Mitrofan Petrovich Belyayev was a Russian music publisher, outstanding philanthropist, and the owner of a large wood dealership enterprise in Russia. He was also the founder of the Belyayev circle, a society of musicians in Russia whose members included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Glazunov and Anatoly Lyadov. His surname is often transliterated as Belaieff or Belayev. In 1886 the Russian painter Ilya Repin made a portrait of Belyayev.