Ivan Lazarevich Lazarev

Ivan Lazarevich Lazarev was a Russian-Armenian jeweler, known as one of the richest patrons in Russia under Catherine the Great.

A native of Dzhulfa in Persia, Lazarev moved to Saint Petersburg in the 1760s where he established himself as a wealthy banker, court jeweler and philanthropist. Through purchase of lands and enterprises he emerged as one of the major industrialist in Russia. His possessions were additionally augmented by purchase of estates, factories, mines and serfs from the Stroganov, Demidov, Golitsyn, Shakhovskoi and other noble families. Lazarev was involved at some point in the negotiations for the purchase of the great Orlov or Amsterdam diamond, which Grigorii Orlov bought from an Armenian merchant as a gift for Catharine II and which was then set in the Imperial sceptre.

Ivan Lazarev died in 1801 and his family fortune most likely made the foundation of the “Armenian Lazarev Institute” subsequently the important Lazarev Institute for Oriental Languages.