Stepan Lianozov

Stepan Georgievich Lianozov (; 9 August 1872 - 10 August 1951) was a Russian industrialist of Armenian descent who contributed to petroleum industry in Azerbaijan. Lianozov founded "G.M. Lianozov Sons" in Moscow with 2 million rubles as founding capital. Stepan Lianozov's impact on the oil industry in Baku was considerable and became known as the "Russian Rockefeller". Having served in over twenty companies prior to the Russian Revolution, he attracted and managed numerous investments in the Baku oil industry, which started a revolution in world oil production and brought his company OIL as the top petroleum company in Baku and third largest oil producer in the world. Lianozov also became a political activist most notably during the Russian Civil War. He also was a financier of the film industry in Russia and had become a film producer himself.

Early life Stepan Georgievich Lianozov was born in Moscow on 9 August 1872. Lianozov's father, Gevorg Lianozov (1835–1906), came from an Armenian family that was deported from Eastern Armenia by the Persian Shah Abbas the Great in 1604. Gevorg Lianozov along with his brother Stepan were well-known figures in the production of caviar from the Caspian Sea, and would ultimately inherit the oil business that his father's brother Stepan had been engaged in since 1872.

After Stepan Lianozov, Gevorg's son, graduated from high school, he entered the school of Natural Sciences of the University of Moscow. Four years thereafter, Lianozov changed his career to law graduating in 1898 from the Faculty of Law at Moscow State University and becoming an assistant to a magistrate in the court chamber of Moscow. In 1901, Stepan gave up his rights to the caviar business that he inherited from his father and allowed his two brothers, Martin and Levon to take control of that industry. Stepan then fully dedicated himself to the lucrative oil business. The G.M. Lianozov trading enterprise eventually became one of the largest oil industry firms in Russia. The chairmanship included Russian prominent businessman P. Lejdnovsky and A. Putilov, and the chairman was Stepan Lianozov. The company also had subsidiaries that produced kerosene and refined petroleum, a pipeline along the shores of the Caspian Sea, and others. With the growing success of the company, Lianozov was elected member of the Baku City Council and the Baku Stock Exchange council. In 1925, Lianozov worked as a film producer, which became his main source of income for several years. Thereafter, in 1926, he was the representative for France of the Russian Congress Abroad. While in Paris, in August 1922, Lianozov became the chairman of a consortium of Americans, French, and Japanese investors and would finance the exploration of oil in the Sakhalin islands which was then under Japanese control (today Russia).

Stepan Lianozov died on 10 August 1951 in Paris and was buried in the Passy Cemetery. He had one son named Nikolai.