Oļegs Karavajevs (1961-2020) *59

was a Latvian international football goalkeeper. Karavajevs was the goalkeeper who made the most appearances for Latvian national squad durung the 1990s. Born in Barnaul, Karavajevs' first club was Alga Frunze in Kyrgyzstan (at that time still within the Soviet Union) with which Karavajevs played 18 matches in 1979. Karavajevs stayed with Frunze until 1984, except for a brief time with Pakhtakor Tashkent in 1981. Then came a season with Kairat Almaty but Karavajevs became a real Soviet First League goalkeeper in 1985 when he transferred to SKA Khabarovsk. With SKA he played 88 matches over two seasons and was invited to transfer to Daugava Rīga where he took over the number one goalkeeper position from Aleksandrs Kulakovs.

In 1987 Daugava with Karavajevs as an irreplaceable goalkeeper nearly earned promotion to the Soviet top league but in 1988 the performance of the club started to decline and Karavajevs had to battle for his position with Valeri Shantalosov.[citation needed]