zaytsev was born in kazan. he was the son of a tea and sugar merchant, who had decided that his son should follow him into the mercantile trades. however, at the urging of his maternal uncle, the physicist lyapunov, zaytsev was allowed to enroll at university of kazan to study economics. at this time, russia was experimenting with the cameral system, meaning that every student graduating in law and economics from a russian university had to take two years of chemistry. zaytsev was thus introduced to aleksandr mikhailovich butlerov.