Today is the birthday of the famous millionaire, philanthropist, an actual state counsellor of the Russian Empire, the founder of the first secular school for girls in the Muslim East of Hajji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev.
Oil tycoon Taghiyev, as we would say today, was a self-made man. He was born on January 25, 1838 in a shoemaker's family, starting from age 10 he was learning from a mason, he carried tubs of mortar, then hewed stones, but soon his entrepreneurial drive came to light. Zeynalabdin rented a plot of land in Bibi-Heybat, hired laborers, a craftsman, bought equipment for drilling. He had to wait for a long time for oil, but eventually, Taghiyev was rewarded for his patience and hard work - a gusher blew out.
Using his oil revenues, Taghiyev quickly became not only oilman, but also a manufacturer, fishermen (almost all fisheries in the vicinity of the Kura river and the Caspian Sea belonged to him), an owner of cargo ships. In Iran, he owned several caravanserais, in Moscow Taghiyev built a four-storey palace. In 1918, Taghiyev developed an economic recovery plan for Azerbaijan, he helped the formation and development of education, art and journalism in the country.
Baku shipyards, oil refineries, the first horse-drawn railway, a fire station, the Baku water pipeline, first banks, the first cotton mill, schools, madrassas, mosques, hospitals and theaters were opened and developed thanks to the money of one of the most generous millionaire industrialists in Baku. He paid for studies of the future experts - oil workers, lawyers and doctors in the most prestigious foreign educational institutions, he achieved the opening of the Polytechnic Institute in Baku with the best professors.
The Muslim, Russian, Armenian and Jewish charities of Baku elected Taghiyev their honorary chairman.
Taghiyev advocated female education. He opened the first secular school for Muslim girls in the East, women started to appear on stage in his theater. Moreover, he contributed to the development of education and culture not only in Azerbaijan, but also in the whole of the Russian Empire, due to which he was awarded the rank of state councillor. Hajji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev died on September 1, 1924, but his memory is still alive.
