Date of birth unknown; died 1646. Russian merchant and industrialist of the first half of the 17th century.
Sveteshnikov came from a family of posadskie liudi (merchants and artisans) of Yaroslavl. He helped organize the struggle against Polish interventionists. At the beginning of the 17th century, the tsar granted him a special charter na gostinoe imia (see) that allowed him to trade from Arkhangel’sk to Astrakhan and from Novgorod to Yakutsk. A usurer and a major landowner, he organized salt-mining enterprises in Kostroma District and along the Volga, in the village of Usol’e (1631). He built stockades to protect the Volga mines from attack by the Nogai Tatars. In 1644, Sveteshnikov’s property, not including his property in Moscow and Yaroslavl, was valued at 35,500 rubles (approximately one-half million in late-19th-century gold rubles). In 1646, Sveteshnikov met financial ruin.