[4] After his mother's death and his father's second marriage, he started learning masonry to help provide for his family of seven (sisters).

By mid-1873 along with two companions, Sarkis brothers, he purchased land near the oil-booming town of Bibi-Heybat, a few kilometres to the southeast of Baku.

It was not long until oil gushed forth from one of the wells in 1877, leading to Taghiyev's instantly becoming one of the richest men in the Russian Empire.

He arranged for the construction of a mosque and evening self-education courses for the employees of the textile factory, a school for their children, a pharmacy, a first-aid post, and a mill.

It should be mentioned that Taghiyev sold his oil companies in order to diversify into other industries of the Caucasus's economy.

During this period, Taghiyev invested significant sums into the textile, food, construction, and shipbuilding industries, as well as in fishery.

[5] Despite the decades of anti-bourgeois Soviet propaganda that followed his lifetime, Taghiyev is revered by Azerbaijanis for his charity work.

[1] Taghiyev helped to maintain many city institutions and contributed to the adornment of Baku, including laying out parks and paving the streets.

He provided scholarships for many Azerbaijani youths who strived for higher education in prestigious Russian and European universities.

Some of them, such as writer Mammed Said Ordubadi, politicians Nariman Narimanov and Aziz Aliyev, professor Khudadat bey Malik-Aslanov, and opera singer Shovkat Mammadova, later rose to prominence.

This was vehemently opposed by the local clergy who believed the content of Koran was holy and of divine origin and therefore, no one had the right to translate it.

[2] Taghiyev then sent a mullah envoy to Baghdad who came back with an official permission from a board of Muslim scholars to translate the Koran from Arabic into Azerbaijani.

Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, often called the "Father of the Nation," was an illiterate man from a poor background who became one of the most frequently mentioned figures of his time.

Eventually, Taghiyev sold his company to the British firm Oleum for an estimated 20 million rubles in 1897, while maintaining a seat on the board.

[7] Known for his foresight, Taghiyev reinvested his oil profits into non-oil sectors such as textiles, shipping, and real estate.

Taghiyev sent his daughters Leyla and Sara to study at the prestigious Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens [ru] in Saint Petersburg, from where his second wife Sona had once graduated.

[2] After Azerbaijan's Sovietization in 1920 the country's wealthy suffered severe repressions from the Bolshevik government, resulting in the emigration of many of them.

His wife Sona, once a wealthy, educated, and charitable noblewoman of the Caucasus, died in misery on the streets of Baku in 1938.

During one of his trips to Germany, Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev came across an upscale restaurant that caught his attention with its elegant ambiance.