Tenishev V. N. (1843-1903), entrepreneur

Categories / Economy/Personalia
TENISHEV Vyacheslav Nikolaevich (1843-1903), prince, entrepreneur, patron of arts, and chamberlain (1900). Married to M. K. Tenisheva. He graduated from Polytechnical School in Karlsruhe in 1864. An entrepreneur in the 1870-90s, he was a founding member of Bryansky Rail-Rolling and Iron-Making Mechanical Works in 1873 and member of the board of St. Petersburg International Bank. He owned an electromechanical plant and a store of electrical devices in St. Petersburg. Tenishev was a member of the board of St. Petersburg Conservatory and the chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Museum Society. After he had withdrawn from direct management of industrial enterprises, he devoted himself to science. He established the Ethnographic Bureau in 1898, which served as a scientific centre for collecting and processing information he required to write The Life of Russian Peasant Husbandmen - a work that he never completed. Tenishev financed the construction of Tenishevskoe School to implement his educational ideas. He also financed his wife's charity work. He owned houses at 6 and 14 Angliiskaya Embankment (5 and 13 Galernaya Street) and lived at the latter address. Tenishev's house was a meeting place for St. Petersburg composers and performers, and was frequented by Peter Tchaikovsky, Alexander Scryabin, A. S. Arensky, and others. The house also accommodated a free drawing studio suggested by Ilya Repin and arranged by Princess Tenisheva. Tenishev died during the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 where he served as the General Commissioner of the Russian Section.

Reference: Журавлева Л. С. Ученый предприниматель, меценат Тенишев // ВИ. 1991. № 12. C. 207-211; Вахитова Т. Русский "американец" в Петербурге // Новый журн. 1994. № 2/3. С. 124-172.

V. S. Solomko. Arensky Anton Stepanovich
Repin Ilya Efimovich
Skryabin Alexander Nikolaevich
Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich
Tenishev Vyacheslav Nikolaevich
Tenisheva Maria Klavdievna
Angliiskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 6
Angliiskaya Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 14
Galernaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 13
Galernaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 5
Журавлева Л. С. Ученый предприниматель, меценат Тенишев // Вопр. истории, 1991
Вахитова Т. Русский "американец" в Петербурге // Новый журн., 1994 Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory
Musical Society, The Russian
Tenishev's School
1898