Nikolaj Sinebrychoff

A portrait of Nikolai Sinebrychoff by Johan Erik Lindh in the 1830s. Nikolai Sinebrychoff (; ; born – 1848 ) was a Russian businessman settled in the Grand Duchy of Finland, who founded the Sinebrychoff brewery in 1809. He belonged to the Sinebrychoff family which had a long history in Finland.

Life Pyotr Sinebryukhov (Sinebrychoff), father of Nikolai Sinebrychoff, was originally a poor tenant farmer, who moved to Kymi in Old Finland in the late 1790s and founded a brewery to serve the Ruotsinsalmi sea fortress. As his eldest son, Nikolai Sinebrychoff became the director of the brewery at age 16, when Pyotr Sinebrychoff died in 1805. The family business soon expanded to other areas. After the Finnish War, Sinebrychoff moved the business activity from Ruotsinsalmi, which had become insignificant, to Suomenlinna (then known as Sveaborg) near the city of Helsinki. He was one of the official food merchants for the Russian garrison. In 1816 he won the right to sell spirits, beer, small beer and sima to the Sveaborg soldiers, who had a great demand for them. He also sold food to the garrison in five shops and soon became rich. Sinebrychoff himself never moved to Helsinki, but instead lived in the house he had commissioned for himself in Sveaborg, which was later dismantled. He never learned either Swedish or Finnish but always conducted his business in Russian.