Eastern Warehouse Society

As stated in the 1st paragraph of the Division I of the Highest approved on May 19, 1893 Charter WOTS:

“The joint-stock company under the name“ Eastern company of warehouses and the transportation of goods with the issuance of loans ”aims: a) to establish warehouses for the storage of goods, issuing folding and mortgage certificates [..] b) transportation of goods in Russia and abroad, both by waterways, and by rail, highway and dirt roads; c) execution of commission orders for the sale of goods; d) the issuance of loans for goods accepted by the Company for transportation to storage and commission, as well as for issued by the Company folding and mortgage certificates ”

The Note to the Charter states that the founders of the Company were retired lieutenant colonel Andrei Aleksandrovich Pomerantsev and retired Provincial Secretary Vladimir Pavlovich Zurov. ^[2]

The Eastern Society of Warehouses carried out freight and passenger transportation in the waters of the Volga and the Caspian Sea , insured goods and accepted them for storage, issued loans for goods accepted for transportation or storage, and also engaged in the sale of petroleum products. In 1903 , the main capital of the company amounted to 7.5 million rubles, net profit - 447 thousand rubles. In addition to numerous warehouses for storing oil and dry cargo, the company owned 1,787 tank wagons. One of the members of the Management Board of the company, headed by V.P. Zurov, was Aleksey Ivanovich Putilov , a prominent Russian industrialist and financier, the granddaughter of the famous businessman and owner of the plant in St. Petersburg - Nikolai Ivanovich Putilov . In 1907 , for success in its activities, the company was awarded a gold medal at an international exhibition in Bordeaux ( France ). By the beginning of the 1910s . already under the new composition of the Management Board, chaired by V.P. Litvinov-Falinsky , which included Russia's largest oil tycoon of the 20th century. Stepan Georgievich Lianozov , the Company owned: on the Caspian Sea, 40 steam vessels, 28 barges (including 7 iron ones); on the Volga there are 30 ships, 37 iron and 64 wooden barges, as well as 5 freight and passenger ships. In Dyurt-Altyn (near Astrakhan), the society owned mechanical workshops and a residential village for workers and their families with a hospital, pharmacy and school. The main capital of the WOTS amounted to 7 687 500 rubles, the balance sheet - 45 881 759 rubles, profit - 613 346 rubles. ^[3]

The Eastern Society of Warehouses , as an independent company, ceased to exist several years before the October events of 1917 , which was caused by the subsequent merger with the joint-stock company Caucasus and Mercury . ^{[4] [5]}