Joseph Marshak – Kyiv Cartier
The surname Marshak is known to all of us from the children’s poems of Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak. And he is not the only prominent representative of this family. The network of jewelry stores “Marshak” was one of the most famous in pre-revolutionary Russia, along with the jewelry houses of Faberge and Bolin. Iosif Abramovich Marshak, who was called the “Kyiv Cartier”, was Samuil Yakovlevich’s cousin uncle.

Joseph was born into a poor family of Abram Isakovich and Fenya Lazarevna Marshak in 1854. He was the eldest child, he had a sister and four brothers. At the age of 14, he moved to Kyiv and went to work as an apprentice in a jewelry workshop. Marshak was able to open his own workshop in Kyiv in 1878. Family tradition says that the entire dowry of his wife Leah went to open the workshop, and when it was not enough, he had to pawn the only good suit to make his first gold chain.
After a year of work, the master was able to move to the center of Kyiv on Khreshchatyk and expand the business, taking apprentices and apprentices.


In 1913, in honor of the 35th anniversary of the company, it was decided to set up a craft school at the factory to teach the poor children of Kyiv crafts: metalwork, carpentry, engraving, wood carving. The owner of the factory assumed the costs of maintaining the school.
Joseph Marshak had 8 children. When he died in 1918 from cancer, he left a will, according to which his fortune was distributed among his children, and part of the money 1 million rubles, was given to charity and support for the workers of his factory. After the revolution, the factory was nationalized. However, the history of the jewelry company did not end there. The family business was continued by the sons of Joseph Abramovich.


The Russian period in the history of the famous Kyiv jewelry company “Marshak” ended in 1918 with the death of its founder, Joseph Marshak. His children emigrated to France, production was nationalized, and little was left of his vast fortune. The second birth of the MARCHAK brand took place in Paris thanks to the efforts of the youngest son of Joseph Marshak Alexander, who studied jewelry in Paris.

In partnership with Robert Linzelier in 1922, Alexandre Marshak (1892-1975) opened a jewelery shop in Paris, first on rue Cambon, soon after moving to the prestigious rue de la Paix in the expensive boutique district of the most famous couturiers. Robert Linzelier (1872-1941) is also an interesting personality a hereditary jeweler and yachtsman, twice silver medalist of the 1900 Olympic Games in yachting.
The partnership did not last long, but it was during this period that the company created the most interesting things in the art deco style, in my opinion, combining Russian traditions with oriental exoticism and modern geometric shapes. The success of the brand was awarded the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1925. In the same year, the partnership with Linselier broke up. The boutique on the Rue de la Paix became a MARCHAK store.
























