Many of the first managers to make a living in the theatre were men like Savin, a former Naval officer who left the Service as the result of a scandal; or like Valyano, an ex-hussar officer who ran an opera-theatre at Rostov-on-Don, and being a linguist translated foreign librettos into Russian. Sometimes, it must be admitted, there were conditions in which no theatre could appeal at all. As in Zhitomir, where the population consisted of Poles who boycotted a Russian theatre, poverty-line Jews, low-grade Russian civil servants, and troops. Biyazi made his living by little less than a miracle. Credit for being among the first to organise a well-balanced company goes to Rasskazov. Medvedyev realised the importance of the actor as a human being, an individual. Once it becomes the custom for a manager to have been an actor, it soon becomes the custom for him to devote himself to improving the standard of the performance.