Shustovs

The Shustovs were from the palace peasants of the village of Dedinov, Kolomenskoye Uyezd , and the founder of the dynasty was called one Yakov Shustov, who traded salt on the Volga and Oka . In the 1670-1690s, Grigory Fedorovich and Vasily Fedorovich Shustovs founded the salt industry on the Lenva River in Solikamsk Uyezd . By September 1696, the Shustovs owned 32 baskets, 16 pick-up pipes, 13 saline and several bread barns, more than 110 yards for working people . By the end of the 17th century, the annual productivity of the Lenvensky Usolye reached 2 million pounds of salt, which on the Shustovs' own ships was delivered along the Kama and Volga to Nizhny Novgorod , where part of it was sold on the local market, and part went to the Oka to Kaluga , from where it went for sale to the western and southwestern cities. In the years 1695-1677, the crafts on Lenva were transferred to Grigory Stroganov .

During the reign of Peter I , the Shustovs were already respected merchants, not the last people in Russia. Therefore, the Demidovs, claiming the right to be called the oldest trading dynasty in Russia, were far behind the Shustovs.

Documents related to the beginning of the XVIII century claim that the Shustovs lived in Moscow and engaged in salt trade, they had both their own salt deposits and leased state ones. During the Northern War , thanks to the charity policy (for opening and supporting hospitals), the Shustovs received an order for the supply of food for the army and navy, which substantially corrected their financial situation.

The merchant activities of the Shustovs were practically uninterrupted - until 1917.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the head of the family was considered a non-trading merchant of the third guild ^[1] , the Shustovs were no longer engaged in the salt business and food trade.

In 1863, Nikolai Leontyevich Shustov founded the company N. Shustov and sons ” ^[2] , which began to engage in the production of alcoholic beverages. Starting from the only forge on Maroseyka , where the distillation vat and other equipment stood, by 1880 the Moscow Shustovs factory was already located on Presnenka , and there were already own warehouses and shops ^[3] .

In 1896, the trading house "Shustov and Sons" was transformed into a unit partnership "N.L. Shustov with Sons." At the head of the partnership stood Nikolai Nikolayevich Shustov - the eldest son of Nikolai Leontyevich.

In 1899, Nikolai Nikolayevich acquired the brandy factory from Nerses Tairyan in Armenia (in the Erivan fortress ), which was later transformed into the Yerevan Brandy Factory . The younger brother of Nikolai Nikolayevich - Vasily, was sent to France , from where he brought the recipe and technological cards for the production of French cognacs. In the same year, the Joint-Stock Company of the Black Sea Winemaking was purchased.

As in the case of Shustovskaya vodka, the Shustovs used the same advertising scheme for approval on the cognac market. True, if in the first case, students went to taverns, then they looked like agents, went to expensive restaurants and already demanded Shustovsky cognac there .

In 1912, the partnership became the Supplier of the court of His Imperial Majesty Nicholas II . By 1914, Shustov controlled 30% of alcohol production in the Russian Empire and 44% of alcohol exports. The total turnover of cognac factories alone amounted to more than 2 million silver rubles per year:

• Yerevan factory - 1 million 200 thousand rubles;
• Odessa plant - 700 thousand rubles;
• Chisinau plant - 400 thousand rubles.

The Shustovs received even greater incomes from the production of vodka and tinctures, among which were the Shustovskie brands “Zubrovka”, “Spotkach”, “Zapekanka”, “Erofeich”, “Riga Balsam”, “Mountain ash on brandy”, “Mandarin”, “Caucasian Mountain” herbalist "and many others.

However, with the outbreak of World War I , the activities of the Shustovsky factories began to decline. In connection with the war, the sale of alcoholic beverages was banned, due to which, in particular, the Odessa Brandy Factory was closed on June 20, 1914. When the cognac factories were nationalized with a special decree of the Bolshevik government with the 1917 revolution, the Shustov brothers, in order to return at least some money, were forced to process an untouchable supply of cognac spirits more than a hundred years old.

With the formation of the new government, the Shustov brothers did not go abroad. Nikolai Nikolaevich Shustov had already died by this moment (on January 19, 1917, according to the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper, he was buried in the cemetery of the Alekseevsky monastery in Moscow , which was liquidated in the Soviet years). Sergei Nikolayevich Shustov worked in the Central Union , Pavel Nikolayevich Shustov in 1927 published the book “Grape Wines, Cognac, Vodka and Mineral Water”.

In 2013, the Brandy Museum of N. L. Shustov was opened at the Odessa Brandy Factory ^[4] .

• West S. Russian Culture Through a Shot Glass: The Shustov Cognac Advertising Campaign, 1910-12 // Material Culture in Russia and the USSR: Things, Values, Identities / ed. Graham H. Roberts. - Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017 .-- P. 103-118. - 280 p. - ISBN 1472586158 . - ISBN 9781472586155 .
• Chumakov V. Shustovs. Cognac empire of the kings of PR . - LitRes , 2018 .-- ISBN 5041088845 . - ISBN 9785041088842 .

• Shustovs // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Empire Shustov site Shustov.ru.