Shamsi Asadullayev

Asadullayev was born in Amirjan village of Baku in 1840. At his early ages, he helped his father in farming business. In the mid 19th century when the oil business started booming, vast territories around Amirjan and Surakhani, on which farmers worked, were bought by Russian businessmen Vasily Kokorev and Peter Gubonin with the purpose of building oil refineries. Remaining with no arable land, many farmers were forced to find work in the oil businesses. Shamsi Asadullayev started working at the refinery. In 1860, he was promoted to Deputy Director to Kokorev. Some time later, he became the subcontractor for oil and salt producers. In 1875, after earning sizable income, he opened a kerosene plant. In 1890, Asadullayev co-founded an oil company with several other producers. In 1891, he purchased three barges to export oil out of Baku to Russia via Caspian Sea.[3] Asadullayev reportedly owned an electricity substation as well.[4]

In early 1890s, he purchased oil rich areas in the outskirts of Baku. In 1895, there was an oil gusher in one of newly acquired territories of Asadullayev which lasted for 56 days. As his oil exports to Russia through Volga River increased, he opened oil refineries in cities located in the export route basin, among them Moscow, Poland, Central Asia, Iran. As his wealth increased, Shamsi Asadullayev made contributions into building the Azerbaijani navy. He also funded construction of mansions in the center of Baku.[3]

Asadullayev became an independent oilman, the owner of his own company in 1893. By 1910, Asadullayev had 37 oil wells, of which 17 produced oil uninterruptedly and in ever-increasing volumes. After the appearance of the Nobel Zoroaster in the Caspian Sea - the first oil tanker in the world - Asadullayev launches three oil tankers - the so-called three “A”: Asia, Africa, America.

Asadullayev was married to an Azerbaijani wife. The couple had five children: Mirza, Ali, Sara, Khadija and Aghabaji. When he married a Russian woman, his children broke off the relationship with their father and he had to move to Moscow in 1903. His Russian wife Marie Goudime-Levkovitch (Moscow, january 26th 1878- ) was the daughter of member of Duma, mother named Prascovie Nicolaieff and father Pierre Lebedeff, having close ties to the Russian tsar.[3]

After Bolshevik takeover of Azerbaijan, Asadullayev fled the country.[5]

He died from sun stroke on April 21, 1913 in Yalta, government of Tauride, Russia.

Shamsi Asadullayev is known as a philanthropist. He allocated funds for the construction of the Baku Real School building (now Azerbaijan State Economic University); established two scholarships of his own name at the Alexander Tiflis Teacher Training Institute, the largest in the Caucasus; presented one of his mansions in Zamoskvorechye to the Moscow Muslim community (House Asadullayev). He paid for studies of several dozen talented young Azerbaijanis in Germany, France, Warsaw, Kazan, Kiev, Moscow, Odessa, St. Petersburg and Kharkov (for example, in 1901, the first Azerbaijani graduated from the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers architect Ziver Bey Akhmedbekov, who became the author of many architectural monuments Baku).

In 1908 - 1912, mining in the fields of Asadullayev ranged from 6 to 8 million pounds per annum (architectural monuments of Baku).[8]

• Asadullayev mansion in Baku. Courtesy of Azerbaijan International. Summer 2004