The first breweries in the Russian Empire were founded in St. Petersburg in the 18th century. The brewery at Kalinkinsky Bridge (currently known as Staro-Kalinkin Bridge) was established by the British merchant Noah Cazalét. Later, the business was continued by his son Peter Cazalét. Another brewery was founded by Abraham Krohn, who was a former Swedish citizen and moved to the capital of the Russian Empire. His son Fyodor Krohn continued his father’s business.
According to the Russian historian Leonid Vladimirovich Vyskochkov, Cazalét and Krohn established a joint venture in 1848. The 1852 map of St. Petersburg, showing the city’s factories, indicated that such a company already existed by that time. The Cazalét Krohn Brewery was located in the Fifth Narva District under number 19. This is confirmed by “Travel Guide: 60,000 Addresses from St. Petersburg, Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof, and Gatchina” published in 1854.
Later, the enterprise was renamed the Kalinkin Brewery. The trademark of the Kalinkinsky Beer and Honey Manufacturing Partnership was the image of a globe. It was at this company that beer was poured into the bottle displayed at the Nizhny Lomov Museum of Local Lore.
The bottles were stamped with brands of 1818, 1870, and 1896. In 1818, long before the joint venture was formed, it was the Krohn and not the Cazalét Brewery that was given the right to place the state emblem of the Russian Empire on its products and use it in advertising. At the All-Russian Art and Industrial Exhibitions in St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod in 1870 and 1896 respectively, the company was awarded two state coats of arms for the high quality of its products.
Between the 1860s and the 1890s, the factory underwent constant changes. New workshops were constructed, designed by the architects Ludwig Bohnstedt, Wilhelm Bernhard, and Emmanuel Jurgens, and old ones were expanded. In 1876, a malt house set up.
By the end of the 19th century, there were ten breweries in St. Petersburg. After 1917, the Kalinkin Brewery was nationalized. In 1923, the Petrograd Soviet renamed it, giving it the name of Stepan Razin.
