FROM A FAMILY’S CHRONICLE: ADRIAN AVRAMIDE (1894-1963)
FROM A FAMILY’S CHRONICLE: ADRIAN AVRAMIDE (1894-1963)

Summary/Abstract: Avramide House, located in the center of Tulcea city, in the proximity of Saint Nicholas Cathedral, is a patrimony building most representative for the end of 19th century. We decided to carry on further researches on the family’s history, especially since it was the focus of an extensive project of restauration and preservation European financed project. Avramide family was renowned in the city as a prosperous industrialist family, owning a timber factory and a mill. The present study offers a general overview of the Avramide family, underlining a few essential moments in the life of the older son, Adrian, using documents kept in the Tulcea County Branch of the National Archives, as well as oral sources. A most interesting chapter in Adrian Avramide’s life is reconstituted. In August 1926, following the dividing of Avramide’s family wealth, he inherited the timber factory along with the mill, both established by his father in 1894. Between 1927 and 1928, Adrian Avramide invested greatly in modernizing the factory in order to increase the production capacity, especially for export, at a time when Romanian timber was higly sought and appreciated. Furthermore, he installed an automatic mill and an oil extraction machinery. To fund all these investments, he was forced to rely on bank loans. He needed the credit offered by the Romanian Discount Bank in order to buy the raw material for the timber factory. The economic crisis gravely affected his businesses and he wasn’t able to honour his contractual commitments. From 1932 on, he stopped paying any interest on his debts, invoking the law regarding exemption of agricultural debts and sought, by any means available, postponement in the bill processes filed against him by the Tulcea Branch of Romanian National Bank. The study presents the reports sended by the staff of Tulcea Branch of Romanian National Bank to the Governor of the Romanian National Bank in Bucharest, between 1934-1937, regarding Adrian Avramide’s debt and also the evolution of legal actions filed against him. The documents, unknown until the present time, come from the Copierul Special rapoarte B.N.R. no. 962/1934 (Special Copying Bulletin of R.N.B. no. 962/1934), kept nowadays in a private archive.

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