Emil Avdaliani
Research Assistant in History at Faculty of Humanities, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Abstract
In the 19th century Georgia the development of economic relations, based on the principles of capitalism, brought many foreign entrepreneurs and investor companies to the country. The following story is a perfect example of this process and concerns such giants of the financial world as Nobels, Rotschilds (mightiest financial family in Europe) and Rockfellers (founders of the biggest American oil company “Standard Oil”) families. Quite often the competition was unfair and breaching of laws usually brought about long court litigations hindering business development in Georgia. Agreements were being made between Nobels and Rotschilds, Rockfellers and Rotschilds, and sometimes even between Nobels and Rockfellers. Everything was being done to destroy the third party. The battle of these three families has gone down into history as the so called “Thirty Years War”.1 Yet, the most important thing is that the cause of everything was the Transcaucasian railway and the oil.
