Sergei Witte - Family and Early Life

Family and Early Life

Witte's father Julius Witte came from a Lutheran Baltic German (originally Dutch) family and had been member of the knighthood of the City of Pskov. He converted to Russian Orthodoxy upon marriage with Witte's mother Yekaterina Fadeyeva. Sergei Witte's maternal grandfather was Andrei Mikhailovich Fadeyev, a Governor of Saratov and Privy Councillor of the Caucasus, his grandmother was Princess Helene Dolgoruki, and the mystic Helena Blavatsky was his first cousin. He was born in Tiflis, Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Tbilisi, Georgia) and raised in the house of his mother's parents.

He finished Gymnasium I in Chişinău and commenced studying Physico-Mathematical Sciences at the Novorossiysk University in Odessa in 1866 graduating top of his class in 1870.

Witte had initially planned to pursue a career in academia with the aim of becoming a professor in the Department of Theoretical Mathematics at Novorossiysk University. His relatives took a dim view of this career path as it was considered unsuitable for a noble at the time. He was instead persuaded by Count Vladimir Bobrinskii, then Minister of Ways and Communications, to pursue a career in the railways. At the direction of the Count, Witte undertook 6 months of on the job training in a variety of positions on the Odessa Railroad in order to gain a practical understanding of railroad operations. At the end of this period he was appointed chief of the traffic office.

Witte worked for the greater part of the 1870s and 1880s in private enterprises, particularly the administration and management of various railroad lines in Russia, especially in the Ukraine, where he was in charge of the Odessa Railway. After a wreck on the Odessa Railway in late 1875 cost many lives, Witte was arrested and sentenced to four months in prison. However, while still contesting the case in court, Witte's Odessa Railway made extraordinary efforts towards the transport of troops and war materials in the Russo-Turkish War that he attracted the attention of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who commuted his term to two weeks.

In 1879, Witte accepted a post in St. Petersburg, where he met his future wife. He moved to Kiev the following year. In 1883, he published a paper on "Principles of railway tariffs for cargo transportation", in which he also spoke out on social issues and the role of the monarchy. In 1886, he was appointed manager of the privately-held Southwestern Railways, based in Kiev, and was noted for increasing its efficiency and profitability. Around this time, he met Tsar Alexander III, but came into conflict with the Tsar's aides when he warned of the danger in using two powerful freight locomotives to achieve high speeds for the Royal Train. His warnings were proven in the October 1888 Borki train disaster, which resulted in the appointment of Witte to the position of Director of State Railways.