Nikolay Dmitriyevich Kashkin[1] (Russian: Николай Дмитриевич Кашкин; 27 November [O.S.

[2] The son of a Voronezh bookseller, Kashkin was a self-taught musician who had started giving piano lessons by the time he was 13 years old.

There he met Herman Laroche, Nikolai Rubinstein and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

He was an early support of Tchaikovsky's penultimate opera, The Queen of Spades, arguing it would become a leading name in Russian operatic repertoire.

[2] Kashkin was also a support of the "National School" of Russian music developed by the group known as The Five.