Akinfi Nikititsch Demidow

Akinfi Demidov

Akinfi Nikititsch Demidow ( Russian Акинфий Никитич Демидов ; scientific transliteration Akinfij Nikitič Demidov; * 1678 ; † August 5, 1745 ) was a Russian entrepreneur and mining industrialist from the influential industrial dynasty of the Demidow . He was the founder of mining and metallurgy in the Altai Mountains.

biography

Akinfi Demidow was the son of Nikita Demidow , the owner of the flourishing iron foundries he built in the Urals and one of the most important suppliers to the Russian army in the Great Northern War . During his father's lifetime, Akinfi helped run his business, learned business acumen and negotiating skills at court. He expanded his father's empire considerably, expanded the infrastructure and founded new plants. In addition to traditional products such as iron, cast iron and copper, he had malachite and other minerals extracted and processed. In Nizhny Tagil he had the world's largest blast furnace built at the time. After discovering valuable ores in the Altai Mountains, Akinfi Demidow was one of the pioneers in their exploitation and development of the region. He founded the silver works in Barnaul , with which the founding of the city was connected. In the city of Nevyansk , where his father laid the foundations of the family empire with his iron foundry, Akinfi continued the construction of the Nevyansk Leaning Tower , which became one of the city's landmarks.

Under Akinfi Demidow, the Demidow empire reached its peak, among other things, he was one of the favorites and a great financier of Ernst Johann von Biron , when he, as the favorite of Empress Anna Ivanovna, directed the affairs of government in Russia. At the end of his life, Akinfi Demidow was the owner of 25 different metalworks that employed almost 24,000 people. Demidow exported a large part of his production to England , where the demand for iron and other metals rose very quickly. For his services, Demidow was raised to the hereditary nobility . Demidov was also the founder of the first Russian collection of minerals and ores. The core of the collection was the Freiberg metallurgist and chemist Johann Friedrich Henckel , which he acquired and expanded to include Siberian and Ural ores.

Akinfi Demidow died at the age of 67 during a trip to the places of his youth and, like his father, was buried in Tula . An inheritance dispute broke out among his three sons Prokofi , Grigori and Nikita , which was finally decided by Empress Elisabeth Petrovna . The sons received equal parts of the property and the works in the Urals , while the conglomerate of Demidov works in the Altai region went to the state with compensation from the brothers.

literature

• Сухарева О.В. Кто был кто в России от Петра I до Павла I, Москва, 2005