Recently I have been researching the background to the Moscow Foundling Home, a place which is destined to play a major role in my current work in progress, ‘In the Shadow of the Flames’ (working title). The action of the novel will be set against the background of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812, and in particular his occupation of Moscow, in the autumn of that year.
I have written previously on this site about the Foundling Home. The orphanage was established in the 1770’s by Catherine the Great in imitation of similar institutions elsewhere in Europe, and was intended to cater for the thousands of unwanted children abandoned in Moscow each year. From inception it was a truly enormous undertaking that needed a good deal of funding. One unusual feature was the financial bodies that were set up to meet this need. Initially I found it difficult to find much information on this subject, but eventually I came across an article (1) in the journal Russkii Arkhiv which, although dry and technical, throws light on the organization and progress of the bank during part of its history.
On its inception the foundling home was largely funded by donations from the Emperor and also from private citizens. Notable among the latter was the eccentric mining and metals magnate, Prokofy Demidov, pictured above, who among other things is notorious for having his boots shone with black caviar. It was rapidly realised, however, that relying on charitable donations alone would not guarantee the home’s longer term survival. As a result it was decided to set up one of the first savings and loans banks in Russia, a proportion of the returns from which which would contribute towards the home’s expenses.
Although it got off to a relatively slow start, the Saving Bank’s turnover grew dramatically between 1797 and 1843, increasing over one hundred times. This rise took place during a period when the financial situation of some of the nobility, for various reasons, was in general deteriorating. As a result the number of landowners looking to borrow money against their estates, and indeed against the value of the serfs who populated them, increased rapidly.
As one commentator noted (2) ‘Nobles apparently saw bank loans less as a means to acquire capital to improve their estates than as a way to cover the costs of increased consumption’. Perhaps due to this, a related organization, the Loans Treasury, effectively a pawn broking business, was established. The declared aim of the Treasury was to provide ‘speedy help for those who fell into need and for the protection of all from profligate relations’. To some extent this might be seen as a charitable end in itself. However, due to corrupt management and a need to support landowners following the destruction of their property in the war of 1812, it seems that there was ultimately little in the way of profit from this enterprise available for the foundling home.
Goods of value deposited in return for hard cash at the establishment are recorded in the records as including: gold and silver, diamonds and other jewellery, furs and other clothes, snuffboxes, watches and other luxury goods. This catalogue certainly reflects the fact that the Russian nobility, at least in the 18th Century, included many of the the highest spenders in the whole of Europe.
The first recorded transaction of the Loans Treasury took place on 10th November 1775, when Lieutenant General Ivan Vasiliyevich Levashev deposited three funts of gold and a pood and three funts of silver in return for three thousand three hundred roubles in silver money.
Catherine’s financial establishments lasted into the reign of her grandson, Alexander ll. The Loans Treasury was transferred in 1862 to the Ministry of Finance. I have not been able to discover the fate of the Savings and Loans Bank, but the Moscow Foundling Home itself was disbanded after the Revolution of 1917.
- D Filimonov, Ruskhii Arkhiv (1876) Vol, 1. Page 265-276. Kreditniye uchrezhdeniia moskovskago vospitatel’nago doma.
- George E Munro, Finance and Credit in the Eighteenth Century Russian Economy (1997) (can be sourced through jstor)