84 Kuibysheva St., Samara, Samara Oblast, Russia, 443099
130 years ago, on July 13, 1883, the trustee of the “Brothers Nobel” Oil Production Partnership, Alexander Ivanovich Werner, submitted a petition to the Samara City Administration requesting a site on the banks of the Volga River for the installation of oil tanks. This marked the beginning of the oil company’s development of the Samara market.
It has not yet been possible to establish a more precise date of its opening from archival documents; however, it is known that on July 13 of the same year, the company’s trustee Alexander Werner submitted a petition to the city administration requesting land for oil reservoirs on the spit of the Samara River, near the village of Shchepnovka. Therefore, the office most likely opened at the end of that year or at the very beginning of the next, 1884. Soon, a railway branch was laid to the warehouses on the river spit, and then the Samara district of the partnership was created, to which all company facilities located in the Samara province became subordinate.
In August 1884, the second oil base of the Nobel brothers in the region was opened near the village of Batraki. Here, as in Samara, oil-loading piers for the partnership’s tankers were soon built on the Volga’s shore, connected to the Samara-Zlatoust railway line. Within a few years, these points became some of the largest transshipment stations in Russia. Petroleum products delivered from the Caucasus via the Volga were transferred to the railway and then distributed throughout Russia and abroad.
It is also necessary to mention another, no less important aspect of the Nobel brothers’ business in Russia. Until now, very little has been said in literature about their social responsibility toward the emerging working class. Meanwhile, it was the “Brothers Nobel Partnership” that first demonstrated to all Russian society a new, European type of relationship between capitalists and the hired personnel of a large industrial company. The owners treated their workers and employees not only or primarily as instruments for profit but also as partners in a common business, whose interests deserved care and respect.
In addition to piers, storage tanks for petroleum products, underground pipelines, and other production facilities, residential houses for permanent staff, fire stations, canteens, bathhouses, workshops, and temporary dormitories for tanker sailors were immediately built in each such settlement. Later, many villages acquired water supply and electricity, and schools and kindergartens began to be built. Since 1885, the Nobel town in Tsaritsyn started laying its own telephone network. It should be noted that even in Saint Petersburg, widespread telephone installation began only four years earlier.
At that time, creating social infrastructure around one’s enterprise was a completely new concept in organizing industrial production in Russia. How such infrastructure worked in practice can be illustrated by the example of Samara.
The office of the “Brothers Nobel Oil Production Partnership” was established in 1883 when the city administration allocated land on the Volga’s bank for oil reservoirs. Soon, piers for the partnership’s tankers were built there, connected by separate branches to the nearest stations of the Samara-Zlatoust railway.
In 1885, the partnership’s agent, Khilske, participated in a tender for the city’s lighting rights, estimating the maintenance of one street lamp at 10 rubles. The lowest bid was made by Dochar — 8 rubles 80 kopecks. Merchant Moisey Lazarevich Boberman asked for two rubles more. However, Dochar had previously been accused of poor city lighting. Boberman did it much better than his predecessor. The city council deputies chose him. Possibly, the “Nobel man” was simply not trusted with such a responsible task, as the partnership was just establishing itself in the service market. But the “Brothers” operated so successfully that soon American kerosene was pushed out of the Samara province market, and all oil traders switched to selling kerosene produced in Baku.
The Nobel managers responsible for personnel selection apparently knew their business well. Their agents on site were distinguished by their ability to competently assess the situation and see prospects. In 1888, freight traffic was opened on the railway branch laid along the Samara riverbank to the Volga. The road reached only the edge of the shore, which was not flooded during high water. Soon, a request was submitted to the Samara City Duma by a Nobel agent asking to lease 200-300 sazhen of the Volga riverbank to lay railway tracks to the existing road. Agents of other oil companies followed his example. Thus, a network of railway tracks appeared on the spit, allowing petroleum products to be loaded directly from tanks into railway tank cars. However, the partnership was not known for generosity. In 1891, famine struck the Samara province again. The Samara branch of the Red Cross Society collected funds to help those in need. The Nobel oil office donated only two rubles. For comparison, merchant Kurlin donated a thousand rubles.
Only technical services of oil companies were located on the spit. Their offices were situated in the city in rented premises. For example, the “Brothers Nobel” partnership office once operated in the Shadrina house at the corner of Zavodskaya and Voskresenskaya streets (now Ventseka and Pionerskaya). Then it moved to Pokidyshev’s house on Voskresenskaya. During World War I, it occupied premises at house No. 84 on Dvoryanskaya Street (now Kuibyshev).
By 1914, six one- and two-story residential houses with stove heating had already been built at the “Brothers Nobel Partnership” warehouses in Samara, housing 10 apartments for employees and more than 20 separate rooms for workers, who could use shared kitchens. The base had a water supply system fed from its own well. Moreover, water supply and sewage pipes had been installed even into specialists’ apartments, which was an unprecedented luxury in early 20th-century Samara. And this was not counting the canteen and other household facilities.
The settlement of the “Brothers Nobel Partnership,” created at the oil warehouse near the Batraki railway station, was no less well equipped. In addition to housing, water supply, bathhouse, and canteen, it also had its own medical station and hospital ward, which served as a cholera barrack during epidemics. The company’s ship crews unloading there could spend the night in a dormitory designed for 20 people, although in some cases up to 50 sailors stayed. During their stay, they could wash and dry their clothes, visit the bathhouse, and use barber services.
Salaries of the “Brothers Nobel Partnership” branch personnel were quite high for the early 20th century. For example, Iosif Baranov, head of the Samara district, earned 6,000 rubles a year. His assistant, Ivan Zolotnitsky, received 3,600 rubles; sales agents earned from 2,000 to 2,600 rubles; accountants, clerks, and secretaries earned from 900 to 1,600 rubles annually, depending on qualifications and experience.
However, the working class was paid monthly rather than annually. Stokers and sailors of the partnership’s ships earned from 20 to 40 rubles; machinists and mechanics earned from 40 to 60 rubles, regardless of whether the ship was in winter layup or sailing in summer. During the navigation period, crews received a salary bonus of 5 to 10 rubles per month.
At that time, these were very good wages, roughly equal to the salary of a qualified factory worker. For comparison, in 1914, a pound of black bread cost 3 kopecks, a pound of white bread 5 kopecks, a pound of meat from 8 to 20 kopecks depending on quality, a bottle of ordinary vodka 50 kopecks, a bottle of “Smirnovskaya” vodka 2 rubles 50 kopecks, an average suit about 10-15 rubles, and a three-piece suit up to 50 rubles.
Sources:
https://историческая-самара.рф/каталог/самарские-тайны-хх-века/1912-год.html
