Prince Nikita Dmitrievich Lobanov-Rostovsky (Russian: Никита Лобанов, Никита Дмитриевич Лобанов-Ростовский) (born 6 January 1935), known as Nikita Lobanov, is a Russian and American geologist, banker, and notable art collector of Russian stage design of the period of 1880–1930 (in particular designs for Ballets Russes).
Biography
Childhood and youth A relative of the diplomat and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, Alexey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky. Son of Dmitry Ivanovich Lobanov-Rostovsky (1907-1948) and Irina Vasilyevna (1911-1957), daughter of V. V. Wyrubov. His uncle (his mother's brother) is Nikolai Vasilyevich Vyrubov (1915-2009), a member of the French Resistance and a Knight of the Legion of Honor and Ordre de le Liberastion. His grandfather, Prince Ivan Nikolaevich (1866 – October 13, 1947), left Russia with his sons in 1919. Nikita was born in Bulgaria, where the entire family settled. In 1946, after Soviet troops entered Bulgaria, he and his parents unsuccessfully attempted to cross the Greek border: the family was arrested on Greek territory. The 11-year-old boy fell ill from malnutrition and was transferred to a criminal prison, the Sofia Central Prison, where conditions were better. He spent a year in prison; his mother and father was released six months later. However, in 1948, Dmitry Lobanov-Rostovsky was kidnapped by Bulgarian state security agencies and, as his son only discovered in 1992, was executed in a death camp near the city of Pazardzhik.(Camp "C"). On doctor's advice, to avoid rickets, Nikita took up swimming, and in 1951 he became Bulgarian youth champion in the 100- and 200-meter breaststroke. In September 1953, Nikita and his emigrated to Paris. He received assistance from his uncle, Nikolai Vasilyevich Vyrubov, one of de Gaulle's closest Russian friends, who worked at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, and from the future lbest selling novelist and close friend of de Gaul Romain Gary (Deputy Ambassador of France to Bulgaria). In 1956, Irina died, and while his mother was still alive, in 1954 Nikita, having received a scholarship from a refugee aid organization, moved to England to prepare for admission to Oxford University's Geology Department. It was then that he first saw the art he would dedicate his life to collecting, attending an exhibition in London dedicated to Sergei Diaghilev's "Seasons of the Russian Ballet." He was taken there by his godmother, Ekaterina Ridley, granddaughter of Count Benckendorff, the last ambassador of the Russian Tsar to England.
Career He graduated from Oxford University in 1958. He moved to the United States to continue his education, enrolling in the Department of Geology at Columbia University in New York City, specializing in economic geology (ore deposit geology). He received his master's degree in 1960.He worked at the private bank Lobe Roads, explored oil in Patagonia (Argentina), and studied Spanish. Later, he prospected for mercury in Tunisia and Alaska, nickel in Venezuela, iron (itibarite) in Liberia, and worked in diamond mines in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Returning to New York, he worked at Chemical Bank (now Morgan Chase Bank) and entered the evening department of New York University to study banking. In 1962, he earned a master's degree in banking accounting, and at the same time married Nina Georges-Picot, the daughter of the French ambassador to the UN and the first deputy secretary-general of the UN. From 1961 to 1967, he served the international of Chemical Bank. From 1967 to 1970, he was assistant vice president of Bache & Co, also in New York. From 1970 to 1979, he was vice president of Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco, also heading its division Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. From 1979 to 1983, he served as senior vice president of International Resources and Finance Bank in London. After 1974, he visited the USSR numerous times on business for the banks where he worked, and met with the country's top government officials. From 1987 to 1997, he was an advisor to the South African diamond monopoly De Beers. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. In 1979, the couple moved from San Francisco to London.
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