The brouhaha caused by these accusations, the intensity of the vodka makers’ mud-slinging, and the hotly competitive environment was something new for Russians. The more liberal policies of the late tsar yielded many of the benefits of a more market-driven economy, particularly in consumer-driven industries such as liquor where the barriers to entry were few. Competition cajoled the most savvy merchants into devising gimmicks and other tricks to win over customers. Chocolate maker Abrikosov was especially creative, announcing that beautiful blonds would sell his candies in one location while beautiful brunettes would man counters at another store. The by-products of this Russian capitalism were not always so playful or positive. Some of them, like the rampant corruption and the vodka wars, were downright ugly. Smirnov now represented both sides.
One man who took notice of the unusual melee was twenty-five-year-old Anton Chekhov, who one day would be among the most celebrated playwrights in Russian history. He had come to Moscow from his birthplace in Taganrog, a seaside town in Southern Russia. His first literary endeavors were mainly satirical stories published in various tabloids or humorous journals. Chekhov, educated as a doctor, enjoyed mocking uncomfortable social situations or critiquing the pettiness he often discovered in the mundane, routine details of living. The vodka wars, a phenomenon chronicled by Chekhov, was one such case.
Chekhov’s piece on the wars appeared in May 1885 in a St. Petersburg humor magazine called The Shards. He was a regular contributor to the weekly publication, poking fun at everything from wicked in-laws to excessive eating during holidays to the amusing foibles that accompanied the art of courtship. In a column titled The Shards of Moscow Life, Chekhov took on vodka manufacturers. He was merciless in his assessment of Smirnov and his fellow liquor producers, bluntly referring to them as peddlers of “Satan’s blood.”
We have no news about the Afghan borders [where a conflict was occurring] but we have war in Moscow already…. Englishmen are not waging war. Nor Russians. But Satan’s blood makers—the tavern keepers and the vodka makers do it. Casus belli [a reason for war]—is a competition.
Each enemy, trying to prove that his competitors’ vodkas are no bloody good, sends torpedoes toward them and sinks them, and bores with politics. Any means are used to pour pepper into the sleeping competitor’s nose, to snooker him, and to hurt his reputation. Vodka-maker Shustov denounced all existing vodkas and created, to his enemies’ fear, English Bitter.
Zimin eats Smirnov, Smirnov eats Zimin. And some Avdotya Zimina, in order to exterminate Pyotr Smirnov, created vodka #21—the stark fake of Smirnov’s #21. The bottle and the label are absolutely Smirnov-like. To make the picture more complete, she wrote on the label “At the request of Pyotr Smirnov. (Pyotr Smirnov is some Moscow tavern-keeper whose acquaintance Zimina used for these purposes.)” A bit above this inscription she wrote in very small type ‘By order.’ To demonstrate that she, Zimina, knows French, she put her name in the label corners: Eudoxie Zimina. People say that because of this inscription the vodka received a special, specific flavor.
Brothers Popov hired a Master of Chemistry who found turbidity in the table wine of a famous, Moscow factory, (interpret: Smirnov’s) #21 and of another factory’s #20, which tried to promote itself with advertisings.
Vodka manufacturer Koshelev lays himself out about his rectified spirit. In an eager rivalry, everybody issues huge announcements and exterior messages in the newspapers where they fling mud at their competitors. Even brothers Popov, who charge Smirnov with desiring to make himself more prominent, buy up entire pages. Smirnov occupied a position in the [Moscow] Sheet and nobody can pluck him out of there.
The war, obviously, will end with all the manufacturers exchanging blows with each other and starting lawsuits against one another. Fighting spiders eat each other in such a way that only their legs remain in the end.
If all this will result in a favorable way, then we can be thankful for our good fortune. Talents won’t be ruined by drinking; the small press employees [here Chekhov refers to himself] won’t be inspired [to write about the subject]; and a sobriety realm would have come.18
The sharp critique appeared under the name of Ulysses, one of sixty pseudonyms the author used throughout his career. The tactics vodka makers employed against one another as well as the public gushings over how delicious and healthy their liquors were disgusted Chekhov. His negative views were deep seated. The evils of alcohol were a constant theme in his writings, which included several specific references to Smirnov’s most popular liquors. In The Shards a year earlier, Chekhov summed up his attitude: “Vodka is a colorless drink that paints your nose red and blackens your reputation.” His byline that time translated as “Man Without a Spleen.”19
If statistics are reliable, Russians were not the most prodigious drinkers in Europe. That distinction went to France, where the annual per capita consumption of alcohol was 15.7 liters compared to just 2.7 liters in Russia.20 But alcohol was built into the French and other Western European cultures, a bit like beer in America. A glass or two of wine with a meal every day was the norm and part of an epicurean tradition. In Russia, however, the objective of drinking was different. “The real problem was not so much the absolute quantities consumed—per capita consumption was lower [in Russia] than most European countries—as the ways in which it was consumed. Instead of drinking small quantities regularly, peasants confined their drinking to a few festive occasions on which they drank to oblivion.”21
Chekhov’s charge that Smirnov had something to do with Russia’s liquor excess—not to mention his calling vodka makers “fighting spiders”—would have enraged Smirnov. He never saw a real connection between his business endeavors and alcoholism, at least none he publicly acknowledged. Smirnov’s self-image was of an ethical, utterly moral factory owner. He viewed himself as a humble, self-made man who had, through hard work and perseverance, achieved great success. To be compared to the most unscrupulous elements within his industry was an unjustifiable, unforgiveable insult. Like it or not, though, many intellectuals did not perceive a difference. To them, Smirnov had prospered at the expense of the weakest elements of society.
There is no record that Smirnov responded directly to Chekhov’s attacks, but it may be more than a coincidence that his ads, following the Chekhov article, changed their tenor. For a time, no longer did Smirnov call attention to his opponents or counterfeiters, in general or by name. Instead, he concentrated more on his own business, his own distinguished record, and his own product line.
Perhaps Smirnov figured that enough attention had been paid to the industry’s thorny controversies. The government had weighed in, taking steps to address some of the grievances aired by Smirnov and other prominent vodka makers. The state had raised the excise tax paid by distillers from seven kopeks in 1880 to eight kopeks in 1881 to nine kopeks in 1885. The idea, along with collecting more money for the treasury, was to discourage new entrants into the liquor industry by making the process too expensive and onerous.[26] The state also implemented a series of penalties aimed at alcohol abuses. Anyone seeking to sell alcohol without a license would be fined 300 rubles. Anyone producing illegal vodka would be fined up to 1,000 rubles and could face up to three months in jail. For hiding alcohol that should have been taxed, violators could face stiff fines, as much as sixteen months in prison, and a lifetime ban from the alcohol industry. A commission was even set up in the mid-1880s to try to tackle the rampant counterfeiting problem, which affected a variety of consumer products other than vodka including tea, yeast, and chocolate.
Smirnov was relatively unaffected by these efforts, which were at best cursory. More notable for him was the slow mind-shift taking place inside the Imperial Palace. After a steady stride toward more openness since the 1860s, the new tsar’s agenda continued to scale back some of the freedoms his father had advanced. Moreover, the tsar was showing a renewed willingness to look at the alcohol issue again, including examining whether changes over the last two decades ha
d contributed to what many argued was a liquor epidemic. Smirnov’s fears were coming to the fore.
AMONG THE FIRST initiatives undertaken by the state to address the alcohol problem was a ban on pubs.[27] The government decreed in 1885 that alcohol could be sold only in taverns alongside food. The thinking followed the traditions elsewhere in Europe, where the combination of food and drink led to fewer instances of drunkenness. Russian officials also tried to address drinking in another manner, passing a law in 1886 that made it a serious crime to pay a portion of wages with vodka or other noncash substitutes. Violators of this common practice could face fines of up to 300 rubles.
These were small steps, having no discernable impact on consumption. Still, they foreshadowed the future direction of Imperial Russia. For the time being, Smirnov was comfortable and not directly threatened. He knew, though, he would need to monitor the reign of Aleksander III closely. He would, to the extent possible, need to take an interest in government affairs. Mostly, though, he would need to focus on turning his business into an even more formidable force, one with heft and staying power.
The vodka maker moved quickly. It had been thirteen years since he had begun supplying the palace with his goods, well beyond the requirement of eight years for obtaining the purveyor title. He had chased and obtained honor after honor, winning awards from Philadelphia to Paris for his alcoholic achievements. From a philanthropic point of view, Smirnov considered himself a model citizen, a prime candidate for purveyor. It was time to find out if the tsar thought so, too.
Chapter 9
The Vodka King
On May 23, 1885, Smirnov was all confidence when he sat down to compose his letter to the tsar. Gone was the fledgling entrepreneur, who fifteen years earlier had begged for the chance to sell the tsar his liquors. Now Smirnov was a fearless titan, a man recognized widely for his varied accomplishments. He had been on an unrelenting roll. He sat atop a 3.2 million-ruble empire ($34.8 million in current dollars), according to a government directory of Russian factories, which continued to multiply at an astonishing clip. Now, as he wrote to Aleksander III’s court, Smirnov came across like a pupil who had seen the answers to a test.
For many years, I have been trading foreign and Russian wines in Moscow. My wine is consumed in all corners of the Russian Empire and is even sold abroad. With tireless personal labor, I have grown my business to the widest of proportions. I pay to the state treasury, in the form of excise taxes and customs duties, more than 2.5 million rubles per year. I was honored to receive the highest awards for the quality of my wine—two State Coats of Arms for the Philadelphia International exhibition of 1876 and for the Russian exhibition of 1882. It is my wish to attain the greatest of joys—to become the Purveyor of wines and vodkas to the Court of His Majesty. My moral qualities are known in Moscow and beyond. In Moscow, I’m honored to be a patron of the Court College and a wine purveyor for the Court Church. This is why making inquiries into my personality, starting with the Moscow Excise Department, will give Your Highness confidence [in me]…Your Highness is known all over Russia for his merciful attention to the Russian entrepreneurial spirit.
As for my wine and vodka, I have no doubt that they are of high quality and moderate prices and that they are known…Your Highness’s attention to a Russian trader [Smirnov] will encourage me to further perfect my business. I trade in Moscow, at the Cast Iron Bridge, at my own house.1
Smirnov likely consulted a more literate member of his staff to help with grammar and ensure that his elementary prose and penmanship were proper. But the content of the letter, signed in the ex-serf’s own hand under the title of First Guild Moscow Merchant, was all Smirnov, formal, respectful, and to the point.
Petitioning the tsar was an especially cumbersome and bureaucratic undertaking. An individual’s entire business history for the previous decade needed to be supplied to the court. It was a task pursued by many but mastered by few. At least half the applications submitted were immediately rejected for being incomplete or unworthy of consideration. Fabergé, who had already gained notoriety for his glamorous jeweled Easter eggs, had to wait a full year to win the purveyor title in 1885 because he forgot to include some accounting information with his application. And paperwork was not the only hitch. A string of officials had to approve every applicant, including the tsar himself. This requirement often added months to the awarding of titles, which occurred only late in the year or during Easter.
Smirnov’s wares were well known to the court by this time. They had been primarily provided to the palace in Moscow. The main royal residence in St. Petersburg was not as familiar with them and, therefore, in June 1886, it requested that Smirnov send his drinks to its court for further review. Although more than a year had gone by since the vodka maker first petitioned the Imperial Court, he was delighted to receive and comply with the request. It was the first tangible signal that the tsar and his advisors were taking Smirnov’s application seriously.
In fact, Smirnov was so elated to have received notice from St. Petersburg that he wrote to Count Illarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, a personal friend of the tsar’s who functioned much like a chief of staff. In his June 1886 letter, Smirnov touted his wines and vodkas again, noting that they were unparalleled. He also took the opportunity to bow to the throne and demonstrate his deep, unwavering devotion. It was an awkward show of respect, but the intent was clear.
I shall be bold and tell Your Majesty, true, Russian grand seigneur that you are, that for me, a Russian person, there is no higher reward in this world for my personal labor, which I have performed for almost a half-century, than the gracious words of our Great Tsar about the worthiness of my products. My products are famous far beyond the fatherland, where I have received many of the highest awards: a first State Coat of Arms in 1877 and a second State Coat of Arms in 1882 at the All-Russia Industrial-Artistic exhibition in Moscow. Moreover, I have also received the following awards: Diploma at the Vienna Exposition in 1873; Grand Gold Medal at the Philadelphia Exposition in 1876; and Grand Gold Medal and Small Gold Medal at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1878. But all these awards mean nothing to me in comparison to one word of praise from the Tsar.2
Before receiving word from the court, Smirnov might have wondered whether something unforeseen had occurred. Had his adversaries sabotaged his campaign? Had Chekhov’s writings swayed the court? Or worse, had Smirnov himself blundered, appearing too eager and pompous rather than congenial and deferential? The uncertainty may be what prompted Smirnov to buttress his credentials once again.
He applied for and received the Order of St. Stanislav, third degree. This order was the lowest in the Russian hierarchy of orders but it was, nonetheless, a prestigious honor. More important, those who obtained it were granted hereditary honorable citizenship, a century’s-old distinction also known as “eminent citizenship.” Smirnov knew he would never be accepted as a member of the nobility; he lacked the blood lines. But this title was almost as grandiose. It was an acknowledgment directly from the palace that raised the recipient’s stature to the highest levels of society. It also made it possible for Smirnov to pursue a more prestigious position in his longtime charity, the Committee on Beggars.
Smirnov had been an agent of the committee since 1870, donating as much as 200 rubles per year to assist in the placement of homeless or indigent workers into meaningful jobs. It was an admirable cause, but joining the elite, ten-member operating group had other advantages. Most notably, the tsar himself had to approve all nominations, including Smirnov’s. The vodka maker reasoned that this nomination could help his case for the purveyor title if the tsar associated him with a serious, old-line charity. In his application, Smirnov pledged to contribute 500 rubles annually to the Committee on Beggars. He also provided a full accounting of his work history, religion, education, family background, and financial situation. Of his origin, Smirnov was as strategic as ever, noting only that he was the son of a Moscow merchant. He said nothing about his roots as a se
rf.3
The months went by as Smirnov waited for news from St. Petersburg. He knew that the government had been preoccupied. Russia, like the vodka industry, was in transition. The latest evidence of turmoil came in the form of Russia’s first large-scale, organized industrial strike. The Morozov’s cotton mill was the backdrop for an ugly scene. Wages of some 11,000 workers had been cut five times between 1882 and 1885 while excessive fines levied against them for a variety of offenses ate up as much as half of what they took home. The rank-and-file were fed up. Almost immediately, the 8,000-person strike turned violent, as participants ransacked managers’ apartments, destroyed offices, and smashed the factory food store. Damage caused by the unrest was estimated at over 300,000 rubles. The tsar and the governor of the Vladimir province, fearful of a more widespread revolt, called in the military.
The strike was repressed and its instigators arrested, but the incident was a success for society’s downtrodden. Morozov was forced to make concessions and, more importantly, the state recognized the collective power of its workforce. In little more than six months, reforms, however nominal, passed, including laws that limited fines against workers to no more than 5 percent of wages. It marked an initial decisive victory for Russia’s labor movement.
Smirnov no doubt watched these events unfold as he awaited word from St. Petersburg. The distraction held his attention, but it could not shake him from his grander purpose. He was focused on a future in which he was not only purveyor to the tsar but also to royalty throughout Europe. With the title in hand, Smirnov could see no end to his opportunities. He had already hired a prominent architect and ordered plans be drawn up to enlarge and renovate his house in a way that would be more fitting for one of the tsar’s suppliers. He intended to add an entire third floor with thirteen new rooms to his already expansive mansion, which included a formal ballroom. He would also upgrade the interior design, installing several indoor toilets, a convenience enjoyed by Russia’s wealthy.[28] The most significant addition, at least to Smirnov, would be plastered on the outside of the house. He intended to inscribe “Purveyor of His Imperial Majesty’s Court—Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov” in bold letters. The large Cyrillic lettering would go on both street-facing sides of the house, making absolutely sure that no passersby could miss the designation.
The King of Vodka Page 14