 Balieff is believed to have been born in Erzerum, Ottoman Empire in 1873, he left for Moscow in 1906 and took a job at the Moscow Art Theater under Konstantin Stanislavski.After years of only non-speaking roles, and with a desire to perform comedy rather than drama, Balieff co-created (among with Nikolai Tarasov) his own theater group in a basement near the Moscow Art Theater.He named the troupe "La Chauve-Souris" (French for "bat") after a bat flew up out of the basement door and landed on his hat.