Get forgotten password
Encyclopaedia / Unknown Baku People
Change category | All articles of the category
Vasily Alexandrovich Kokorev (1817-1889) — prominent businessman, tax-farmer and extractor of the Baku oil.
Says S.T. Aksakov, a famous Russian writer: “I cannot collect myself after meeting Kokorev! He is a genuine Russian miracle!” And Vasily Kokorev was indeed a Russian merchant in the truest sense of this word. Though it was rumoured that he took pickle brine and the Russian bread drink (kvass) after drinking Champagne, Kokorev was remarkable for his broad mind and big heart. He authored extensive notes on the development of gold-mines in Russia which excited admiration of experts. Kokorev was freely feeding and keeping the soldiers, heroes of Sevastopol, for three days, and during the Russian-Turkish war he contributed 45 million roubles to “the military loan”!
Kokorev engaged in salt production, traded in iron and copper and owned gold-fields. In addition to that he was a gifted writer and a pointed columnist. Kokorev was given a witty name “A billion in the fog” after the heading of his article where he championed abolition of serfdom. But oil was his main pursuit. In 1857 after he had learnt about the wealth of kir (the oil-stained land) not far from Baku in Surkhany, Kokorev built a distillation plant there. The plant was built close to the old shrine of fire worshippers — actually on perpetual fires. He used a natural outcrop of fuel gas to heat up distillation converters. The kir distillation yielded 10-20 per cent of kerosene.
Soon Kokorev turned to the Balakhan mud oil and invited D.I. Mendeleyev as an advisor. The great scientist suggested that oil should be distilled continuously around the clock. He recommended to start producing enamelled barrels and also came out with an idea to transport oil by sea in oil-tankers and to build pipelines from distillation works to the seashore. To cut it short, the famous scientist worked out the fundamentals of the technology which is still in use today.
In 1873 Kokorev founded the Baku Oil Society. In one of his petitions he reminded Alexander III among other things that it was him, Kokorev, who had been the first to develop oil-fields in Russia even before oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, and that owing to his business initiative “more than 200 works are now operating, six million tons of oil is being transported on the Caspian Sea and the Volga river per annum; comfortable lighting is used almost in every log hut, many Volga steamers use oil for heating and therefore vast woodland areas are saved from destruction, while reduction of oil prices saves many roubles for the Russian industry and treasury every year”.
Kokorev’s last undertaking was his plan to establish The Caspian Commercial Bank with the purpose of financing the oil industry and developing the Trans-Caspian region. Says his biographer: “Everything was ready for his efforts to be crowned with success, but his death prevented this project from being implemented”.
http://analytics.ex.ru/cgi-bin/txtnscr.pl?node=663&txt=1167&lang=2&sh=1
Vasiliy Kokorev
4/23/1817 - 4/22/1889Vasily Alexandrovich Kokorev (1817-1889) — prominent businessman, tax-farmer and extractor of the Baku oil.
Says S.T. Aksakov, a famous Russian writer: “I cannot collect myself after meeting Kokorev! He is a genuine Russian miracle!” And Vasily Kokorev was indeed a Russian merchant in the truest sense of this word. Though it was rumoured that he took pickle brine and the Russian bread drink (kvass) after drinking Champagne, Kokorev was remarkable for his broad mind and big heart. He authored extensive notes on the development of gold-mines in Russia which excited admiration of experts. Kokorev was freely feeding and keeping the soldiers, heroes of Sevastopol, for three days, and during the Russian-Turkish war he contributed 45 million roubles to “the military loan”!
Kokorev engaged in salt production, traded in iron and copper and owned gold-fields. In addition to that he was a gifted writer and a pointed columnist. Kokorev was given a witty name “A billion in the fog” after the heading of his article where he championed abolition of serfdom. But oil was his main pursuit. In 1857 after he had learnt about the wealth of kir (the oil-stained land) not far from Baku in Surkhany, Kokorev built a distillation plant there. The plant was built close to the old shrine of fire worshippers — actually on perpetual fires. He used a natural outcrop of fuel gas to heat up distillation converters. The kir distillation yielded 10-20 per cent of kerosene.
Soon Kokorev turned to the Balakhan mud oil and invited D.I. Mendeleyev as an advisor. The great scientist suggested that oil should be distilled continuously around the clock. He recommended to start producing enamelled barrels and also came out with an idea to transport oil by sea in oil-tankers and to build pipelines from distillation works to the seashore. To cut it short, the famous scientist worked out the fundamentals of the technology which is still in use today.
In 1873 Kokorev founded the Baku Oil Society. In one of his petitions he reminded Alexander III among other things that it was him, Kokorev, who had been the first to develop oil-fields in Russia even before oil was discovered in Pennsylvania, and that owing to his business initiative “more than 200 works are now operating, six million tons of oil is being transported on the Caspian Sea and the Volga river per annum; comfortable lighting is used almost in every log hut, many Volga steamers use oil for heating and therefore vast woodland areas are saved from destruction, while reduction of oil prices saves many roubles for the Russian industry and treasury every year”.
Kokorev’s last undertaking was his plan to establish The Caspian Commercial Bank with the purpose of financing the oil industry and developing the Trans-Caspian region. Says his biographer: “Everything was ready for his efforts to be crowned with success, but his death prevented this project from being implemented”.
http://analytics.ex.ru/cgi-bin/txtnscr.pl?node=663&txt=1167&lang=2&sh=1
загрузка