Early Life
Mendeleev was born in the village of Verkhnie Aremzyani, near Tobolsk in Siberia, to Ivan Pavlovich Mendeleev and Maria Dmitrievna Mendeleev (née Kornilieva). His grandfather was Pavel Maximovich Sokolov, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Tver region. Ivan, along with his brothers and sisters, obtained new family names while attending the theological seminary. Despite being raised as an Orthodox Christian, he later rejected the religion and embraced a form of deism.
Mendeleev is thought to be the youngest of either 11, 13, 14 or 17 siblings; the exact number differs among sources. His father was a teacher of fine arts, politics and philosophy. Unfortunately for the family's financial well being, his father became blind and lost his teaching position. His mother was forced to work and she restarted her family's abandoned glass factory. At the age of 13, after the passing of his father and the destruction of his mother's factory by fire, Mendeleev attended the Gymnasium in Tobolsk.
In 1849, the now poor Mendeleev family relocated to Saint Petersburg, where he entered the Main Pedagogical Institute in 1850. After graduation, he contracted tuberculosis, causing him to move to the Crimean Peninsula on the northern coast of the Black Sea in 1855. While there he became a science master of the Simferopol gymnasium №1. He returned with fully restored health to Saint Petersburg in 1857.
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