nobel Prize winner Vasily Vasilyevich Leontiev comes from a St. Petersburg merchant family that owned a cotton manufactory and shops on the St. Petersburg side and lived on Zhdanovskaya embankment.

Another merchant's son, Boris Nikolayevich Bashkirov, followed in his father's footsteps and traded in flour. But he was so carried away by poetry that he himself began to write poetry, made friends with Igor Severyanin, and celebrated Balmont's birthday in his house. On the back of his business card: B.N. Bashkirov, a member of the Committee of the Kalashnikov Stock Exchange, - there was something in a completely different spirit, in the spirit of Severyanin: “Boris Verin is the prince of lilacs”; it was his pseudonym. So the merchant class was included in the bohemia.

The new class of St. Petersburg was famous not only for its millions. He sought not only to enrich himself, but also to receive education, secular gloss, to patronize, to learn art. But for all his wealth, he remained politically disenfranchised, a kind of stepson in the country. He had the opportunity to increase capital, but he was not even close to managing Russia.

A year later, the company was gone. On October 1, 1914, the wife of Grigory Grigoryevich Maria Andreevna committed suicide. People said that she hanged herself on her own scythe. And they also said: she laid hands on herself when she found out that her husband had been secretly cohabiting with Vera Fedorovna Vasilyeva, a married but young lady (twenty years younger than Eliseev), for six months now. Three weeks later, the rumor was confirmed, and in the most terrible way for the family: on October 26, less than a month after the funeral of Maria Andreevna, Grigory Grigorievich married Vera Fedorovna, who had just received a divorce. It wasn't even a scandal. It was an explosion. The children immediately abandoned their father and, leaving their father's house, broke off all relations with him. Everyone except the youngest 14-year-old daughter Maria. Her father kept her locked up, and let her go out only with solid security, fearing that either Masha herself would run away from him, or her brothers would kidnap her. And so it happened.

In December 1937, the brothers were accused of counter-revolutionary activities and shot. After the revolution, Nikolai Grigorievich ended up in Paris, where he became a stock exchange journalist. Today, the descendants of the Eliseevs live in Russia, France, Switzerland, and the USA.

And the store on Tverskaya remained Eliseevsky. Even in the official papers of the Soviet times, it was called "Gastronom No. 1" Eliseevsky "". Such was the strength of the brand created by several generations of St. Petersburg merchants.

But even an old woman has a problem… One morning, the Moscow Governor-General Zakrevsky drank his morning coffee, as usual, with Filippovskaya cod. And a baked cockroach was found in it. Not even an hour passed before the guilty Filippov was brought before the eyes of the authorities.

What kind of abomination is this?! roared the governor-general.

Something, - grumbled Ivan Maksimovich. - This is a highlight, sir!

You lie, bastard! Are there raisins with raisins?

But how? The range has recently been updated.

The king of Moscow bakers returned home at a run. Out of breath, he flew into the bakery, grabbed a sieve of raisins in the culinary shop and choked, to the horror of the bakers, into the sieve dough. An hour later, a basket of hot raisins with raisins arrived at Zakrevsky's house. And the next day there was no end to buyers!

After the death of Ivan Maksimovich in 1890, his business passed to his son Dmitry. It was he who opened the famous Philippian bakery on Tverskaya with its own coffee shop. There were huge mirrored windows, marble tables and footmen in tuxedos. This half-coffee shop-semi-shop prompted Grigory Eliseev's idea. He even bought a house next door for his shop.

Following the Moscow store, Grigory Grigoryevich set about creating the St. Petersburg store. At the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and Sadovaya (just where grandfather Pyotr Eliseevich walked with a tray on his head, earning the initial capital of the company), the architect Baranovsky - the one who rebuilt the house under the Moscow "Eliseevsky" - built a tall palace in the Art Nouveau style . It was not enough just to repeat the Moscow miracle in the capital - it was necessary to come up with something new, and Eliseev came up with it! He left the first floor for a shop, the second for a multiplex theater (the public should have a choice of what to watch!), and on the third he set up a cafe. Why not a prototype of modern shopping centers, perhaps replacing the theater with a cinema?

Grigory Grigorievich was already developing a plan to create an international network of Eliseevsky, the first of which was supposed to open in New York, but the world war broke out, and the idea had to be abandoned until better times. Which, alas! - for the Eliseev clan they never came. And it's not even about the revolution ...

The collapse of the dynasty

On October 1, 1914, the wife of Grigory Grigorievich, Maria Andreevna, committed suicide. On the third try. A little earlier, she had already rushed into the Neva and opened her veins - unsuccessfully. She was locked in the house, taking away everything more or less dangerous, but she seized the moment and hung herself on a towel.

Maria Andreevna was the daughter of a merchant of the first guild Andrei Ivanovich Durdin, the king of breweries. Having married her at one time, Grigory Grigoryevich took a very successful step. First, the merger of capitals; second, good communications; thirdly, Maria Andreevna had no less commercial acumen than he himself. And, finally, she bore him five beautiful sons, heirs of the dynasty, and a lovely daughter ...

But approaching the age of 50, Maria Andreevna, and in her youth rather smart and decisive than graceful and beautiful, completely lost her feminine attractiveness. And Grigory Grigorievich was still young and fit ... So he became interested in a young lady, the wife of a merchant of the 2nd guild, Vera Fedorovna Vasilyeva. A seemingly banal story, but with the Eliseevs it ended in tragedy. For six months, the lovers met secretly, maintaining decorum, then Vera's husband found out about everything and began the divorce proceedings ...

Grigory Grigoryevich threw himself at his wife's feet, begging for freedom, but heard in response: "Only over my corpse!" Worst of all, grown-up sons, who until recently revered their father as some kind of deity, turned away from him and rallied around their mother. Grigory Grigoryevich rashly deprived them of their financial support, Maria Andreevna made a retaliatory move, withdrawing her own capital from the company's accounts and giving it to Grigory Grigoryevich's brother, Alexander Grigoryevich, for preservation. The case came to a trial between the brothers (Grigory Grigoryevich lost) and an ugly, disgusting, public scandal. And then until the death of Maria Andreevna ...

Eliseev Grigory Grigorievich

Grigory Grigoryevich Eliseev belonged to a well-known dynasty. Among the representatives of this family there were entrepreneurs, merchants and even public figures.

The ancestor of this merchant family was Peter Eliseev, who was a serf and was assigned to the village of Novoselka, Yaroslavl province, which belonged to Count Sheremetev. At the beginning of his career, Eliseev served as a gardener on the estate.

One winter, when numerous guests gathered at the estate of the master, he served fresh strawberries grown by some miracle at this time of the year. Everyone present was amazed. The count, who was deeply moved, immediately, to the general delight, signed a free license for his talented gardener and even gave money to open a small trade.

The former serf gardener with his wife, with his sons Sergei, Grigory and Stepan ended up in St. Petersburg. It was in 1813. The enterprising merchant bought a tray and, again relying on interest and need for the exotic, bought a bag of oranges and began selling them by the piece on Nevsky Prospekt. Oranges were then an outlandish commodity. They dispersed in the very center of the capital very quickly. Eliseev and his sons barely had time to fill their trays.

Things were going well. Moreover, the goods of the Eliseevs were so to the taste that it took only five years for Eliseev Sr. to switch to wholesale. They rented a large room in the building of the St. Petersburg customs. In 1824, just 11 years after his arrival in the capital, a successful businessman bought a whole house on the Birzhevaya line. A solid store of colonial goods was opened in this building.

Pyotr Eliseev died in 1825. His widow became the head of the firm. Marya, an energetic, imperious woman, ruled affairs with an iron fist. She managed to increase the capital acquired by her husband. Three sons of former serfs - Sergei, Grigory and Stepan - inherited a prosperous trading empire.

In 1841, Marya Gavrilovna died, and after her in 1858, her elder brother Sergei also died. Gregory and Stepan remained at the head of family affairs. In 1857, they established the Eliseev Brothers Trading House. The capital of their business was equal to about eight million rubles. At that time it was huge money.

The middle brother Grigory Petrovich (1804-1892) was at the helm of trade. He had a commercial flair and therefore was able to arrange the supply of the best goods directly from the manufacturer. To this end, he was the first among the Eliseevs who began to conduct extensive correspondence in foreign languages ​​with well-known foreign entrepreneurs. It must be said that the decision to supply foreign goods was then a difficult task, associated with many risks. The breadth of Eliseev's trade was inspiring. The scale of his transactions at that time was simply amazing. He bought goods by whole ships. In addition, he was not afraid to acquire, in addition to the most popular, popular products, new or unfamiliar to Russian society. He knew that in the strangeness, exoticism of a product, the secret of its popularity, and, consequently, the success of its sale, may be hidden. All this allowed the company to establish trade in many major provincial cities. The Eliseevs supplied the market with a variety of gastronomy, wines, fruits, tea, coffee, Provence oil and even expensive Havana cigars.

The enterprising Eliseevs did not stop there. It was not enough to buy goods in other countries, the products had to be delivered to their homeland. At first, the suppliers themselves were involved in the delivery, but in 1845 the Eliseev company acquired three specially equipped sailing ships in Holland: Archangel Michael, St. Nicholas, and Concordia. It was more convenient to bring goods to Russia on our own ships. Later, the company also acquired ownership of one of the best steamships of that time, the Alexander II. But since all these ships managed to make only two voyages in a year, Grigory Petrovich began to rent cellars and warehouses directly at the place of wine production: in Bordeaux, Jerez, Oporto, on the island of Madeira. Firstly, the wine was safely stored in these warehouses until future navigation, and secondly, these places could serve as convenient transshipment points for other goods purchased by the Eliseevs.

The need for such warehouses was not only abroad. For the storage of goods constantly coming from foreign countries, it was necessary in Russia to have huge, properly equipped premises. To this end, storage facilities were built throughout Russia. Only in St. Petersburg, on the Birzhevaya Line, the Eliseevs had cellars with a total area of ​​about seven square kilometers. The merchants had a very competent approach to everything - the storage facilities were built in such a way that over the 125 years of their existence they have never been flooded by groundwater or the Neva River, which often overflowed its banks. The construction of the storage facilities took several years. As a result, the firm had the best premises of its kind in the entire Russian Empire. Contemporaries described them in this way: “To get around all the departments of cellars and pantries, to delve into the details of various devices adapted to huge daily shipments, to storing various colonial goods, to raising and bottling wine, not even a day is enough. It's kind of a small city with a vibrant pulse of live work."

The scale of the company's activities was extremely large. From 1858 to 1877, the Eliseevs annually bought up the entire grape harvest in bulk in the best regions of Europe. Their activities were aimed not only at the development of the domestic economy, but also significantly expanded Russia's trade relations at the external level. The Eliseevs represented the interests of the state at the international level, and it was very useful that the work of their company was built competently. The organization of business in the Eliseev Brothers Trading House was impeccable. Perfect order reigned in foreign purchasing missions and in store shelves.

By the 1850s, the Eliseevs' firm had gained worldwide prestige. Such a scope would be the envy of modern entrepreneurs and businessmen. Many well-known trading houses of France, Spain, Portugal tried to establish strong ties with her. This was also due to the fact that Russian entrepreneurs, unlike many others, conducted their settlements mainly in cash. The abundance of offers from foreign suppliers allowed the Eliseevs to strictly select goods, reject unsuitable ones and demand the best vintages from foreign houses.

Grigory Petrovich bought up all the products of one crop in some wine-producing provinces of France. After that, he did not put the wine up for sale, but aged it in his own cellars. Then he delivered them to London, New York or to the same Bordeaux and Oporto. For sale, Eliseev chose a special time - when wines of certain varieties and aging periods became rare abroad. Thus, Eliseev exported recognized high-quality raw materials from European countries, processed them into a finished product and sold it back to Europe with great profit. This contributed not only to capital growth, but also to the acquisition of global popularity and high reputation. Such work required determination, courage, sober calculation, readiness to wait and work to achieve not an instant, but a better result.

In addition to the wine-making direction, the Eliseevs traded in oil. Provence and olive oil were stored in the Eliseevsky cellars. The same principle applied to it as to wine. The oil was not just purchased and then resold, it underwent additional processing. And all this, of course, was done for the sake of obtaining a product of higher quality. The oil was purified by settling in marble tanks, which made it possible to achieve a higher quality product than with conventional filtration.

But that's not all. A serious branch of the company's activities were coffee, tea, cheese and other products. Special rooms were allocated for coffee and tea departments, storage of various varieties of cheese and sardines. In order to sell these gastronomic products and wines, Grigory Petrovich Eliseev built a grocery store, huge for that time, in the center of St. Petersburg on Nevsky Prospekt.

For an outstanding contribution to the country's economy and the development of interethnic relations, the Eliseev Brothers Trading House received in 1874 the right to depict the State Emblem of Russia on its signs, labels and hallmarks. In those days, this was considered a confirmation of high quality, like modern GOSTs.

The expansion and enlargement of the business went everywhere. Only in St. Petersburg, the Trading House had five of its own stores. They were built in the most prestigious areas of the city. In addition to trading in foreign wine and various delicacies, the company made a new start: the Eliseevs bought out the New Bavaria plant, which launched the production of many varieties of beer and soft drinks. Among the latter, New Bavaria produced honey and various fruit drinks, Russian kvass. Here, too, a high quality standard was applied. Only spring water was used for the production of drinks; it was supplied to the plant through a special water main. Thanks to this, the Eliseevs were again waiting for success, and soon the highest quality of beer and non-alcoholic products won the sympathy of consumers. The Eliseevs' firm began to own one third of this segment of the market.

Grigory Petrovich Eliseev died in 1892. This titan of commercial entrepreneurship remained the head of the family business until the last day of his life. His two sons, Alexander and Grigory, took an active part in the family business during the life of their father. Such a great influence in the economic life of the country allowed Alexander to soon move away from trade and go into politics. His brother Grigory, a worthy and, as it turned out, the last successor of family traditions, became the owner of the company. The enterprise reached its peak in the years when Grigory was in charge of it.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, he was "a slender blond in an impeccable tailcoat", elegant, light-eyed, with a beautiful face and impeccably secular manners, distinguished by a subtle, sharp mind, ingenuity and unprecedented courage.

First of all, Gregory reorganized the family enterprise. On the basis of the family Trading House in 1896, he established the joint-stock company Trade Association Brothers Eliseevs with a fixed capital of 3 million rubles. This structure included many elements. It included on shares both the founders and the persons invited by them (for example, the richest exchange trader A.M. Kobylin). In this way, huge capital was attracted to the business. It did not take long to give results - in the first year of operation of the new Trade Association, the turnover increased to 64 million rubles. For comparison: this money would be enough to satisfy the need of the Russian fleet to equip the most expensive military vehicles of that time - battleships and heavy cruisers by a third.

After the successful reorganization of the enterprise, Grigory Grigoryevich set about implementing his favorite idea - the creation of huge and diverse gastronomes in the capital cities of Russia. The deli, which he inherited from his father, was modernized. In addition, Grigory opened another store in St. Petersburg in 1904, also on Nevsky Prospekt. This store became the central deli of the capital, it even had its own theater hall with 480 seats. Further more. Eliseev realized his idea. The first huge grocery store was followed by shops on Bolshoi and Liteiny prospects. In total, seven trading establishments were opened in the capital alone, and all were large.

But Eliseev's special attention was attracted by the construction of a branded deli in Moscow. He bought the famous house built at the end of the 18th century on Tverskaya. Eliseev hired an architect and a team of builders. By his order, scaffolding was erected around the house, and the architect “sewn up the whole house with a plank, which was a novelty for Moscow, and it turned out to be a giant wooden box, so dense that there was not even a crack left.” These dense forests surrounded the construction site for three years, and various tales were spread among the townspeople about it. In 1903, the protective layer of the board was finally removed. A striking sight appeared before the eyes of Muscovites, as the newspapers wrote, "a real temple of gluttony." Completely rebuilt, the huge building gleamed with mirrored glass and a fashionable sign "Eliseev's Store and cellars of Russian and foreign wines."

The store was unusual not so much for its rich, shiny decoration and comfort, but for its bizarre structures made from various goods hitherto unknown in Moscow. Gilyarovsky described the opening day of the store: “Overseas fruits rose in mountains; like a pile of kernels rose a pyramid of coconuts, each with the head of a child; tropical bananas hung in immense bunches of pounds; multi-colored inhabitants of the sea kingdom shone like mother-of-pearl - inhabitants of unknown depths, and above all this electric stars shone on batteries of bottles, sparkling and reflecting in deep mirrors, the tops of which were lost in a foggy height. It is impossible to "find at least one limp berry on the bunches of grapes." It was a kind of manifesto of the entire commercial history of the Eliseev family, in which foreign, rare, sometimes outlandish and even exotic goods occupied a central place. It was an example of how the domestic economy can be developed on the basis of attracting foreign material. The important point here was that the trading enterprise was completely Russian, without the involvement of foreign investors.

The lasting success of the Eliseev Trading House made it possible to expand further. Considering the stability of the Russian currency, Grigory Grigoryevich decided to create a network of "American" stores in the United States, similar to a network of grocery stores in Russia. Grigory Eliseev wanted to offer this business to his eldest son, also Grigory Grigorievich. The basis was the initial capital - a million rubles, which was supposed to be spent on the first organizational expenses. However, the son refused and subsequently became a surgeon.

The expanding retail trade of the Eliseev company required a large and diverse auxiliary economy, therefore, in addition to trade, the company was engaged in the delivery, storage, processing, and even its own production of gastronomic goods. An important place in this circulation of goods was occupied by transportation. One of the first in Russia G.G. Eliseev acquired a whole fleet of vehicles for the transport of goods. The diversity of Eliseev's activities is surprising: he created many industrial enterprises: a vodka factory and a confectionery factory in St. Petersburg, a sausage factory in Moscow, chocolate, vinegar and oil workshops.

Naturally, it was important to select people capable of supporting all stages of production and sale of goods at the proper level. Among the large staff of workers and employees of his company there were many different specialists, experts, as well as people of rare and even forgotten professions. He also had his own lawyers, accountants and veterinarians.

In addition to trade, Eliseev had other hobbies. In the south of Russia, Grigory Grigoryevich acquired vineyards. On his estate in the Ekaterinoslav province, he had a stud farm where excellent trotters were bred, which were regularly awarded the highest awards at all Russian exhibitions. The well-known in the south seed rye "Eliseevka" was also grown here. In 1897, Eliseev became one of the founders of the first Russian automobile factory JSC Frese and Co.

The fate of the entrepreneur was successful. He had a large friendly family: a wife and five adult sons, grandchildren. However, at the age of 50, he suddenly had to experience a serious passion for the young wife of a St. Petersburg merchant. He asked his wife for a divorce, and did not skimp on any compensation, no matter what she demanded. For the wife, divorce was a terrible drama. The woman realized that she could not prevent anything, and this understanding led her to disaster. She tried to commit suicide. Unfortunately, the third time she succeeded.

Only three weeks after the funeral of his wife, Eliseev married his beloved. This was the reason for the decisive break of the children with their father. His sons blamed him for the death of their mother. Eliseev left for Paris with his young wife.

None of his heirs continued the family business. For the Eliseevs, who remained after the revolution in Russia, the fates were mostly tragic.

Thanks to his foresight, Grigory Eliseev transferred his capital abroad in time. This allowed him to live in France in abundance and comfort. He no longer engaged in commerce, he focused on the house and garden. He died in 1949, having lived a long and eventful life.