Semyon Abamelek-Lazarev

She was the granddaughter of Manuc Bei and the grand-niece of Count Ivan Lazarev (a court banker to Catherine the Great).

Prince Semyon inherited her steel mills in the Urals, her surname and the right to manage the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages.

After attending the Saint-Petersburg University, Abamelik-Lazarev joined Vasily Polenov and Adrian Prakhov in their 1881 tour across the Middle East.

A patron and member of the Russian Geographical Society, he published two lavishly decorated volumes about Palmyra (1884) and Jerash (1897).

Semyon died suddenly in 1916 and was buried in the Lazarev family sepulchre at the Smolensky Cemetery in St Petersburg.

Semyon, 1910.
Prince Abamelek-Lazarev at his study