The King of Vodka (21 page)

The revelation was insulting. Smirnov had always strived to offer the highest quality products at the most reasonable prices, and he had a long list of awards and honors to prove it. He repeatedly demonstrated that he cared about the purity of the ingredients used in his recipes. He had even responded to the criticisms lobbed his way from earlier studies, which had found too much fusel oil in his liquor. He had changed his manufacturing method to address the concern, greatly increasing the amount of birch charcoal he used to filter his spirit. The charcoal absorbed fusel oil and gave the vodka a smoother, more pleasant taste. Smirnov used between ten and thirteen pounds of charcoal per pail, an amount that was significantly greater than what was used by other vodka makers.
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The switch had done its job, ridding Smirnov's vodka of almost all traces of fusel oil. More and more, other vodka makers adopted more modern methods for rectifying their spirits, which produced more purified liquor, while Smirnov deliberately stuck to the old system.

That Smirnov's vodka was not proven to be the best or most pure in Russia by the government's scientists would have been an enormous blow to Smirnov. Rumors were not flying about his products being harmful or subpar. Indeed, the chemical report was solely for the state's use and not publicly disseminated. And Smirnov would not lose his large customer base, at least not immediately. Even the Imperial Court was still a big buyer, placing an order for almost 9,000 bottles of Smirnov's vodka in 1897.
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Vodka was a regular fixture at the tsar's table, particularly during the lunchtime meal when it was said that Nikolay II
himself drank two full wineglasses of it. But the coming monopoly coupled with the government's finding forced Smirnov to see that his vodka, responsible for the largest chunk of his profits, would not likely survive beyond 1901. If the state had chosen to adopt his recipe, he could have argued that it was his vodka alone that sat on the tables of Russian citizens long after his death. But now it would not be so.

 

S
MIRNOV HAD SOME
hard choices to make. Russia was changing. The labor movement, still not unified or all-mighty, was nonetheless gaining momentum. Intellectuals had begun joining the ranks of workers, aiding and organizing them in their quest for better treatment. Strikes at factories throughout the country were becoming as common as borscht—as were the government's harsh crackdowns. The Imperial Palace was increasingly intolerant of the dissent, enacting a series of decrees to combat the unrest. First, it issued an order that outlawed the printing or publication of any materials relating to the labor movement, factory conditions, salaries, or negative attitudes toward employers. Then local authorities were instructed on how to suppress agitators. Police were to keep close watch over factories and their workers, paying particular attention to intellectuals who sat among the rank and file disseminating antigovernment propaganda. Meetings of workers were strictly prohibited, and anyone found to be inciting protests, peaceful or otherwise, was to be arrested. Lenin, among many other radicals, became a high-profile example. In 1897 he was arrested and sent into exile in Siberia.

Smirnov himself had escaped the taint of the labor problem. His workers never went on strike and, like many in his industry, he had upgraded the benefits his employees received, offering medical care, housing, and modern conveniences such as electricity.
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Still, he could see that the business climate overall was growing more unstable. This realization, combined with the
advancing government initiatives against his own industry and enterprise, convinced Smirnov that it was time to galvanize his three eldest sons. He would need them, unified, in the battle for long-term survival.

Smirnov did not delay. He pushed ahead to see that Pyotr would have the necessary social status to step into his own well-polished shoes. Proper standing within the greater community, Smirnov had learned long ago, could be a great asset to commerce, and the younger Smirnov had already racked up an impressive string of qualifications. He had joined the boards of several of his father's charities, including the Moscow Council of Children Orphanages, the Moscow Committee on Beggars, and the parish at John the Baptist church. He still lacked an order, though, an incontrovertible symbol of a much-revered, lofty reputation. Smirnov joined his son in petitioning the Moscow Merchants Administration in 1897 for an order.
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As was the custom, the committee requested numerous reference letters stating that Pyotr was worthy of such a distinction. The letters came in, but they were not what father and son had envisioned. In typical Russian fashion, several of them questioned the younger Smirnov's readiness, stating that he seemed to rely on his father's position instead of earning honors himself. The letter from the Moscow Exchange Committee, which oversaw the Moscow Stock Exchange, was particularly pointed. “I notify the State Chamber that the hereditary honorable citizen P. P. Smirnov, being only twenty-seven years old, was not and could not be recommended to any order or sign of excellence by the Exchange Committee because his activity in the trade world not only is not outstanding but is unknown. Further, before this year, he had no independent significance and has been one of P. A. Smirnov's directors for only one year.”
¹³

The negative comments may have been an outgrowth of Smirnov's choice years earlier to concentrate on aristocratic institutions for his accolades rather than those dominated by
merchants. He had indeed participated in only those merchant activities that were essential to his business interests—and nothing more. Consequently, the Moscow Exchange Committee, ruled by eminent merchants, might have relished the chance to reject Smirnov and his son.

Still, Smirnov forged ahead. He filed a petition with Witte's office in 1897, asking that his company be allowed to expand its board of directors from three members to four. The change was necessary, he explained, due to the increasingly complicated business environment in Russia and abroad. Vladimir was selected to become the company's fourth director while older brother Nikolay, still undoubtedly a question in Smirnov's mind, joined as a member of the revision committee.
¹⁴
Mariya remained a shareholder, and Smirnov himself retained solid control of his company, keeping all but seventeen of the six hundred shares issued. This structure gave board members a voice in business affairs but kept any real decisions from being enacted without Smirnov's personal agreement.

That both Vladimir and Nikolay were brought into the inner circle of the company suggests that Smirnov's views toward his sons' suitability had softened. It was not so much that the two had reformed. But they had started to take on the appearance of respectability. Both agreed to marriages supported by their father that were possibly based on practical concerns rather than love. Nikolay's wife, a little-known woman by the name of Darya Nikolayevna, offered him stability. His wayward conduct also seemed to be more under control. According to his brothers, his drinking, gambling, and prodigious spending decreased during this time.
¹⁵
Vladimir married Mariya Gavrilovna Shushpanova. From all accounts it was an unhappy coupling, one that Vladimir entered to satisfy the elder Smirnov's hunger for the appearance of harmony.

All of Smirnov's children seemed to crave their father's ap
proval. They were willing to do almost anything for him regardless of the personal sacrifice. Even rebellious Aleksandra seemed to be easing away from the stranglehold Martemyan had on her. The two were still engaged, but it looked as though Aleksandra's commitment to the union was waning. In a succinct letter sent to Aleksandra in late 1897, Martemyan lashed into her for speaking to another man in public. “
This made me really angry. I demand your complete obedience and ask that you live your life according to my directions. Otherwise, I don't know what will come next!
”
¹⁶

Meanwhile, Smirnov's health was now failing, as evidenced by a request he made to the Moscow Court Administration in April 1898, which oversaw the Kremlin churches where Smirnov had served as church warden. He had held the position since 1892, enjoying the associated respect and reverence. Now, Smirnov was concerned that he lacked the energy necessary to fulfill his responsibilities. “As a consequence of my unhealthy condition, I have no ability to carry out the position of church warden of the Moscow Court Cathedrals: Blagoveshchenskiy and Verkhospasskiy,” wrote Smirnov, asking that the archpriest find a replacement.
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Death may have been in sight. Smirnov could wait no longer to craft his last will and testament. According to a report in the Russian edition of
Forbes
in 2005, Smirnov was one of the richest men in Russia by the end of the nineteenth century.
¹⁸
His name appeared on a list dominated by such textile titans as the Tretyakovs, Prokhorovs, and Konovalovs and also included more than a dozen multimillionaires whose origins, like the vodka king's, harkened back to peasantry or serfdom. Smirnov's assets, estimated from official sources at roughly 10 million rubles (the equivalent of $133 million today), were numerous, including property, artifacts, and commercial interests. Smirnov may have been even wealthier, underestimating his worth for political and economic reasons. Nonetheless,
distributing such bounty was a delicate matter—and not something Smirnov could entrust to anyone else.

His legacy was a crucial objective for a man who had spent a lifetime molding an image about which he was so obviously proud. Perhaps that is why Smirnov made the decision, unusual for merchants of his stature, to retain all his assets within the family and leave nothing to charitable causes. It was a decision many aristocrats criticized: “When Smirnov died, note was duly taken of the fact he left none of his money to charity.”
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Smirnov must have had his reasons. He may have figured that the vodka monopoly and temperance movement left his sons with little opportunity for future growth. They might then need all he had acquired to prosper in the coming Russia.

Smirnov invited Andrey Andreyevich Pol, a known notary he had used before, to his home by the Cast Iron Bridge. His will, which relied on the bonds of blood and a protective measure or two, was ready to receive his signature. The bulk of his assets would be disbursed evenly between his wife and five sons, including thirteen-year-old Sergey and nine-year-old Aleksey. They would split the real estate as well as the stock in Smirnov's company. Mariya retained the right to live in the Moscow residence and had full use of the dachas. She was also given sole ownership of all the contents of Smirnov's homes, including “icons, pictures, gold, silver, bronze and metal objects, furniture, horses, carriages, harnesses and other equipment relating to the horses and carriages.” His five daughters were allotted 30,000 rubles each, and 40,000 rubles was set aside to cover Smirnov's burial expenses. A gift of one month's salary was provided for most employees.
²⁰

There was one catch to Smirnov's equitable distribution. His sons could not receive their shares in the company until reaching the age of thirty-five. “While exercising the rights granted to them by the charter of the company, none of my sons has
the right to either alienate or mortgage their acquired shares of stock until they achieve the indicated age.” The intent was to prevent infighting among the sons as well as the possibility that one of them might try to sell his interest in the business to an outsider, and it was sound reasoning. If only events had unfolded more predictably, it just might have worked.

A
s winter approached in 1898, the house by the Cast Iron Bridge was devoid of its usual commotion. Muffled chatter among family members and servants periodically broke the quiet, but otherwise, a somber stillness settled in. Smirnov refused to see doctors any longer. He was dying.

In recent months Smirnov's face seemed to have literally deflated, thinning and lengthening like taffy does when it is pulled. It was thicker at the forehead and chin, but the cheeks were sunken and pale. Photos show that his eyes, which once blazed, now glowed like small embers. They were encased by bags so heavy and pronounced that Smirnov's gaze was perpetually weary. Even his hair, a once abundant fixture, had lost its luster and heft. The man's body and soul were vanishing, it seemed, one cell at a time.

Reports differ on exactly what ailed Smirnov. Undoubtedly, he was suffering from a debilitating heart condition. The official cause of death was recorded as congestive heart failure, but the memoirs of Vladimir's third wife reveal that
he may have been in a far more precarious state toward the end of his life. “Pyotr Arsenievich had a stroke. He was virtually paralyzed, spoke unclearly, and could not use his legs,” wrote Tatiana Smirnova-Maksheyeva.
¹
Whatever his precise physical condition, dying for Smirnov had taken on a quality he had not known since his days as a serf. It was inefficiency. Dying was an infuriatingly plodding exercise—nothing like the workmanlike crispness Smirnov had embraced throughout adulthood. The dullness of it, and the dread, for much of 1898, consumed the Smirnovs.

On an unusually warm day in late November, the stillness in Smirnov's home crackled. The wait had ended—Smirnov lay motionless, dead in his bed. Almost immediately, the commemoration of his unusual and unexpected life story began. Saluting the vodka maker's sixty-seven-year voyage was a national affair, involving representatives from all walks of life. There were his ties to the Imperial Palace, his relations with the clergy, and his notoriety among merchants and community leaders. For the masses, though, the remembrances came in another form. For them, Smirnov had stood out as an icon, an authentic example that rising up from the lowliest echelons of society was a possibility. Even in tsarist Russia, with its autocratic rules and entrenched social hierarchy, capitalism and capitalists could flourish, even those with peasant roots.

Crowds assembled to bid their farewells on what turned out to be a bitterly cold and snowy day in early December. They came and went, as Smirnov's passing was noted, his afterlife prayed for. Mariya, dressed in all black, played her wifely role well. She, too, was known in Moscow circles and, still a relatively young woman, attracted her share of attention. What would Mariya Smirnova do now? Would she remarry? How would she spend all that money?

The questions were frivolous and obvious, although little else that transpired afterward was. Smirnov had been meticulous in the preparations of his will. He had selected three executors:
his son-in-law Konstantin Petrovich Bakhrushin, a wealthy and notoriously fat man; Nikolay Venediktovich Smirnov, a trusted cousin from the Yaroslavl province; and Grigoriy Yakovlevich Arsentyev, a merchant's son whom he had known for many years.
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But within weeks of Smirnov's death, Bakhrushin inexplicably withdrew from his charge as executor.
³
He cited no specific reasons for the unusual move in court documents, but the fact that he did so suggests that trouble may have been already brewing within the Smirnov family—trouble that Bakhrushin, who was married to Smirnov's daughter Nataliya, preferred to stay far from.

One clue to Bakhrushin's bizarre behavior emerged within weeks of his withdrawal. Smirnov had divided his real estate holdings into six equal parts, giving a sixth to each of his five sons and to his wife. Smirnov stipulated, however, that his boys could not take ownership of the properties until after Mariya's death. Nonetheless, the two remaining executors petitioned the court on behalf of Smirnov's sons asking that they be allowed to inherit their portions of the real estate immediately. This bequest included shares in the Cast Iron Bridge mansion and the family's dachas.
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The executors did not explain why the Smirnov sons were in such a hurry, but one possibility is that both Vladimir and Nikolay may have needed more capital to fund their carefree lifestyles, and Pyotr sought more financial independence and personal control over the vodka business. Sergey and Aleksey were too young to have opinions of their own or much input. The request was rejected by the court, which saw no reason to alter Smirnov's wishes so soon after his death.

As it turned out, the Smirnov sons need not have bothered with their request. In what was one of the most unexpected turn of events, Mariya contracted meningitis and fell into a feverish stupor, unable to carry out even the simplest tasks. Prior to her illness, she had valiantly stepped into her husband's former role as the elder statesperson in the family. It was Mariya who had
provided stability and maturity, a strong hand corralling the unwieldy Smirnov brood into something resembling functional. It was Mariya who had demanded respect for the vodka maker's memory, who controlled the direction of Smirnov's legacy.

Now she was powerless. Less than four months after Smirnov's death, Mariya died on March 7, 1899. As with her husband, newspapers carried prominent announcements about her passing. The typeface was large and surrounded by thick framing. Most of the news was perfunctory, noting the date and time of the funeral. She would be buried March 9 next to her husband, memorialized in the same church he had been. Smirnov's shops, warehouses, and factory would be closed out of respect. The
Moscow Sheet,
a paper read mostly by the lower classes, addressed Mariya's death more creatively. She was a curiosity of sorts for its readers, a wealthy, high-profile widow who was a prime target for gossip seekers. The
Sheet
took full advantage, publishing a fictional, largely inaccurate conversation between two women:

That peace soon disappeared: Smirnov was dead; Mariya was dead; the twentieth century was dawning—and nothing would ever be the same.