Kitabgi

thumb|General Antoine Kitabgi Khan Antoine Kitabgi Khan (October 2, 1843, ConstantinopleDecember 20, 1902, Livorno) was a Persian general who was director general of customs in Persia from 1881 to 1893 and initiated important concessions during the reigns of Nasseredin shah and his successor Mozaffareddin shah. He was in particular the initiator of the oil concession granted in 1901 to William Knox D'Arcy which gave birth to BP.

== Constantinople == A Catholic, Antoine Kitabgi was born in 1843 in Constantinople to an Armenian family of Georgian origin. He was the second child and first son of a sibling group of six. His father, Vincent Kitabgi, was a supplier of gem-embellished water pipes to the sultan. Around the age of 14, Kitabgi was sent to Livorno, Italy, to complete his studies. There he learned Italian and French, which he spoke fluently in addition to Armenian and Turkish. His father being sick and unable to work, he returned to Constantinople in 1861 and was hired at the age of 18 at the Maritime Messenger Agency. In 1866, he was employed and later became a partner in the Armenian Ruben Hocozian cloth and drapery business and three years later founded his own cloth, drapery and carpet business. In 1870, he married Philomene Altounian, an Armenian Catholic woman whose parents came from the New Julfa district of Esfahan in Persia. Three boys, Vincent, Paul and Edward, were born in Constantinople from this union. Kitabgi's business prospered rapidly. He became the official supplier to the Sultan's tailor and began to diversify his business. He began selling arms, obtaining representation from major European firms and the position of arms supplier to the War Ministry. In 1874, in association with the Armenian Serkissian, he created a mechanical sawmill company in Bulgaria, then an Ottoman province.