Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov

Akinfiy Demidov

Akinfiy Nikitich Demidov (Russian: Акинфий Никитич Демидов) (1678 – 5 August 1745) was a Russian industrialist of the Demidov family.

Life

He was the eldest son of Nikita Demidov and increased the family fortune, raising it to one of Russia's most important industrial dynasties. He set up at least 9 steel foundries and munitions factories from 1717 to 1735, and had 25 by his death. He also created iron and copper mines in the Urals and Western Siberia to supply them and mines for precious and semi-precious stones, silver and gold. He commissioned the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk, with its underground rooms and secret routes towards one of his factories. Tsar Peter the Great rewarded his services by making him a hereditary nobleman, as he also did with Akinfiy's brothers. By the end of his life Akinfiy was the richest man bar the Tsar. In 1734 he founded the Nicholas-Zaretsky Church at Tula. He married firstly Jelisaveta Tarassovna Korobkov, who died in 1728, and married secondly in 1723 Jewfemia Ivanovna Paltzov, who died in 1771. His four children were:

• Prokofi Akinfiyevich Demidov (1710-1786);
• Grigory Akinfiyevich Demidov (14 November 1715 - 13 November 1761), married on 23 May 1731 Anastasia Pavlovna Surovtzova (16 December 1713 - 3 December 1763), and had issue;
• Nikita Akinfiyevich Demidov (1724-1789);
• Jewfemia Akinfiyevna Demidova, married Ivan Mikhailovich Serdukov.

External links

• Russians: The Demidov dynasty