Volga-Kama Commercial Bank

Building at 38 Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg, the bank's head office from 1881 to 1917

The Volga-Kama Commercial Bank (sometimes Volzhsko-Kamsky Commercial Bank, Russian: Во́лжско-Ка́мский коммерческий банк), often referred to simply as the Volga-Kama Bank, was a major commercial bank of the Russian Empire. Founded in 1870, it was Russia's largest private-sector bank by total assets at the start of the 20th century.^[1]^: 43 In late 1917 following the Russian Revolution, like all other commercial banks in Russia, it was absorbed into the State Bank with no compensation to its shareholders.^[2] Its name refers to the rivers Volga and Kama.

Overview

The bank's charter was approved by Alexander II on 24 February 1870, establishing as a joint-stock company with an initial authorized capital of 6 million rubles. The founders were a group of manufacturers and merchants led by Vasily Kokorev, who became its chairman in 1878.^[3]

From 1879 to 1917, the bank was near-continuously led by Alexander F. Mukhin [ru], successively as director, member of the board, and eventually chairman, with only a six-year gap in 1906–1912.^[3] From 1907 to 1911 the managing director of the bank was Pyotr Bark, who later became Russian Minister of Finance.

By 1899, the Volga-Kama Bank had branches in Astrakhan, Baku, Kazan, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Orenburg, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Rybinsk, Samara, Saratov, Simbirsk (later Ulyanovsk), Suzdal, Tashkent, Tsaritsin (later Volgograd), Ufa, Vyatka (later Kirov), and Yekaterinburg. By 1914, it had a network of 60 branches in the Empire, the majority in the Volga Region and the Urals. By then, its place among Russian commercial banks had declined to sixth rank.^[3]