Kozma Terentyevich Soldatenkov was a well-known Moscow entrepreneur and textile manufacturer, as well as a major book publisher and owner of an art gallery. He was born in 1818 in Moscow to a family of Old Believer merchants. His grandfather, Yegor Vasilyevich, founded a small silk weaving production in 1774 in a village near Pavlovsky Posad, where he worked with his sons Terenty and Konstantin. Later, they moved to Moscow and opened a weaving factory with a hundred workers producing silk fabrics, as well as trading in paper yarn and cotton. Kozma did not receive systematic education but possessed an outstanding mind. In 1852, after the death of his older brother Ivan, he took over the family business, which later passed to his nephew Vasily Ivanovich Soldatenkov.

Kozma Terentyevich became known as a patron of the arts and publisher of valuable works. In 1856, at the initiative of N. K. Ketcher and together with N. M. Shchepkin, he founded a publishing house, and in 1857 opened a bookstore, aiming to make books accessible to everyone. Since the late 1840s, he had been collecting paintings by Russian artists such as Karl Bryullov and Vasily Perov, with the support of Mikhail Botkin and Alexander Ivanov. For his generosity in supporting the arts, he earned the nickname 'Kozma Medici.'

Soldatenkov was also a major textile manufacturer and participated in the creation of the largest textile firm in Russia, the Krenholm Manufacturing Society in Narva. He was one of the organizers of manufacturing firms and a shareholder of the Nikolskaya Manufacturing Society 'Savva Morozov's Son and Co.' He actively participated in various committees, councils, and charitable societies. In 1866, he founded the Soldatenkov almshouse for 100 people, providing a building and capital of 15,000 rubles for it.

Kozma Soldatenkov, a renowned patron, died in 1901 in Kuntsevo and was buried at the Rogozhskoye Cemetery. His grave and mausoleum were destroyed during the Soviet years. According to Soldatenkov's will, his library and collection of Russian paintings were transferred to the Rumyantsev Museum and subsequently enriched the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum. Part of the icons was bequeathed to the Intercession Cathedral of the Rogozhskoye Cemetery. In accordance with his will, a craft school and a city hospital for the poor were built.