A statue of the legendary Armenian footballer and coach Nikita Simonyan has been unveiled at Spartak Moscow’s home stadium, reports Zartonk Sports.
The statue stands in front of the stadium’s Stand A, which is named after him, and was raised to mark the 100th anniversary of his birth on October 12. It was unveiled before Spartak’s Russian Premier League match against Rubin Kazan.
Born Mkrtich Simonyan in Armavir, he was later given the name Nikita by friends and became known as Nikita Simonyan. He spent most of his playing career at Spartak Moscow, from 1949 to 1959, and remains the club’s all-time top scorer with 160 goals. He was a four-time Soviet champion, a two-time Soviet Cup winner, and an Olympic gold medalist with the USSR at the 1956 Melbourne Games.
Simonyan’s greatest mark on Armenian football came as a coach. In 1973, he led Yerevan’s Ararat to the Soviet Top League title and the Soviet Cup in the same season. That team, known as Ararat-73, completed the first and only league-and-cup double in Armenian football history, beating Dynamo Kyiv in the Cup final, and it remains the greatest achievement the Armenian game has produced.
He later spent more than 30 years in leadership roles in Soviet and Russian football, first with the USSR Football Federation and then the Russian Football Union. Nikita Simonyan passed away on November 23, 2025, at the age of 99.
