Nikolai von Meck
Nikolai Karlovich von Meck (1863-1929) was a Russian engineer and entrepreneur involved in the development of the Russian railways during the first part of the twentieth century. He was put on trial as part of the Shakhty Trial and executed in 1929.[1]
Nikolai was the sixth son of Karl Otto Georg von Meck and Nadezhda von Meck out of eleven children in total. His father died suddenly in 1876. His mother inherited a substantial fortune and became a patron of the arts. Alongside her intense but platonic relationship with Pyotr Tchaikovsky, she also brought Nikolai into contact with such people as Claude Debussy, who stayed with the family as a young man. Nikolai recorded that Debussy acquired the family nickname "le boulliant Achille".[2]
In 1883 Nikolai married Anna Davydova, the niece of Tchaikovsky.
In 1891 he was appointed to run the Moscow-Kazan railway thanks to the patronage of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, who described him as "an honest servant of the King and Fatherland".[3]
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