Alexander Mantashyants is a prominent Armenian businessman and philanthropist, born in 1842, March 3 in Tiflis, Georgia.

Engaged in oil exports and received the nickname “Oil King”. He was considered one of the richest people in his life. In 1899, Mantashyan founded the company “Alexander Mantashev & Co”, which produced more than half of Baku’s oil in the early 20th century. He financed the construction of an oil pipeline in Baku-Batum.

He sponsored the largest orphanage in the Caucasus, with his funds Armenian buildings and churches were built in Tiflis, Yerevan, Baku, Moscow, Petersburg and Paris. The Armenian Church of St. John the Baptist, located in the center of Paris on the Champs-Élysées, owes its existence to Alexander Mantashyan. The patriarchal tax divisions in Etchmiadzin were also built with Mantashyan’s funds. He was a great devotee and patron of Armenian culture, science, art and literature.

With Mantashyan’s funds, more than two hundred Armenian boys and girls studied in the best educational institutions of Russia and Europe.

The famous Armenian died in 1911, on April 19, in St. Petersburg.