Born in
Sumy,
Kharkov Governorate (
Sloboda Ukraine) in a family of small grocery merchant of
Cossacks ancestry, Alchevskyi graduated from the
Sumy County School and in 1862 moved to
Kharkiv. During his young age, he was interested in left
populist ideas, the poetry of
Taras Shevchenko, and belonged to the
Hromada movement. While keeping own tea store, Alchevskyi continued self-education. During the so-called banking fever in Russia at the end of 1860s and beginning of 1870s, Alchevskyi became initiator in creating the Kharkiv Mutual Society (1866). Later in 1868, as a merchant of the 2nd Guild, he became one of the founders of the Kharkiv Trade Bank with principal capital of 500,000 rubles, becoming the third commerce bank in Russia after the
Saint Petersburg Private Commerce Bank and the
Moscow Merchant Bank. In 1871 Alchevskyi, as a merchant of the 1st Guild, became one of founders (along with Ivan Vernadskyi, the father of
Volodymyr Vernadskyi) of the first mortgage lending bank in the country, the Kharkiv Land Bank, with principal capital of 1,000,000 rubles. Alchevskyi was the chairman of the bank until his death in 1901.In 1879 Alchevsky established the
Alekseyevskoye Mining Society (principal capital 2,000,000 rubles) that possessed the richest deposits of
anthracite coal in
Slavyanoserbsk uezd. In 1900 the company extracted some 45 million
poods of coal, becoming the third company in the
Donbas region by volume of extracted coal. Alchevskyi also initiated the construction of the metallurgical factories of the Donets-Yuryevka Metallurgical Society (1895, principal capital 8 million rubles) near train station Yuryevka (today
Komunarsk train station in
Alchevsk,
Alchevsk Metallurgical Complex) and the Russian Providence Society near
Mariupol (today part of
Illich Steel and Iron Works). By 1900 his fortune neared 30 million rubles. In 1899 along with his wife
Khrystyna Zhuravlyova he built the first monument to
Taras Shevchenko, however due to the anti-Ukrainian Russian policy the monument-
bust was established at a backyard of their personal mansion (built by
Oleksii Beketov) in
Kharkiv. The monument was made out of white marble by the Russian sculptor
Vladimir Beklemishev. After the death of Oleksii Alchevskyi the mansion was sold and the monument removed by authorities, eventually ending up in the
Taras Shevchenko National Museum in
Kyiv. According to his wife, Oleksii Alchevskyi was a ‘fanatical Ukrainian’ who invested large sums of money in the Ukrainian movement.Alchevskyi was involved in
Ukrainian Nationalism movements and funded the first fmonument to famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Churches, hospitals, libraries, and Sunday schools were built in
Sumy at his expense. After failing to obtain financial help from the Ministry of Finance during the 1899-1902 economic crisis, Alchevskyi
jumped under a train on 20 May 1901 at the
Tsarskoselsky railway station in
Saint Petersburg. ==Family==