There are several theories of the family's origins. It was formerly believed that the family's
progenitor was a merchant in
Veliky Novgorod. However, the historian Andrey Vvedensky concluded in his research on the family's genealogy, that they must have originated from wealthy
Pomor peasants (i.e. Russians from Russia's subarctic north, in the region of the
White Sea). The family's earliest known ancestor was named Spiridon; he lived during the rule of Duke
Dmitry Donskoy and was mentioned in the 1390s. He had two brothers, Semyon and Ivan, whose descendants are unknown. He also had six sons: Stefan, Joseph (Osip), Vladimir, Ivan nicknamed Vyshnyak, Afanasy and Anikey, and a daughter named Maura. Vladimir Stroganov's lineage continues in the direct male line. However, his descendants became state peasants. His youngest son,
Anikey Fyodorovich Stroganov (1488–1570) was the progenitor of the ennobled lineage of the Stroganov family. This lineage is now extinct. He opened the
salterns in 1515, which would later become a huge industry. In 1558, Ivan the Terrible granted to Anikey Stroganov and his successors large
estates in what was at the time the eastern edge of Russian settlement, along the
Kama and
Chusovaya Rivers. on
Nevsky Avenue in
St Petersburg was designed by
Bartolomeo Rastrelli underwritten by the Stroganovs in 1697 In 1566, at their own request, their lands were included in the "
oprichnina", the territory within Russia under the direct authority of Ivan the Terrible. Seizing lands from the local population by conquest and colonizing them with incoming Russian peasants, the Stroganovs developed farming,
hunting, saltworks, fishing, and ore mining in these areas. They built towns and fortresses and, at the same time, suppressed local unrest with the help of a small private army (such private units were known as "
druzhinas"), and annexed new lands in the
Urals and
Siberia in favor of Russia. Yakov Anikeevich Stroganov (1528–1577) made
Ivan the Terrible forbid the English to trade near Solvychegodsk; he, alongside his brothers, received the right to organize military attacks on Siberian tribes and rulers. He was a provider to the tsar of luxuries, including
sable fur. In 1574, together with brother Grigory, he was granted large lands in
Siberia, along the
Ob River. In 1577, he was granted iron bogs and a forest in Sodrolinskaya volost with the right to establish ironworks there. Grigory Anikeevich Stroganov (1533–1577) received large lands in the basin of
the Kama river, in the region of
Perm. In 1558 he was allowed producing saltpetre. In 1564 he was given the privilege of establishing a town named Kargedan, which was later known as Oryol-gorodok.
Semyon Anikeyevich Stroganov (? – 1609) and Anikey's grandsons
Maksim Yakovlevich (? – 1620s) and
Nikita Grigoriyevich (? – 1620) are believed to be initiators and sponsors of
Yermak's Siberian campaign in 1581. By the late 16th century, the Stroganovs had become enormously large landowners and salt industrialists. In the early 17th century, owing to the
Turmoil, they strengthened their positions by sponsoring the central government's struggle against claimants to the throne and Polish invaders. The family started to gradually merge with the nobility. In 1608 Kozma Danilovich Stroganov (1580–1617) was the
voivode at Totma. He died without issue. During the period of Polish intervention in the early 17th century, the Stroganovs offered humanitarian and military support to the Russian government (some 842,000
rubles just in terms of money), for which they received the title of '''eminent men' (imenitye lyudi)'' in 1610, and allowed official reference with the 'vich' ending to their paternal names, as was only meant for the members of the royal court. Together with the new title, the received unprecedented privileges for people of trading class: they were subject only to the royal judgement, allowed founding towns and building fortresses, owning armed troops and forging cannons, organizing military campaigns against Siberian rulers and duty-free trade with Asian nations. In the 17th century, the Stroganovs began to marry into high Russian nobility (princes, boyars and courtiers). For example, Pyotr Semyonovich Stroganov (1583–1639) married Matryona Ivanovna Borbischeva-Pushkina. Maksim Maksimovich Stroganov (1603–1627) married Anna Alferyevna Streshneva, cousin of tsarina Eudoxia Streshneva. Stroganovs married daughters of voivodes and courtiers. Amongst the families they intermarried with in the 1600s were a few princely families, such as the Volkonskys, the
Mescherskys, the Baryatinsky, the
Golitzines, as well as untitled Rurikids, the Dmitriev-Mamonov family, and such boyar families as Saltykovs and
Miloslavsky. In the 17th century, the Stroganovs invested heavily in the salt industry in
Solikamsk. In the 1680s,
Grigory Dmitriyevich Stroganov (1656–1715) united all the scattered lands of the heirs of the children of Anikey Stroganov. He also annexed the saltworks, which belonged to the
Shustov and
Filatiyev families. In the 18th century, the Stroganovs established a number of
ironworks and copper-
smelting factories in the Urals. A number of remarkable
Baroque churches throughout Russia were built by the Stroganov family in the late 17th and early 18th century. They include the Cathedral of the
Presentation of Mary (Введенский собор) in
Solvychegodsk (1688–1696), Church of Our Lady of Kazan in
Ustyuzhna (1694), Church of Our Lady of Smolensk (церковь Смоленской Богоматери) in Gordeyevka (part of today's Kanavino district of
Nizhny Novgorod) (1697), and the Church of the Synaxis of the Mother of God in Nizhny Novgorod (started in 1697, consecrated in 1719). == Senior lineage of the Stroganovs ==