Savva Mamontov

He was a son of the wealthy merchant and industrialist Ivan Feodorovich Mamontov and Maria Tikhonovna (Lakhitina). In 1841, the family moved to Moscow. From 1852, he studied in St. Petersburg, and later at the Moscow University. In 1862 his father sent him to Baku to engage in business with the elder Mamontov's Trans-Caspian Trade Partnership.

In 1864, Savva visited Italy where he began to take lessons in singing. There he was introduced to the daughter of Moscow merchant Grigory Sapozhnikov, 17-year-old Elizabeth, who subsequently became his wife. The wedding took place in 1865 at the Kireevo estate, near Khimki, just northwest of Moscow.

Upon his father's death in 1869, he succeeded to his share in the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway, and at the recommendation of his father's friend, Fedor Vasilyevich Chizhov, he was elected a director of the company. In 1872 he was elected its chairman.

The extension of the railway from Sergiev Posad to Yaroslavl, begun in 1868, was opened for traffic on 18 February (2 March N.S.) 1870. A narrow-gauge branch from Uroch station to Vologda was opened on 20 June (2 July) 1872, followed by the Alexandrov-Karabanovo branch in 1877 and the Yaroslavl-Kostroma line in 1887. Mamontov also supervised the construction of the Donets Coal Railway (now Donets Railway), which connected a network of sparsely populated mining villages with the port of Mariupol, between 1875 and 1878.