Early Life
Zacharias Basileios was the only son and eldest of four children of Basilius Zacharoff of Istanbul, born in the Turkish town of Muğla. The name Zaharoff was adopted when the family was in exile in Russia as a result of the anti-Greek "Easter pogroms" of 1821. The family returned to Turkey in the 1840s. By 1855, the family was back in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), where they lived in the modest Greek neighborhood of Tatavla.
Young Basileios' first job was as a guide for the tourists to the Galata. He then reputedly became an arsonist for the Constantinople firefighters. The 19th century firemen of Constantinople were not so effective at extinguishing fires, but quite effective at rescuing or salvaging the treasures of the rich for a healthy commission.
Read more about this topic: Basil Zaharoff
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I realized how for all of us who came of age in the late sixties and early seventies the war was a defining experience. You went or you didn’t, but the fact of it and the decisions it forced us to make marked us for the rest of our lives, just as the depression and World War II had marked my parents.”
—Linda Grant (b. 1949)
“My life is superficial, takes no root in the deep world; I ask, When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing a Universe which I do not use? I wish to exchange this flash-of-lightning faith for continuous daylight, this fever-glow for a benign climate.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)