Background
Tret’iakov, Sergei was born in 1886 in Moscow.
Businessman politician NKVD agent
Tret’iakov, Sergei was born in 1886 in Moscow.
Member of the famous Moscow merchant families (grandson of the founder of the Tretiakov Gallery, and of the millionaire Sawa Mamontov). Chairman of the Moscow Stock Exchange. Chairman of the Economic Council of the Provisional Government, Sep.-October 1917.
In the Winter Palace during the attack by the Bolsheviks. Arrested with other ministers. Released in the spring of 1918.
Emigrated through Khar’kov to Paris, summer-autumn 1918. Offered the post of Trade and Industry Minister by Admiral Kolchak. Went to Omsk, Sep. 1919.
Later in Irkutsk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs (under Pepeliaev), but very soon thereafter had to flee abroad. Returned to Paris to his family. De facto head of the Trade and Industrial Union created by Russian businessmen abroad.
After some shady business dealings, became engulfed in financial difficulties. Through a former colleague in the Siberian government, became enmeshed in NKVD operations. On his premises in Paris, meetings of Russian businessmen and other emigre organizations were conducted before World War II. He also let rooms to the organization of White Army veterans, ROVS. During World War II, the Gestapo discovered NKVD files in Minsk concerning a Soviet agent in Paris.
A search revealed that the meeting-room in Tretiakov’s house in Paris and the office of ROVS (organization of White army veterans in exile) were bugged with wires connected to the former Soviet Embassy on Rue de Grenelle. Later it was found that he had hidden General Skoblin (who was involved in the kidnappings of General Kutepov and General Miller) in his flat after Skoblin had escaped from the ROVS headquarters. Arrested in France by the Gestapo, died in a Nazi concentration camp near Berlin.