Early Life
Schmidt was born into an Amsterdam Moravian family. At the age of six, he was sent to school of the Moravian community in Neuwied. Due to the advance of Napoleon's troops, he returned home in 1791. His family lost all their wealth in an economic crisis following Napoleon's occupation of the Netherlands, but this gave Isaak Jakob Schmidt the impetus to begin a trading apprenticeship and learn several languages. In 1798 he accepted an offer by his church to work at their Sarepta post on the Volga River, emigrated to Russia and adopted Russian citizenship.
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