Savva Timofeyevich Morozov

Savva Timofeyevich Morozov (, – ) was a Russian textile magnate and philanthropist. Established by Savva Vasilyevich Morozov (1770–1862), the Morozov family was the fifth-richest in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Biography Savva Timofeyevich Morozov came from an Old Believer merchant family which held the hereditary civil rank of honorary citizens . His father was Timofei Savvich Morozov, his mother Maria Feodorovna Morozova. This gave him freedom from conscription, freedom from corporal punishment, and freedom from taxation . He grew up at the Morozov house at Trehsvyatitelskaya Lane 1-3c1 on Ivanovo Hill in the White City , now the boulevards, of Moscow. He later studied physics and mathematics at Moscow University (1885) where he wrote a study on dye and met Mendeleev.

Savva Morozov married his second-cousin's former wife Zinaida Grigorievna, née Zimin . They hosted lavish parties and balls which many distinguished Russians and Moscovites attended including Savva Mamontov, Botkin, Feodor Chaliapin, Maxim Gorky, Anton Chekhov, Konstantin Stanislavski, Pyotr Boborykin, and others. Olga Knipper recalled one of these balls: "I had to go to the ball at Morozova: I've never seen such luxury and wealth." During the summer of 1902, with participation of both Ivan Fomin and Alexander Galetsky, Savva funded Schechtel's improvements to the Lianozov-owned (The Lianozovs were caviar- and fish-magnates with exclusive rights from Persia to the fisheries of the southern Caspian Sea.) Later, after the founding of Baku Oil in 1907, the Lianozov family were the 23rd-richest family in Russia before World War I. In 1903 he funded the electrification of the theatre with its own electrical power station, and added another small stage which is isolated from the main building to allow full rehearsals during performances on the main stage.

According to the author Suzanne Massie, writing in Land of the Firebird, Morozov had approached his mother and family matriarch about introducing profit-sharing with factory workers - one of the first industrialists to propose such an idea. His mother angrily removed Savva from the family business, and one month later the apparently despondent Morozov shot himself while in the south of France. Morozov died from a gunshot wound in Cannes, France. His death was officially ruled a suicide but various murder theories exist.

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