The King of Vodka (20 page)

I
n the twilight of his life, Smirnov continued to oversee his business operations and go about his daily routines. But more and more he turned his attention to other pressing concerns: his family, his inevitable death, and his ensuing legacy. His commercial and financial affairs needed more ordering, and his philanthropy, already sizable, demanded one more major initiative—or so Smirnov thought. His sons and daughters, who had thus far produced a dozen grandchildren, still had complicated issues to resolve. Smirnov may not have seen it coming, but as 1897 came into view, he entered one of the most unsettling periods of his life.

Rumblings of the turmoil began even before Nizhniy Novgorod. Aleksandra, Smirnov's youngest daughter and Mariya's only girl, reluctantly accompanied her parents to the exhibition, more out of duty than genuine desire. Smirnov and Mariya, in a show of steely determination, had given her no choice in the matter.

By the time she was nineteen years old, Aleksandra had
grown into a glamorous young lady. She had wide, gray-blue eyes and a thick mop of wonderfully curly hair, which she styled according to the latest European trends. Her lips and body were full and voluptuous, giving her an innocent sensuality. She was charming, too, displaying a natural vibrancy. Aleksandra was indeed her mother's daughter, independent and thrillingly passionate.

It would have been hard for Aleksandra to imagine that any yearning in her young life could not be fulfilled. Like her siblings, she had experienced nothing but privilege. Her schooling revolved around all the fundamentals of good breeding, including music, art, foreign language, and literature. She traveled a lot, too, according to passport records, both for pleasure and out of necessity. For example, when she was diagnosed with an eye disorder as a young girl, Aleksandra went abroad in 1890 with her mother to find a cure.
¹
Aleksandra's affliction probably inspired her father to become a primary benefactor of an eye clinic in Moscow.

She seemed the model daughter, and it was assumed she would follow the lead of her sisters, who had selected worthy men and then slid comfortably into the traditional ranks of high society. Vera, Nataliya, Mariya, and Glafira all married sons of prominent merchants. Nataliya married Konstantin Bakhrushin, a member of the well-known family who later founded the Bakhrushin Theater Museum in Moscow. Mariya's first husband was Pyotr Rastorguyev, a member of a prominent merchant dynasty. Her second husband, Mikhail Komissarov, was also well respected and adept at business. And Glafira married Aleksander Abrikosov, heir to a candy empire.

Then came Aleksandra. In the spring of 1896, just a few months before the exhibition began, Aleksandra met a man more than twenty years her senior. Devilishly handsome and suave, he appealed to her instantly. His name was Martemyan Nikanorovich Borisovskiy. His family of merchants had been
well respected and wealthy. The Borisovskiys owned a sugar refinery and a small textile factory, but a bad business deal and falling sugar prices had reversed their good fortune, plunging the family into bankruptcy. They were devastated, forced to sell their estate and close their factory. Borisovskiy's father despaired while his son turned to more frivolous pursuits.

Martemyan was a drinker, a gambler, a debtor, and a cad. He was also married. According to a contemporary merchant who knew him, Martemyan “didn't possess elementary or basic notions of honesty.”
²
He was a regular on Moscow's party circuit, known to drink prodigiously at breakfast, and to seduce unsuspecting women at will, using deceit and a smarmy charm to get his way. It was rumored that Martemyan took a girl up to the belfry of a church located at the Kremlin where, in an act of utter blasphemy, he made advances on her. After this, according to his contemporary, Borisovskiy was caught and forced to marry the girl.
³

None of this debauched behavior, however, could derail the budding romance between Martemyan and Aleksandra. According to several personal letters Martemyan sent to Aleksandra between 1896 and 1897, the relationship unfolded routinely. He began to call on Aleksandra at Smirnov's home. The visits were formal, chaperoned most often by Mariya. Relations between the Smirnovs and Aleksandra's suitor were cordial and friendly. Once the Smirnovs realized the couple had more than friendship on their minds, they made inquiries around town about Martemyan. They quickly learned of his wretched reputation. Still, it appears that Martemyan was struck by the support the Smirnovs continued to demonstrate. In one letter he wrote,
“I [Martemyan] still can't understand why, after all this unpleasant feedback about me, your father talked to me so willingly. Your mama also seems to have a liking for me. It means that they do not believe the wicked people who want to blacken my reputation. It means that everything may be arranged on mutual agreement.”
4 In another,
Martemyan refers to Mariya as their “guardian angel,” an ally in their quest for true love.

Within a few weeks, the couple openly expressed their feelings to one another—and to their families. Aleksandra, unable to contain her ardor, disclosed her devotion to Martemyan to her parents, believing they would yield to her desires. Borisovskiy made plans to divorce his wife and pledged to renounce his playboy lifestyle: “
Before I met you I lived like a pig because, as you know, I expected nothing from life and did anything I wanted to do…. I led an immoral life”
(April 8, 3
AM
). In a letter eleven days later, Martemyan declared, “
Though I have had many affairs when I was young I've never really loved anybody. And I love you, not for your appearance but for your wonderful soul, which shines through your wonderful eyes. I even feel fear. I've never looked at a woman the way I look at you. And you are not just a woman but a goddess embodied in a woman”
(April 19, 1
AM
).

The Smirnovs were not swayed by Martemyan's poetic pronouncements nor were they convinced that Aleksandra was anything more than an innocent girl behaving rashly under the influence of an unscrupulous, manipulative man. They viewed Martemyan as a poor match for her, a scoundrel who would bring nothing but scandal to them and unhappiness to Aleksandra. Even though they forbid her to see him, the Smirnovs knew how headstrong their daughter was. From letters, it looks as if Mariya paid off Martemyan's wife, getting her to contest a divorce that had been thought to be an already closed matter. Martemyan wrote to Aleksandra about his outrage.
“Somebody, probably somebody from your family, gave money to my ex-wife to start a lawsuit against me. She hired a lawyer, some Jew man, and now he plays mean tricks on me…. He insists on delays in my divorce, on receiving lots of papers concerning my finished divorce. He appealed the decision. He wants all the witnesses to be interrogated again in his presence. It's disgusting!”
(Case 497, #100, June 3, 5
PM
).

At the same time, Mariya, likely in collaboration with her
husband, pursued an alternative, riskier strategy. She approached Martemyan. Still a beauty herself and about the same age as her daughter's suitor, she tried to seduce Martemyan, hoping to elicit direct, incontrovertible evidence from him about his base, unchanged character. He wrote to Aleksandra about the incident. “
M. N. [Mariya Nikolayevna]…wanted not to make a son-in-law out of me but a lover. She was cruelly disappointed in her aspirations and will probably start looking for a partner for a fun pastime outside the house. Then you'll have more freedom”
(#87, May 22, 11
PM
).

The niceties practiced during the first days of the courtship had vanished. Martemyan only had his all-adoring mother and father to spur him on in his quest for a Smirnov. They embraced their son's relationship with Aleksandra, according to several letters his mother wrote to Aleksandra, seeing the girl as a more-than-suitable match for Martemyan. She would bring money, respectability, and renewed stature to her son and his family. Moreover, she believed Martemyan genuinely loved Aleksandra and would make her a good husband. She wrote, “
Believe me, my Mortya
[a nickname for Martemyan]
is a very good, very kind boy. He will always love you. And I love you beforehand. And his father also loves you…. It is such a pity that your parents oppose your love so much. I don't understand them. You will live with Mortya, not them”
(Case 497).

Martemyan's anger grew as each day brought more frustrations. In his letters, he expressed his raw hatred for the Smirnovs as well as his fears that they would try to force Aleksandra into abandoning him for another more suitable partner. “
Your parents will definitely exert every effort to make you interested in a fiancé who would be more favorable to them”
(Case 496, #21, April 19, 1
AM
). Then later:

Martemyan's rants directly aimed at Mariya were just as visceral—and more pointed. “
Let her go to hell,”
he wrote (Case 497, #172, June 20).

Pyotr Petrovich, Aleksandra's half brother, was the one Smirnov for whom Martemyan had kind words. Aleksandra confided her troubles to her older brother, begging him to help her find a way to circumvent her parents' opposition. She believed the younger Pyotr would be sympathetic to her predicament given his own struggles with their father over a married lover. From Martemyan's letters, it is certain that Pyotr met with him and promised to assist the couple in their quest. “
What a pleasant person! How he took our problem so close to his heart.”
⁵
It's not clear what, if anything, the younger Smirnov managed to accomplish on his sister's behalf. He may not have had much opportunity to help. When it became evident that Aleksandra would not easily relinquish her love affair, Smirnov and Mariya decided to get their daughter out of Moscow and away from Martemyan. Their strategy, at least in part, was aided by coincidental good timing. A series of trips was already on the calendar that spring—from the Nizhniy Novgorod exhibition to a visit to Smirnov's boyhood village in the Yaroslavl province. The vodka maker had ached to return to his roots and build a cathedral, an act that
was thought to justify wealth and alleviate the sin of capitalism. For this deed, Smirnov chose Potapovo, a village within two miles of his birthplace and roughly 165 miles from Moscow. As a child, Smirnov had attended church there, but the building was now too small to hold all of its worshipers comfortably. It was also old, having been erected in 1757, and it needed major repair and renovation. The new structure commissioned by Smirnov was to be enormous by comparison. It would be built of stone, contain three altars, five domes, and a modern heating system. Decorative touches, such as iron-curved rods and brick columns, would create a grandness more akin to cathedrals found in the bigger cities than in the rural countryside.
^*
Smirnov spared no expense for this undertaking, donating an estimated 250,000 rubles [more than $3.3 million in today's dollars] from his own pocket.
⁶
And it seemed that Smirnov was proudest of this one project. Local townspeople hailed their native son, treating him as a hero come home.

For the sanctification of the church, Smirnov insisted on Aleksandra's attendance. As it was natural for Smirnov to want his family around him on such a momentous occasion, he could make this demand without seeming overbearing or punitive. Martemyan, though, saw the voyage as an assault on their relationship. His letters reveal the rage he felt when Aleksandra told him she would be going away for many weeks.

In truth, the Smirnovs wanted to keep the couple apart for longer. They had moved their daughter for the summer to their dacha just outside Moscow, hoping Aleksandra would forget about her romance. But she did not. Despite being watched closely by the home's caretakers, Aleksandra and Martemyan managed to see each other repeatedly, infuriating Smirnov. He and Mariya remained steadfast in their opposition to Martemyan and his daughter. By
necessity, though, they dropped their active campaign against the courtship. Perhaps they realized it was a fight they could not win. Or, perhaps, there was simply too much else for which they had to fight.

 

I
N THE SAME
year that Smirnov's church in Potapovo was completed, the state council voted to accelerate the rollout of the vodka monopoly. Minister Witte successfully argued to the state in May 1897 that it was having its intended effects: reducing alcohol consumption, eliminating corruption, improving morality, and lastly, aiding the treasury. It was an easy argument for Witte to make because no one opposed him. In just a few years, the government's take from alcohol sales had climbed more than sevenfold, leaving it with a net profit of 20 million rubles. Smirnov had anticipated as much. But now he was confronted with a definitive timetable. His factory, warehouses, and the heart of his operation would be under the government's full control by 1901. All his elaborate maneuvering and clever strategizing, which had kept the business thriving, would be rendered useless.

Worse still were the results of technical tests undertaken by the Central Chemical Laboratory within the Ministry of Finance in the mid to late 1890s. Trying to determine what vodka recipe the state should adopt when it took over all manufacturing of the spirit, the organization focused on the vodkas produced by twelve private distillers, including Smirnov.
⁷
Scientists took dry residue from the liquors and tested them for a variety of potentially harmful ingredients. Smirnov's vodka, considered among the tastiest of the bunch, was found to have the largest amount of ethyl acetate, a substance that irritates eyes, nose, and throat. “According to the results of the analysis into the production process, it would be difficult to find that P. A. Smirnov's table wine [vodka] was the best, though it is still extremely
popular…. This finding demonstrates that the product's reputation doesn't always depend on the quality. Obviously a very considerable role here belongs to the way a factory distributes its products and on the talent to make a product's appearance more attractive. Very often, the product's reputation depends on its harmonious name, bottle's shape, colorful label, or just a more expensive price of the product.”
⁸