Robert Nobel — industrialist with roots in the Russian Empire
Robert Nobel, the eldest of the Nobel brothers, was born in Stockholm in 1829 and raised in Saint Petersburg from the age of thirteen. He worked in a succession of ventures without much success while his younger brothers prospered, and by his forties was managing procurement for Ludvig's Saint Petersburg machine works.
In 1873 Ludvig sent him to the Caucasus with 25,000 rubles to buy walnut wood for rifle stocks. In Baku he found an oil field at the beginning of a boom, where — as a later account put it — a farmer who dug in the right place could become an oil baron. He spent the walnut money on a small refinery and land instead, and wrote to his brothers.
It was the decisive act in the family's history. Robert ran the Baku refinery through its first years and modernised it substantially, but his health was poor and he returned to Sweden before the business reached its full scale, leaving Ludvig to build Branobel into an international concern. He died in 1896.
He is the least known of the four brothers and the one whose single improvised decision redirected the family from Swedish armaments into Russian oil.
Tracing the roots — Baku (Azerbaijan)
A single improvised purchase in Baku redirected the family from Swedish armaments into Russian oil.
Sent to the Caucasus in 1873 with 25,000 rubles to procure walnut wood for gunstocks, he spent it instead on a small refinery and land at Baku. He drew his brothers in, and the venture became Branobel. Ill health forced his return to Sweden.
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Baku (Azerbaijan). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.