Was a member of a well-known merchant dynasty
Savva Mamontov was born in 1841 in the town of Yalutorovsk in the Tobolsk Governorate. His father, Ivan Mamontov, owned a railway company and was a well-read and educated man. The family's ancestors had been freed from serfdom and in the 18th century made their fortune through wine tax farming. Young Savva grew up in an intellectual environment, among amnestied Decembrists who had taken part in the 1812 war, seen Europe and post-revolutionary Paris. This freedom-loving circle influenced the boy's character and left its mark on his later life.
Brothers Fyodor, Anatoly and Savva, 1856. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Preferred the theater to studying
In the late 1840s the Mamontov family moved to Moscow and acquired property. The future millionaire's education was entrusted to hired tutors. His training covered a wide range of sciences and disciplines, but Savva only paid attention to the subjects that interested him. Theater held a special place among his passions — his diaries preserve notes about impressions after performances: the boy described sets, costumes and actors' performances in detail and gave critical assessments of what he saw. Ivan Fedorovich Mamontov feared his son would prefer the theater, but Savva learned to combine his love of the arts with managing the family business.
Could have become an opera singer
Savva graduated from the Law Faculty of Moscow University, and learned the basics of commerce during a business trip to Baku where his father sent him to help with family affairs. Savva showed business acumen, so his father sent him to Milan to establish contacts and conclude contracts with fabric manufacturers. In Milan Savva managed to carry out his father's tasks and also studied singing with leading Italian opera teachers. Possessing a beautiful baritone, he was predicted a stage career and was even accepted into the staff of the Milan Opera, but the family business required his constant presence in Moscow.
Savva Mamontov in his youth
Named his children after himself
During a trip to Italy Savva fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Elizaveta Sapozhnikova. Ivan Fedorovich, convinced of his son's serious intentions, blessed the marriage and gave the young couple a two-story house on Sadovaya-Spasskaya Street. Elizaveta Grigoryevna shared and encouraged her husband's creative interests. The couple had five children, named Sergey, Andrey, Vsevolod, Vera and Alexandra. If you take the first letters of the children's names in the order of their births, they spell the patron's name — SAVVA.
Ilya Yefimovich Repin. Portrait of Elizaveta Grigoryevna Mamontova. 1879
Bought the Abramtsevo estate and made it a center of art
In 1870 Savva Mamontov purchased Abramtsevo — the family estate of the writer Sergey Aksakov, author of The Scarlet Flower — and gave it a new life. The old estate was associated with the names of great writers: here Nikolai Gogol wrote the second volume of Dead Souls, and Turgenev, Maykov and Tyutchev were visitors. The estate needed restoration and considerable investment, but the efforts paid off handsomely — Abramtsevo became a magnet for the creative bohemia. It was at Abramtsevo that Mikhail Vrubel created the famous "Demon" and Viktor Vasnetsov painted masterpieces such as "Alyonushka" and "The Three Bogatyrs," where the prototype for Alyosha Popovich was Mamontov's son Andrey, and the horse was modeled on the Mamontov stud's stallion nicknamed Lis. Valentin Serov painted the iconic "Girl with Peaches" there, for which Savva's daughter Vera posed. Abramtsevo was also the gathering place of the famous Abramtsevo art circle, which included prominent representatives of the Russian intelligentsia: musicians, painters and theatre figures.
Savva Mamontov's Abramtsevo circle
Manor house in Abramtsevo. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Was passionate about sculpture
Savva was not only a gifted musician and singer, but also possessed considerable talent as a painter and sculptor. At Abramtsevo he organized a sculpture workshop, invited the sculptor Mark Matveyevich Antokolsky and took lessons from him. Antokolsky spoke highly of his pupil's work and believed Mamontov could safely devote himself to sculpture. Mamontov's sculptural compositions and majolica are kept in the Abramtsevo museum-reserve.
Organized the Private Russian Opera and made a name for Fyodor Chaliapin
Savva Mamontov always dreamed on a grand scale, so he decided to organize a Private Opera. At first he rented venues for performances, astonishing audiences with sets, costumes and props created from sketches by renowned artists who worked at Abramtsevo. He invited the best graduates of the Moscow Conservatory to his opera: among those who worked with him were Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff. It was Mamontov who discovered Fyodor Chaliapin for the Russian stage, but later their creative paths diverged — Chaliapin joined the Bolshoi Theatre. The entrepreneur considered this a betrayal and even specified in his will that Chaliapin should not be invited to his own funeral. Many years later Chaliapin wrote in his memoirs: "I owe my fame to Savva Ivanovich. I will be grateful to him all my life." At one point Mamontov planned to build his own building with a hotel and a theatre in central Moscow and commissioned the project to the architect William Walcot. The result was the construction of the Hotel "Metropol." The hotel building still plays an important role in shaping the architectural appearance of Theatre Square and Revolution Square and is the largest public building of the Art Nouveau era.
Hotel "Metropol". 1905
Built the world's first railway in the extreme conditions of the Far North
And yet the man with a passionate artistic nature remained an entrepreneur. With the support of Nicholas II and Finance Minister Sergey Witte, Savva Mamontov was able to realize an ambitious project — to lay a northern railway to Arkhangelsk. The work was hard: machinery got stuck in the swamps, embankments were washed away, and there was constantly a shortage of labor. Despite this, the railway was built in a few years. The length of the Vologda–Arkhangelsk line amounted to 596 versts, 155 sazhens, and the estimated cost exceeded 23,000,000 rubles.
Construction of the Vologda–Arkhangelsk line. 1896
Was arrested and went bankrupt
In 1899 Savva Mamontov was unable to repay a bank loan, after which an audit was appointed that revealed irregularities. Searches were carried out in his house on Sadovaya-Spasskaya, property was inventoried and the house sealed. To pay the debts everything had to be sold. The only things that remained with the Mamontovs were the Abramtsevo estate, which had previously been registered in the name of his wife, and a small pottery workshop. Initially Savva Mamontov was placed in a solitary cell in Taganka prison, but through the intervention of Valentin Serov, who was at that time painting a portrait of Nicholas II, the patron was transferred to house arrest. He was helped to freedom by his former classmate from the Law Faculty — the brilliant orator and lawyer Fedor Nikiforovich Plevako. Mamontov was fully acquitted, but he was released bankrupt.
Fedor Plevako and Savva Mamontov
Ended his life in obscurity
The last years of Savva Mamontov's life were darkened by blows of fate: the deaths of a son, a daughter, a grandson and his wife undermined the already fragile mental and physical health of the patron. Friends among the artists helped him — those whom he had once elevated to the heights of the creative Olympus. In 1918 Savva Mamontov died of pneumonia and was buried in the Mamontov family vault at Abramtsevo.
