Zeveke, Alfons Alexandrovich

Born in 1822 in Riga.

He studied there in seafaring classes, at the end of which he served as a navigator , and then as a skipper on the ships of the Baltic Commercial Fleet. He participated in 1858 in the famous laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean , working on the Agamemnon ship. ^[one]

In the 1860s, Alfons Zeveke settled in Nizhny Novgorod . He entered the service at the Kamsko-Volzhsky Shipping Company , where in a few years he had gone from the captain of the tugboat "Orel", who walked along the rivers between Nizhny Novgorod and Perm , to the manager of the shipping company. In the early 1870s, a decline in the Volga shipping began to be observed, one of the reasons for which was the rapidly expanding railway network in the Russian Empire , Seebeck proposed to radically change the type of Volga river vessels in order to overcome the crisis. The essence of his idea was to, without reducing the volume of freight traffic, dramatically increase the scale of passenger transportation, which was supposed to attract the creation of maximum comfort. For this purpose, the two-deck cargo and passenger vessels operating on the Mississippi River , which were distinguished by their speed and comfort, were the most suitable drawings, which Alfons Alexandrovich wrote out of the United States . These were the so-called "American" steamboats. ^[one]

Having received blueprints from America, Zeveke convinced the board of the company, and then the general meeting of shareholders to build several American-style steamers. Due to the fact that the company did not have the necessary funds for building ships, Alfons Zeveke concluded a bonded loan from the English company Forbes & Co. for the amount of 60,000 sterling (600,000 rubles). With the funds received, three American-style steamers were ordered at the Sormovsky Zavod, the first of which (the Coup, later renamed Colorado and then Orinoco) sailed in 1871. In 1872, the other two of the same steamboats, called the Mississippi and N. Benardaki. " ^[2]

However, in the winter of 1874-1875, the Kama-Volga Shipping Company ceased to exist; steamers "Coup", "Mississippi" and "N. Benardaki ”became the property of“ Forbes and Co. ” Alfons Aleksandrovich was engaged in intermediary trading operations with English companies for some time and, having accumulated capital, returned to the Volga at the end of 1875 as the owner of the shipping business, creating the company Zeveke Shipping and Trade Society. Contacting Forbes & Co. again, he rented three steamers from her. Later, he rented two more steamers from the owner of the Nikolo-Abakumovsky plant Zhuravlev - Miklashevsky (which he renamed Missouri) and Niagara. With this river fleet, Zebeke opened a voyage between Nizhny Novgorod and Astrakhan. ^[2] Subsequently, its river flotilla expanded to two dozen ships. ^[3]

Suddenly died of an apoplexy strike on August 12 (according to other sources, July 12), 1887, and was buried in the German (Lutheran) cemetery of Nizhny Novgorod in the family crypt . ^{[4] [5]} After his death, according to a spiritual testament, the shipping business passed to his son - Alexander Alfonsovich, who also, at the behest of his father, transformed his company into the joint-stock company “Shipping and Trade Company under the company A. A. Zeveke "". The charter of the new enterprise was approved on June 8, 1890. ^[6]

Family

Alphonse Zeveke was twice married: ^[1]

1. In the first marriage were born - the son Alexander (born in 1864) and two daughters - Carolina (born in 1871) and Elizabeth (born in 1877).
2. Children from their second marriage with Lucretia, Maria Lucas: Berta (died in early childhood), Vasily (1878-1941), Magdalena (1882-1970) and Maria (1884-1920).

• One of the merits of Alfons Aleksandrovich Zeveke was that under his leadership the charter of the first river school on the Volga was worked out, which was approved on July 18, 1887, and on October 18 of the same year, after his death, the official opening of the Nizhny Novgorod river school took place. ^[2]
• Alexander Zeveke, among his hobbies, was engaged in amateur photography (the State Archive of Audiovisual Documents of the Nizhny Novgorod Region has his photographs from a trip to Switzerland and Germany at the State Public Institution).
• As a member of the Nizhny Novgorod City Council, he also engaged in charity work, donating to the city not only cash, but also his houses.

• Steamboat Dynasties: Seebeck
• Buildings of the Seebeck Shipping Company
• Steamboats Zebeke: failed "brown water battleships"
• Steamboats of the land empire: how the fleet developed the Russian economy
• Dangerous trips abroad Vasily (William) Alfonsovich Zeveke
• Volga steamboats in the photographs of Vasily Alfonsovich Zeveke