Maltsov Family

(Mal’tsevs), Russian merchants, members of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry) after 1775, major factory owners and landowners from the 18th to 20th centuries.

The Mal’tsovs became industrial entrepreneurs in the 18th century when Vasilii Mal’tsov founded (1724) a glassworks in Mozhaisk District. In the 1760’s, Akim and Foma Mal’tsov were owners of several glassworks (including a glassworks in Gus’-Khrustal’nyi) and of linen sailcloth enterprises. Ivan Akimovich Mal’tsov acquired metallurgical works in the village of Liudinovo (now a raion center of Kaluga Oblast, RSFSR) from P. Demidov and organized a glassworks in the village of Diat’-kovo (in present-day Briansk Oblast, RSFSR). This served as a base for the Mal’tsov industrial region (adjacent districts of Orel, Kaluga, and Smolensk provinces), an area of approximately 215,000 hectares mainly along the Bolva River, a tributary of the Desna. Sergei Ivanovich Mal’tsov (1801-93) transformed the industrial region into a center of machine building. There the first rails, locomotives, steamships, and screw propellers made in Russia were manufactured. In 1875, Mal’tsov founded a corporation that included more than 30 enterprises with a capital of 6 million rubles. In 1885 these works were turned over to the government.