Who ran the Baku oil before the revolution. Baku oil and gas region

On the Absheron peninsula, near the city of Baku, there is the village of Surakhani, which has long been of great interest to many foreign travelers, scientists and researchers.

Rich in oil and gas deposits, Surakhani was known far beyond the borders of Azerbaijan from Europe to India several centuries ago, enjoying the glory of the land of "wonderful" phenomena - blazing fires escaping from the ground and unique white oil.

One of the wells in Surakhani

Many world-famous scientists, travelers and writers came here, who personally observed these phenomena and described them in detail. So, in a cameral description of the Baku villages located on the Absheron Peninsula, dated 1832. there is such a record about Surakhani: “At this village there is a fire-breathing place where Indians come to worship and live for several years ... there are also wells with white oil.”

It should be emphasized that historians have many documents describing oil wells located in Absheron and, in particular, in Surakhany, but some of them deserve special attention. So, for example, the German diplomat and traveler Adam Elschleger, better known under the pseudonym Olearius, who visited here in 1636, describes the wells in a very interesting way. He writes: “These are various pits up to 30 in number, located almost all at a distance of one shot from a gun, oil is beating out of them with a strong spring.

Among them there were 3 main wells, to which it was necessary to go down to a depth of two fathoms, for which several transverse beams were placed, which could be used as a ladder ... Here you can scoop out both brown and white oil, but the first is more than the second ".
This is confirmed by one of the directors of the Anglo-Russian trading company, Jonas Hanuei, who visited Baku 100 years after Olsarpy. In his book Historical Description of British Trade on the Caspian Sea (1744), he writes that the people of Baku have long used gas for cooking, boiling water and burning lime and bricks, and Surakhani white oil, being the greatest rarity, was exported to various countries. According to him, it was also used as a cure for stone disease in the chest, for convulsions and other diseases.
Curious and detailed description Surakhani wells are found at Elnard Kempfer, secretary of the Swedish embassy in Persia, who was in Baku on January 6-8, 1683, in his book “Seven Wonders of the Baku Peninsula”, where he writes: “A thousand steps northwest from the eternal fires ( Ateshgah - ed.) there is another wonderful thing, namely the sources of white oil, but in such a remote place that no one would have guessed their existence here without knowing in advance ...

Two hours west of the white oil field, there is a wonderful point that produces black oil of a dirty, almost black color. Many narrow vertical wells have been dug for oil extraction, the flow of oil in some of them is plentiful and constant ...

Dense clay soil allows you to go deep to the desired horizon without any wall fixing, without exposing the diggers to danger. Extraction of oil from wells is carried out by manual buckets or small gates. Lifting by means of a special mechanism driven by two horses working in a circle alternately short. Except for a few hours of the night, work here does not stop. Oil is transported in waterskins on four-wheeled carts to the cities of Shamakhi and Baku, from the first point it is sent on camels inland, and from the second - by sea to Girkonia, the Uzbek and Cherkasy regions and Dagestan "(" Baku Izvestia ", 1883, No. 5-7).

Among the many documents testifying to the production of unique white oil in Surakhani, one should also note the reliable description of the wells made by E. Eichwald (1795-1876), who visited Baku in 1825 during his journey through the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea in 1825-27 .g., where he studied the flora, fauna and geology of these places. In particular, E. Eichwald describes in detail the wells with valuable white oil in his essay “Reise auf dem Caspishen Meere und Caucasus”. He writes: “White oil wells are located to the north-west of the village of Surakhany, approximately 1.5 versts from it. 16 wells with stone-lined walls were built for oil extraction. In order to better collect oil and water in them, they are laid wide inside, on the contrary, narrow at the top, more than a foot in diameter. They are covered with tight-fitting tires so that the oil cannot evaporate... The slow flow of this oil indicates that sublimation is taking place here. black oil, which is deposited in a new place. In many wells, white oil is collected with a mass of water, each well gives an indefinite amount of it, more in summer, less in winter, more in good weather, less in bad weather. Thus, Mustafa's well, 3 sazhens and 6 feet deep, gives up to 3 poods of oil in 10 days in summer, and 1 pood and 10 pounds in cold weather. The white oil scooped up in small wineskins is poisoned in Baku for storage in barns. Its color is still not quite white, but often turns into yellowish. The longer it stays in the air, the more it becomes yellow and brown.

In 1858 the great French writer Alexandre Dumas, who visited Baku during his trip to the Caucasus, described the Surakhani wells as follows: “The deepest one is about 60 feet deep, it was once scooped up. The water was brackish, suddenly disappeared la. He also threw a lit tow there to find out what happened. The well immediately ignited, and since then it has not been extinguished. This fire is fueled by oil, i.e. mountain stone oil, flammable, light and transparent. Further, Dumas writes: “... Oil exists in many places on the globe, but it is found in the greatest abundance in Baku and its environs.

along the entire coast of the Caspian Sea, wells are dug, the depth of which is from 3 to 20 meters, through the clayey rukhlyak, saturated with oil, you separate black and white oil. Almost 100 thousand centners are extracted per year. This oil is sent to Persia, Tbilisi and Astrakhan.

Until 1806, the Baku empire owned oil wells in Baku, owned by khans who received huge incomes from the sale of oil. For example, Khan Hussein's annual income was 40,000 rubles from the sale of 200,000 pounds of oil.

It should be noted that at that time Persia was the main importer of Baku oil.

It is an indisputable fact that Baku, rich in its oil reserves, has always been the object of special attention of business people and oil companies all over the world, who were steadily striving to settle here and extract huge profits.

At one time, Winston Churchill, emphasizing the great importance of oil and highly appreciating Baku with its rich reserves of this energy carrier, deservedly called “black gold”, figuratively and expressively said: “If oil is the queen of Baku, then Baku is its throne.

Kerosene plant V. Kokorev

After the Russian Empire annexed Azerbaijan to its possessions, Russian capital began to penetrate here. In particular, in 1857, the Transcaspian Trade Association was established in Baku, which later became the main Russian joint-stock oil company. The successful activity of this company played a huge role in the development of the oil industry, becoming its most important stage, i.e. the transition from the manufacturing stage to machine production. The well-known Russian industrialist Vasily Kokorev played a big role in this. The founders of the "Trans-Caspian Trading Association" were V himself, Kokorev, Baron Tornau, State Councilor Nikolai Novoselsky, merchants Ivan Mamontov and Pyotr Medyntsev. A little later, they were joined by the well-known entrepreneur Pyotr Gubonin, also widely known as a successful railway contractor.

At the first stage of its activity, the Partnership acquired 12 acres of land in Surakhani near Baku. The original idea of ​​the founders was to build a plant for the production of photogenic lighting material from kir (mineral rock soaked in weathered oil).

The project of this plant was developed by a professor at the University of Munich, a foreign corresponding member

oil shop

Petersburg Academy of Sciences by Justus Liebig (1803 1873), with the help of which the Partnership acquired in Germany necessary equipment: cast-iron retorts designed for dry distillation of kir, and spherical boilers with a capacity of 100 pounds for the secondary distillation of distillate. Installation work was carried out under the guidance of the German chemist E. Moldegauer. However, shortly after the start-up of the plant, it turned out that the German kir distillation technology, which contains only up to 20% of lighting oils, ensures the yield of very small volumes of the finished product. Therefore, urgent action had to be taken.

Having contacted an acquaintance, academician Mikhail Pogodin, who taught for a long time at Moscow University, V. Kokorev learned about the work of the master of pharmacy of this university, William Eichler, in the field of oil research and in 1860 invited him to the Surakhani plant for "advice".

The ideas of V. Eichler to abandon the distillation of kir and go directly to the processing of crude oil, accordingly changing the technological process and production equipment, convinced V. Kokorev, and he accepted his proposal. Soon, the German cast-iron retorts were replaced at the plant by 17 iron cubes, which worked periodically, 12 of them were 300 poods each, and 5 were 80 poods each, and instead of spherical steam boilers, cylindrical ones were installed, which ensured more uniform heating of the oil. The plant began to use natural gas as fuel, the outputs of which were in quantity on the territory of the Ateshgah temple.

For the first time in the technological process of obtaining kerosene distillate, its purification with an alkaline solution was introduced. As a result of these significant transformations, the volume of the finished product after the distillation of oil produced from the Balakhani wells increased from 15% to 25-30%. The new lighting material was given the name "photonaphthyl", which in a poetic translation into Russian means "light of oil".

However, despite the measures taken and the growth in production volumes, the results still could not satisfy the founders, since they still could not bring the plant to the level of profitability, and the quality of the lighting was better, and therefore a new approach was needed to resolve the issue. And V. Kokorev decided to turn to Dmitry Mendeleev, Privatdozent of St. Petersburg University. Subsequently, the great scientist recalled his first oil experience in the following way: “In 1063, I V. Kokorev invited me, then serving as an assistant professor at St. Petersburg University, to go to Baku, inspect the whole business and decide how to make it profitable, if not, then shut down the plant. Then in August 1863 I was in Baku for the first time.” The young scientist left St. Petersburg on August 20, 1863 and arrived in Baku in early September.

Recalling his acquaintance with the city and visiting the plant of V. Kokorev, D. Mendeleev wrote: “Kokorev arranged his plant in

Surakhakhakh (verst 17 from Baku), right next to (side by side) with the ancient public temple of fire worshipers, in order to take advantage of the natural release of combustible gas from the earth and use it to heat distillation retorts. D. Mendeleev spent only three weeks on the Absheron Peninsula, but they were truly decisive for the development of the oil industry.

Later, the scientist very succinctly summed up his work on the Absheron Peninsula; “Part of these proposals, together with Mr. Eichler, were immediately implemented, which served to ensure that the Surakhani plant began to generate income, despite the fact that kerosene prices began to fall.”

During D. Mendeleev's stay at Absheron, he put forward many ideas and proposals, among which the proposal to replace the digging of oil wells by hand with well drilling should be especially noted, which was immediately approved by V. Kokorev.

In 1862, the Transcaspian Trade Association decided to participate in the Third World Exhibition in

London. Samples of products of the Surakhani plant were sent to the exhibition. The jury of the exhibition awarded her a silver medal. Along with photonaphthyl, other petroleum products were also presented, such as: petrogen, neftagyl (a petroleum combustible product of wax hardness), petroleum soot, paraffin. It must be said that by 1869 two oil refineries for the production of kerosene were already operating in Surakhany, and in 1891 V. Kokorev drilled the first gas well here in order to produce gas for the needs of these plants.

It is noteworthy that in 1859 the first oil refinery was built, and in 1863 the world's first kerosene plant.

The steady desire of the founders to increase production volumes and improve technologies, which required additional capital investments, led them to the idea of ​​expanding the Partnership and creating a larger company with the involvement of shareholders. This is how the "Baku Oil Society" was created.

Baku Oil Society.

January 18 (30), 1874 is a significant date and occupies a special place in the history of oil refining in Baku. On this day, Emperor Alexander II approved the charter of the Baku Oil Society (BNO), the first joint-stock company in the Russian oil industry. The founders of the BNO were state councilor Pyotr Gubonin and commercial adviser Vasily Kokorev, mentioned in the previous chapter.

In the first paragraph of the charter, the purpose of the establishment of the Society was indicated, which was as follows: joint-stock company under the name "Baku Oil Society" ...

The second paragraph specifies the tangible assets of the company: “The property of the company is transferred on horseback to some 1k personally owned by commerce adviser Kokorev, as well as factories, lands, ships, oil wells, cellars and warehouses owned jointly with the state adviser Gubonin, according to common owners with the Society agreement on the inventory to be presented at the first general meeting of shareholders”.

The fixed capital was determined in the amount of 7 million 500 thousand rubles and was provided by the issue of 30 thousand shares with a par value of 250 rubles each. In the charter, the following provision was especially emphasized: “... the Company receives what was provided to Kokorev as a different time the right to use images of medals and the state emblem on products and signboards.

However, already at the beginning of the sale of shares, the founders faced serious difficulties. The fact is that, in an effort to attract new supporters, V. Kokorev and P. Gubonin held numerical negotiations, where they justified the advantages of capital concentration for successful oil production, production and sale of oil products to future shareholders. But, nevertheless, they failed to change the wary attitude of shareholders to the new understanding of the issue on the part of the business community.

As a result, at the general meeting of shareholders held on April 22, 1874, it was decided to reduce the amount of share capital to 2 million 500 thousand rubles with the issue of 20 thousand shares with a par value of 125 rubles each.

In the first operational year, the Surakhani plant produced 105 thousand 625.3 pounds of kerosene in the amount of 111 thousand 711.5 rubles. However, the volume of oil production already significantly exceeded its own processing capacity, and the board of the BNO leased another oil refinery, which produced 191 thousand 674.1 pounds of kerosene in the amount of 233 thousand 764.1 rubles.

In 1876, a well-known Russian scientist, professor of the Mining Institute Konon Lisenko, visiting an oil refinery in Surakhani, noted: “At the Surakhani plant of the Baku Oil Society, there are 25 cubic meters, with a capacity of 620 to 660 buckets and 5 cubic meters, with a capacity of 208 buckets ... With The plant has extensive cooperage, locksmith and blacksmith workshops. The "Baku Oil Society" also has a cooperage plant near Baku itself and can produce up to 40,000 barrels a year. The rest of the buildings are either shops, warehouses, or living quarters for employees. The area of ​​the plant is fenced with a stone wall, to which the Ateshgah temple adjoins on the north side. Generally main force Surakhani plant of the "Baku Oil Society" are, in addition to good qualities its kerosene, extensive cooperage, as well as auxiliary workshops, the rational maintenance of which I draw the attention of large oil refiners. Further, he emphasized in particular: “For the success of oil technology, of course, it is especially necessary that the management of factories be entrusted to educated and knowledgeable technicians. Until now, this can only be found at the plant of the Baku Oil Society.

The well-organized refinery production at the Surakhani plant invariably attracted the attention of many scientists and engineers. So, in 1875, a well-known specialist in the field of oil refining, process engineer Alexander Letniy wrote: “... the plant of the Transcaspian Trade Association, now the Baku Oil Society, can be taken as exemplary both in terms of the quality of production and the quality of the finished product ... ".

The sales sector of the Company included the Baku Co. and Gora, 11 agencies and 4 commission agencies. Agencies and all their property - buildings and warehouses were located in Moscow, Saratov, Samara, Tsaritsyn, Kazan, Simbirsk, Sarapul, Perm, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Astrakhan. BNO commission offices operated in Rybinsk, Penza, Vologda and Vyatka.

In Moscow alone, BNO built 6 warehouses on leased land with an area of ​​2,700 square meters. sazhen and a total capacity of 3500 barrels. In addition, the Moscow agency had its own store, very popular among Muscovites, for retail oil products.

Undoubtedly, one of the important stages in the development of the Company was the organization of a new production at the Surakhani plant.

At the initiative of the managing mining engineer A.S. Doroshenko designed and opened a new production line for the production of lubricating oils from oil refinery waste (for example, fuel oil), which were previously unjustifiably considered "garbage" and burned without any use.

The production process was as follows: fuel oil was heated to a temperature of 300 ° C, then superheated water vapor was passed through it, which entrained oil products, and the introduction of modern equipment and new technological solutions.

So, on February 17, 1879, a kerosene pipeline designed by the Society's engineers from the Surakhani plant to the Zykh pier was put into operation.

In addition, for the export of petroleum products by sea, on the order of the BNO in Sweden, the CrichtonYard shipyard built the Surakhany tanker worth $75,000 and with a capacity of more than 5,000 tons. All this had a significant impact on improving the efficiency of the BNO.

As for the Surakhani plant, it steadily increased the production of petroleum products, and in 1881 the plant produced 883.1 thousand poods of kerosene and 599.9 thousand poods of lubricating oils and gasoline.

Mentioning the export, one cannot but note a very interesting and remarkable fact. It is known that historians have irrefutable evidence that the history of oil exports from the Absheron Peninsula, where Baku is located, is at least 2,500 years old; oil was exported to Iran, Iraq, India and other countries.

This is evidenced by such well-known historians and travelers as Prisk Pontius (V century), Abu Ishak Istakhri (VII century), Musadi (X century), Marco Polo (XIII century) and Olearius (XVII century)

Shamsi Asadullayev and the Nobel brothers.

During the development of the oil industry in Azerbaijan, there were many oil tycoons who owned oil fields, plants, factories, etc.

It was the time of the oil boom in Baku, when the majority of the population of the Absheron Peninsula was obsessed with the idea of ​​finding oil. Almost every inhabitant of the Absheron villages dug a well in his yard in search of oil, and it must be said that fate smiled at some, but very few, and oil gushed from their wells, and they themselves, having turned into oil owners, became millionaires.

In fairness, it should be noted that some of the oil millionaires cared not only about their income, but along with this, they rendered an invaluable service to their people and country by building factories, factories, theaters and many other facilities at their own expense.

Shamsi Asadullayev, who became rich at the expense of Surakhani oil, was one of the brightest representatives of Baku oilmen.

Sh. Asadullayev was born in 1840 in the Absheron village of Amirajan into a poor family, like most Baku millionaires.

Together with his father and brothers, he contracted to work harvesting wheat and barley in the neighboring village of Surakhani, then they transported the harvested crop from the field to the mill, or sent it along with other cargo from Baku to Tiflis for sale. At the beginning of the XIX century. With the development of the oil industry, the lands where the Asadullayevs worked were acquired at a low price by the oil owners Kokorev and Gubonin, who were engaged in oil production and production of kerosene at a plant located, as already mentioned, next to the Ateshgah temple.

Deprived of land, and therefore of means of subsistence, the inhabitants of Surakhana and Amirjan, including Sh. Asadullayev, were forced to work in the oil fields. In a short period of work, Sh. Asadullayev is rapidly moving up the career ladder and already in 1860 he was appointed clerk. After some time, he begins to engage in oil contracting, and after 15 years, he opens his oil company with his partners and builds a kerosene plant.

Regarding the export of oil products, Sh. Asadullayev was especially interested in the issue of exporting the produced oil to the Russian markets and, looking for the most acceptable and cost-effective ways, he chose the sea.

So, he became the first of the Baku oilmen, who started in 1891. exporting oil to Russia by sea on steam ships.

Deserves attention interesting fact from the many-sided activity of Sh. Asadullayev. In 1895, he purchased a new plot of land on which they began to drill a well, and a large fountain was hammered from it, which lasted 56 days, during which it produced 1 million 600 thousand poods of oil daily. It was the most famous and memorable fountain in the oil history of Baku.

It should be noted that Sh. Asadullayev enjoyed no less authority, and therefore his name was always pronounced on a par with the name of the Nobel brothers.

At the same time, taking into account that the most intelligent and enterprising succeed in a competitive environment, Sh. Asadullayev did not miss the opportunity to compete with the Nobel brothers, thanks to which he was nicknamed the "thunderstorm of the Nobels" by the people.

And indeed, wherever the Nobel brothers opened their branches and offices - in Russia, Turkestan, Iran and even in Finland - Sh. Asadullayev's office immediately appeared next to them, and sold oil at a significantly lower price, thereby knocking down competition and own clients of the Nobel company.

The beginning of industrial oil refining dates back to the middle of the 19th century, when Baku became the largest oil region in Russia. With the abolition of oil tax cuts in 1872, there was an accelerated development of the oil business, which intensified significantly from September 1877.

The beginning of industrial oil refining dates back to the middle of the 19th century, when Baku became the largest oil region in Russia. With the abolition in 1872 of the tax on oil, an accelerated development of the oil business took place, which significantly intensified from September 1877, when the excise tax on petroleum products was canceled (until 1888). The abolition of the excise tax contributed to the rapid growth of oil production in Azerbaijan. Over the next forty years (until 1917), more than 3 thousand wells were drilled in Absheron, of which about 2 thousand produced oil. However, even before the abolition of the lease, serious attempts were made to develop the oil business. Thus, the first oil refineries were built in Mozdok by the Dubinin brothers (serfs of Countess Panina) and in 1837 by mining engineer N.I. Voskoboynikov in the Baku village of Balakhany, but the work was not completed.

In 1858 - 1859. Baron N.E. Tornau, V.A. Kokorev and P.I. Gubonin are building in the Baku village of Surakhany, not far from the temple of fire worshipers, the first oil refinery according to the German model for processing kir (asphalt). The goal was to obtain lighting oils from tar shales, but the results were unsatisfactory, and kir was replaced with oil, which gave a good lighting oil. The outstanding German chemist Justus Liebig took an active part in the project of this plant, who sent his assistant K. Engler to Baku especially for this.

In December 1863, already in Baku itself, Javad Melikov built a kerosene plant and, for the first time in the world history of oil refining, used refrigerators in the distillation process. The famous Russian oilman V.I. Ragozin described D. Melikov as follows: “Like all people who were possessed by an idea, he saw in every undertaking only a means to embody the idea, and seemed to Baku people an eccentric and a strange person. Still, it would not seem strange when a person was not looking for profit, giving up to the last penny everything he had, not thinking about yesterday, just to achieve the goal. In the history of the development of technical industries, we often meet with such eccentrics who give impetus to industries, move them forward, but themselves remain out of work and die in poverty and obscurity, and the crowd, who did not trust them and laughed at them, takes possession of what was created on their basis. property."

The founder of kerosene and paraffin production in Baku and Grozny, D. Melikov, unable to withstand competition with large oil refining industrialists, died in poverty, forgotten by everyone.

The first borehole in Apsheron was drilled in 1844 by a mining engineer F. Semenov in the village of Bibi-Heybat and gave a good flow rate. However, Semenov's report on this to General A. Neidgart dated December 22, 1844 did not receive due attention. Nevertheless, the drilling of deep oil wells was started right here, on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the villages of Bibi-Heybat and Balakhani, and only a few years later (in 1859) after the first initiative of Baku residents, deep wells began to be drilled in the state of Pennsylvania (USA) .

It was from 1859, after the discovery of a large artesian spring at Vennano in Pennsylvania, that commercial oil production began. Until the end of 1860, up to 2 thousand wells were drilled in Pennsylvania with a depth of 20 to 200 m. The success of the oil business in the United States forced attention to the European (Galician), then to the Apsheron oil fields.

In 1864, the public and statesman of Russia N.A. Novoselsky (1823 - 1901) gave the first impetus to the oil business in the Caucasus, he laid the first borehole in the Kuban region.

After receiving official permission in 1868 to drill oil wells in the Apsheron in Balakhany in 1871, a second oil well was drilled mechanically, 64 m deep. the price per pood was 45 kopecks, but after the opening of the famous Vermishev fountain in Balakhany on June 13, 1873, which flooded the surroundings in a short time and formed several oil lakes, it dropped to 2 kopecks. The well of the oil industrialist I.A. Vermishev spewed an oil fountain 611 m high for 13 days and threw out more than 90 million poods of oil within 3 months. This was many times greater than many of the oil inflows received in Pennsylvania.

The abolition of the lease and the granting of the right to private individuals to lease oil-bearing lands contributed to the rapid growth of the oil industry in Russia and the emergence of many oil-industrial firms and trading companies: “G.Z. Tagiev” (1872), “Baku Oil Society” (1874). ), “Nobel Brothers” (1879), Rothschild’s “Caspian-Black Sea Society” (1883), etc.

In 1879, the Baku branch of the Imperial Russian Technical Society (BO IRTS) was established, which contributed to the enhanced development of the oil business in Azerbaijan. D.I.Mendeleev, V.V.Markovnikov, L.G.Gurvich, G.Z.Tagiev, L.E.Nobel, V.I.Ragozin, M.Nagiev and others spoke at the meetings of the society. writer Charles Marvin, visiting in 1882 - 1883. Russia (Caucasus, Baku, Caspian coast) was surprised by the scope of the oil business in these regions and described it in his books “The Russian advance towards India” (1882), “The Russians at Merv and Herat” (1883) and etc. .

The famous Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun (Pedersen), Nobel Prize winner in literature in 1920, also described his memories of a trip to Russia, especially to the Caucasus and Baku, in his book “In a Fairyland”. In Baku, he met with the public of the city and visited the firm “br. Nobel".

It is characteristic that the tsarist government actively supported the formation and development of large firms, since they were more organized in terms of production and better represented the interests of industry.

Soon, lamps appeared in Russia, adapted for Russian kerosene, which is somewhat different from American. Here it is appropriate to note the role of the outstanding chemist D.I. Mendeleev, who first proposed the use of oil residues after the extraction of kerosene to obtain lubricating oils. In his article “What to do with Baku oil?” he described in detail the method of obtaining lighting oil, which he called bakuoil. The scientist carefully studied the oil business in Russia; visited Baku several times (in 1863, 1880 and 1886 (2 times)) in order to study the economy and the state of the technical equipment of the oil fields.

D.I. Mendeleev highly appreciated the active work of the Nobel brothers and the Rothschilds in the Caucasus and Baku, noting their primary role in the formation and development of the oil business in these regions. Despite the difficult relationship that the scientist had with L. Nobel, he wrote: “... a special revival in the course of Baku oil affairs came only when, in the late 70s, the Nobel brothers, especially L.E. Nobel, who had a machine factory Petersburg, formed a large company to exploit the Baku oil reserves. Until then, everything was done with small capital, and the Nobel Society invested more than 20 million rubles in the business, started production on a large scale, a huge plant for several million pounds of kerosene a year, arranged an oil pipeline from the fields to the factory and to the pier, acquired many excellent steam tankers on the Caspian Sea and tanker barges on the Volga ... ”.

The name of Mendeleev is associated not only with the history of the development of the Russian oil business, but also with the beginning of the publication of the first books on oil and its processing. Under the editorship of D.I. Mendeleev in St. Petersburg, in the printing house of the partnership "Public benefit" was published " Technical Encyclopedia(according to Wagner)”, 1862 - 1896

The most pressing issue in the 80s - 90s was the construction of oil pipelines between the fields and factories of the Black City in Baku, which was closely tackled by the most energetic firms “br. Nobel”, “G.Z. Tagiyev” and “Baku Oil Society”. In 1877, the construction of the first oil pipeline in Russia between the fields of the village of Sabunchi and the factories of the Black City was completed. By 1890, 25 oil pipelines with a length of about 286 km were laid in the Baku oil region, through which up to 1.5 million poods of oil per day were pumped from fields to factories.

It is necessary to recall the talented engineer, honorary member of the Polytechnical Society V.G. Shukhov (1853 - 1939), who was the main manager of the construction of the Balakhani - Black City oil pipeline and about the professor of the St. Petersburg Technical Institute N.L. Shchukin (1848 - 1924), the author of the project of the Transcaucasian Baku - Batumi oil pipeline.

The construction of the main oil pipeline Baku - Batum, about the need for which there were fierce debates at that time, took 10 years. Subsequently, this unique oil pipeline provided invaluable assistance in the fight against the American oil policy, opening access for Baku oil to the world market.

The creation of tankers for the transportation of oil and oil products significantly influenced the development of the Caspian Fleet, opening a new era in the oil business. For the first time in the world, the oil tanker "Zoroaster" was built by L. Nobel in 1877 in the Swedish city of Motala; subsequently, he built a whole oil-loading flotilla, which included the ships Magomed, Moses, Spinoza, Darwin, and others. Nobel transported oil and oil products to countless tanks built by it in Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov, Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan, Yaroslavl, etc.

Later, ships belonging to other companies sailed along the waterways of Russia. For example, the trade and transport company "Mazut", created by A. Rothschild in 1898, owned 13 tankers in the Caspian Sea, as well as several steamships. By 1912, this society was a solid oil export and trade association.

Since 1880, tankers from the port of Batumi with Baku kerosene have been sent to many countries of the world. In the 1980s and 1990s, Baku oil competed freely with American oil and even forced it out of European and Asian markets. The kerosene exported from Baku fully meets the needs of Russia, and since 1883 the import of American kerosene into the empire has been stopped.

Comparison of data on oil production in the USA and Russia showed that in 1859 in the USA (Pennsylvania) oil production was 82 thousand barrels; in 1889 - 14 million barrels. In Russia (Baku) in 1889, 16.7 million barrels of oil were produced. In 1901, the Baku oil region produced 95% of the total imperial oil production; in that year, oil production in Russia was distributed as follows: 667.1 million poods from the Baku province and about 34.7 million poods from the Terek region. The number of workers employed in the oil fields of the Russian Empire increased from 7,000 in 1894 to 27,000 in 1904, of which 24,500 worked in the Baku oil region. In 1904, there were 150 oil refineries in Russia, 72 of them were located in Baku.

It should be especially noted that the Russian oil industry, up to 1917, was represented exclusively by the Azerbaijani (Baku) oil industry. The main deposits of Baku were Balakhani, Sabunchi, Ramany, Bibi-Heybat and Surakhani.

In 1899 - 1901. Baku, having provided more than half of all world oil production, brought Russia to the first place, leaving behind such countries as the USA, Argentina, Peru and others. Baku kerosene completely ousted American oil, first from Russian cities, then from foreign ones. For example, in 1885, instead of American kerosene, 37 million gallons of domestic raw materials were delivered to Asian countries from Baku via Batum. The growth of Baku's oil industry at the end of the 19th century put Russia among the leading capitalist countries of the world: after 1901, it kept second place (after the USA) for a long time until it was forced out by Mexico.

To organize and coordinate activities Russian entrepreneurs the congresses of Baku oil owners, established in 1884, served as their main goal. “The opportunity for oil owners to express their needs, aspirations and desires to the government” was considered. The congress was an association of the capitals of oil firms, in which each firm had a certain share of votes. So, at the 33rd congress of oil owners in 1914, the largest firms had 111 votes: “br. Nobel - 18, Shell - 34 and General Corporation Oil - 59. to protect the interests of their firms before the government. Since 1898, the Council of the Congress published in Baku the newspaper-magazine "Oil Business", which from May 1920 to this day is called "Azerbaijan Oil Industry".

Large oil producers, in search of new world markets, actively participated in the world's largest exhibitions. L. E. Nobel and V. I. Ragozin were especially successful in this. Their exhibits of oil products from Baku refineries, shown in Paris (1878), Brussels (1880) and London (1881), received the highest marks from experts.

After the death of the head of the company “br. Nobel” Ludwig (March 31, 1888) in Russia will be approved by the Nobel Prizes. L. Nobel (1891) and his son Emmanuel Nobel (1909). Archival documents collected in the Biographical International Encyclopedia "Humanistika" about Russian Nobel Prizes, show the bright contribution of the father and son of the Nobels to the development of industry, science and education in the empire and, in particular, in oily Baku.

Of particular note is V.I. Ragozin, who in 1875 researched lubricating oils for the first time in the history of the world oil industry and built the first factories for this in Balakhna (Nizhny Novgorod province) and Konstantinov (near Yaroslavl). In 1878, lubricating oils from Baku oil, which he exported abroad, firmly conquered the world market.

Thus, Azerbaijani oil as a raw material for the production of lubricating oils has played an important role in the Russian economy. The oil plants of Ragozin on the Volga, Nobel, Tagiev, Shibaev, Nagiyev, Rothschild, Asadullayev and others in Baku, Frolov, Rolls and Petukhov in St. Petersburg received lubricating oils from Baku oils, which successfully replaced American lubricating oils in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Denmark and other European countries. By the beginning of the 90s of the 19th century, the capacity of Russian oil refineries made it possible to fully satisfy the empire's need for lubricating oils. High Quality. Petroleum products obtained at Baku refineries, as well as the bulk of crude unrefined oil, were exported from Baku in four ways: through the Caspian, Transcaucasian and Vladikavkaz (Baku-Petrovsk) railways and a very small amount - tug. So, in 1904, the total volume of exported oil and oil products was about 492.1 million poods.

Since in the 90s Baku oil became the main cargo for the Volga fleet, its accelerated development took place, a large number of barges were built on the Volga to transport oil products, and the fleet was based on wooden barges (about 94% in 1900), which were transported along Volga with the help of tugboats. During this period, the firm “br. Nobel” raised the issue of the mandatory replacement of wooden oil barges with iron ones, which were much more practical (did not leak oil products) and more durable. However, they were very expensive and were available only to large firms; by the end of the 19th century, they were owned by firms “br. Nobel”, A. Rothschild, G.Z. Tagiev, Sh. Asadullaeva, “Caucasus and Mercury”, etc. These firms had a significant amount of petroleum fuel transported to the domestic markets of Russia. For example, only the firm “br. Nobel supplied Russia with up to 80 million pounds. The formation and development of the Caspian and Volga fleets by the end of the 19th century were of great importance for the delivery of oil fuel from Baku to large Russian cities, and also contributed to the growth of the shipbuilding and ship repair industry of the Volga region.

The accelerated development of the Russian (Baku) oil business was mainly due to a significant influx of foreign capital into it (Nobels, Rothschilds, Vishau, etc.), which from the beginning of the 20th century rapidly penetrated into the oil industry of Russia, and with the simultaneous ousting of Russian and Baku entrepreneurs, not only from the oil industry, but also from the trade in petroleum products. By the end of the 19th century, the firms “br. Nobel” and Rothschild’s “Caspian-Black Sea Society” concentrated in their hands up to 70% of all oil trade in Russia.

Wealth of oil deposits, cheap work force and naturally, the huge profits that the oil business brought to the industrialists accelerated the influx of foreign currency into the Russian oil industry. This was facilitated by the resolution dated May 1, 1880, of the Special Conference on the issue of the admissibility of foreigners to the oil field within the Baku region. The ardent supporters of attracting foreign capital to the Russian oil business were Prince M. Golitsyn, the head of the civil part in the Caucasus, and S. Witte, the Minister of Finance of Russia. Prince Golitsyn wrote: "... Any unconditional restriction of the activities of foreign enterprises in the Caucasus would be tantamount to a serious delay in the industrial prosperity of the country." Finance Minister Witte at special meetings on oil affairs always pointed out: "... The competition of our oil products on the world market is absolutely unthinkable without the involvement of foreign and especially English entrepreneurs and their capital."

Having firmly strengthened their positions in oil-filled Baku, foreign firms tried to control developments in other oil regions of the Russian Empire: in Grozny, in the North Caucasus, the Caspian islands (Cheleken), in Central Asia (Fergana), the Ural-Embe region, etc. World War II (1914), the four largest associations dominated the Baku oil industry: the firm “br. Nobel”, the Anglo-Dutch trust “Royal Dutch Shell”, the Russian general oil corporation “Oil” and the financial oil partnership “Neft”. The total foreign capital invested in the Baku oil business by 1917 was 111 million rubles.

In conclusion, it is necessary to note the great merit of scientists-chemists and engineers: D.I. Mendeleev, K.I. Lisenko, V.V. Markovnikov, F.F. Belstein, N.D. Zelinsky, L.G. .V.Kharichkova, V.G.Shukhova, N.L.Shchukin, S.K.Kvitko, A.A.Letny, N.I.Voskoboynikova, O.K.Lenz, A.I.Sorokina, P.Semyannikova (the first chairman of the BO IRTS), A.A. Gukhman (a member of the Council of the BO IRTS), V.F. Herr (the head of the chemical laboratory of the BO IRTS) and others who played an invaluable role in the development of the oil industry in Russia, and in particular, Baku.

Azerbaijani scientists (M.M.Khanlarov, M.G.Hadzhinsky, A.Mirzoev, I.Rzaev, F.Rustambekov, S.Ganbarov, I.Amirov and others), who received higher education in the universities of Russia and Europe, worked in the BO IRTS, contributing to the accelerated development of chemical and technical sciences in Azerbaijan.

Bibliography:

1. Ragozin V.I. Oil and oil industry. St. Petersburg, 1884. - 150 p.

2. Big Encyclopedia. St. Petersburg. Publishing Association "Enlightenment", ed. S.N. Yuzhakov. - 1896. - Vol. 12, 14, 22.

3. Akhundov B.Yu. Monopoly capital in the pre-revolutionary Baku oil industry. - M., 1959. - 180 p.

4. Monopoly capital in the Russian oil industry 1914 - 1917. - L.: Nauka, 1973. - 210 p.

5. Nardova V.A. The beginning of the monopolization of the Russian oil industry. L.: "Nauka", 1974. - 150 p.

6. Samedov V.A. Oil and the Russian Economy (80s - 90s of the 19th century). - Baku: Elm. - 1988. - 200 p.

7. Meshkunov V.S. Scientific publishing house biographical international encyclopedia "Humanistics". - St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg. book. publishing house, 1998. - 250 p.

8. Mir-Babaev M.F., Fuks I.G. The Nobel brothers and Azerbaijani oil (to the 120th anniversary of the foundation of the company)//Chemistry and technology of fuels and oils. - 1999. - No. 4. - P.51 - 53.

9. Fuks I.G., Matishev V.A., Mir-Babaev M.F. Baku period of activity of the “Nobel Brothers Oil Production Partnership” (on the occasion of the 120th anniversary of its foundation)//Science and technology of hydrocarbons. - 1999. - No. 5. - S. 86 - 94.

10. Mir-Babaev M.F., Fuks I.G., Matishev V.A. Foreign capital in the oil business of Russia (Absheron until 1917)//Science and technology of hydrocarbons. - 2000. - No. 5. - P.75 - 80.

The fundamental oil report of the Union of Russian Commercial and Industrialists told the following story:

"The first attempts to use oil in industry were made in Russia on the Absheron Peninsula. In 1823, that is, ten years after the final annexation of the Baku Khanate by Russia, a Russian peasant named Dubinin founded the first oil refinery in the Caucasus, which, of course, was built very primitively, but still was the first industrial enterprise of its kind in history.".

The Dubinin plant, followed by a similar enterprise of the engineer Voskoboynikov, built in 1830 in the vicinity of Baku, produced kerosene, which was in short supply at that time. This seemed like a lucrative business.

A pood of oil cost the first oil owners 30-40 kopecks, and a pood of kerosene, obtained from three poods of oil, was sold in Central Russia for 40 rubles.

However, in reality, kerosene production barely made ends meet. The endless war with the Caucasian highlanders and the lack of railways made the delivery of products to the metropolis and the importation of everything necessary to Baku a very problematic and expensive affair, and therefore there were no people willing to establish new enterprises "in a territory that ... was completely uncultured" for quite a long time.

Only after the end of the Caucasian War and the consolidation of the Russian administration on the newly acquired lands, new industrialists were drawn to Absheron. However, both mining and oil refining went neither shaky nor rolls. The wells were dug by hand to a depth of no more than 25 meters.

A large amount of oil was lost due to primitive methods of transportation - in wineskins on camels. And in processing, the disposal of waste from the production of kerosene - fuel oil - became a serious headache. It's hard to imagine, but then it never occurred to anyone to use it as fuel. And this "oil mud", spending a lot of money, was taken out of Baku, poured into pits and burned.

Still, the main problem of the oil owners was the peculiarities of Russian legislation. Oil production was declared a state monopoly, and oil-bearing areas were leased to entrepreneurs for no more than four years. As a result, in 1850, only a little more than four thousand tons of oil were produced from 136 oil sources in the Shemakhan province, and in 1862 - 5.4 thousand tons from 220 sources.

The real development of oil fields began only half a century after the appearance of the peasant Dubinin on Absheron, when on February 1, 1872, the state monopoly on oil production was finally canceled. Instead of digging wells, drilling of oil wells began, and the daily production of Baku oil increased from several tens of tons to several thousand.

Foreign investors also appeared in Baku. In 1874, the Swede Robert Nobel went there to purchase a special kind of wood that was required for his brother's arms factory. However, the temptation to capitalize on the oil boom was too strong, and Nobel rented a piece of land on which he built an oil refinery. Robert's success impressed his brothers so much that in 1879 the Nobel Brothers Oil Industry Society was registered.

Over the years of its existence, this company has increased its capital a hundred times: from 300 thousand rubles to 30 million, and for the most part due to the introduction of new technologies. The Nobels invited engineers and scientists from Galicia, where the oil industry had been successfully developing since the middle of the 19th century, and from the United States. Swedish entrepreneurs, unlike Russians, were well aware that the main component of success was sales, and therefore they bought pipes and pumps from overseas, were the first to build oil pipelines, and began to produce railway tanks and oil tankers.

Moreover, as the historiographers of the Russian oil industry claimed, the Nobels were the first in the world to produce tankers. The Nobels were the first to build tanks for oil and oil products in large industrial centers of Russia. By introducing all these innovations, the Nobel society managed to achieve a phenomenal reduction in the cost of oil from 10 to 0.5 kopecks per pood. And after they were among the first to start developing Grozny oil, they began to be called the number one Russian oil company.

Another large foreign firm is the French Trading house Rothschild - appeared in Russia in 1886. Three years earlier, the Baku-Batumi railway was completed and the Batumi Oil Industrial Society was formed to use this route to transport kerosene to the sea and export it by ship. However, the founders did not have enough own funds, and the entire enterprise passed into the hands of the Rothschilds, who invested in a promising project - the Caspian-Black Sea Society - a whopping 6 million rubles for that time.

Russian oilmen, not without reason, considered the appearance of the Rothschilds a salvation from the crisis. In the seven years since 1880, oil production in Russia has grown six and a half times. In 1887, Baku produced 2.64 million tons of crude oil and 700,000 tons of oil products, which significantly covered the needs of the domestic market. The traditional Nobel export route - by barges along the Caspian, the Volga and further by rail to Germany - had a limited capacity, and the Rothschilds managed to almost double the export of kerosene from Russia in a year. Having concluded an agreement with the British, they began to supply Russian kerosene even to India. The big Russian oilmen also began to set up their own marketing offices in Europe and Asia.

The influx of export earnings stimulated production, and in 1901 Russia came out on top in the world - 11.2 million tons per year (53% of world production). Russian oil accounted for almost half of England's imports, a third of Belgium's, and three-quarters of France's. Moreover, Russia became the main supplier of oil and oil products to the Middle East, which was then suffering from its absence.

And all this, of course, irritated the largest company in the world market - the American Standard Oil.

to be continued...

Date: 05/06/2010

The irony of Armenian fate: “The Tatars of the Baku province come from different Turkic tribes who moved to this region during the invasions and administration of the region by the rulers of the Seljuk, Mongolian, Black and White Sheep, Turkmen and Safavid. These various tribes, when mixed with the former inhabitants of the region, both in eastern Transcaucasia and in the northern part of Persia, made up one common dialect of the Turkic language, the middle between Turkish (Ottoman Turks), Kumyk, Nogai and Jagatai. N. Seydlitz, Russian Caucasian scholar (“Lists of settlements of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus region. Baku province”, Tiflis, 1870, p. 85,87.)

“In Baku, as well as in the Baku province in general, Aderbeidzhan Tatars live most of all. They belong to the Mongolian race and the Turkic generation, they speak a dialect influenced by the Persian language. Supported by the Persian shahs, in the last century they moved from Aderbeidzhan to the southeastern part of Transcaucasia and to the coastal part from Baku to Derbent.

Caucasian calendar for 1908,
Tiflis, 1907, p. 71.

So, until 1918. the concept of "Azerbaijani" did not exist, everyone called them Tatars or Muslims.
Azerbaijan in Persian means: azer - fire and baidzhan - country, that is, the country of fire.
Baku - (from the Armenian word bagin - temple, altar). The connection with fire is again evident.

In the VI century. BC there was a cult of fire. The temples of fire worshipers existed until 624, when the Georgian king Heraclius went on a campaign against the Persians through the Mugan steppes and destroyed them, but 12 years later these altars were restored after the conquest of Persia by the Arabs.
According to the Arab historian Istarkhie, in the 8th century, local residents used oil-soaked land instead of firewood (Review of the Baku oil industry for two years of nationalization 1920-1922, p. 11.).
An Arabic inscription engraved on a stone was found in one of the oil wells, according to which this well was discovered by Allah-Yar, the son of Muhammad-Nur, in 1594 and given to the seids for use (Collection of information about the Caucasus, vol. II, Tiflis, 1872, p. 23.).
Anania Shirakatsi (7th century) in her famous “Ashkharatsuyts” (“Geographical Atlas of the World”) indicates the minerals and natural resources of Big Hayk: iron, coal, oil, salak, dzikhk, coke, smoky quartz, arsenic, salts, hot mineral sources.
Since the 18th century, Russia began to pursue an expansionist policy in the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. In 1801 Georgia was conquered, and according to the Gulistan Treaty concluded on October 12, 1813, Karabakh, Baku, Sheki (Nukhin), Shirvan (Shemakhi), Derbent, Cuban and Talysh khanates were transferred from Persia to Russia (Ganja Khanate came under the protectorate of Russia since 1804) . Russia's conquest of Transcaucasia (including the Erivan Khanate in 1827) was not only a huge military and political event, but also opened up broad opportunities for economic development. Absolutely new economic relations arose in the region... Transcaucasia entered into direct relations with Russia, a vast country with a relatively higher cultural level. Here, a large contingent was established, consisting of Russian officials and the military, who, as consumers, put forward new requirements for the trade of the region.
The Russian contingent - officials and the military did not act as an economic entity, and economic activity in the region took place through the three main peoples of Transcaucasia: Armenians, Georgians and Tatars (ie Azerbaijanis). The main form of economic management of the Russian authorities was a contract, and it was the Armenians who became contractors, thereby entering the stage of formation of the initial capital of the Eastern Armenians.

Immediately after the conclusion of the Gulistan Treaty, the Russian authorities paid close attention to Baku oil. In 1813-1825. oil and salt production was farmed out, bringing the treasury an annual income of 130 thousand rubles (77% of oil, 23% of salt). It should be noted that at that time oil did not have any industrial value, it was used for lighting purposes, lubricating skin, wheels, and for treating livestock from skin diseases. The first attempt to refine oil dates back to 1823: the serf Countess Panina, the Dubinin brothers from the Vladimir region, founded a production facility in Mozdok “to turn black oil into white oil”. The resulting "photogen" - kerosene, began to be exported to Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, but no attention was paid to it (Review of the Baku oil industry for two years of nationalization 1920-1922, p. 9).
In 1825, the government began to independently manage the oil fields, but failed - revenues fell to 76 thousand rubles. On the next year the state gave up its monopoly and leased the oil lands to the Azerbaijanis. In 1826-1832. the income received by the local residents was so meager that the government again took up oil production on its own. But again, unsuccessfully: the annual income from oil wells and salt mines averaged 100 thousand rubles, and this forced the state from 1850 to completely abandon production and switch to a system of contracts.
In 1850-1854. Tiflis merchants Kukudzhanyan, Babanasyan and General Ter-Ghukasyan became the largest contractors, paying 110,000 rubles in annual rent. In 1854-1863. the largest contractor was Ter-Ghukasyan with 117 thousand rubles, in 1863-1867. - Hov. Mirzoyan with 162 thousand, and in 1867-1873. - the same Mirzoyan, but already with 136 thousand rubles of payment (St. Gulishambarov, "Essay on the development and current state of the oil industry of the Baku region" - Collection of information about the Caucasus, vol. VII, Tiflis, 1880, p. 333).

According to official data, in 1846 the entire trade of Transcaucasia with Russia was in the hands of the Armenians, and its turnover was 5,534,600 rubles. The lease of Baku oil lands since 1850 testified that the representatives of the Armenian merchant capital enriched by various contracts, seeking to find new areas for investment and showing foresight, reoriented and moved into the oil industry, which is still in its infancy, which they themselves must have been developed.
... Oil was obtained from wells - funnel-shaped pits 25-30 meters deep, which began to deepen. Oil came out with water, but, being lighter, floated to the surface. It was collected, poured into wineskins and transported on ox-drawn carts, donkeys or camels.

There were not rare cases when oil mixed with gas gushed out of the ground, immediately enriching the owner of the site (in 1877, such a fountain clogged from a well owned by Hov. Mirzoyan, and, amazingly, this fountain did not dry up for 7 whole years).

The resulting so-called crude oil had a very narrow scope; this oil had to be processed, and the first attempt of this kind was made by the representative of Russian merchant capital, the entrepreneur Kokorev, who in 1857 founded a distillery in Surakhani, and in 1863. received a "light lighting product" - kerosene. In 1862 the kerosene plant was founded by A. Vermishyan, in 1863 by J. Melikyan, in 1865 by Tatosyan, in 1869 by Ter-Hakopyan and Sharabandyan, in 1870 by Kalantaryan, in 1871 by Dildaryan and Tarayan. Thus, the oil industry was founded in the truest sense of the word.
But what was Baku like then? In 1851, Spassky-Avtomonov, who visited the city, wrote: “The city consists of extremely crooked and cramped lanes, along which you can only walk or hardly ride on horseback. The squares are small and uneven, the market street is also narrow, the shops are badly arranged. All the houses in the fortress and on the suburb 1992, 505 shops, 23 streets, 3 squares and 2 bridges. There are no factories, there are no commercial establishments. There are 294 all local merchants, of which 75 are shipowners, 67 who sell factory, factory and manufactory products, 231 other goods, 28 merchants from other cities, 2 Persian subjects ”(Caucasian calendar for 1852, Tiflis, 1851, p. 304, 306).

The provincial city of the Caspian province, founded in the 6th century by the Persian Shah Nushirvan, on November 6, 1859, became the administrative center of the Baku province founded at the same time.
The oil industry has evolved...
Though payback system brought significant benefits to the empire (suffice it to mention that if in 1863 340 thousand were produced, then in 1872 - 1.535.981 pounds of oil), however, this system had a significant drawback - its temporary, time-limited nature. According to the established procedure, the oil field was leased for four years, and its owner, naturally, was not interested in implementing major investments, drilling new wells, conducting exploration work, because after the expiration of the lease, someone else could pay a higher price and own the field. This circumstance clearly interfered with the development of the oil industry, meanwhile, the empire was on an economic upswing and needed large volumes of oil and oil products, and the leading position in Russian market occupied by American oil. It was under these conditions that the Russian government took a radical, revolutionary, economically reasonable step: it decided to sell the oil fields to private ownership. This was an extremely important event, which later played a huge role from the political, economic, and social points of view, as well as in the aspect of interethnic relations.

In November 1872, the government put up for auction 68 oil-bearing sites with a total area of ​​460 acres, setting the initial price at 552,240 rubles. The results of the auction are stunning: instead of the starting price, the state treasury received 2,980,307 rubles. The owners were 12 Russians who paid 1,485,860 rubles (1,333,328 rubles for 60 acres were paid by Kokorev and Gubonin), 11 Armenians (Hov. Hakobyan, Sargsyan brothers) and one Armenian company - “Partners” (founders Bogdan Dolukhanyan, Minas Kachkachyan, S. Kvitko) who paid 1,459,182 rubles. Hov. Mirzoyan alone - 1 million 220 thousand for 40 acres.

Hovhannes Minasovich Mirzoyan (Ivan Minaevich Mirzoev) was a typical representative of the Armenian commercial capital. He was the first in the entire Caucasus to see the prospects of the oil industry, he became the first oil industrialist and one of the "fathers" of the Baku oil business. Initially, he was engaged in activities that have centuries-old traditions among the Armenian merchants - the trade in raw silk. In 1853 he had a cotton shop. Then he founded a silk factory in the city of Nukha and earned a lot of capital. In 1855, having paid the highest price - 312 thousand rubles a year, until 1863 he rented the Salyan fishery located at the mouth of the Kura, which flows into the Caspian Sea, where 2500 people worked. In addition to Baku, since 1867 he rented the Kaitago-Tabasaran oil field. In 1865-188, paying annually 13,250 rubles, he rented only two oil wells discovered in Grozny, brought the productivity to 66,500 pounds, founded a kerosene plant, which was mainly worked by Armenians. In addition, in 1878-1886. for an annual fee of 7,850 rubles, he rented and operated the Zagliki alum plant in the Elizavetpol province (Caucasian calendar for 1878, Tiflis, 1877, p. 210).

The activities of Hov. Mirzoyan in the Baku oil industry can be characterized by the word "first". He was the first to establish two kerosene factories in Surakhani in 1868 and received 160,000 poods of kerosene worth 260,000 rubles. He also became the first exporter of kerosene. This was an unthinkable amount: suffice it to note that in that year all the other refineries together produced only 60,000 poods of kerosene worth 64,000 rubles. In 1867, Ov. Mirzoyan produced 665 thousand poods of oil, in 1868 - 716 thousand, in 1872 - 1 million 365 thousand poods, in 1871 he installed the first drilling rig in Balakhany, and in 1872 - the second (St. Gulishambarov , Essay on development ..., p. 345). It was after this that the oil owners switched to oil drilling, and in 1879 not a single oil well remained.

After the death of Hov. Mirzoyan (1885), his widow Daria and sons - temporary merchants of the Moscow 1st guild, the nobles Grigor and Melkon, as well as their daughter, Princess Maria Argutinskaya-Dolgorukaya, in 1886 founded the oil industrial and commercial partnership "Brothers Mirzoev and Co. with a fixed capital of 2.1 million rubles. Being representatives of the aristocratic elite of Tiflis, the Mirzoyans wisely handed over the affairs of their firm to oil professionals. B. Korganyan was the chairman of the board of the partnership, the directors were D. Kharazyan, M. Dolukhanyan, Hov. Garsoyan, T. Enfiadzhyants, thanks to which the Mirzoev Brothers and Co. company became one of the most stable and efficient oil enterprises, on average producing about 15 million poods of oil per year (Yearbook "Baku and its regions" - 1912, Baku, p.140).
The company owned oil fields in Balakhani and Sabunchi, factory buildings in Surakhani, an oil pipeline in Balakhani, a kerosene and lubricating oil plant in Baku, as well as various workshops and a chemical laboratory, a pier on the coast of the Caspian Sea, 4 sailboats ("Moscow", "Arseny" , "Prussia", "San Dadash"), production area in Batumi, warehouses of oil products in Moscow, Tsaritsyn and Nizhny Novgorod (Charter of the oil industrial and commercial partnership “Brothers Mirzoevgh and Co.”, Tiflis, 1901). The Mirzoev Brothers & Co. firm remained one of the best Armenian-owned companies until the tragedy of 1918.

Let's go back to 1872 and ask ourselves: did the Azerbaijanis participate in the auction? Yes, two. The first, Selimkhanov, paid 3,000 rubles for a site with a starting price of 1 ruble and did not play any role in the oil industry. It is worth talking about the second of them, Haji Zeynal-Abdin Tagiyev, in more detail. During the entire pre-revolutionary period, there were three relatively large Azerbaijani oilmen (the other two were Musa Nagiev and Shamsi Asadullayev), but Tagiev was the only one who, having learned from Armenians, became a trustee of a number of Muslim educational institutions and built the building of the Baku theater.

Tagiyev's appearance in business was a curiosity. He was a craftsman, a bricklayer and, for unknown reasons, became a companion of the brothers Baghdasar and Poghos Sargsyans; they paid 14,961 rubles and became co-owners of 20 plots. In 1882, the brothers took part in the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition held in Moscow and were awarded a bronze medal for the produced kerosene. After that, the names of the Sargsyan brothers were almost never mentioned in the oil business, it is only known that P. Sarsisyan was a member of the Baku City Duma and was a member of the board of trustees of the male Armenian two-year school in Baku. His wife Elizabeth, being an ardent supporter of the ideas of one of the best periodicals in the history of the Armenian press - “Mshaka”, named the ship belonging to them after the founding editor of this publication: “Grigor Artsruni”. Ironically, the Bolsheviks expropriated this ship and in 1921 handed it over to the state oil company Azneft.
So, from January 1, 1873, the first owners appeared in the Baku oil industry, who could dispose of their oil at their own discretion, sell plots, lease them, conclude various transactions, establish joint-stock companies, etc. This privatization caused not only an "oil fever", but also served as an impetus for large financial investments, a sharp increase in population, and the rapid development of the city.
If in 1813-1873. were the period of origin, the formation of the oil industry, then 1873-1899. became an era of gigantic progress, which outlined the trends in the development of geopolitical interests and interethnic relations. Trends that intensified with every pound of extracted, processed and exported oil.
If in 1850 260 thousand pounds were mined, in 1863. - 340 thousand, then in 1872 - 1.535.981 pounds, and in 1896 - 386 million. If in 1862 there were 13.392 inhabitants in Baku, in 1873 - 15.604, then in 1886 in the city 83 thousand people lived, and in 1897 - 104 thousand.

Privatization created a situation that gave economic freedom and guaranteed stable high returns on investment. This was the reason not only for the influx of financial investments into the oil industry from all over the Transcaucasus and Russia, but also for the fact that Baku became the residence of representatives of various peoples, as a result of which the city became multinational.
The prospects for the oil industry were noticed by the largest representatives of Russian capital of that time, especially the Russian subjects of the Swedes, the Nobel brothers, who created more than 30 industrial enterprises in Russia. In 1875, they bought a small kerosene plant in Baku, oil fields, and carried out preparatory work with European thoroughness for 4 years. Since 1879, the Nobel Brothers company has founded a huge modern complex for the production, processing and export of oil, with many auxiliary infrastructures, which, in terms of its economic indicators, occupied a leading place in the oil industry of Baku ... Until Stepan Lianosyan appeared.

In 1877 Russian government took a new radical, economically justified step: the excise tax was removed from the oil industry, as a result of which the price of oil decreased by about three times, and in 1883 American oil was completely ousted from the Russian market. The world is "divided" between two oil-producing countries - the United States and Russia (that is, Baku).
As rightly noted in one of the sources, “none of the branches of Russian industry played such a significant role in the world capitalist economy as the oil industry: until the beginning of the 20th century. the Baku region was one of the two main centers of world oil production (along with the oil regions of the USA) ”(Monopolistic capital in the oil industry of Russia (1883-1914). Documents and materials, M.-L., 1961, p. 8- 9). This division later had the most serious military-political and economic consequences.
In 1885, the first steps in the oil industry were taken by one of the largest banking firms in Europe - the Rothschild Brothers Paris banking house, which provides government loan Russian Empire in France. Thanks to their powerful capital, the Rothschilds acquired numerous oil fields, built processing plants, warehouses in Baku and became leaders in exports. And their "Caspian-Black Sea Society" consistently ranked second in terms of economic indicators.
The fourth place in the oil industry hierarchy was occupied by the "Caspian Partnership" company, founded by Karabakh residents Poghos, Arshak, Hakob and Abram Ghukasyans.
In 1878, residents of Shushi Samvel Bagiryan and Harutyun (Artem) Madatyan, united with Bruno de Boer, founded an oil and trading company"Caspian partnership". In the same 1878, 20-year-old Poghos Ghukasyan, who received a secondary education, arrived in Baku from Karabakh. He quickly orients himself in the oil business, thanks to his innate sharpness he foresees the prospects of the oil industry and for 27 thousand rubles he buys out first the share of S. Bagiryan, and then A. Madatyan, and he himself becomes a partner of Bruno de Boer. Their business flourishes and develops in such a way that after 9 years it begins to occupy a leading position in the oil industry. In 1886, the firm was transformed into a joint-stock company with a fixed capital of 2 million rubles. During this time, after graduating from school, the Pogos brothers Arshak, Hakob and Abram come to Baku. In 1888, after the death of Bruno de Boer, the brothers, together with their relative Ov. Ter-Markosyan become the full owners of the Caspian Partnership.

On January 24, 1884, a significant event took place: the body "Congress of Baku Oil Industrialists" (SBN) was created - the first branch, corporate body throughout Russia. In 1890, P. Gukasyan (Pavel Osipovich Gukasov) was elected chairman of the council of the RLS, and in 1896 he “ceded” this position to Arshak, who led this organization with great professionalism until the end of 1918.
P. Ghukasyan together with S. Yakovlev in 1897. founded the Caspian Pipeline with a fixed capital of 1 million rubles. This company, located on Staro-Policeyskaya Street in Baku, was one of the first to sell various imported machine tools, pipes, rolled metal, motors, and power plants for the oil industry. Poghos Ghukasyan was appointed one of the directors of the Maykop oil industrial and trading company "Colchis" and, in fact, was the first Armenian who, in the late XIX - early XX centuries. became a global industrialist. When in 1906 was formed State Council Russia, 12 places were given to the industrial and commercial curia of the country. The authority of P. Ghukasyan, his indisputable contribution were so great that he was elected a member of this supreme body and moved to the capital.
When in 1902 P. Ghukasyan and Al. Mantashyants founded the Homelight Oil Co company in England, Abram Ghukasyan settled in London as a permanent representative of the company.
Summarizing the period of formation of the Baku oil industry in 1873-1899, one circumstance should be noted: in 1889, 69 oil companies were registered in Baku, of which 12 (including 9 Armenian and 1 Azerbaijani) were not engaged in oil production. The remaining 57 companies in the aggregate produced 192,247,663 poods of oil. Of these companies, 34 were Armenian, which produced 93.891.585 poods of oil. There were only 3 Azerbaijanis, who received 14.472.370 pounds, and only Tagiev extracted 13.981.105 pounds.

And now let's turn to the figure of a man, without whom it is impossible to get an idea of ​​either the Baku or the world oil industry. A person without whom it is impossible to get an idea of ​​the essence of an Armenian, his enterprise and diligence. Without which the history of the Armenian people would be incomplete.
It's about Alexander Ovanesovich Mantashyants (1842-1911).
One of the closest associates of the Armenian "oil king" Arakel Sarukhan, who in 1921 managed to escape from Bolshevik Baku and ended up in Vienna with the Mekhitarists, took up Armenian studies and created a number of valuable works. In 1931, he published a book in which he expressed his boundless love and respect for Mantashyants. A. Sarukhan begins his memoirs with the following lines: “I am writing Mantashyants (with a “c” at the end), because the deceased signed in Armenian “Mantashyants”, and in Russian, according to the custom, Mantashev, also in foreign languages- Mantacheff.

The life and work of one of the greatest figures of Armenian business - Al. Mantashyants, worthy of a serious, thorough, thorough monograph, cannot be perceived without Baku oil.
At the beginning of 1889, Mikael Aramyants, a resident of Shushi, who, together with his compatriots - Karabakh residents A. Tsaturyan, G. Arafelyan and G. Tumayan, was a co-owner of the oil company "A. Tsaturov and others", arrived in Tiflis and asked the vice-chairman (with 1890 - life chairman) and the largest shareholder of the best Commercial Bank in the Caucasus Al. Mantashyants loan for the purchase of tank cars. This request was not accidental: Aramyants and Mantashyants knew each other from a young age, when they were engaged in manufacturing trade in Tabriz - the first was an assistant to the merchant Tarumyan, the second - to his father.
Al. Mantashyants, who had long noticed the prospects of oil, offered M. Aramyants his own funds (50 thousand rubles), but on the condition that he would become a partner in their company. So it was decided, and Al. Mantashyants entered the Baku oil industry under the banner of the firm "Trading House A.I. Mantashev."
Already on November 27 of the same year, on behalf of the 5th Congress of Oil Producers, he submitted a memorandum to the Department of Unpaid Duties of the Ministry of Finance, in which, having subjected the most serious economic analysis and comparing the Russian and American oil industries, he proposed a number of measures thanks to which Baku oil could dominate the world market. . Mantashyants himself exported more than 2 million pounds. kerosene a year to England and owned two sea tankers that sailed between Batum and London and even to America.
This report was a kind of " calling card”: a large-scale personality appeared in the Baku oil industry, rallying all small and large Armenian oil industrialists around him, becoming their leader, partner, assistant, stronghold and forming the concept that we define as “Armenian oil”. A new player appeared on the scene, who was supposed to nullify all the attempts of the Nobels and the Rothschilds to monopolize the oil industry, and he had to achieve this solely through economic competition. He appeared, without taking into account the opinion of which it was impossible to solve a single issue.
According to data for September 1889, the "Caspian-Black Sea Society" of the Rothschilds had a monopoly on exports from Batumi. On a contractual basis, it received 2280 tanks of kerosene (there were 4195 tanks in total) from 50 oil companies and sold it on foreign markets. Al.Mantashyants built a plant for the production of metal boxes in Batumi and only in 1898 exported 3.2 million poods of oil to them (in 1896, 13 companies exported oil and oil products from Batumi, 4 of which belonged to Armenians. Al. Mantashyants was second only to the Rothschilds and Nobels). In November-March 1892, negotiations were held in Rostov-on-Don, in which 7 largest companies producing kerosene took part: Nobel Brothers, P. Gukasyan's Caspian Partnership, S.M. Shibaev and Co., as well as members of the "Baku Standard" association created a year before - Mantashyants, G. Lianosyan, Budagyan and Tagiyev. Together, these firms annually produced approximately 44 million poods of kerosene, of which 17 million were produced by the Nobel Brothers. The purpose of the negotiations was the creation of the Union of Baku Kerosene Planters, the actual owner of which would be the Nobel Brothers firm. Realizing that the monopoly of the export of kerosene would pass to the Nobels and the Rothschilds acting hand in hand, Al. Mantashyants refused to join this alliance. Moreover, together with other Armenian breeders, he created an independent association, whose members on November 27, 1893 came to a separate agreement and concluded the “Agreement of the Second Group of the Union of Baku Kerosene Manufacturers”. This was a serious blow to the monopolistic aspirations of the Nobels and the Rothschilds, which is why in February 1894 an agreement was reached between the first and second groups on joint activities in the foreign market, on the condition that each group would have sufficient independence. At the same time, an agreement was signed between the Armenian group of Al. Mantashyants and the Union of Baku Kerosene Planters, according to which foreign markets were divided among Russian exporters. That is, it is obvious that thanks to Al. Mantashyants, Armenian breeders got the opportunity to freely enter the world market. Only after that, on March 2, 1895, E. Nobel and the representative of Standard Oil, W. Libby, concluded a preliminary agreement on the division of the world oil market. According to this agreement, the United States got 75% of the supply of petroleum products, Russia - 25%. One more important circumstance should not be overlooked: energy resources - specifically oil and oil products, have not yet been levers of influence in international politics, since agreements were concluded not by countries, but by firms. And in this sphere the Armenian oilmen played a huge role.
The resounding appearance of Al. Mantashyants in the oil industry was due to several main factors: firstly, being the chairman of the board of the largest financial institution in the Caucasus - the Tiflis commercial bank, he disposed of significant financial resources, and the oil industry constantly required more and more new investments. Secondly, being in constant communication and contacts with Europe (in particular, in Manchester and Paris), Al. Mantashyants in practice mastered modern methods and mechanisms of business management. The third factor was his purely human dignity, manifested in deep patriotism and kind, warm, tolerant attitude towards representatives of other nationalities, as well as towards competitors.
Al. Mantashyants' business required a new development, and having paid a large sum to his partners, he became practically the sole owner of the company, leaving only M. Aramyants as a partner.
Al. Mantashyants owns 75% of the shares of the future company, M. Aramyants - 25%, and the latter could not interfere in the business and did not receive profit from foreign transactions. This allowed M. Aramyants not to delve into the most difficult ups and downs of the oil business, to live a secure and carefree life. In the future, he will sell his luxurious mansion in Baku, and with 10 million rubles he will move to Tiflis - becoming one of the city's famous benefactors. Years will pass, and he will take part in the funeral of his close friend Al. Mantashyants, and he himself will die in 1922 in the capital of Bolshevik Georgia, ironically deprived of all his fortune and elementary living conditions, in utter poverty...

So, June 11, 1899. The charter of the joint-stock oil industrial and trading company "A.I. Mantashev and K" was approved, according to which the founders of the company were the Tiflis 1st guild merchant Al.Mantashyants, the Baku 1st guild merchant M.Aramyants, and the fixed capital was 22 million rubles. rubles (88,000 shares of 250 rubles each). According to paragraph 22 of the charter, the company was managed by a board of directors consisting of 5 people, elected by general meeting shareholders (Charter of the oil-industrial and trading company "A.I. Mantashev and Co.", St. Petersburg, 1899).
The firm had 173 acres of oil-bearing lands in Balakhany, Sabunchi, Romany, Zabrat, Bibi-Heybat and other places of the Absheron Peninsula. Moreover, 147.7 acres of these lands were the property of the company, and it rented the remaining plots.
The company also owned: in the Black City - a kerosene plant with storage facilities for oil and fuel oil, in the White City - a lubricating oil plant, which had a 100-sazhen pier and an elevator for pumping oil, in Zabrat - a special mechanical workshop and a 50-verst oil pipeline, in Batumi - a plant for the production of metal and wooden boxes, as well as storage of kerosene and lubricating oils and a pumping station. There was also an oil-exporting station in Odessa, with 100 tank cars that circulated along Russia's southwestern railways. Finally, the firm also had offices, agencies and warehouses in Smyrna, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said, Damiet, Marseilles, London, Bombay and Shanghai.
The company's oil production was displayed in the following figures: in 1895 - 30 million poods, in 1896 - 31.5 million, in 1897 - 48 million, in 1898 - 52 million. A.I. Mantashev and Co. for 10 years (1899-1909) continued to be the largest in the Russian oil industry.
This is how an industrial giant appeared, which ranked third in terms of its economic indicators, but if we take into account that A.I. position and played a decisive role.
A new most difficult period began in the Baku oil industry, which was supposed to mark unimaginable geopolitical developments, predetermine the future of Transcaucasia, and influence the fate of the eastern Armenians.
This period had four characteristics: a) the rapid development of the oil industry, due to the introduction of foreign capital, b) the revolutionary proletarian movement, c) the First World War d) interethnic conflicts.
With each new pound of oil produced, the oil industry looked more and more like Kronos devouring his own children.
As we have already noted, the world was "divided" between two oil superpowers: the US and Russia. Moreover, the latter, except for Baku, had no other oil deposits and at the beginning of the 20th century. received an annual income of 100 million rubles from oil production. However, the increase in fuel and energy demand, due to both civilian and military factors, forced the European countries represented by England, France and Germany to pay close attention to Baku. The most active were the British.
British capital entered the Baku oil industry from the end of the 1890s, when prices for oil and oil products, especially kerosene, jumped on the world market. To seize the Caucasian oil fields in 1897-1901. in the City of London, 10 companies were created with a fixed capital of 53 million rubles. Six of them founded a group headed by one of the directors of the Bank of England - E. Hubbard, which included G. Gladstone, D. Kitson, C. Moore, W. Johnson, K. and W. Werner.
Let us recall the Azerbaijani Tagiev mentioned above. At the end of 1897, the British offered him to sell his business. Tagiyev demanded 5 million rubles for his oil-bearing lands in Bibi-Heybat, a kerosene-lubricating and carbon dioxide plant, an oil pipeline, an oil-loading flotilla and a train of railway tanks, although he spent 200 thousand rubles on all this and had long ago received several times more profit. The British agreed, but on the condition that they would first pay 500 thousand rubles at a time, and the remaining amount would be paid in installments over several years. The deal went through, resulting in the creation of the "Society for the Extraction of Russian Oil and Liquid Fuels" (abbreviated as "Oleum") with a fixed capital of 1.2 million pounds, and Tagiev was out of active business. However, the curiosity was that one of the wells went “furious” and began to gush 15 tons of oil daily: it was from the sale of oil from this drilling rig that the British paid the remaining 4.5 million rubles to the Azerbaijani ... E. Hubbard's group in 1898 For 7 million rubles, she bought up the firms of G. Arafelyan, the Budagyan brothers and the Adamyan brothers and created the Baku Russian Oil Society with a fixed capital of 1.5 million pounds sterling. Then, for 2.3 million rubles, she acquired the enterprises of A. Tsaturyan and B. de Boer, on the basis of which in 1899 she created the European Oil Company, the fixed capital of which amounted to 1.1 million pounds sterling. The same group simultaneously founded the "United Russian Oil Company" with a fixed capital of 200 thousand pounds sterling, the "Baku (Zabrat) Kerosene Society" with 50 thousand pounds sterling of fixed capital and the "Kalantarovsk (Baku) Oil Company" with a fixed capital of 50 thousand pounds sterling.
Another group of British capitalists acted under the leadership of F. Lane, the managing director of the large English kerosene export company Lane and Macandrew. In February 1898, this group bought a controlling stake in S.M. Shibaev and Co. from two Dutch banks and founded the Shebaev Oil Company Limited in London with a fixed capital of 750 thousand pounds sterling. Thus, only for 1898-1901. the British invested 4.1 million pounds sterling in the Baku oil industry.
The interests of France were indirectly represented by the Rothschild company. Even Belgian capital has infiltrated the Russian oil industry, controlling the Grozny firm A.I. Akhverdov & Co.
All this testified to one thing: the introduction of foreign capital, on the one hand, opened up wide opportunities for international cooperation, effective management, on the other hand, it turned Baku oil into an instrument of a big geopolitical game.
tributary financial resources became the basis of rapid development, and in 1901. a record amount of oil was produced - more than 706 million poods. As the source notes: “By 1901, when the oil industry of Russia reached the climax of its development, more than a quarter of the entire production of the Baku region and about 40% of the kerosene produced here were concentrated in the hands of Nobel, Rothschild and Mantashev. The share of three firms in export was even higher: they owned about half of all oil products sent inside Russia (including over a third - to Nobel alone), and almost 70% of export from Batum abroad.
It was this "triad" that, jointly and separately, performed at the international market. But Al. Mantashyants did not forget his compatriots. In 1902, together with P. Ghukasyan, he founded the Homlight Oil company in London, and in the same year, together with the same P. Ghukasyan, the Nobels, the Rothschilds and the Tokam-Oleum company, he created the Deutsche-Russiche company in Germany Naphta Import Gasellschaft.
However, difficult times have come for the Baku oil industry, due to unregulated fluctuations in prices on the world oil market and the strike movement of workers in Baku itself, which gradually brought the situation to a crisis. In 1902, 136 enterprises produced 636,528,852 poods of oil, and 24 leading firms - 521 million poods. Of these 24 firms, 13 were Armenian and produced 203 million poods, or 39% of total, and Al. Mantashyants mined 51.946.779 pounds.

In 1903, when workers' strikes began in Baku, the volume of production dropped to 597 million poods. In 1904 production increased slightly: 143 firms received 614,810,930 poods of oil, with 34 firms accounting for 279,467 thousand poods, and 9 firms for 335,345 thousand poods. The share of four of these 9 firms was 34.5% of the total production. These were the “Nobel Brothers” (74.892 thousand), the “Caspian-Black Sea Society” of the Rothschilds (53.351 thousand), “A.I. oil industry for 1904, vol. I, Baku, 1905, p. 82).
After that, production steadily fell, and in the year of Russia's economic upsurge, 1913, it amounted to only 560 million poods. As a result, Russia lost its leadership in the world oil industry: if in 1901 its share was 51.6%, then in 1913 it was only 18.1%. And, conversely, the share of the United States increased: from 39.8% in 1901 to 62.2% in 1913.
A qualitatively, fundamentally new stage in the oil industry of Baku began ... with the death of two people: in 1906, a merchant of the Moscow 1st guild, the owner of one of the oldest oil firms - the Russian Oil Industrial Society (RUNO), Gevork Lianosyan, died, and in 1911 - Alexander Mantashyants. They were replaced by their sons - Levon Mantashyants and Stepan Lianosyan (Stepan Georgievich Lianozov, 1872-1951). The latter was to surpass everyone, to become the "king" of the world oil industry. However, a deep tragedy fell to his lot, and a regrettable, unjustified oblivion.
It all started in 1872 when the oil fields were put up for auction. A native of Persia, the Astrakhan 1st guild merchant Stepan Martynovich Lianosyan paid 26.220 rubles instead of the starting price of 1310 rubles and became the owner of the 7th plot with 6 oil wells, with an estimated productivity of only 4599 pounds. This step of his was not so much a foresight of the prospects of the oil industry as an ordinary financial investment: he bought land, his own plot, as a result of which a company with the chic name "RUNO" was created. But S.M. Lianosyan had a wider range of interests: a year later, in 1873, he received a concession from the Shah's government, giving the monopoly right to fish in the mouths of the Persian rivers flowing into the Caspian Sea. The contract was concluded for 5 years, but was repeatedly renewed. Fishing was carried out in five regions: Astara, Anzeli, Sefidrud, Mashadiser and Astrabad, each of which specialized in the production of certain types of fish.

After the death of S. Lianosyan, the business was inherited by his brother Gevork, who turned to the tsarist government with a request to lease the coastal waters of the Caspian Sea (according to the Turkmenchay Treaty, the Caspian Sea belonged to Russia). On March 22, 1900 G. Lianosyan and the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property of Russia concluded an agreement for a period of 25 years (After 1917 this agreement will be terminated...).
Thus, G. Lianosyan became the largest industrialist of fish and seafood in the coastal waters of the Caspian Sea and the mouths of the rivers flowing into it. If in the 90s of the nineteenth century. the gross product of fishing firms annually averaged 600 thousand rubles, then in the period from the end of the century to 1906. it reached 900 thousand rubles, and in 1907-1915. - 2.25 million rubles. On the eve of the First World War, the fishing industry of the brothers Martyn, Stepan, Levon Lianosyan was a modern industrial enterprise equipped with the latest technology. It included power plants, refrigeration rooms, telephone communications, mechanical and other workshops, as well as a flotilla of 20 boats, including two large steamships, one of which was called "Pirogov", and the second was named after the grandfather of its owners - "Martyn" . 5,900 people worked in the fishery, on the eve of the war, capital investments amounted to about 3 million 380 thousand francs, and in 1916 - 9 million rubles. Thus, the fishing enterprises of the Lianosyans were the largest in Persia. industrial enterprises until 1909, when the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was created.

Let's leave the "fish" topic and talk about oil. Under G. Lianosyan, RUNO was a medium-sized company. After the death of his father, Stepan Lianosyan plunged headlong into oil, as a result of which a new era began in the world oil industry.

The following observation is extremely important here: the first generation of Armenian oilmen (and merchants in general) had one characteristic- patriarchy, which had its own logical explanation. The preservation of property dictated the need to attract trusted persons to the business: sons, close relatives, compatriots (Shusha, Shemakha, Tiflis, etc.). That is, the business was national in the truest sense of the word. Such were dozens of companies: the Mirzoyan brothers, the Adamyan brothers, Amur, Anahit, Aramazd, Vanand, Vorotan, the Gukasyan brothers, the Tumanyants brothers, the Krasilnikov brothers and many others, the listing of which alone would take up a lot of space. .
Even the great Mantashyants, who was well aware of the need for a constant infusion of more and more new investments in the oil industry, was the banking "king" of the Caucasus, a member of the board of two large St. Petersburg banks - even he still did not allow strangers to manage his business: in 1909. the board of his company included his son Levon, relatives David Kharazyan, Gevork Shaumyan, the already mentioned Arakel Sarukhan and S. Cherkezov, whose brother at that time was the mayor of his hometown of Tiflis.
In fact, “closed business territories” were created, which caused jealousy and obvious dissatisfaction among representatives of other nationalities (primarily Russians and Azerbaijanis), on the other hand, the development of the business itself was hampered.
S. Lianosyan was the first to break this stereotype of thinking, the first to point out to his compatriots by his activity that the national nature of business leads to a dead end, and the result of business - capital - should be national.
In 1907, he created in St. Petersburg a joint-stock company "G.M. Lianozova sons" with a fixed capital of 2 million rubles, of which he himself was the managing director, and included P. Lezhdnovsky and one of the largest entrepreneurs of the Russian empire on the board - the owner of the St. Petersburg mechanical and iron foundry joint-stock company "Putilovskiy Zavod" A. Putilov.
In addition to oil-bearing lands, the partnership owned the following enterprises: in Baku, in the White City, - kerosene and oil plants, tanks for storing kerosene and fuel oil; on the shores of the Caspian Sea - an oil loading pier, a 10-verst oil pipeline, in Batumi - tanks and storage facilities. With the involvement of representatives of big Russian capital, S. Lianosyan quickly achieved success: in 1907 he produced 240.7 thousand poods of oil, in 1908 - 1.168 thousand, in 1909 - 2.173 thousand, in 1910 - 2.133 thousand. pounds.

But that was only the beginning. One more person was supposed to join the "oil game", with the direct support and cooperation with whom S. Lianosyan was to conquer the world market. That person was Levon Mantashyants (Leon Mantashev). The one who adhered to the same principles as S. Lianosyan.
We believe that between these two there was a purely Armenian gentlemen's agreement, the loyalty of which they kept to the end.
In 1912, thanks to S. Lianosyan, the world oil industry entered a completely new stage of its development: on July 28 of this year, he created the Russian General Oil Corporation in London with a fixed capital of 2, £5 million. Here is the composition of this corporation: the chairman of the board of the Russian-Asian Bank A. Putilov (chairman), the chairman of the board of the firms G.M. Lianozova sons and A.I. Mantashev and Co. S. Lianosyan (managing director) , chairman of the board of the Caspian Partnership P. Gukasyan, director of the St. Petersburg International Commercial Bank A. Vyshnegradsky and director of the Paris branch of this bank I. Radin, chairman of the board of the St. Petersburg private commercial bank A. Davidov and member of the board of the same bank Viscount de Bretel, chairman of the board of the Siberian Trade Bank M. Soloveichik, Chairman of the Board of the St. Petersburg Accounting and Loan Bank Y. Utin, Chairman of the Board of the Russian Bank for Foreign Trade A. Rafalovich, Managing Director of the Russian Commercial and Industrial Bank I. Kon, Director of the London Branch of the Russian-Asian Bank Sir Nichbold, Chairman of the Board of the Oil Company N. Glasberg, Member of the Parliament of England, Viscount Carrick (V.3iv, Foreign capitals in the Russian oil industry, 1916, p. 53.).
The similar composition of "Oil" gives rise to some reflections. Firstly, it included the leading Baku oil companies - three Armenian and one Russian, the elite of Russian banking capital, representatives of the high society of English society, but there were no Nobels and Rothschilds.
As noted by the well-known economist V. Ziv: "This trust made a complete revolution in the Russian oil industry." What was the essence of this revolution? economic characteristic? What did S. Lianosyan achieve?
S. Lianosyan's personal contribution was that he managed to do what no one before him could do: he made Baku's oil industry attractive to foreigners and laid the foundation for grandiose investments of foreign capital. In 1912, in England, he founded the British Lianosoff Wife Oil Sotrapu company, in France - La Lianosoff Frangais, and in 1913, together with German capitalists with a fixed capital of 1 million marks, he created the Deutsche Lianozoff company in Hamburg Mineralol Import Act. Ges”, the purpose of which was to import Russian (that is, Baku) oil and oil products into Germany, process them and sell them. To implement all these plans, S. Lianosyan attracted major European financial institutions: banks "O.A. Rosenberg and K" (Paris), "L. Dreyfus and K °" (Paris), B. Margulies (Brussels). That is, on the basis of the oil business, he united the Russian and European financial capital. Of the 16 international financial syndicates, 10 had shares in the Russian oil industry for a huge amount - 363.56 million rubles.
The production and economic support of "Oil" was the firm "A.I. Mantashev and K" - this company served as a guarantee of the creation of the corporation. After the death of Al. Mantashyants, already in July 1912, his sons concluded an agreement: they sold most of their shares to St. Petersburg banks, the headquarters of the department was transferred from Baku to the capital, after which Oil was born, whose shares were quoted on the stock exchanges of Paris , London, Amsterdam, Brussels and, of course, St. Petersburg.

With the creation of Oil, the global oil industry has been transformed, polarized, elicited adequate responses, and set the stage for Her Majesty Politics. And this meant new rules of the game and new players. One of them was the Royal Dutch Shell and its Lianosian, Henry Deterding.
On the islands of Indonesia (Java, Sumatra, Borneo) - one of the largest oil-producing states of the modern world, the oil industry was founded in 1887. A number of Dutch oil companies were created, among which stood out founded in 1890. India" (subsequently - "Royal Datch C °"). It was notable for its vigorous activity: in 1897, having a fixed capital of 5 million florins, it paid shareholders a 55% dividend. In 1896 commercial director"Royal Datch C °" was G. Deterding, who in 1901 became the chairman of the board of the company and its full owner. In 1907, he merged his company with the powerful Shell Transport and Trading Company (Shell Transport and Trading C °), created the Royal Dutch Shell company, one of the world's oil monopolies, 60% of whose shares belonged to him. When in 1911 the English fleet switched to oil products, G. Deterding realized that he could become one of the most influential people of the world, and declared: “The army, the navy, all the gold of the world and all the peoples are powerless against the owners of oil. Who needs cars and motorcycles, ships, tanks and planes without this precious black liquid? He began to pursue an aggressive policy: to acquire all new oil fields, as well as shares of various European, Asian, African and American companies. Suffice it to say that G. Deterding bought up the oil fields in the states of Oklahoma and California and in 1915 controlled 1/9 of the US oil industry.
One of the first "victims" of Deterding was the Russian oil industry. In 1912, Royal Dutch Shell bought up 90% of the shares of the Caspian-Black Sea Society of the Rothschilds (for the amount of about 10 million rubles), as well as the Mazut company owned by them (fixed capital - 12 million rubles). In addition, it acquired a significant number of blocks of shares in a number of other Baku and Grozny enterprises. As a result, in 1915 Deterding owned approximately 15% of Russian oil production.

Thus, the world was "divided" between three oil giants - Rockefeller's Standard Oil, Deterding's Royal Dutch Shell and Lianosyan's Oil. Tough competition began and the struggle for oil markets intensified.
However, there was another power - Germany, which could not accept this state of affairs, to be out of the game, and it set its sights on the newly discovered oil lands of the Ottoman Empire. Those lands, in the discovery and exploitation of which the leading role belongs to Calouste Gulbenkian...

Since 1912, the world began to prepare for war, one of the main causes of which was oil. Soon the smell of oil and the smell of death will replace each other.
The insatiable jaws of the war were thirsty for oil, and in 1915 571.4 million poods were produced in Baku. The share of 17 companies included in Oil accounted for 114.4 million pounds (including the company A.I. Mantashev and Co. extracted 15.2, the Caspian Partnership - 14.6, G.M. Lianozova sons" - 12.8, "Brothers Mirzoev" - 8.1, "I.N. Ter-Akopov" - 6.0, "Aramazd" - 4.9, "I.E. Pitoev" - 2.7 , "Syunik" - 0.8 million).
The share of 8 firms included in the "Royal Dutch Shell" amounted to 91.8 million pounds. And 5 firms from the Nobel Brothers group - 79.7 million. In addition, 11 firms, mostly Armenian and not included in the mentioned groups, produced 113.3 million poods of oil.
There were also firms owned by Azerbaijanis. Asadullayev's firm produced 6.6 million poods, Nagiyev's - 4.1 million. Two years later, in 1913, 187 firms were registered in Baku, of which 65 were Armenian, 62 of which (information about 3 is missing) produced 136.895 .025 pounds. There were 39 Azerbaijani firms, and they extracted only 24,011,094 pounds. It is up to the reader to compare these figures and, consequently, evaluate the share of Azerbaijanis in the Baku oil industry.

One more area connected with the activities of Armenians in the oil industry should not be ignored - navigation in the Caspian Sea. Sea transportation of oil and oil products was a serious business. In 1889, transportation across the Caspian Sea was carried out by 34 steamships with a total carrying capacity of 1 million 330 thousand poods. Of these, 7 belonged to Armenians (“Vaspurakan” and “Evelina” Avetyan, “Rescuer” brothers Kolmanyants and Buniatyan, “Grigoryan” Parsadanyan, “Serezha”, “Arshak” and “Konstantin” Tumayan) - their total carrying capacity was 249.524 pounds (18.7%).
Three Azerbaijanis had 6 vessels with a carrying capacity of 192,270 pounds (14.4%).
In the same year, 20 special steamships were used, which carried exclusively kerosene. Their total carrying capacity was 750,000 poods, and 5 of them belonged to the Armenians (Armeniak of the Armenian Shipping Company, Rafael of Arafelyan, Admiral, Lazar, Konstantin Tumayan) with a carrying capacity of 156,820 poods. The Azerbaijanis did not have such ships.
In 1912, there were 66 ship owners and shipping companies in Baku, 14 of which were Armenians, owning 24 ships. These were: Hakob and Hovhannes Avetyans (“Menastan”), A. Adamyan (“Vaan”), “Armenian Shipping Company” (“Ashot Yerkat”, “Amasia”), the Buniatyan brothers (“Benardaki”, “Buniat”, “ Nikolai"), Volga Company ("Artsiv Vaspurakani"), Eastern Company of Warehouses ("Sevan", "Van"), Avetis Ghukasyan ("Tamara"), M. Ghukasyan ("Anna"), "Trans-Caspian Commercial and Industrial Company (Vaspurakan), Elizaveta Sargsyan (Grigor Artsruni), Sarukhan-Kura Joint-Stock Company (Sarukhan, Serezha), I.N. Ter-Akopov (Gadir -Guseinov”), Ter-Stepanyan and Kolmanyants (“Arshaluys”), H. Tumayan (“Tatiana”) and the company “G.M. Lianozova sons” (“Worker”, “Martyn”, “Pirogov”, “Brave” , "Sefidrud").
The largest shipping company on the Caspian Sea was, of course, the Russian company Kavkaz and Mercury. It is noteworthy that among its many ships there were steamships with the following names: "Armenian", "Ani", "Pambak", "Zang", "Mush", "Arag", "Grigoryan".
As for oil tankers, here the undeniable leadership belonged to the Nobel Brothers company, and the best vessel on the Caspian Sea was their steamship K. Hagelin.
Having as scrupulously as possible presented the origin and course of development of the oil industry in Baku, citing numerous facts, statistical data, economic indicators, we sought not only to show the huge contribution of the Armenians, but also that indisputable fact that allows us to state quite convincingly: the Baku oil industry was founded and developed by Armenians, Russians, Swedes, British, representatives of other nations, but not Azerbaijanis. They had a different national mission: to take possession of what others had created. They successfully completed this mission.

The main structural material of the tank has the following requirements: corrosion resistance, resistance to chemical attack from the product and impermeability. Therefore, the main material used for the manufacture of tanks is steel (sheet metal) of carbon and low-alloy grades, which are characterized by good weldability, resistance to deformation and good performance plasticity. V individual cases aluminum is used.

Of the non-metallic tanks, reinforced concrete tanks are most widely used, in which viscous and solidifying oil products are stored, such as fuel oil, bitumen, as well as heavy oil products with a low percentage of gasoline fractions. Oils with a large amount of gasoline fractions and volatile oil products are stored in reinforced concrete tanks, the impermeability of which is achieved by applying an additional gasoline and oil-resistant coating.

Flexible tanks, also called oil tanks, made of special polymer materials, are characterized by flexibility, low specific gravity and high chemical and corrosion resistance. Such tanks do not require preliminary laying of the foundation and can be located on simple wooden linings. Small specific weight and compactness in the folded state make them preferable in cases where it is required to organize a temporary oil storage without the need for the construction of capital structures. This is also facilitated by the simplicity and speed of their installation and dismantling.

Underwater tanks are tanks submerged in water. The principle of underwater storage of oil (petroleum products) is based on their density difference in comparison with water, due to which they (water and oil) practically do not mix. Stored oil, as it were, rests on a water cushion. For this reason, many of these tanks are designed without bell bottoms. They are made of reinforced concrete, metal and elastic materials (synthetic or rubber-fabric). Underwater tanks are placed at the bottom of reservoirs and fixed with anchors. Filling occurs with the help of pumps, and for emptying, the hydrostatic pressure of water is sufficient, pushing the oil product up the discharge channel. They are used at sea bases and oil fields, where they can show greater efficiency than coastal tanks.

The most common shape are cylindrical tanks. They are economical in terms of metal consumption, which was also shown by the example of Shukhov tanks, are quite simple to manufacture and install, and also have good strength and reliability. Vertical tanks can be made both by sheet-by-sheet method and from rolled blanks.

Along with cylindrical tanks, chemical industries spherical tanks are successfully used, the body of which consists of individual sheets 25 - 30 mm thick, rolled or welded in the shape of a ball. The tank body is installed after assembly on a reinforced concrete foundation in a ring. Also, the shape of the reservoir can be drop-shaped. Such tanks are assembled from parts in the form of petals, manufactured separately at the factory and delivered to the installation site.

When storing petroleum products (gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene) in the off-season, underground storage facilities built in rock salt deposits located at a depth (100 m and below) are of great importance. They are created by washing salt with water (leaching) through wells. To empty the storage from oil products, a saturated saline solution is pumped into it.

When oil products are stored in underground tanks, the space around them is filled with concrete, which ensures the safety of storage. The degree of soil moisture in which the tank is immersed determines the degree of its additional protection. It can be either a special anti-corrosion protective coating or waterproofing of the tank. Underground tanks have a number of advantages, including ease of use, saving space in the territory where they are installed, and the possibility of their placement in places with high seismicity. It is also important to note the fact that underground reservoirs are less subject to daily temperature fluctuations.

For storage of petroleum products underground, double-walled tanks are best suited, in which the tank (main) is located inside the protective tank, and the distance between their walls should be at least 4 mm. This distance is ensured by means of a rolling profile, which is attached by welding to the inner surface of the protective tank. The cavity between the main and protective tanks is well sealed and filled with gas or liquid, the density of which is less than the density of the stored oil product. Constant monitoring of the interstitial cavity makes it possible to timely determine damage and prevent a possible accident.