Nikolai Vtorov

Born Apr. 15 (27), 1866, in Irkutsk; died 1918. A representative of the Russian financial oligarchy.

Vtorov’s oldest enterprise, the association of A. F. Vtorov and Sons, was founded by his father in 1870 in Siberia. It carried on substantial manufactory trade and had 15 branches. During the industrial upsurge of 1909-13, Vtorov founded the Joint-stock Society for Domestic and Foreign Trade. Just before World War I (1914-18), Vtorov established contact with the capitalist P. P. Riabushinskii. During the war years, with the help of government financing, he took an active part in the construction of three factories for artillery ammunition, the Elektrostal’ plant, and the Amo motor vehicle plant, as well as a series of chemical enterprises in Moscow. In 1916, Vtorov created the Moscow Industrial Bank, with capital of 30 million rubles. Among the next to fall under his control and influence were the Moscow Railway Car Plant, three cement enterprises of the Moscow industrial area, and large metallurgical enterprises in southern Russia. By 1917 his holdings formed one of the largest concerns in Russia (on its composition, see Istoricheskie zapiski [Historical Notes], vol. 66, 1960, p. 95). Vtorov’s yearly profits in 1916-17 were estimated at 100 and 150 million rubles.