Bashkirov, Matvey Emelyanovich

After the sudden death of Yakov Emelyanovich, the middle son of Emelyan Grigoryevich, the youngest of his sons, Matthew, became the head of the Bashkir clan in Nizhny Novgorod . When dividing property, he got the smallest jackpot, but he did not consider himself deprived. The fact is that the mills that the elder brothers inherited were built by the youngest of the Matthew brothers. Therefore, he set about building, and ten years later, the property that belonged to Matvey Bashkirov was not much inferior to the fortunes of Nikolai and Jacob.

Due to his position and wealth, Matvey Bashkirov was engaged in social activities and charity. In 1880, Matvey Emelyanovich was elected the trustee of a public almshouse, three years later he took the chair of the vowel of the City Duma, in 1885 he was offered to become a trustee member of a real school. With his charity, he won the love and respect of the working people, although he was very modest by nature and tried to stay in the background. Matvey Bashkirov throughout his life donated a lot of money to the cause of public education.

During the First World War , the Polytechnic Institute named after Emperor Nicholas II , created in 1898, had to be transported from Warsaw. Tiflis , Saratov , Odessa , Orenburg , Omsk , Ekaterinoslav , Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod fought for the right to host the Polytechnic. The host city should have collected at least two million rubles for the transfer of the university. Thanks to the investments of merchants and nobles, the competition was won by Nizhny Novgorod. Matvey Emelyanovich donated the most significant sum to the institute - half a million rubles.

Every summer, Matvey Bashkirov rested at a cottage in Zimenki and received there the respectful nickname of the “Philanthropist”. Once, with gratitude, residents of a neighboring village came to him, with whom a flour mill built a water pump. To which Bashkirov said: "Not for you, men, I have tried, but for your pregnant women." The fact is that this village was located on a high bank, and women with full buckets had to climb a steep uphill every day. His efforts in Zimenki built a descent to the marina, and a church was renovated in a neighboring village.

The first health insurance fund in Nizhny Novgorod also opened at the Matvey Bashkirov mill. The sons of the deceased workers were given 30 rubles each. At the funeral of the dead, 6 rubles were allocated per family, and four-ruble allowances were assigned to women in labor. The rich flour mill was known not only as a generous man, but also as a manager, therefore, when in 1891 Lukoyanovsky district was struck by hunger, it was Matvey Emelyanovich who was elected to the commission for the elimination of pestilence.

In the 1890s, he was offered to become a member of the accounting and accounting committees of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the State Bank. Soon, a rich flour maker consolidated his strong position in the banking world by giving his daughter in marriage to the son of the director of the Nizhny Novgorod office of the State Bank, Mr. Polyansky, a very authoritative official.

Matvey Bashkirov became one of the “uncrowned kings” of Nizhny Novgorod. But few of those who knew the Bashkir family well would dare to call this successful entrepreneur a happy person. The first wife drank and died of delirium tremens. The second wife, after the suicide of her son, became very sick and soon died. After the October Revolution in 1917, everything was taken from the Bashkiri family. And the rich merchant by 1918 remained poor. In 1924 he died. A lot of people came to see him, remembering the past good deeds of the merchant-flour maker.

• Makarov, I.A. Bashkirov / I.A. Makarov // Pocket of Russia. - N. Novgorod: Books, 2006 .-- S. 48-98.
• Makarov, I.A. Bashkirov / I.A. Makarov // Nizhny Merchant. - N. Novgorod: Books, 2006 .-- S. 6-32.
• Bashkirs with sons // Our land. - N. Novgorod: Books, 2006 .-- S. 184-186.
• Shamshurin, V.A. Karman of Russia / V.A. Shamshurin // Return to Nizhny Novgorod. - N. Novgorod: Litera, 2009 .-- S. 91-114.

• Electronic Encyclopedia of Nizhny Novgorod