Nikolai Markov was born in
Tiflis and was educated at the
Imperial Academy of Arts in
St. Petersburg and at the Persian Department of the Oriental Faculty of
Saint Petersburg University. Prior to his decisive settling in Iran, Markov was a high-ranking member of the
Imperial Russian army, and fought in the
Caucasus against the
Bolsheviks under Colonel
Nikolai Baratov, the commander of the Russian forces in Iran and to whose staff he was attached, and had served with the fanatically anti-Bolshevik Major-General
Lazar Bicherakhov, another one of Baratov's senior officers. A supporter of the
White movement, in the years around and after the
Bolshevik Revolution he served as a captain in the
Persian Cossack Brigade under General
Vsevolod Starosselsky. Amongst his works are the
Alborz High School, the Post Office and Telecommunications Center of Tehran, factories, and a
mosque. He was buried at the
Doulab Cemetery. ==Gallery==