Nikolay Vtorov

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nikolay Vtorov, 1917
Nikolay Vtorov, 1917

Nikolay Alexandrovich Vtorov (Russian: Николай Александрович Второв) (1866-1918) was a Russian businessman, notable as Russia's wealthiest man on the eve of World War I (60 million roubles in gold, according to Forbes 2006 study which excluded the ruling House of Romanov).

Nikolay owed his fortune to his father, Alexander Vtorov, a successful Irkutsk businessman who set up a trans-Siberian retail shopping network. Upon his death in 1911, Alexander Vtorov's net worth was estimated at 13.6 million roubles; it passed to Nikolay and his lesser known brother, who lived in Moscow since 1897. Nikolay Vtorov used father's fortune to take over numerous banks and manufacturing companies; his aggressive takeover policies earned him a nickname of "Russian Morgan".

Upon Russia's entry into World War I, Vtorov became one of the major military contractors for the tsarist government, amassing huge state subsidies to build new manufacturing plants in central Russia; he was de-facto defense industry manager for the whole of Moscow region. Vtorov's largest war-time projects, inherited by Soviet regime, are still operating to date:

Lesser-known Vtorov plants are still operating all over the city of Moscow. Many have been converted to offices and shopping malls.

Vtorov stayed in Russia after the 1917 Revolution, pledged loyalty to the Bolshevik regime, but was murdered in 1918; exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.

[edit] References

 This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)