And the black eagle on the coat of arms ...

July 14 2015 2

In St. Petersburg, with great fanfare, they are preparing to celebrate the 140 anniversary of the founding of the A.L. Stieglitz. Who was this native of Germany, on whose money the famous school was built, for Russia really? "Hero of charity" or ruthless capitalist predator?

Baron Stieglitz is very popular here today. In the 2005 year, to the 145 anniversary of the State Bank of Russia, whose first manager was Stieglitz, a commemorative medal was made with his portrait and the inscription “Enlightened Charity”. His portrait was also minted on a coin of 25 rubles, issued by the Bank of Russia in 2007. In 2009, his bust was installed at the station square of the station New Peterhof - as the builder of the Peterhof railway. A postage stamp dedicated to him was issued, and the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences together with the Germans established an honorary medal with a portrait of Stieglitz for his contribution to the development of the economy and science. At one of the central TV channels, the documentary film “The Testament of Baron Stieglitz”, praising the activities of the Baron, was created and shown. Several books have been published, the authors of which describe the life of this “noble magnate”.

In tsarist times, too, there were people who enthusiastically praised him. When he died, Baron Modest Korf made an entry in his diary:

“His death, which will be reflected throughout the commercial world, is together and the loss of the state for Russia. Speransky, Pushkin, Shtiglits - each in his own sphere - will be born and reach their destination only for centuries, and we all lost them in some six years. ” So, and no less.
However, Baron Stieglitz, the “emperor’s banker” and the richest man of Russia, became such an empty place. From his father, Ludwig Stieglitz, he received a huge inheritance and name in business circles. But how did his father and his brothers, who came from the provincial German principality Waldeck, who arrived in Russia in search of wealth and officials, managed to achieve such a position?

Explore historical The roots of the Stiglitz dynasty were succeeded by the Israeli sculptor, graphic artist and prose writer Miriam Gamburd, who spent a lot of time in the archives. According to her, the rise of the dynasty began with the acquisition of land in the Zaporizhzhya Sich and salt mines in Tauris. She wrote: “The village, renamed the village of Pokrovsky, was donated to the then Prosecutor General, Prince Alexander Alekseevich Vyazemsky, with 200.000 acres of land. Subsequently, the times of these 200.000 dessiatins were populated by 3.000 souls and heirs of Prince Vyazemsky, sold to Stieglitz, who became a college assessor, who made an immense amount of money from his maintenance to buy salt lakes in Tauris. "

The foundation of a glorious school was created on salt, notes Hamburg. In the 1799 year, Nikolaus Shtiglits, along with his companion, the Kherson merchant Abram Peretz, took over the extraction of salt in Taurida, and in the 1801 year, Paul I approved their monopoly right to supply the southwestern provinces with the Crimean salt.

When, in 1803, Justice Minister Gavriil Derzhavin and Prosecutor General Alexander Bekleshov secured the recognition of the private monopoly of salt by the Senate as “fishing bad for the state” and the mines were alienated in favor of the state, both partners were already fabulously rich. So rich that Nikolaus soon loaned and transferred abroad for the personal needs of Alexander I, who ascended the throne, thirteen million rubles and, according to the king’s wish, in 1809, he secretly financed the partisan war against Napoleon in Spain and Italy.

Historian Pavel Lizunov writes that during World War 1812, Peretz and Stieglitz received a huge food contract for the army, about which Count Fyodor Rostopchin spoke very disapprovingly. In particular, he pointed out that contractors doubled the price of the supplied wine. However, after the end of the Patriotic War, Alexander I granted Nikolaus Stieglitz "for his great services" to the nobility title, and his brother Ludwig "for donations during the war" - with a bronze medal on Anninsky ribbon for wearing in his buttonhole.

When the younger brother Nikolaus Ludwig, assigned to the Hamburg merchants, opened his business and went bankrupt, Nikolaus invited him to St. Petersburg. Older brother and uncle loaned him the amount necessary to establish a company - and then again failure. Only on the third attempt did it work out. In Odessa, he also had his own office, whose foreign trade turnover in 1838 amounted to 55 million rubles.

His other company, Stiglitz and K °, was located in St. Petersburg: the trading house was engaged in export and import. Grain and timber were exported abroad from Russia, and scarce goods were imported. When in the 1806 year Russia, among other countries, declared England a continental blockade, many exporters suffered. In addition to Stieglitz, who enjoyed a special imperial location.

“The official Russian authorities turned a blind eye to the actions of some large traders who had connections with the court,” explained the historian Dmitry Korneychuk. “Ludwig Stieglitz, often lent cash by senior Russian officials, often served as a personal favor. Ships of a trading house loaded with Russian grain continued to cruise towards the British Isles, returning back with traditional English products (cloth, tea).”

In the 1820 year, when his brother Nicolaus died, Ludwig passed on his enormous fortune. After Alexander I issued a manifesto banning foreigners from being a merchant guild, Ludwig Stieglitz accepted “eternal Russian state citizenship” in 1807, and Lutheranism in 1812, and married German Christian Angelica Gottschalk-Dusseldorf.

Ludwig Shtiglits received hereditary baronial dignity - “for services rendered to the government and diligence to spread trade” on the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas I in 1826, and in 1828, he was considered a first-class St. Petersburg merchant class. The emblem of the newly-made baron was included in the Common Armorial, where in the 10 part under No. XXUMX he is given the following description: "... In the upper half in the blue field there is a soaring black single-headed eagle."

It is curious that the same black single-headed eagle is depicted on the coat of arms and the most powerful financial dynasty of the world - the Rothschilds. On two emblems of two different financial dynasties in different countries - the same black eagle.
Why? Accident? But nothing accidental on the family coat of arms does not happen!

Historians engaged in the biographies of Shtiglitz and digging into the archives, admit that, strangely enough, not many documents have been preserved about their activities. The Russian State Archives, for example, holds a small fund of the Stieglitz family. There is not a single letter from family correspondence, neither personal diaries, nor memoirs, although in those times it was commonplace for them to write them for educated people. Historians suggest that after the closure of the bank house "Shtiglits and Company" the entire business archive of the company was destroyed, and after the death of Baron Alexander Shtiglits, his family archive was subjected to the same fate. Or maybe it was the Baron himself who destroyed all the documents? If only because there were evidence of the connection of his family with the Freemasons? Some, though not very convincing hypotheses about this were put forward ...

The family business in Russia was developing successfully, the Stieglitz banking house began to act as the main organizer of foreign loans to the Russian Empire, in particular, in 1841 the government received 50 million rubles in silver for the preparation of the construction of the Nikolaev railway linking St. Petersburg and Moscow. The commercial interests of Ludwig Stieglitz extended not only to the financial and credit sphere. He was among the founders of the First Fire Insurance Company, the Company of Shareholders for a permanent connection between St. Petersburg and Lubeck, created the Neva pulp mill and owned a number of other industrial enterprises. All this wealth, together with the multi-million dollar fortune of Ludwig Stiegitz in 1843, was inherited by his son Alexander.

As the legend says, having inherited the financial and industrial empire of the father, the young baron Alexander Shtiglits, “an ardent admirer of Schiller and Goethe”, was at first confused. He was not attracted to entrepreneurship and finance, he rather dreamed of a career as a serious scientist. The heir even tried to retire right away, but then he was handed the words of Nicholas I himself: they say, it will be very sad if the banking institution so authoritative in Russia and the world goes into oblivion. The words of the autocrat were law, and Alexander preferred to forget about his former aspirations.

“By inheritance” the position of the court banker and the name, which was literally worth its weight in gold in Europe, were transferred to the young man - this was how the Western financiers trusted him. At that time, construction of the Nikolaev railroad continued in Russia, Western money was needed again to continue the work, and Alexander Lyudvigovich had to get it. So, with 1843 on 1850 year, Stieglitz agreed on six four percent loans.

In a very short time, Alexander managed to win the respect of Russian financiers. In 1846, he was elected to the post of Chairman of the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange Committee; two years later, Stieglitz was appointed a member of the Commercial Council of the Ministry of Finance.

With the beginning of the Crimean War, Russia's need for borrowed funds increased dramatically, and here again diplomatic experience and the name of Baron came to the aid of the government. He managed to persuade Western financiers, who did not seek to lend money to the serious losses of Russia in the war, to give it substantial loans at relatively low interest rates. In the midst of the war, Baron received the rank of state councilor for his services, and soon became a state councilor.

Stieglitz had a tremendous impact on the business life of St. Petersburg, and it cannot be said that all contemporaries of the baron rated him positively.
So, it was rumored that, as the chairman of the exchange committee, Stieglitz actually dictates the rules of the game: quotes on the exchange began only with his appearance and were always as required by the baron's banking house. That his company monopolized export-import operations and that the baron is sometimes unfairly called a man of crystal honesty. Opinion on this subject by Alexander Ludwigovich himself has not been preserved. Researchers write that he was a reserved and laconic man, and therefore did not consider it necessary to stoop to excuses.

Considerable gossip caused and commercial enterprises of the Baron, and he had a great many of them. So, the baron added new textile enterprises to his assets, was one of the founders of the Moscow merchant bank, owned metallurgical plants, gold mines. In the middle of 1850, Stieglitz became interested in railway construction. The road St. Petersburg - New Peterhof, which is about 30 kilometers long, was built according to the most modern project, promised good profit: this direction was the most popular among Petersburg nobility in the summer, because it was there that most of the cottages and residences were located. In the summer of 1857, the road was solemnly opened.

In the same year, Stieglitz, along with partners - Russian, French, German and British investors - established the Joint-Stock Company “Main Society of Russian Railways”. The goal is to develop in Russia a network of railway lines about 4 thousand miles across, through the 26 provinces connecting St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Nizhny Novgorod, Kursk and Orel with the ports of the Baltic and Black Seas.

In 1884, a scandal erupted. The government commission, which conducted the audit of the company, came to the conclusion that it stole more than 30 million rubles from the state treasury with the help of frauds and frauds, thanks to the “friendly support” of those who were supposed to protect the state interests.
Thus, researcher Ivan Mironov writes: “The unbridled self-advertisement, covert intrigue, and the bribing of the right people at first brought success, but it soon became clear that the broadcasting promises of the Main Society to cover Russia with a network of railways for several years without spending a penny of state funds turned out to be empty by sound. Of the four branches projected, not one was completed, and the government itself was forced to issue loans to complete the construction of these strategically necessary means of communication. ”

The financial empire of the baron was already shaken at the end of 1850, and it was caused not only by his railway projects. The global financial recession that followed the Crimean War led to unrest on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange; the “well-wishers” were not slow in blaming the baron for them. The banker started having problems with his most important client, the Russian government. If before 1859, all major foreign loans were made by the state through it, then in 1859, the services of Stieglitz were no longer required, the cabinet of ministers began to communicate directly with foreign bankers. In October of the same year, Stieglitz began to liquidate the affairs of his company and went abroad.

At this time, Russia already ruled the new emperor - Alexander II. At first, he took up banking reform, believing that without this it is impossible to transfer the country to the rails of accelerated economic development. At that time, the state of the treasury after the Crimean War was very deplorable: debts and the state budget deficit, inflation and investor distrust of Russian banks, the flight of capital from the country and the lack of modern credit facilities.

According to experts, the system of state-owned banks, the basis of which was laid under Catherine II, was outdated and was in the deepest crisis. Most of them have been eliminated. In the spring of 1860, Alexander II signed a decree creating a State-owned commercial bank, all its offices and branches of the State Imperial Bank based on the reorganization, and approved its charter. The first manager of the new structure was Alexander Shtiglitz.

It is curious that, becoming at the head of the State Bank, Shtiglits immediately recommended the Rothschild banking houses for foreign loans. Soon all state and public loans were transferred to the London and Paris Rothschild firms.
During the 15 years, through their intermediation, several Russian foreign loans were concluded for the amount of about 1 billion rubles. As P. Lizunov notes, “The Rothschilds, placing Russian foreign loans abroad, railway bonds and mortgage sheets of a mutual land loan, acted as“ clean bankers ”- intermediaries between foreign exchanges and Russia. Without risking almost nothing, without affecting their own capital, they received huge profits from the commission and from the difference in price, final and selling, as well as from the sale of bonds. ”

In 1863, the situation in Europe escalated sharply. The uprising in Poland complicated relations between Russia and other European powers - England, Austria and France, which came out in defense of Poland. In the fall, panic began on the stock exchange, the ruble began to fall. The Minister of Finance was forced to appeal to the emperor with a note about the need to suspend the exchange of credit cards for hard currency. Alexander II’s resolution read: “There is nothing to do, although I am extremely sorry for that!”

What led to the collapse of many players of the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange. And this is when Shtiglits conducted difficult negotiations with Western bankers on the implementation of a future domestic winning loan in order to stabilize the situation. Many began to call the culprit is the Baron.

As a result, in 1866, Shtiglits resigned as manager of the State Bank, retaining for some time a high post in the Ministry of Finance. The emperor granted him “in reward of diligent and active service” by the Order of St. Vladimir 2 degree.

Some admired the sense of social justice inherent in Stieglitz towards those below on the social scale. He claimed pensions and distributed cash benefits and gifts to an entire army of workers and employees of his numerous enterprises.
Others characterized the baron as a predatory and pragmatic dictator-dictator, who was concerned, above all, about his own advantage. For example, a well-known journalist and satirist Ippolit Vasilevsky wrote in the Observer magazine about the death and the will of the baron: “October. The All-Russian and even the All-European Crezian, Baron Shtiglits, is dying fairly fast. Having saved up a fabulous state, he shot skins from the financial operations of the Russian treasury and, having reached the thirty thousandth daily income, he leaves behind about 150 millions, having developed them in the most eccentric, self-indulgent manner. Giving millions of valets, cooks, hairdressers, French singers, Geneva watchmakers, bank watchmen, Shtiglits writes off only one public donation - ten million in favor of the central drawing school, and even that has no real value or practical sense ... At the same time universities, neither secondary schools, nor the literary foundation, nor charitable institutions receive a penny from Stieglitz. The blood trader, like the humpbacked one, does not even correct the grave. ”

There is a version - however, not proven - explaining the rapid rise and incredible success of the baron. He allegedly was ... a secret protégé of the Rothschild dynasty in Russia. Five brothers of this family controlled the banks of the five most powerful European states at that time: France, Germany, England, Austria and Italy. But "looking" for Russia was secretly otryazhen first Ludwig, and then Alexander Shtiglits ...

Stieglitz is also reproached with close ties with Count Nesselrode, who for many years headed the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Nesselrode, for example, was part of the Narva Woolen Society, created by Stieglitz in Narva. The Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich and the historian concurrently wrote about Nesselrod as follows: “The son of a Jewish Protestant and a German Catholic, who confessed Protestantism, was a friend of encyclopedists who changed citizenship five times according to the Anglican rite, born in Frankfurt and Berlin, until the end of his life who knew how to speak and write correctly in Russian, Count Nesselrode was completely alien to the country whose national interests he had to defend. ” Nesselrode's wife held a salon in St. Petersburg where Hekkern and Dantes welcomed them, and where, as was supposed, a vile libel was planted, thrown to Pushkin and caused a deadly duel. As for Nesselrode’s foreign policy, as is well known, she led Russia to an unsuccessful Crimean war, where she found herself alone in the face of a powerful Anglo-French coalition. Many patriots of Russia Nesselrode hated violently, nicknamed him "Count Kisselvode." A poet and diplomat Fyodor Tyutchev, for example, wrote about him like this:

No, my dwarf! unprecedented coward! ..

You, no matter how hard, how hard,

With your little faith soul

Do not seduce Holy Russia ...

The unfortunate Crimean War struck at Russia's financial resources. In 1861, serfdom was abolished in the Russian Empire. Alexander II was chronically short of money to pay compensation to the landlords. And here "came to the rescue" Rothschild. Banks "N.M. Rothschild and Sons "and" The Rothschild Brothers "provided Russia with a five percent loan worth 15 million pounds sterling (about 90 million gold rubles). The loan was issued under the personal guarantee of Alexander II.

In 1883, an uprising occurred in Poland, which further aggravated the financial crisis in Russia. A monetary reform A. Shtiglits and M.Kh. Reiterna finally undermined the Russian economy. Penalties for late payment of the loan and interest on the loan were significant, so the money had to be returned on time.

And here D. Rothschild "softly" offers to find a compromise in the current situation, according to the principle: "If you can’t repay a debt, sell your property, but, of course, at the lowest price." And what is the property of the emperor of Russia? Of course, this is Russian territory. It was here that the joint influence of A. Shtiglits, M. H. Reitern and Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich on Alexander II was made in order to convince him to sell Alaska. It should be added that by this time D. Rothschild expanded his activities in the United States, and the accession of Alaska was beneficial not only to the United States, but also to himself. In addition, he knew about the huge reserves of natural resources in the area.

At first, Emperor Alexander hesitated: his ancestors never sold Russian land to foreigners ...

During the 23 meeting in May, 1864. James Rothschild and Baron Alexander von Stieglitz, as historian S. Kryukov argues, agreed that they would make joint efforts to sell the territory of Alaska to the United States. Both wanted to make good money out of it. Stieglitz enlisted the support of Rothschild in that he, through his controlled banks, would provide Russia with large loans in order to put Russia and its emperor into financial dependence for many years ...

However, the version of the Baron's connections with the Rothschilds does not fit in with the history of the creation of his school by him. The last two decades of his life Shtiglits dedicated to the establishment and construction of the school, and in the will asked his descendants to keep his name. Would “looking” for Russia, sent into the country, do such a thing in order to secretly undermine its economy in favor of foreign “puppeteers”? In addition, Alexander Shtiglits was not “misguided”, but was born in St. Petersburg, and in Narva he set up his family crypt in the Orthodox Church, which he himself built. So Russia was, after all, a homeland for him, and did he consider himself a subject for himself?

To create in St. Petersburg "school of technical drawing" Shtiglits decided due to the fact that at that time the Russian industry was booming, trying to make their products competitive in world markets, and therefore acutely faced the problem of training for the production of artists and craftsmen of other artistic professions. There were such special schools abroad, but in our country they did not exist yet. In January 1876, he donated one million rubles to the Ministry of Finance for this purpose “in memory of the work of the deceased father”.

Later, the baron instructed to transfer to the school's account another five million rubles: to organize an art museum with him. Until now, not a single patron of the arts in Russia has allocated such gigantic funds for the development of arts and education.
Emperor Alexander II sent Shtiglits a thank-you rescript on the subject: “Baron, Alexander Lyudvigovich. The finance minister brought to my attention that in memory of the work of your late father in the field of industry and commerce, you offered to transfer to the Ministry of Finance a capital of a million rubles for the design and maintenance of a technical drawing school in St. Petersburg and that you want Your school has been named. I am pleased to express my acceptance of this significant donation and the assignment of the name “Baron Stieglitz Technical Drawing School” to your proposed educational institution, I am pleased to express my special favor to you for this feat of your enlightened charity. ”

The opening ceremony of the museum of the Central Technical Drawing School of Baron Stieglitz was held on 30 on April 1896, in the presence of the entire imperial family.

Alexander Shtiglits himself died in the year 1884. On the last journey, the Baron was accompanied with truly royal honors, funeral services in the Lutheran Church of Saints Peter and Paul on Nevsky, then taken to Narva. The workers of his cloth and cotton factories carried the owner’s coffin in their hands to the family tomb, the Church of the Holy Trinity, where he bequeathed to bury himself beside his wife.

In 1953, the school was named after the national artist of the USSR Vera Mukhina, the author of the legendary sculpture “Worker and Kolkhoz Woman”. In December 2006, the Academy returned the name AL. Stieglitz.

But questions remained. Was his activity an example of the best traditions of Russian philanthropy, a sample of the social responsibility of entrepreneurship? Or were those who called Baron Stieglitz a ruthless "capitalist predator" right? A businessman deftly ingrained in the credibility of the top leaders of the state? Immensely rich from using their ties with the emperor? A link of the financial web that the Rothschilds wove to subjugate and enslave Russia?

What was it? The feat of charity? An attempt to “pay off” charges? ..