Siemens K. F. (1829-1906), entrepreneur

Categories / Economy/Personalia
SIEMENS Karl Fedorovich (1829-1906), entrepreneur and founder of electrical engineering industry in Russia. A native of Germany, he lived in St. Petersburg from 1853 managing a subsidiary enterprise of Berlin-based Siemens and Halske Trading House. He bought a house at 34 First Line, Vasilievsky Island in the same year to accommodate a subsidiary office and telegraph repair and assembly shops. Siemens supplied equipment for a telegraph station in the Winter Palace and took part in laying telegraph lines between St. Petersburg and Oranienbaum with a submerged line laid to Kronstadt in 1853, as well as from St. Petersburg to Warsaw, from Moscow through Kiev to Sevastopol with a branch line to Odessa, from St. Petersburg to Revel, from St. Petersburg through Helsingfors to Abo, and from Kovno to the Prussian border in 1854-55. He founded a cable works at 40 Kozhevennaya Line (today, Sevkabel Works) in St. Petersburg in 1879 and built an electromechanical plant at 59-61 Sixth Line, Vasilievsky Island (today, Kozitsky Plant) in 1881. He was in charge of installing electric lighting in Nevsky Prospect in 1882. Siemens was the principal shareholder of Electric Lighting of 1886 Company and chairman of the board in St. Petersburg Private Commercial Bank in 1885-94. He took Russian citizenship and was ennobled in 1895. He lived in his own house in Nikolaevskaya Embankment (today, 3 Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment) from 1880 and in a country house in Gostilitsy (not preserved) in his last years.

Reference: Вейхер З. Вернер фон Сименс // Великие промышленники. Ростов н/Д, 1998. С. 9-135.

A. D. Margolis. Simens Karl Fedorovich
1st Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 34
6th Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 59
6th Line of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 61
Kozhevennaya Line/Saint Petersburg, city, house 40
Leitenanta Schmidta Embankment/Saint Petersburg, city, house 3
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city
Вейхер З. Вернер фон Сименс // Великие промышленники. Ростов н/Д, 1998 Winter Palace
Northern Cable, the factory
Kozitsky Factory