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Title: Vorontsov family papers
Date (inclusive): 1921-1956
Collection Number: 2000C113
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material:
Russian
Physical Description:
7 microfilm reels
(1.1 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Correspondence, financial and legal records, reports, and photographs, relating to Russian émigré forestry and stockraising
business activities in Manchuria and Mongolia.
Creator:
Voront͡sov family
Creator:
Voront͡sov, M. M.
The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual
or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 2000.
[Identification of item], Vorontsov Family Papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Originals in: Museum of Russian Culture, San Francisco.
The Vorontsov brothers were the founders and directors of a major commercial enterprise that bore their name: Firma Brat'ia
Vorontsovy. They began as workers then as contractors in the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1898 and quickly became
monopolists in the supply of timber for the western end of the line. They acquired timber concessions in North Manchuria,
and their employees soon numbered nearly 3,000. By 1925, they entered into a partnership with the Chinese Eastern Railway
and the local Chinese provincial government for the supply of timber, retaining control of operations of the new enterprise
(Khaiminskoe lesopromyshlennoe tovarishchestvo).
In an attempt to create close and reliable food sources for their lumberjacks, they introduced wheat farming, cattle and dairy
production to regions along the western line that had not had any experience of intensive agriculture and cattle breeding.
The success was such that their dairy products found markets as far away as Tsingtao, Shanghai and Dairen. Their promising
sheep-breeding operations, which produced high-quality wool, were disrupted by the events of 1929. In addition to this, in
1917 they began breeding Orlov trotters, in 1924 they opened a winery and distillery, and over the 1920s and 1930s built electrical
stations and saw- and flour-mills at various points. In 1929-1930, they constructed the first commercial refrigerated warehouse
in Harbin.
Many Russian émigrés and countless Chinese found gainful employment thanks to the Vorontsovs' entrepreneurship, but in the
mid-1950s the Chinese government nationalized all their enterprises, depriving their heirs and descendants of the fruits of
the Vorontsov brothers' labors.
This collection comprises the business records of the Vorontsov brothers, who ran forestry, mining and horse-breeding operations
in Manchuria and Mongolia. The records cover the period from the 1920s to the 1950s, when the Chinese government confiscated
their property. The records are supplemented by photographs of forestry and horse-breeding operations as well as of the brothers'
visits to oversee these.
Detailed processing and preservation microfilming for these materials were made possible by a generous grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and by matching funds from the Hoover Institution and Museum of Russian Culture. The grant also
provides depositing a microfilm copy in the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. The original materials remain in the Museum
of Russian Culture, San Francisco as its property. A transfer table indicating corresponding box and reel numbers is available
at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
The Hoover Institution assumes all responsibility for notifying users that they must comply with the copyright law of the
United States (Title 17 United States Code) and Hoover Rules for the Use and Reproduction of Archival Materials.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Russians -- Mongolia
Russians -- China -- Manchuria