Kocheshev Alexey Ivanovich
He was born in 1864 in the city of Kurgan in the family of merchant Ivan Ivanovich Kocheshev. From 1888 to 1891 he lived at the Kushvinsky factory of the Yekaterinburg district, had a small photo studio there, having received permission from the Perm governor for this. Having received permission from the Governor of Tobolsk to produce photographic works in Kurgan, he opened his photo studio in the house of the Menshikov brothers on Troitskaya Street on September 19, 1891.
In 1895, about 400 of his photographs of Kurgan and Yalutorovsky counties were presented at an agricultural and handicraft industrial exhibition in Kurgan, and for them he received a silver medal. The following year, for his photographs, A. I. Kocheshev received a Letter of Commendation at the international photographic exhibition in Moscow, organized for the 1st Congress of "Russian figures in the photographic business". By the end of the 1890s, A.I. Kocheshev achieved success in the photographic business and built his own house, which met the requirements of his profession. At the same time, his income allowed him to move from the bourgeoisie to the merchant class.
His own house was built at the crossroad of Dvoryanskaya Street and Duma Lane in Kurgan (the modern crossroad of Sovetskaya and Komsomolskaya streets). This two-storey semi-stone mansion would be typical of the merchant environment of a provincial town, if there was not simultaneous combination of features of classicism, Russian style and even some features of the Baroque. The first floor was brick, the second — wooden. There is an opinion based on the memoirs of the photographer’s daughters that the old house of Alexey Ivanovich’s father, which was previously located on their estate in the village of Paderinskoye, was moved to the second floor.
In the first years after the construction of the house, many rooms were rented out. However, Alexey Ivanovich Kocheshev was quite an enterprising person: after a while he stops renting out the premises of his house and starts using retail space for his own business. A few years after the opening of photography in the new building, he placed a printing house in the basement, and a store of stationery and photographic goods on the ground floor, although in reality the range was much wider. Magic lanterns and burners, alcohol kitchens, skis, cameras, typewriters, Christmas decorations were sold here. Over time, the entire building becomes a single complex of photographic and printing services.
Kocheshev was carried away by the turbulent events of 1905. The "Manifesto of Freedom" was printed in his printing house. Having suppressed the open revolutionary action of the Kurgan workers, the city police arrested the entire strike committee. Kocheshev, using his authority, managed to get into the prison yard and take a group picture of 14 arrested (these materials were confiscated by the police, but one picture has been preserved and is in the collection of the Museum of Local Lore). In 1907, Kocheshev filmed the May Day demonstrations.
In the same year, he began publishing his own newspaper called Kurgan News, which in 1909 was fined 500 rubles for anti-government materials. Despite this, the publication of the newspaper was soon resumed, but under the name "Kurgan Bulletin". In 1909, the printing house published the "Address Calendar and reference book of commercial and industrial firms of Kurgan and its district of Tobolsk province", which is now one of the most important sources on the history of the Kurgan of this period. In addition, Kocheshev was a successful agent of the 1st Russian Insurance Company, served as a comrade of the director of the city Public Bank Vasily Bagashev. In 1910, he was elected a vowel of the City Duma.
Until 1918, A.I. Kocheshev worked in photography, but he had to leave it. Since 1910 Alexey Ivanovich was a vowel of the City Duma, in 1918 he submitted a written application for the resignation of his powers. The Duma accepted his resignation on June 16, 1918. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the photographer’s family left for an estate in Paderinsky parish, A.I. Kocheshev himself left for Tomsk. He returned to Kurgan after the final establishment of Soviet power. The house, which the family left in perfect order before leaving, was nationalized after their return to the city (in 1919 — a photo studio, and in 1920 — printing house), a lot was stolen, most of the pictures were thrown away. Some of the photos were kept by friends and acquaintances of the photographer. Despite this, after the end of the civil war, the Kocheshevs lived in Kurgan for some time. The head of the family served at a vegetable drying plant (the former beer factory of Gampl). In 1927 they were disenfranchised. Shortly after that, A.I. Kocheshev’s family moved to Omsk, and then to Novosibirsk (formerly Novo-Nikolaevsk) for permanent residence. Here, until 1933, Alexey Ivanovich worked as a master for the repair of pavilion equipment.