Asigkrit Yakovlevich Balin was born in 1816 into a family of Old Believers. His grandfather, Semyon Ivanovich Balin, acquired a plot of land in the village of Dunilovo in the Shuya district of Vladimir province from landowner P. N. Naryshkin in 1828. On this plot, he built a house and opened a furrier workshop. Later, he closed it and shifted to textile production, opening a small dyeing establishment where he dyed calico blue. He purchased calico in the village of Vichuga and sold it in small bundles called 'tyums.'

Semyon Ivanovich died in 1831, and his son Yakov Semyonovich closed the business. However, in 1836, his grandson Asigkrit Balin revived and expanded it, starting to dye fabric in whole pieces of 50 arshins or more. Asigkrit established trade connections with Yaroslavl merchants Lopatins and E. S. Goroshkov, selling them calico and red striped fabric. Soon he began producing various types of muslin and calico, including 'Saxon' calico with a green or cube background.

In the 1840s, Asigkrit Balin began producing 'red striped fabric' from crimson yarn, which he purchased in the Novoaleksandrovskaya sloboda. He also invited the master light-weaver Pyotr Gerasimov from the village of Mostish for assistance in production. In the 1850s, Balin opened an office for yarn trading in Ivanovo.

By 1855, Asigkrit's fortune reached about 10 million rubles. He founded the 'Partnership of A. Y. Balin's Manufactory' with a capital of 3 million rubles. His Yuzhskaya factory employed 480 people and produced yarn and muslin worth up to half a million rubles daily.

In 1865, Balin acquired a paper-spinning factory from I. A. Protasyev, and in 1868, he built a weaving factory. In 1871, he, along with V. A. Makarov, purchased a factory in the village of Bagretzovo, and in 1872, with F. D. Pupyshev, a factory in the village of Vaulina.

Asigkrit Yakovlevich died in 1885. His eldest son Nikolai continued the business, increasing the capital to 6 million rubles. Other sons also participated in the management and development of the factories. Asigkrit had 13 children from two marriages. His first wife, Maria Avksentyevna, died shortly after giving birth to their son Vasily. His second wife, Ilaria Nikolaevna Kiseleva, came from a family of Shuya merchants. In his second marriage, Balin built a manor on the shore of a lake in Yuzha.

Asigkrit's sons, such as Nikolai, Alexander, Leonid, Valentin, Vasily, and Vladimir, continued the family business. Valentin married Elena Alexeyevna, the daughter of manufacturer A. A. Postnikov. After the 1917 revolution, their family faced repression.

His granddaughter Vera Valentinovna Ilyina became a memoirist, and her husband Rostislav Ilyin was a land surveyor-evolutionist. His great-granddaughter Olga Rostislavovna Ilyina became a public figure and local historian, while his great-grandson Igor Rostislavovich Ilyin became an agronomist-soil scientist and writer.