The Pavlov's merchants: From the history of hotel business in Kharkiv

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Hospitality industry occurred in Kharkiv at the same time with famous fairs (the Uspenskaya Fair, the Kreschenskaya Fair, the Troitskaya Fair) dating back to the end of the 17th century. Primarily there were inns, wayside inns and rooming houses. Concerning this issue, our city was like hundreds of other cities in Muscovy. The demand for overnight stays for all visitor merchants and trade representatives increased with the development and growth of trading. In this way we examine increasing number of similar houses until the first comfortable temporary lodgings for fellow-countrymen and foreigners occurred at the end of the 18^th and in the early 19^th century. Before the emergence of hotels there were in between lodgings entirely separated from the joint landlord houses. Merchant class representatives, foreign nationals and wealthy commoners were initiators of such kind of management as hospitality business.

Hotel demand in Kharkiv had been increasing for decades up to the early 19^th century because of the flows of foreigners (in the context of the University opening, professors, artisans and other classes) who had stiff requirements for their more or less long stays. Under these conditions hotels in Kharkiv had been built right before they were constructed in other cities of Slobodskaya Ukraina. Kharkiv hotels matched the level of gubernial city.

Historically the largest hotels were city centers: fair malls, public places, the University. These objects were located close to each other in the area covered by Universitetskaya Gorka and Podol nowadays (the Dzerzhinsky District and the Kievsky District).

One of the largest hotels of the time later became known as «Grand Hotel» was built on the border of Podol and at the bottom of Universitetskaya Gorka, not far from the confluence of Kharkiv and Lopan rivers. The building (architect is unknown) was constructed by Nikita Pavlov, son of the trading house founder [4, p. 75]. At a definite stage of the city's development this construction became a business center in Kharkiv. In front of the building there was a milestone, a special direction sign, where the upland aristocratic district and the trading quarter merged. «The Pavlov's» column was only removed in the 1920s because of the blocking road traffic [30, p. 105]. The modern department store with its distinctive title «Tsentralny» is a specific reminiscence, the model of a famous trading house and the hotel located close to the place where before the Great Patriotic War «Grand Hotel» was situated (original name - Hotel «Evropeiskaya»), during Soviet times - Hotel «Spartak».

The building was unique: it housed not only a store but there were enough rooms for theatre troupes (for instance, F.G. Berger's theatre troupe, an Austrian national from the Maly Theatre, who established opera in Kharkiv and Kyiv) [17, 200-201]. Opera performances were conducted by the composer K.P. Vilboa. It is important to note that the Pavlov's merchants were related to French operettas. In 1872 S.D. Kondratyev bought the part of the yard for the theatre from the merchant Pavlov along Konny lane (B. Khmelnitsky lane nowadays).

A number of events have been connected with this hotel for more than a lapse of a hundred years. For example, during the First Russian Revolution in 1905 the demonstration on 11^th of October took place when armed engine workers dispersed armed monarchists anti-Semitic group from the Union of Russian People while moving to Universitetskaya Gorka to destroy strongholds built by workers and students. Having supported workers' public speaking, soldiers of the Kharkiv garrison raised demands on military command representatives on the square, 23^rd of November 1905. During the Russian Civil War it is «Grand Hotel» where the headquarter of the Volunteer army was located, where the high ranks of Denikin's forces were stayed, in front of the building where the delegation of Russian manufacturers headed by Ryabushinsky handed a golden sabre to General May-Maevsky, where A.I. Denikin gave the order to his forces to attack Moscow. It is worthy of note that the hotel itself has been rebuilt and modified over the years.

A new kind of hospitality business had a unique feature such as market incorporation. If inns were earlier like bastions encircled by squares, the largest fairs in the form of stalls, corn-chandler's shops and other temporary points for trading were held in the south of the Russian Empire, nowadays a fair was integrated with a hotel. There was a huge store on the ground floor. Occasionally, money turnover was one million silver rubles (those days one could live on a ruble a week). We examine similar incorporation of stores and hotels in the largest centers of the Russian Empire like in Saint Petersburg (Gostiny Dvor Department Store), in Odessa (Odessky Passage) and in others.

Nowadays hotel business tends to integrate own hotel services (accommodation, meals and so on) providing a wide range of other services (beauty salon, fitness center, swimming pool, car-parks etc).

The initiators of «Grand Hotel» were the Pavlov's merchants. This hotel became the architectural landmark of the trading house and also one of the architectural landmarks of the city. It covers a broad range of interests from Saint Petersburg to the Crimea. The hotel founders were opportunistic and administrational. They search for modernity, know consumer preferences and how to conduct a successful business. Their sales representatives can be found in every part of European Russia. They belonged to the Old-Believer merchant family in the Moscow governorate and their background could affect the type of their business.

The Pavlovs came from the Kolomna district of the Moscow governorate. At the XVII century Kolomna merchants promoted from their circle a number of eminent manufacturers who have expanded their activities in many cities of the Russian Empire. At the beginning of the XIX century the Pavlovs family representative, Akym Isaiovych, moved to Kharkiv. The dynasty founder started out as an employee of one of the city trading firms. He quickly started his own business, which was developing successfully and brought the significant capital and reputation to its owner. Akym Pavlov received the rank of the third guild merchant. In a short time he bought a candle factory and a soapery.

At the end of the thirties of the XIX century, as soon as they have homed in Kharkiv, the Pavlovs built a grandiose house with an eyecatching balcony on the second floor. Even in the early twentieth century Academician Dmytro Bahalii considered this building as the best one in the city. The hotel facade was facing one of the biggest city squares, decorated by the only one for that period triumphal arch; and the opposite side windows looked up on the river Lopan, which was much full-flowing at that time than today.

Since its founding, the hotel became one of the key points of transportation routes (horse tram, tram, taxi, etc.).

Evidently, the familiarity with metropolitan forms of the trade handling, and hotel business helped Akym Pavlov and his heirs, who quickly climbed the merchant's career and reached the first merchants guild, to find the right milestones in the fast-growing Sloboda Ukraine capital. Akym Isaiovych's heirs became hereditary honorary citizens. Pavlov and his children received numerous medals and other decorations from the government. The family gathered one of the best in the Russian Empire collection of Old Believers books and icons (its fate is not known). The Pavlovs' dynasty commercial ethos, as well as other leading Kharkiv entrepreneurs' ones, are still waiting for researchers.

There were other merchants, burgess and nobles with the Pavlovs surname in Kharkiv. Their relationship with A.I. Pavlov and his descendants is difficult to establish. The most energetic of Akym Isaiovych's children, Nikita, died in Germany in Aachen (North Rhine - Westphalia).

The Old Believers Pavlovs (Akym Isaiovych, his wife, children and nephews) were energetic and carried out charity work (helped to the Kharkiv benevolent association, the Prison Committee, and other organizations). According to the contemporaries (O.F. Reinhardt and others), Pavlov and his descendants were honest and hardworking.

At the proper for the city moment, they offered the services of immediate interest: «firm» (fixed) prices in the store that were still considered as unheard innovation; «European service» (a change could be not recalculated); minor, «fancy» services. Despite the excellent, quality service, there always were shopping lines at the store. Buyers, standing in a queue, were offered free candy, nuts and cigarettes. The merchants Pavlovs also refused from the touting to their stores, usual for that time [16, p. 34]. Employment of special tout workers, who often persistently offered goods and services, was common for large shops of the period. Definitely, the upper classes representatives seldom looked into such shop, and left this opportunity to their servants.

The entrepreneurs cared for availability of brand-name goods, which were the differential peculiarity of their store chain trade. Since the range of the entrepreneurs family interests was wide enough: from the hardware goods (paint materials and other chemical products) to spices and sweets, the Pavlovs also had their priorities in every branch to provide the balance of competitive advantage.

According to some authors, «merchants from other cities, who owned the best part of the circulating capital, were considered as Kharkiv trade engines. Kharkiv was the connection point of Great Russian (chiefly, Moscow) merchants with New Russian ones (i.e. from the southern provinces); it was a kind of transshipment base, the place where the most important tradings were started, but not finished» [15, p. 95-96].

The dynasty representatives (three generations) were well aware that the image of their trade enterprises made up from numerous factors, and did not neglect the slightest detail. Special atmosphere of «Pavlovian» stores included a combination of such seemingly distant from each other principles as democratism and aristocraticism. Democratism, for example, lied in the fact that at proper time wealthy entrepreneurs themselves sold over the counter, and aristocraticism was in production of sweets that were sold even at the court. Pavlovian, so called «tsarist spice cake», was especially popular in many regions of the empire.

They did not ignore advertising, but on the contrary gave an example of such activity to other Kharkiv negotiants. Advertisements about goods and services for Kharkiv citizens and city visitors were constantly placed in local periodicals. It is enough to look through Kharkiv editions of the time to make sure of it first-hand [23, 24, 27 etc.]

The activity of Pavlovs family merchants in the city could be confidently called «the era of the Kharkiv entrepreneurship development.» It is reflected at the numerous Kharkiv place names. Kharkiv City Council decision from 2013 to return the name «Pavlovian» to one of the central city squares became the eloquent testimony of the fact [13].

In addition to the fashionable «Grand Hotel», other Pavlovs' shops, stores and warehouses were located on the square, mostly on the contemporary trading house «Pavlovian» place.

Unfortunately, the unique building, in honor of which the square itself gained the name «Pavlovian» [12, p. 123], was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War. The place of its location remained blank.

To sum up our insight, we can say that just Saint Petersburg and Moscow cherish the memory of the «Eliseevian» stores, Moscow preserves the memory of the «Filippovian» bakery, in Kharkiv the memory of generations keep the «Pavlovian» shop and «Grand Hotel».

Kharkiv business history began to attract attention only during its so called «second birth», i.e. from the beginning of the nineties of the last century, with the increasing interest to the activity of H.O. Alchevsky and P.I. Kharytonenko, M. Kh. Helferych and N.F. von Ditmar, and other Kharkiv entrepreneurs.

It follows not only the topicality of this business history direction, but also its feature, which is that the history of entrepreneurship needs to be «entered» at the already created scheme of the city history, which represents the political, cultural, and social parts of the city life, given fully and in detail by several generations of historians. The history of hotels is a «white spot» at the history of Kharkiv entrepreneurship until our time. Meanwhile, the previous eras experience could help today, when the hotel business is becoming one of the leading service industries right before our very eyes.

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hospitality hotel business merchant

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