Aleksey Alchevsky

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Photo of Oleksiy Alchevsky in Kharkiv, 1901 by Alfred Fedetsky

Alchevsky family

Aleksey Kirillovich Alchevsky (Russian: Алекс��й Кириллович Алчевский; 1835, Sumy, Russian Empire – 1901, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was a Russian Imperial entrepreneur, philanthropist, and industrialist. He was a pioneer in establishing the first finance group in Russia and creator of several banks and industrial societies in Sloboda Ukraine. His role in the development of Russian industry was so important that in 1903 the city Alchevsk in Donbass (eastern Ukraine) was named in his honor.

Biography[]

Born in Sumy, Kharkov Governorate (Sloboda Ukraine) in a family of small grocery merchant held of Sloboda Ukraine cossacks, Alchevsky graduated the and in 1862 moved to Kharkov. During his young age, he was interested in left populist ideas, poetry of Taras Shevchenko and belonged to Hromada movement. While keeping own tea store, Alchevsky continued self-education.

During the so-called banking fever in Russia at the end of 1860s and beginning of 1870s, Alchevsky became initiator in creating the Kharkov Mutual Society (1866). Later in 1868 as a merchant of the 2nd Guild he became one of the founders of the Kharkov Trade Bank with principal capital of 500,000 rubles becoming the third commerce bank in Russia after the and the . In 1871 Alchevsky as a merchant of the 1st Guild became one of founders (along with , a father of Vladimir Vernadsky) of the first in the country mortgage lending bank, the Kharkov Land Bank with principal capital of 1,000,000 rubles. Alchevsky was a chairman of the bank until his death in 1901.

In 1879 Alchevsky established the (principal capital 2,000,000 rubles) that possessed the richest deposits of anthracite coal in Slovianoserbsk county (Yekaterinoslav Governorate). In 1900 the company extracted some 45 million poods of coal becoming the third company in Donbas for coal extraction by volume. Alchevsky also initiated construction of metallurgical factories of the Donets-Yuryevka Metallurgical Society (1895, principal capital 8 million rubles) near train station Yuryevka (today train station in Alchevsk, Alchevsk Metallurgical Complex)^[1] and the Russian Providence Society near Mariupol (today part of Illich Steel and Iron Works). By 1900 his fortune was reaching 30 million rubles.

In 1899 along with his wife Khrystyna Zhuravlyova he built the first monument to Taras Shevchenko, however due to the anti-Ukrainian Russian policy the monument-bust was established at a backyard of their personal mansion (built by Alexei Beketov) on Mironosytsky provulok (today Radnarkomivska vulytsia) in Kharkov. The monument was created out of white marble by the Russian sculptor Vladimir Beklemishev. After the death of Aleksey Alchevsky the mansion was sold out and the fate of the monument is unknown.

During the 1899-1902 economic crisis when he failed to obtain financial help from the Ministry of Finance, on 20 May 1901 Aleksey Alchevsky jumped under a train at the Tsarskoselsky railway station in Saint Petersburg.

Family[]

Alchevsky was married to an educator and pedagogue Khrystyna Zhuravlyova. They had several children.

• Grigory Alchevsky, a composer
• Khrystyna Alchevska
• Anna Alchevskaya
• Dmitry Alchevsky, a victim of Red Terror in Crimea
• Nikolay Alchevsky

Legacy[]

On petition of workers, in 1903 the Yuryevka train station and the workers settlement next to it were renamed into Alchevske (today's city of Alchevsk).

References[]

External links[]

• Oleksiy Alchevsky at the Encyclopedia of Ukraine