Lena Gold Mining Partnership

In 1855, two merchants, Pavel Basnin and Petr Katyshevtsev, members of the top guild and honorary citizens of Irkutsk, founded the Lena Gold Mining Partnership.

While the Tsar's government had always shown great interest in accumulating gold, its enthusiasm for mining the metal especially increased in the 1890s due to financial reforms implemented by Russian finance minister S.Y.

In supplying the Lena partnership with money, the bank was interested not so much in earning a profit as in solidifying the gold-mining industry as a foundation of the state financial system.

Gintsburg and the other shareholders, on the contrary, were keen to capitalize on profit and to receive the maximum possible dividends; therefore, a decision was made whereby the partnership had to become independent from the bank and search for a more cooperative lender.

The fabulous and unprecedented growth of Lena shares was achieved using a comprehensive system of stock exchange manipulation, including payoffs to both the yellow and mainstream press, stockbrokers, questionable banks, and so on.

However, news of a strike at the mines and the ensuing tragic Lena massacre soon spread through the stock exchange and would have a dramatic negative impact on the company's fortunes.

Initially, the demonstration was peaceful, but the leader of the gendarme cavalry Captain Treshenkov ordered his soldiers to open fire on the workers.