But in Mendeleev's mind, this area of study was not his forte.
Mendeleev said: "Do you think I'm a chemist? I actually am a political economist."
He was right.
He created a development program for Russia based on industry instead of agriculture and by the end of 1890, when Russia started facing serious economic problems, Mendeleev’s authority on the subject started to be recognized.
He calculated the country’s custom tariffs and according to Maxim Savchenko, a professor at the Russian Customs Academy, “Not a single important decision concerning trade and industry was carried out without Mendeleev's approval."
Mendeleev predicted that oil would become a key component of the world economy and was the first to suggest the idea of using pipelines to transport the resource.
"Of the three major schools of thought in Russian economics, the most meaningful today is based on the ideas of Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev," said Mikhail Antonov, an economist at the Moscow-based Institute of Russian Civilization.
