Бесплатный фрагмент - Ravens in the Snow

Sunset of the day,

Two ravens feeling chills

Pecking snow.

Udo Tooru, Japanese poet, diplomat

Alfred von Vacano and his Oriental collection

Abstract

The book is dedicated to the collection of Japanese artifacts owned by Samara Regional Art Museum originally collected by Alfred von Vacano (1846–1929), an Austrian entrepreneur who established a brewery in Samara back in 1881, highlights possible reasons which drove Vacano to acquire Eastern treasures, destiny of the collection through 100-years period.

Intro

It was almost 30 years ago — 1994 — being a 2nd year student of MGIMO University I visited Samara for the first time. There was a children theater festival to which a Japanese producer was coming to partake and my job was to attend him with translation assistance. During some free time local theater Director kindly showed us around the city — got into Stalin’s bunker created in Winter 1941 when German army was in some 30 km from Moscow; had excursion around Samara Art Museum. It was one moment that stroke me and stuck in memory for decades — a plate near one wardrobe wrote «Ryukyu». It was the first ever thing from Ryukyu» I ever saw by that time. After freezing for a few seconds I followed the procession which already when to another hall.

The wardrobe was somewhere in my subconsciousness every time I visited Samara later as a manager of a Japanese trading company during 22 years service until I became a freelancer in October 2021. Among the directions I planned to take up on my own was translation of some Museum Artifacts. After writing a message to Samara Museum about the wardrode was surprised to receive a swift reply they had a significant number of artifacts from Japan which never been translated, my help my be timely. That time the name of Alfred von Vacano popped up for the first time…

Entrepreneurs-patrons of the art and collecting of oriental art in Russia in the crossing of XIX — XX centuries

One of the features of 2nd half of XIX century was high interest towards oriental art: after opening of Japan in 1853 a flow of paintings, vases, tea utensils, smoking pots, furniture and other necessities in oriental style streamed to America and Europe. Most famous collector of oriental art in Europe was Emile Guimet (1836 — 1918), a French entrepreneur from Lyon, whose name has been attached to the Museum of oriental arts in Paris. With some time span the boom reached Russia, as it normally happened through centuries. At least two big collections of oriental art have been known so far which were brought in the crossing point of XIX — XX centuries — the one collected by a military seaman Sergey Kitaev (1864 — 1927) and an entrepreneur from Samara Konstantin Golovkin (1871 — 1925). Kitaev“s collection has been stored at The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, a part of the artifacts which were regarded Golovkin“s collection during checking and studying of the archives in 1990-ies appeared to be a home gallery of another Samara businessman of Austrian origin — Alfred von Vacano.

А. F. Von Vacano — entrepreneur and patron of arts

In the end of XIX century many foreigners opened their business in Russia attracted by relatively cheap labour and lack of competition. One of them was Austrian aristocrate Alfred Filippovich von Vacano. Biography of A.F. Vacano before his arrival to Samara has not been thoroughly studied so far. Known facts are he was born on May 24 1846. After graduating Academy of Commerce in Vienna he took part in Austrian-Prussian war in 1866, worked at beer breweries in Czech, Germany, Sanct-Petersburg, owned / managed a bureau selling machines and mechanisms for beer brewing. Having travelled around several regions and compared between them he decided to launch a brewery in Samara.

On February 6 1880 А.F.Vacano informed Samara authorities his intention to rent a land on the bank of Volga river. In his letter Vacano marked the place where an old brewery was located which belonged to a merchant Bureev. Upon winning the tender von Vacano immediately starts dismantling old buildings and construction of new ones. Already in a year the new brewery would be ready for launching production.

On 4th of March 1881 local newspaper «Samara News» announced started sales of two sorts of the brewery: «Vienna Draft» and «Vienna Lager». Cash flow shortage pushed Vacano to look for partners. He managed to attract for cooperation Austrian businessman Moritz Faber who was running «Wien» brewery in Sanct-Petersburg and a Samara merchant Petr Subbotin.

Since 1900 the brewery has been actively developing. Water supply of the brewery has been integrated with the municipal water supply system, own vessel dock has been arranged. Beer was sold all along Volga river towns, in te Urals, Central Asia, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan and even Persia. By 1911 the brewery was equipped by mechanical devices increasing the output to 20 millions littres per year. Samara brewery became No 3 brewery in Russia capacity-wise after «Trehgorny» in Moscow and «Kalinkinsky» in Sanct-Petersburg.

In 1888 von Vacano built a gas factory in Samara on condition the gas would be also used for lighting of drama theater and nearby Strukov garden. Already from September 1 the factory produced gas for the brewery and from October 1 gas was supplied to the drama theater.

In 1906 Alfred von Vacano was appointed a member of a committee managing water supply municipal system, electricity generating station and slaughterhouse. He also sponsored construction of the municipal sewage system building it“s first stage totally at his own expense which was commissioned in 1909. Thus Samara became one of the first towns in Russia with this important infrastructural facility.

Having Austrian origin no surprise that Vacano triggered suspicions of gendarmes in the pre-war period. Some competitors and burocrats envied him for his successful entrepreneural activity. A.F.Vacano had to resist pressure from Moscow“s «Khamovniki» brewery, which was especially aggressive in the logistics and pricing, also attacking in the media. Below is one of such poems in the newspaper «Volga word» dated September 1 1909:

«Khamovniki» is selling beer to Samara people

«Vienna Beer» is foggotten.

Vacano is not on the wave any more, he is forgotten.

Vacano’s Kingdom is over —

He is not a factory man any more, not a «Father» any more.