Pankratev

an important merchant family in Russia in the 17th century and the first quarter of the 18th.

The Pankrat’evs were descendants of Galician posadskie liudi (merchants and artisans). In the mid-17th century they rose from the gostinaia sotnia, a privileged group of the merchant class, to become gosti, or merchants of the highest rank. In 1637, Danila Grigor’evich Pankrat’ev founded the Seregovo saltworks in Iarensk District, now Lena Raion, Arkhangel’sk Oblast. At the end of the 17th century there were 13 saltworks in the district, producing more than 300,000 poody of salt a year (1 pood = 16.38 kg). At first, the saltworks depended extensively on hired labor, but after 1700 state peasants were assigned to work there.

The government recruited the Pankrat’evs for service in state administration and for the execution of important commissions. Thus, Danila Grigor’evich Pankrat’ev was an official in the Kazennyi Prikaz (Treasury) from 1654 to 1663, and his brother Grigorii Grigor’evich held the same post from 1639 to 1654. Ivan Danilovich Pankrat’ev (died c. 1711) was president of the Korabel’naia Palata (Office of Ships), which directed the construction of the fleet at Voronezh in the late 17th century. In 1699 he was president of the Burmisterskaia Palata (a central financial institution and an elective self-government body for the posadskie liudi).

Semen Ivanovich Pankrat’ev was director of the money court in Kitai-Gorod (an old district in Moscow) from 1711 to 1714. In 1711 he participated in trade negotiations with the English and the Dutch, and in 1713 he was a member of a collegium that studied the condition of trade in Russia. In 1714 he was transferred to St. Petersburg, where he was inspector of the ratusha (an organ of municipal administration) from 1715 to 1719.