Strong personalities Business acumen Social awareness Heartfelt generosity The Sinebrychoffs A part of Finnish industry and cultural history Foreward Sinebrychoff is the oldest brewery in the Nordic countries and Finland’s oldest food industry company. The company founded in 1819 by Nikolai Sinebrychoff was led for its first century by the men and one woman of the Sinebrychoff family. The Sinebrychoffs were pioneers who wisely and insightfully led the family company’s growth and success. They were also fascinating personalities who influenced the societies of their times in numerous ways. This booklet is a brief summary of their lives and work. The vitality of the company today testifies to their intelligence and far-sightedness. We warmly thank the Sinebrychoff Art Museum for its co-operative assistance. 2 Gavrilov Moscow The brewery history’s beginnings In the late 1700s, Pjotr (Peter) Ivanovitsh Sinebrjuhov (ca. 1750-1805), a poor Russian copyholder of a crown holding, set out from Gavrilov, a market town on the northeastern outskirts of Moscow, towards Old Finland and a better life. Travelling with him was his wife Marva and a brood of six sons and three daughters. The trip was made with wooden-wheeled carts. The Sinebrjuhovs settled in Kymi. Pjotr became one of the Ruotsinsalmi fortress’s 16 authorised provisioners. He founded a canteen at the Ruotsinsalmi fortress on the island of Kotkansaari and began, probably immediately in the early 1800s, to cook beer. The Kotka parish centre currently occupies this site. Pjotr died when his oldest son Nikolai was only 16 years old. Pjotr was buried in Kymi’s old Lutheran cemetery. The local inhabitants of that time considered the Lutheran churchyard a more dignified burial ground. The fact that an Orthodox believer was laid to rest in a Lutheran cemetery, even though there was a cemetery for his religious brethren at the fortress, testified to the respect accorded to merchant Sinebrjuhov in the Kymi region. 3 Influential family members Paul Sinebrychoff the Older (1799-1883) Anna Sinebrychoff (1830-1904) • Nikolai’s younger brother • Paul the Older’s wife and mother of • Managed brewery 1852-1878 Nicolas and Paul the Younger • Wife Anna, nee Tichanoff • Chairman of the Board 1888-1904 Nikolai Sinebrychoff (1789-1848) • Founded brewery at Hietalahti in 1819 –> 1888 AB P. Sinebrychoff –> 1955 Oy Sinebrychoff Ab • Managed business until his death in 1848 • Unmarried • After Nikolai’s death, his brother Ivan directed the brewery 1848-1852 Nicolas Sinebrychoff (1856-1896) Paul Sinebrychoff the Younger (1859-1917) • Oldest son of Paul the Older • Youngest son of Paul the Older and Anna and Anna • Managing director 1888-1917 • Managing director 1878-1888 • Chairman of the Board 1904-1917 • Wife Anna, nee Nordenstam • Wife Fanny, nee Grahn 4 Nikolai Sinebrychoff - a versatile business genius founds the Sinebrychoff brewery Pjotr’s oldest son Nikolai was only 16 years old when he took Nikolai moved from Kymi, following charge of the family company after his father’s death. In the Ruotsinsalmi regiment to Vyborg the hands of the socially adept Nikolai, his father’s modest (Suomenlinna). The regiment was brickworks, sawmill, building contracting company and beer redeployed to Vyborg when the Finnish brewery developed into a widely diversified business enterprise. War concluded in 1809, and Finland Nikolai earned his millions not from beer brewing, but from became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the large-scale construction projects that extended to Russia and Russian Empire. Nikolai began as a publican Poland. at Länsi-Mustasaari and Susisaari and began to manufacture beer at the Vyborg Brewery. In Helsinki Nikolai began as a spirits producer. In 1817 he bought the Ullanlinna distillery in the South Harbour and began to produce spirits. Beer brewing began in Vanhakaupunki at the Österberg distillery 1 2 3 and brewery plant that he had purchased at an auction in 1819. Besides producing beer and spirits, Nikolai became involved in building construction and engaged in foreign trade. He supplied spirits to Russia and Poland, as well as gravel, sand, steel and railroad ties to Russia’s railway construction sites. His foreign trade representative was his brother Ivan, who lived first in Gavrilov and then in St. Petersburg. In Helsinki Nikolai had a shop, located at the corner of Unioninkatu and Aleksanterinkatu, that sold beer, groceries and even caviar. Nikolai also panned for gold in Siberia. The Sinebrychoff brewery is born The business activities expanded when, at a public auction held on 23 August 1819, Nikolai purchased the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell beer in Helsinki for 10 years. On 13 October of that same year, 5 6 Nikolai was granted the right to acquire land and found a brewery and distillery on a site zoned for that purpose in Hietalahti, at that time on the city’s outer periphery. At the time of Nikolai’s acquisition, the ropemaker Eric Röö was cultivating hemp on the site. Before that, the merchant Anders Byström had been growing tobacco on it during the period 1760-1802. The construction of the Hietalahti brewery began in 1821, and production began in the late 1820s. The Vyborg brewery’s operations presumably ended circa 1825. The beer and probably spirits produced at the Hietalahti brewery were originally sent in barrels to Suomenlinna for bottling. There were several grades of spirits: distilled and twice filtered spirits, sweet spirits, rowanberry spirits, rum, blueberry liqueur and many others. Nikolai’s major customers were Nikolai lived his entire hospitals, apothecaries and garrisons. In 1836 Nikolai established a garden The brewery company’s first office building was a wood on his rocky 3-hectare site south of the life in Vyborg, from house that Nikolai moved from Suomenlinna in 1823. It still residential building. This garden later stands in its original location next to the KOFF stable on became Sinebrychoff Park. where he directed his Bulevardi. The timber structure, one of Helsinki’s oldest buildings, Nikolai lived his entire life in Vyborg, is nowadays owned by the Finnish government and occupied by from where he directed his business business operations. the Sinebrychoff Art Museum. operations. He had a large house, horses, Commercial Counsellor Nikolai Sinebrychoff later built a cows and pigs, and his shops and warehouses were well equipped. 2-storey Empire-style mansion along Bulevardi that contained Nikolai was unmarried, but he cared for Ulrika Ahlström, the 26 rooms. Completed in 1842, the building served as the family’s widow of his business partner Johan Friedrich Stier. Ulrika died in residence and office, but the Commercial Counsellor himself 1837, and Nikolai continued caring for her daughter Natalia Stier, never lived there. Nowadays the building serves the Sinebrychoff who for many years was mistakenly believed to be Nikolai’s own Art Museum. daughter. 7 Paul Sinebrychoff the Older - a visionary creates a large company Paul continued his brother Nikolai’s business operations. During The Sinebrychoffs were valuable taxpayers for the city. his 30-year leadership, he developed a noticeably larger Paul was also a member of the city council. Numerous social company with a new type of structure. Through partnership welfare and cultural organisations were the recipients of his agreements he created a wide-ranging sales network consisting generous donations. of shops and premises licensed to serve alcohol. Known for his Paul was the first Sinebrychoff to reside in the mansion paternalistic treatment of employees, Paul the Older was one at Bulevardi 40. At the age of 50, he married Anna Tichanoff, of Helsinki’s most distinguished residents. the 20-year-old daughter of his housekeeper. Despite the age difference, it was a happy marriage. Paul the Older built and expanded the brewery. Four children were born: Maria, He started up a porter brewery and switched the Anna, Nicolas and Paul. beer brewing process from top fermentation to the Commercial Counsellor Bavarian-style bottom fermentation method. Sinebrychoff established a pension In 1869 he supplemented his distillery with foundation for the brewery’s a spirits processing plant whose highly refined employees, a pioneering act at products were sold in his own shops. a time when governmental and Paul expanded the company’s stock portfolio municipal roles in that sector were by acquiring shares in commercial enterprises, extremely limited. He built rental industrial companies and banks. Besides owning apartments for his employees and Helsinki’s largest shipyard, Helsingin Laivatelakka, founded a school for their children. he also owned the large hotel-spa “Villensauna” He was also the Sinebrychoff who (Wilhelmsbad), several city properties, and two large farms in granted the public access to the beautiful gardens at Hietalahti, Espoo: the Hagalund and Otaniemi estates. now Sinebrychoff Park. As a brewery manager, Paul was one of Helsinki’s most Paul Sinebrychoff the Older died in 1883. His funeral was distinguished residents; for several years he was Helsinki’s richest held at the Uspenski Cathedral, a structure that he himself had citizen, and there were few people in the entire country whose helped realise. The funeral took three days, with thousands of wealth approached his. people lining the streets to view the funeral procession. 8 9 Anna Sinebrychoff - a skilled businesswoman, “Mother of the Poor” With the death of Paul Sinebrychoff the Older, his wife Anna became the leading force in the family business. The sharp-witted Anna managed her own and the company’s assets and advised her sons in the running of the brewery. Having herself sprung from humble origins, the commercial counselloress felt an obligation to help those less fortunate, preferably without the glare of publicity. Around the Hietalahti neighbourhood she was known affectionately as “the Mother of the Poor”. In 1888, during Anna’s time, the P. Sinebrychoffin Perilliset firm was changed to a limited company.