Mikhail Dutrievich Butin October 23, 1835 , Nerchinsk , Trans-Baikal region - April 7, 1907 , Nerchinsk , Trans-Baikal region - merchant of the 1st guild, gold miner, philanthropist , commercial adviser , hereditary honorary citizen, vowel of the Irkutsk City Council (1881-1898, 1884, 1884 ) ^[1] .

Mikhail Dmitrievich Butin
1st Guild Merchant
Birth	October 23, 1835 ( 1835-10-23 ) Nerchinsk , Russian Empire
Death	April 7, 1907 ( 1907-04-07 ) (71 years old) Nerchinsk , Russian Empire
Awards

Biography

He graduated from the Nerchinsk district school. He began trading activity as a clerk of wealthy Nerchinsk-factory merchants Kandinsky. Engaged in self-education. He made trips to Russia, to Europe and America. In 1866, together with his brother Nikolai, he created the company “Trading House of the Butin Brothers”. The company owned ironworks, a salt factory and 3 distilleries, about 50 gold mines in the Trans-Baikal, Amur and Primorsky Regions. Butins carried out profitable operations, trading in bread and manufacture. Organized the search for new deposits, arranged mines, introduced the latest methods of prospecting and mining of gold.

In the mid-1860s, Butin built a palace in Nerchinsk in the Moorish-Gothic style, where he lived with his family. The palace estate occupied an entire city block. There was also a park with grottoes, pavilions, sculptures, a greenhouse and many other outbuildings. Butin's home and lifestyle were distinguished by characteristic features of the European culture of that time. The house with artistically decorated fireplaces, stained-glass windows and spiral staircases, with parquet from Daurian mahogany housed a home museum and a library with works in 4 languages, paintings, marble sculptures, porcelain. There was a hall in the palace with huge mirrors delivered from the Paris Exhibition of 1878 . While engaged in charity, Butin donated funds to open a gymnasium, music school, pharmacy, and printing house in Nerchinsk. He also financed the Nerchinsk Theological College and construction work in the Nerchinsk Resurrection Cathedral.

In 1870, at his own expense, he equipped the Nerchinsk-Tianjin expedition to China. Participated in the development of trade proposals for the agreement between Russia and China ( 1881 ). Butin’s company, after several crop failures and droughts in the early 1880s, which made washing the gold sands difficult, turned out to be untenable. Since most of the Butins' capital was loans received in Moscow , Nizhny Novgorod and abroad, their enterprises were at the disposal of creditors. Irkutsk and Moscow merchants formed the “Butin Brothers Administration”, demanding to pay off debts ahead of schedule. For more than 10 years, Butin proved his solvency in Siberian courts and won the case, but the administrators have already managed to sell off the most important enterprises, having received huge management fees. As a result, the Butins for 7 years lost more than 5 million rubles and were ruined. After the death of Butin’s brother, Nikolai Dmitrievich, in 1892, the company ceased to exist.

Butin is a writer, scientist, and collector. He published a number of articles on the economy of the region, including “Siberia and its pre-reform courts,” which was published twice in St. Petersburg (1898 and 1900). The last years of his life he lived mainly in Irkutsk . Before his death, he returned to Nerchinsk.

Died of kidney inflammation. April 9, 1907 was buried in Nerchinsk. Here are the graves of N. D. Butin and other representatives of this famous family name. He was awarded the orders of St. Anna of the 3rd century, St. Stanislav of the 3rd and 2nd century, two large gold medals of the Society of lovers of natural sciences, anthropology and ethnography and the European scientific society, a large silver medal for participating in the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and a silver medal of the Russian Geographical Society. ^[2]