Announcement

Collapse

Forum Rules (Everyone Must Read!!!)

1] What you CAN NOT post.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to post any material which is:
- abusive
- vulgar
- hateful
- harassing
- personal attacks
- obscene

You also may not:
- post images that are too large (max is 500*500px)
- post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or cited properly.
- post in UPPER CASE, which is considered yelling
- post messages which insult the Armenians, Armenian culture, traditions, etc
- post racist or other intentionally insensitive material that insults or attacks another culture (including Turks)

The Ankap thread is excluded from the strict rules because that place is more relaxed and you can vent and engage in light insults and humor. Notice it's not a blank ticket, but just a place to vent. If you go into the Ankap thread, you enter at your own risk of being clowned on.
What you PROBABLY SHOULD NOT post...
Do not post information that you will regret putting out in public. This site comes up on Google, is cached, and all of that, so be aware of that as you post. Do not ask the staff to go through and delete things that you regret making available on the web for all to see because we will not do it. Think before you post!


2] Use descriptive subject lines & research your post. This means use the SEARCH.

This reduces the chances of double-posting and it also makes it easier for people to see what they do/don't want to read. Using the search function will identify existing threads on the topic so we do not have multiple threads on the same topic.

3] Keep the focus.

Each forum has a focus on a certain topic. Questions outside the scope of a certain forum will either be moved to the appropriate forum, closed, or simply be deleted. Please post your topic in the most appropriate forum. Users that keep doing this will be warned, then banned.

4] Behave as you would in a public location.

This forum is no different than a public place. Behave yourself and act like a decent human being (i.e. be respectful). If you're unable to do so, you're not welcome here and will be made to leave.

5] Respect the authority of moderators/admins.

Public discussions of moderator/admin actions are not allowed on the forum. It is also prohibited to protest moderator actions in titles, avatars, and signatures. If you don't like something that a moderator did, PM or email the moderator and try your best to resolve the problem or difference in private.

6] Promotion of sites or products is not permitted.

Advertisements are not allowed in this venue. No blatant advertising or solicitations of or for business is prohibited.
This includes, but not limited to, personal resumes and links to products or
services with which the poster is affiliated, whether or not a fee is charged
for the product or service. Spamming, in which a user posts the same message repeatedly, is also prohibited.

7] We retain the right to remove any posts and/or Members for any reason, without prior notice.


- PLEASE READ -

Members are welcome to read posts and though we encourage your active participation in the forum, it is not required. If you do participate by posting, however, we expect that on the whole you contribute something to the forum. This means that the bulk of your posts should not be in "fun" threads (e.g. Ankap, Keep & Kill, This or That, etc.). Further, while occasionally it is appropriate to simply voice your agreement or approval, not all of your posts should be of this variety: "LOL Member213!" "I agree."
If it is evident that a member is simply posting for the sake of posting, they will be removed.


8] These Rules & Guidelines may be amended at any time. (last update September 17, 2009)

If you believe an individual is repeatedly breaking the rules, please report to admin/moderator.
See more
See less

Alexander Mantashev (Mantashian)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Alexander Mantashev (Mantashian)

    Alexander Mantashev


    Have you ever heard of Mr. Five Percent, the businessman and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian? How about the composer Komitas Vardapet? In all likelihood you have, but who is Alexander Mantashev? Even though the Iron Curtain was lifted nearly two decades ago, a lion’s share of Armenians within the Diaspora are to this day largely unfamiliar with the spectacular life and journey of Alexander Mantashev. During his lifetime, Mantashev significantly influenced the fate of countless Armenians throughout the world, including the aforementioned Komitas and Gulbenkian.

    Dubbed as the Armenian Crassus at the prime of his life, Alexander Ivanovich Mantashev (Russified from Mantashyants/Mantashyan) was born in Tiflis (modern Tbilisi) in 1842. Mantashev’s father Hovhannes was an influental textile trader who was elected to the duma (representative assembly) of Tiflis in 1865. Mantashev spent a good deal of time in Tabriz, where his father was involved in the cotton and textile trade. Getting involved in his father’s business affairs early on, he moved to Manchester in 1869, a major center of cotton and textile processing industries, from where he helped ship goods to his father back in Tabriz. Mantashev’s stay in Manchester played an important role in the development of his character. Not only did he learn the secrets and crafts of the textile industry in Manchester, but he also delved into the intricacies of European business and British culture. During this period he learned English, French, and German. In addition to becoming very well acquainted with Western European everyday life, culture and business, he also initiated contacts with Diaspora Armenians for the first time. Mantashev made a charitable contribution to help build the Holy Trinity Armenian Church of Manchester in 1870, the first Armenian Church built on British soil.

    In 1872, Mantashev returned to Tiflis with his father. The Mantashevs opened their first cotton store in the first floor of the hotel Caucasus, located in Erivansky Square (Freedom Square today) and eventually became fully engaged in the wholesale textile trade. The following year Mantashev became a member of the Tiflis Mutual Credit Society. Though they faced very stiff competition in Tiflis within the textile industry, the Mantashev’s maintained a competitive edge through the import of British technology and methods. 1881 was a decisive year for Alexander for it was that year when he became a First Guild merchant.1 The following year he was elected to the Tiflis Duma like his father before him. He was also appointed as the honorary trustee of the Tiflis Comprehensive School, a title which he held until 1894.

    With rapidly growing income, the Mantashev’s diversified their enterprise and entered the world of finance. In 1882 Alexander became a member of the Financial Reporting Committee of the Tiflis Central Commercial Bank. Eventually he became a board member of the same bank, becoming deputy chairman of the bank in 1885. After his father’s death in 1887, Alexander became the principal shareholder of the bank, and was elected as Chairman in 1890. The bank was involved in almost every aspect of trade in the Caucasus. Thanks to his merit, the bank was the only financial institution in the Caucasus whose shares traded on the Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange.

    The Armenian bourgeoisie who dominated trade in the Caucasus for centuries had shifted their attention to textile manufacturing, tobacco processing and by the late 19th century, oil. The city of Baku was responsible for 90 percent of the wealth produced in the region, Tiflis accounted for 4 percent and Yerevan even less. The first successful oil well was drilled in Baku in 1871 by an Armenian named M.I. Mirzoyev.2 Alexander’s childhood friend Michael Aramyants had moved from Tiflis to Baku in 1884 and along with his compatriots from Karabakh: A. Tsaturyan, G. Tumayan and G. Arapelyan, established the oil company “A. Tsaturov & Co.” This company played a substantial role in the oil production of Baku. Requiring an urgent investment to purchase new oil tankers, Tsaturyan borrowed 50, 000 rubles from the Tiflis Central Bank (that is from Mantashev). In return for such a generous loan, Mantashev was allowed to purchase shares of the Tsaturov Company at a bargain price. In the years that followed, Mantashev purchased all the shares of Tsaturyan, Tumayan and Arapelyan, effectively taking over the company. In 1899, he along with Aramyants established the “A.I. Mantashev & Co.” The significance of this development cannot be understated.
    Throughout the early 1890’s, Mantashev began buying up marginally successful oil wells and making them profitable. He opened representative offices and warehouses in the major cities of Europe and Asia: Smyrna, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said, Damascus, Paris, London, Bombay and Shanghai. In 1896, during a trip to Egypt, Mantashev met Calouste Gulbenkian who was fleeing the Ottoman Empire with his family as a result of the Hamidian massacres. Mantashev introduced Gulbenkian to the upper echelons of society in Cairo, including Sir Evelyn Baring, the British colonial administrator of Egypt.3 He became famous for his uncanny ability to choose successful drilling sites.4 By 1900, Armenians owned the third of all the oil companies in Baku but foreign capitalists such as the Rothschilds and Nobels were beginning to gain a footing. For refining oil, Mantashev built a kerosene plant in Baku, as well as a lubricant plant and a marine refinery for pumping oil and fuel to vessels. His company owned a factory for the fabrication of canisters, packaging and storage of oil in Batumi, a mechanical workshop in Zabrat, an oil pumping station in Odessa, along with one hundred freight cars circulating in the southwestern railways of Russia.

    Mantashev became a shareholder in a number of competing oil companies, among them the Nobel Brothers company Branobel. 51.3% of the total stock of oil and 66.8% of the oil content in the Caspian Sea was centered around that firm. In 1900, the Rothschilds and the Nobels controlled about half of Russia’s crude production, two-thirds of its oil refineries, half the Russian domestic market, and three-quarters of Russia’s kerosene exports. The Mantashev Company and its allies controlled a third of the domestic market and about a quarter of kerosene imports. In 1904, it was the third largest oil company in Baku, next to only Branobel and the Caspian Sea Society of the Rothschild brothers. 5

    “The world oil market,” wrote Otto Jeidels (director of Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft bank) in 1905, “is even today still divided between two great financial groups — Rockefeller’s American Standard Oil Co., and Rothschild and Nobel, the controlling interests of the Russian oilfields in Baku. The two groups are closely connected. But for several years five enemies have been threatening their monopoly: (1) the exhaustion of the American oilfields; (2) the competition of the firm of Mantashev of Baku; (3) the Austrian oilfields; (4) the Rumanian oilfields; (5) the overseas oilfields, particularly in the Dutch colonies (the extremely rich firms, Samuel, and Shell, also connected with British capital).”6

    A 100 ruble bond for the Mantashev company issued in 1910
    A 100 ruble bond for the Mantashev company issued in 1910
    In order to combat John D. Rockefeller’s (Standard Oil had started taking over smaller companies in Baku) aggressive marketing policy in Russia, he founded the Russian General Oil Company along with the other major oil interests of Russia, the Nobels and the Rothschilds. 7 Rockefeller was extremely interested in Baku oil since it outproduced all the oil fields of the United States combined. Following Dmitry Mendeleyev’s advice (that’s right, periodic table of elements Mendeleyev), Mantashev funded the Baku-Batumi pipeline which was launched in 1907, becoming the world’s longest (835 kilometers long) and according to some, first oil pipeline. Mantashev’s Baku assets suffered great losses during the Armenian–Tatar massacres of 1905-1907. At the same time, Leon Trotski used Mantashev’s oil factories to preach his revolutionary rhetoric, while the young Joseph Stalin committed acts of sabotage and disobedience at Mantashev’s factories. Stalin organized strikes in Mantashev’s Batumi factory and organized protests against Mantashev in 1902.8 Despite these perils, Mantashev managed to gradually restore previous oil production levels. By 1909, his company by volume of fixed capital was worth 22 million rubles.

    Mantashev was well known for his charity and generosity, particularly towards Armenian causes. Novelist and playwright Alexander Shirvanzade wrote:

    It was not the great amounts of money that he donated to the sacred temple of charity, which is the queen of the celestial temples. It was the heart that performed the only role, and the supreme role in the benevolence by Mantashyants. He gave away without accounting, without empty vanity, he gave, because so prompted his national soul. His benevolence was of a pure Christian character, so what the right hand gave, the left hand ignored. It was his modesty, that is so rare these days. Only a small part of his doings are known to the public. Countless were his deeds that only his very close people knew about...

  • #2
    Re: Alexander Mantashev (Mantashian)

    Along with twelve of his peers he founded the “Armenian Benevolent Society of the Caucasus” in 1881 of which he was the vice-chairman. In 1894 he founded a trade school under his own name which functioned until 1918. He maintained the largest orphanage in the Caucasus and showed great concern for blind children, having constructed a specialized building for them and regularly assigning considerable sums for their care. He donated over 300,000 rubles in 1909 towards the building of the Nersesyan Academy. He donated 250,000 rubles to the holy Echmiadzin for the building of the Patriarchal residence of the Catholicos of Armenia.

    Mantashev hand-picked fifty talented young Armenians and sent over two hundred to study at the best universities of Russia and Europe. Among them was the famous Armenian composer Komitas who was sent to study in Berlin in May of 1896, the controversial Communist revolutionary Stepan Shahumyan, historian and Byzantinist Nicholas Adontz, soprano Haykanush Danielyan, second Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Armenia Alexander Khatisyan and others.

    The most famous donation made by Mantashev remains the Armenian Church of St. John the Baptist in the 8th arrondissement of Paris (15, Rue Jean Goujon). He explained that he chose Paris for the location of the church because that’s the city where he sinned most. During its construction in 1904 Mantashev spent 1,540,000 francs. For this act, the President of France awarded Alexander Mantashev the Order of the Legion of Honor. In the Academie National de Musique of Paris he had a personal lounge and he intended to build a similar theater in Yerevan. The Small Hall of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra was also built thanks to this donation. In addition, he regularly extended financial help to the “Armenian Dramatic Society” and to individual actors.

    Romantic portrayal of Mantashev inside St. John the Baptist church. He is surrounded by contemporary Armenian intellectuals and leading figures that he directly influenced, including Komitas.
    Romantic portrayal of Mantashev inside St. John the Baptist church. He is surrounded by contemporary Armenian intellectuals and leading figures that he directly influenced, including Komitas.
    Mantashev was universally admired for his modesty. He disliked valuables and never wore a ring or any other xxxelery. His watch was very plain, with a simple chain. The only adornment that he liked to carry was a live flower. He never wanted to own a carriage, he always moved around on foot or by tram, hiring a carriage only on rare occasions. The only controversy in his life arose when he was accused of having led an affair with Ekaterina Aleksandrovna after having toured with her in Egypt. Ekaterina was the wife of General Vladimir Aleksandrovich Sukhomlinov, Minister of War until 1915. The affair was caricatured in the magazine The Dragon Fly, where Mantashev (depicted as a cow) was held by an elderly peasant (Sukhomlinov) being milked by a lovely girl (Ekaterina). A passer by inquires whether the milk is any good, to which the girl replies: “Not bad, but it smells a bit of kerosene.”9

    Mantashev suffered from kidney disease and received treatment for several months while in Paris. He passed away on April 19, 1911 in Saint Petersburg. His body was moved to Tiflis on April 24 and buried on April 30 next to his wife Daria in the cemetery of the Cathedral of Van (built by his funds). After the October Revolution of 1917, his company ceased to exist along with all the other oil companies in Russia. In 1933, by the order of Lavrentiy Beria, the Cathedral of Van and the cemetery where Mantashev was buried was destroyed. Mantashev was survived by 4 sons and 4 daughters, the most famous of whom was Leon. Unlike his father though, he led a very extravagant lifestyle.

    Grand entrance of Leon Mantashev’s mansion and stables in Moscow. Built and designed in Italian Baroque style by Alexander Vesnin, Victor Vesnin and Arshar Izmirov in 1914. Leon kept more than 200 purebred and rare horses.
    Grand entrance of Leon Mantashev’s mansion and stables in Moscow. Built and designed in Italian Baroque style by Alexander Vesnin, Victor Vesnin and Arshar Izmirov in 1914. Leon kept more than 200 purebred and rare horses.
    Like many of Russia’s most affluent émigrés, Mantashevs moved to Paris following the Bolshevik takeover. Calouste Gulbenkian’s son, Nubar, once described how “the cafes of Paris, rife with rumors from the homeland, were like brokers’ branch offices with securities traded on a curb market and icons, paintings, xxxelry, and other treasures changing hands like a Baku bazaar.” One of these traders was Mantashev’s spendthrift son Leon, who sold his last remaining painting to Nubar’s father for $30, 000. It was Paul Chabas’ Matinee de Septembre (much ridiculed at the time) which is today on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.10 Following the Armenian Genocide, Leon helped surviving refugees who fled to Russian Armenia. The Blue Book of James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee records a £2500 – “donation by a rich Armenian gentleman named Mantashev-have recently been spent by the Mayor of Tiflis in procuring warm bedding, as for instance mattresses, quilts, and pillow cases, which have been sent to Igdir, Delijan, Novo-Bayazid and Elizavetpol for the use of refugees.”11

    The chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, Henri Deterding paid Leon £625,000 for his dispossessed Baku oil properties in 1917. Luckily for Mantashev, Deterding did not think this was a risky move since he believed in the Bolsheviks inevitable collapse and the consequent validation of this transaction. 12 Leon served as the prototype of one of the heroes of the novel “The Immigrants”, written by his friend Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. He is described as an “oil tycoon, squandering millions that he had acquired seemingly effortlessly, a man with great fantasies, breeder of horses, tall and handsome.” According to some accounts, the remnants of Alexander Mantashev’s estate were completely wiped out on the racetracks of Europe by his sons.

    Alexander Mantashev’s legacy is alive and well today. He is well remembered for his charity and generosity and many buildings, schools and institutions carry his name throughout Europe.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Alexander Mantashev (Mantashian)

      We need more people like him...

      Comment

      Working...
      X