 Using his friendship with Aleksey Arakcheyev, he managed to grant them all the privileges of the noble family.Andrei went on to serve in the Interior Ministry of the Russian Empire, then as the vice-governor of Novgorod, and then in the Volhynian Governorate.The composer's mother, Sofya Vasilievna Rimskaya-Korsakova (1802–1890), was also born as an illegitimate daughter of a peasant serf and Vasily Fedorovich Skaryatin, a wealthy landlord who belonged to the noble Russian family that originated during the 16th century.