Shavarsh Krissian, founder of the Baltaliman club

The portrait shows Shavarsh Krissian, founder, coach and player of the first Armenian football club, Baltaliman.

According to the source, 120–130 years ago in the Ottoman Empire the Turks regarded football as “haram”, an occupation of infidels, and did not play it. Football was brought into the empire by Europeans, but it was Armenians and Greeks, who played with the Europeans, who spread it among the local population. The first to do so was Shavarsh Krissian. He was brutally killed in 1915, during the Armenian Genocide.

In this colour portrait he wears a dark jacket, a white shirt and a black bow tie.