Editing Basil Zaharoff (section)

==Early life==
Zacharias was the only son and eldest of four children of Basilius Zacharoff (d. 1878) of Constantinople, a [[Greeks|Greek]] [[notary]], commodity dealer and [[importer]] of [[attar of roses]] and his (reportedly blind) wife, Helena Antonides (d. 1879).<ref name="ODNB"/>  Zacharias was born in the [[Ottoman Empire]] town of [[Muğla|Menteşe]] in southwest Turkey. His family lived in Russia for over two decades as exiles following the anti-Greek "Easter pogroms" of 1821.  While there they adopted the surname Zaharoff. They returned to the Ottoman Empire in the 1840s and, by 1855, had returned{{clarify|How could they "return" to somewhere they never left? When had they lived there previously?|date=January 2022}} to [[Constantinople]]'s Greek neighbourhood of [[Tatavla]].
 
Zacharias' first job was as a [[tour guide]] in the [[Galata]]. It is thought he became an [[Firefighter arson|arsonist]] with Constantinople's fire brigades, who were paid to recover or salvage treasures for their wealthy owners.<ref name="ODNB"/>

He was summoned to court in [[London]]{{when|date=June 2024}} due to irregular exports of goods from Constantinople to London. The London Greeks from Constantinople preferred disputes involving members of their community to be settled outside English courts, and he was discharged on the conditions that he paid £100 restitution to the claimant and remained within the court's jurisdiction. Instead, he immediately left for [[Athens, Greece|Athens]], where the 24-year-old Zaharoff was befriended by a [[political journalist]], [[Etienne Skouloudis]]. The eloquent Zaharoff succeeded in convincing Skouloudis of the rightness of his London court case. Skouloudis was a friend of a Swedish captain who was about to leave his job as an agent of arms manufacturer [[Thorsten Nordenfelt]]. Skouloudis used his influence to recommend Zaharoff for the role. Zaharoff was hired on 14 October 1877, beginning a spectacular career. The political and military instability in the [[Balkan states]], Turkey and Russia provided an excellent opportunity for the arms sales, as each state spent to match the perceived aggressive intentions of its neighbours, even after the [[Treaty of Berlin (1878)|1878 Treaty of Berlin]].