Academic and Research Institute of Business, Economics and Management
SUMY STATE UNIVERSITY

The project “Banks of the Sumy Region”

The goal of the project: to investigate the development of banks and banking in the Sumy region. This is a formidable research work which carries out systematization of data and information on the activities of banks in the region, their history, personal information about people, peculiarities of functioning.

In the beginning of the 20th century the Russian Empire, including the district town of Sumy, had a sufficiently developed financial and credit system, which consisted of treasury departments of banks, mutual credit societies, offices of land banks, credit and loan associations and savings banks. In particular, on the eve of the Revolution of 1917 there were 10 banking institutions here: the State bank – the branch of the State Bank; Banks of the local government – the Sumy community bank, the Alexandrivsky rural agrarian bank, the Mutual credit society of the Sumy district; Commercial banks – branches of the United Bank (the former Orlovsky Commerce Bank), the Azov-Don Commercial Bank, the Moscow Industrial Bank, the Petrograd International Commercial Bank; Mutual credit societies – the Sumy merchant society of mutual credit, the Sumy petty bourgeois society of mutual credit.

The State Bank Sumy branch, which was opened in 1896, played the leading role according to the number of transactions and their volume. At various times, the directors of the bank were Yegor Kovedyayev, Petro Tokarsky, Petro Patrik.

The edifice of the State Bank Sumy Branch, which was built in 1907 and opened as a specialized banking institution, has been preserved to the present time and is a decoration of Sumy. The bank accepted deposits, issued loans, discounted bills, distributed securities, carried out money transfers, purchased precious metals from the population, exchanged currency, performed other operations and services. The Bank provided services to P.Kharitonenko, the count O. Kapnist, landowners V. and M. Annenkova, M. Lishchynska and many other well-known people in the Sumy region.

The State Bank Sumy Branch, like other divisions, made contributions to various charitable actions, which were carried out in the Russian Empire. The branch participated in the fundraising process to build a museum of the 1812 year war and the monument to M. Kutuzov in Moscow, provided funds for the Red Cross, which helped treat the wounded soldiers, etc.

After the events of 1917 the Bank’s branch headed by P.Patrik continued its functioning under extremely difficult conditions, with kaleidoscopic changes of authorities and following the orders of the central bank. The new authorities, under the slogans of bourgeoisie expropriation, ceased the issuing of deposits and the movement of securities. In 1919 the State Bank Sumy branch, like all other banking institutions of Sumy from the pre-revolutionary period was eliminated.

The peculiarity of municipal banks, local Zemstvo (elective district council in pre-revolutionary Russia) banks was their focus on the interests of local communities. The Sumy community bank was founded on February 1, 1869. The bank served the local community; therefore the control over its activities was carried out by the town council. The opening of the bank is associated with the name of a well-known person – an entrepreneur and philanthropist Dmytro Sukhanov. When he held the mayor’s post the community bank began its activity. It was Dmytro Sukhanov, who contributed 5000 silver rubles to the bank’s fixed capital. D.Sukhanov, together with N.Kondratyev, M. Sukhanova and O.Medvedev, donated 19 thousand rubles. During the bank’s opening its fixed capital amounted to 24 thousand rubles.

The Bank’s director and his deputies were elected at the session of the Town Council for a four-year term. Since its founding till 1918 the bank’s directors were V.Tkachenko, I.Pyvovarov, N.Skubenko, I.Sazonov. G.Kulishov. The peculiar feature of the Sumy community bank was that, like other town banks, it had the right to issue both short-term and long-term loans on the security of real estate (town’s land, buildings), goods and values.

A considerable amount of financial transactions was carried out by the Mutual credit society of the Sumy district, which began its operations on December 1, 1873. Its founder and the first chairman was Mykola Alchevsky. At various times the management board was headed by Adolf von Loretts-Eblin, Anton Rosenquist, Ivan Sydorov, V. Zolotarev.

The society accepted time and demand deposits from its members and outsiders, discounted bills, offered securities custody, issued loans to its members against pledge of real estate. The society’s customers were representatives of the middle class and the town’s petty bourgeoisie, merchants and peasants. Only short-term loans were given for a period of up to 1 year. In 1913 the society was moved into a new building in the Soborna street, which housed a number of financial institutions, such as the Treasury and the Alexandrivsky rural agrarian bank.

There was a bank functioning in Sumy, the history of which did not fit the common stereotype of banking institutions that operated at the time – the Alexandrivsky rural agrarian bank (since 1911 called the Sumy district Alexandrivsky agrarian bank of small credit). It was a local bank, a land bank, a bank of great expectations and patriotic manifestations of its founders. The main idea was to create a bank that would perform the same operations as the municipal public bank, servicing only peasants and providing loans only to persons engaged in agriculture. Ivan Kharitonenko, whose core business (sugar production) was closely connected with the countryside and agricultural producers, which were generally poor and did not have the necessary funds, took the initiative, backed by his own donations of 50 000 rubles, to create a specialized bank, which would provide loans to agricultural producers at reasonable interest rates.

For over 30 years its chief executive officer was Volodymyr Krasnyansky. The bank’s activity was somewhat limited by its founder. The only customers of the bank were peasants – the poorest part of the district’s population. The bank was housed in the building of the town council.

Commercial banks expanded throughout the empire and Sumy did not remain unaffected by this process. The Orlovsky commercial bank was one of the first to open its office here. In 1898 the Sumy district mutual credit society made a deposit of 210 000 rubles into the Orlovsky commercial bank. In 1906 the bank’s staff consisted of: the managing director Ivan Vukolov; members of the accounting committee Mykola Yefremov and Serhiy Bylovsky; accountant Pavlo Danilov, cashier Kostyantyn Grygoriev.

The descendants of the cashier Grygoriev continued to work at the bank’s branch making them the banking dynasty from the pre-revolutionary period. They are Kostyantyn Grygoriev (father), Kostyantyn Grygoriev (son) and Anastasia Grygorieva (daughter) present.

In 1908 – 1909 three banks, including the Orlovsky commercial bank, were merged into one bank called the United Bank.

The first references about the Sumy branch of the Azov-Don Commercial Bank were made in 1904. The bank’s management and employees of that time included: managing director Pavlo Tarkhov; accountant Volodymyr Hembus; assistant accountant I. Steinberg, L. Kravtsov, attorney assistant, Golubtsov S., artel cashier O. Dobrynov, members of the accounting committee V. Safronov, M. Pudron, P. Kononenko. Later, the bank’s directors were Felix Sanhvineti, Semen Shklovsky and Mecheslav Muttermilch. The bank’s branch was on the second floor of the building in the Soborna Street.

In 1912 the banking house “I.V.Yunker and Co”, which operated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, was reorganized into the joint-stock commercial bank with the same name. At about the same time the bank’s branch was opened in Sumy. In 1916 the bank changed its name to the Moscow Industrial Bank. With the original bronze seal of the bank’s Sumy branch it is possible to determine the exact name of the banking institution – ”The Moscow Industrial Bank (the former “I.V.Yunker and Co”) Sumy Branch”.

The managing director of the Moscow Industrial Bank Sumy branch was Pavlo Churilov, the representative of the noble family in the Sumy district.

The bank was located in the building in the Pokrovska square that has not been preserved.

The Revolution of 1917 destroyed the banking system in Sumy and the destinies of bank employees.