Nikolay Alexandrovich Vtorov (1866-1918) was a Russian businessman, notable as Russia's wealthiest man on the eve of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 (60 million roubles in gold, according to a 2006 Forbes

Forbes

Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...

 study which excluded the ruling House of Romanov).

Nikolay owed his fortune to his father, Alexander Vtorov, a successful Irkutsk

Irkutsk

Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...

 businessman who set up a trans-Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

n retail shopping network. Upon his death in 1911, Alexander Vtorov's net worth was estimated at 13.6 million roubles; it passed to Nikolay and his lesser-known brother, who had lived in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 since 1897. Nikolay Vtorov used his father's fortune to take over numerous banks and manufacturing companies; his aggressive takeover policies earned him the nickname of "the Russian Morgan

J. P. Morgan

John Pierpont Morgan was an American financier, banker and art collector who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation during his time. In 1892 Morgan arranged the merger of Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston Electric Company to form General Electric...

". He has been called "the first to break the age-old traditions in favor of a rational and intelligent organization of commercial business."

Upon Russia's entry into World War I, Vtorov became one of the major military contractors for the tsarist government, amassing huge state subsidies to build new manufacturing plants in central Russia; he was de facto defense industry manager for the whole of the Moscow region. Vtorov's largest wartime projects, inherited by the Soviet regime, are still in operation:

• Zavod Imeni Likhacheva
  Zavod Imeni Likhacheva
  Zavod imeni Likhachova, more commonly called ZIL is a major Russian truck and heavy equipment manufacturer, which also produced armored cars for most Soviet leaders, as well as buses, armored fighting vehicles, and aerosani...
  
   (Originally AMO truck company)
• City of Elektrostal
  Elektrostal
  Elektrostal , known as Zatishye until 1938, is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of Moscow. Population: 135,000 ; 123,000 ; 97,000 ; 43,000 . Town status was granted to it in 1938.-Industry:...
  
   (former Zatishye) foundries and defense plants
• City of Noginsk
  Noginsk
  Noginsk is a town and the administrative center of Noginsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of the MKAD ring road on the Klyazma River. Population:...
  
   (former Bogorodsk) foundries and defense plants

Lesser-known Vtorov plants are still operating all over the city of Moscow. Many have been converted into offices and shopping malls.

Vtorov stayed in Russia after the 1917 Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

 and pledged loyalty to the Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

regime, but was murdered in 1918; the exact circumstances of his death remain unknown.