title: Nikolai Tarasov
text: # Nikolai Tarasov
  
  Nikolai Lazarevich Tarasov (Armenian: Նիկողայոս Ղազարոսեան Թորոսեան, 1882, Moscow – October 1910, Moscow) was an Armenian–Russian oil-industrialist and dandy, who was a devotee of the theatre.
  
  ## Biography
  
  He was born as Nikoghayos Torosian in a family of Armenian traders from Armavir. From 1906 he financially supported Moscow Art Theatre and became a member of theatre's direction. In 1908, along with his friend Nikita Balieff, he co-founded the Moscow Bat theatre (La Chauve-Souris), to organise comedy evenings for members of the Arts Theatre.
  
  He committed suicide in 1910. Tarasov's tomb at the Moscow Armenian Cemetery is a modernist style work by sculptor Nikolai Andreev.
  
  