Symyrenko, Fedir

Symyrenko, Fedir [Симиренко, Федір], b 1791 in Platoniv khutir, Cherkasy county, Kyiv gubernia, d 4 November 1867 in Mliiv, Cherkasy county. Entrepreneur of the Symyrenko family; father of Platon Symyrenko and Vasyl Symyrenko. Descended from an enserfed Cossack family, he became one of the first industrialists in Ukraine. In the 1820s and 1830s he leased a sugar mill with his father-in-law, K. Yakhnenko, and traded in grain, livestock, and leather goods. Eventually he bought his freedom and together with the Yakhnenko family established a sugar-manufacturing company. In 1843 in the village of Tashlyk, near Smila in Kyiv gubernia, they built the first mechanized steam sugar refinery in the Russian Empire. In 1846 they set up a machine-building factory in Mliiv, which built sugar-refining equipment, and in 1848 a second sugar refinery near Mliiv. The Mliiv factory produced the first steamships used on the Dnipro River.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]