Mikhail Petrovich Barataev was a Russian bureaucrat of Georgian origin and an amateur numismatist, the first to have studied the coinage of Georgia.
Background
Mikhail Petrovich Barataev was born on January 25, 1784, in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk, Russian Federation) into the expatriate Georgian noble family of Baratashvili. His father, Prince Pyotr Mikhailovich Barataev, was a general in the Russian army and Simbirsk governor. His mother came of the Russian untitled noble family of Nazimov.
Education
Mikhail Petrovich was educated at home.
Career
Mikhail Petrovich served as an artillery officer from 1798 to 1809 and retired with wounds received in the Napoleonic Wars. From 1820 to 1835, he was head of nobility of the Simbirsk governorate. Mikhail Petrovich founded a Freemasonic lodge "Key to Virtues" in Simbirsk and was briefly arrested in 1826 for his ties with the Decembrists. In 1838 he received the rank of Privy Councilor, in 1839-1842 he headed the Transcaucasian District Customs Administration (Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Dushet'is Raioni, Georgia)).
In 1839, Mikhail Petrovich was appointed a director of the customs department in Georgia. Upon his retirement in 1844, he published, in French and Russian, his principal study The Numismatic Facts of the Kingdom of Georgia.
Mikhail Petrovich died at his estate Barataevka in Simbirsk.