Mohammad Vali Mirza Farman Farmaian

Since his youth, Mohammad Vali had spent a great deal of time in Iranian Azerbaijan, where he owned considerable estates.

Working through the Majles, he invited American advisors to help reform the military, rural security system, gendarmerie, and public financial sector.

When his father and brothers were imprisoned during the 1921 coup that brought the Pahlavi dynasty to power Mohammad Vali Mirza escaped to Baghdad.

At the end of World War I, when the Russian Communists seized many properties in Azerbaijan, Mohammad Vali Mirza travelled to Moscow to settle accounts.

Disguised as a beggar, he crossed the mountain passes of Turkey on his way north but was captured by a Venezuelan general named Rafael de Nogales, who was fighting on the German side and almost shot him as a spy.