List of Russian people
This is a list of people associated with the modern
Grand Duchy of Moscow, Kievan Rus'
, and other predecessor states of Russia.
Regardless of ethnicity or emigration, the list includes famous natives of Russia and its predecessor states, as well as people who were born elsewhere but spent most of their active life in Russia. For more information, see the articles
Russian citizens (Russian: россияне, romanized: rossiyane), Russians (Russian: русские, romanized: russkiye) and Demographics of Russia. For specific lists of Russians, see Category:Lists of Russian people and Category:Russian people
.
Statesmen
Monarchs
- Rurikid Dynasty, traditionally the first ruler of Russia
- Kiev and founder of Kievan Rus', famous for his wars with the Byzantium
- Rurikidruler
- among Russian rulers
- Vladimir I "the Great", turned saint from pagan and enacted the Christianization of Kievan Rus'
- Yaroslav I "the Wise", reigned in the period when Kievan Rus' reached the zenith of its cultural flowering and military power, founder of Yaroslavl
- Cuman nomads, presided over the end of the Golden Ageof Kiev
- Yury I"the Long-Handed", founder of Moscow
- Andrey I "Bogolyubsky" (the God-Loving), key figure in transition of political power from Kiev to Vladimir-Suzdal
- Vsevolod "the Big Nest", the Grand Prince of Vladimir during its Golden Age, had 14 children
- Battle of the Ice, patron saint and the Name of Russia
- Ivan I "the Moneybag", brought wealth and power to Moscow by maintaining his loyalty to the Golden Hordeand acting as its chief tax collector in Russia
- Ivan the Great
- Dmitry Donskoy, saint and war hero, the first Prince of Moscow to openly challenge Mongol authority in Russia, famous for the Battle of Kulikovo
- Mongol yoke, brought Renaissance architectureto Russia
- transcontinental state
- Boris Godunov, the first non-Rurikid monarch
- False Dmitriy I, the first impostor during the Time of Troubles
- Shuisky, Tsar elected during the Time of Troubles
- False Dmitry II, the second impostor during the Time of Troubles
- Romanovmonarch, oversaw the largest ever expansion of Russia's territory, reaching the Pacific
- Peter I "the Great", the first Russian Emperor, polymath craftsman and inventor, modernized Russian Army and westernized culture, won the Great Northern War, founded the Russian Navy and the new capital Saint Petersburg
- Catherine I, the first Russian Empress
- Elizabeth, "the Merry Empress" during the era of high Baroque
- Catherine II "the Great", German-born Russian Empress during the Age of Enlightenment, significantly expanded Russia's territory
- Alexander I, the first Russian King of Poland and the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland.
- Alexander II "the Liberator", enacted the "Great Reforms" in Russian economy and social structure, including the emancipation reform of 1861
- Alexander III "the Peacemaker", reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II. This policy is known in Russia as "counter-reforms" , he also opposed any reform that limited his autocratic rule. During his reign, Russia fought no major wars;
- Nicholas II, the last actual emperor, forced to abdicate after the February Revolution, killed with his family during the Russian Civil War
Statesmen of the Tsardom and Empire
- Vasily Golitsyn
- Reval, the great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin and hero of his novel The Moor of Peter the Great
- Eternal Peace Treaty of 1686 with Poland, one of the most educated Russians of the time
- Fyodor Golovin, associate of Peter the Great, general admiral, the first Russian field marshal and Chancellor, the first Russian count and the first to receive the Order of St. Andrew, negotiated the Treaty of Nerchinsk and the Treaty of Karlowitz
- Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister and Chancellor of Alexander II, a friend and rival of Otto von Bismarck, denounced the Treaty of Paris (1856), advocated the League of the Three Emperors
- Ivan Goremykin, twice the Prime Minister of Imperial Russia
- Alexander Kerensky, second and the last Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government
- Franz Lefort, tutor of Peter the Great, general and diplomat, oversaw the foundation of the Russian Navy
- Georgy Lvov, first Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government
- generalissimus, Prince, the first Governor of Saint Petersburg
- Pavel Milyukov, founder of the Constitutional Democratic Party, Foreign Minister in the Russian Provisional Government
- Treaty of Beijing (1860)with China
- Karl Nesselrode, Foreign Minister of Alexander II and Nicholas I, a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance
- Orlov Diamond
- Konstantin Pobedonostsev, tutor to Alexander III and Éminence grise of his imperial politics
- Yekaterinoslav
- Grigori Rasputin, mystic and healer who influenced the latter politics of Nicholas II
- Hetman of Ukrainian Cossacks, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- Nikolay Rumyantsev, Foreign Minister during the French invasion of Russia, founder of the Rumyantsev Museum
- Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova
- Pyotr Stolypin, Interior Minister and then Prime Minister, put down the Russian Revolution of 1905, initiated Stolypin reform
- Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences and the founder of Russian Academy
- industrialization of the country, and supervised the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway
- Ivan Serebrennikov, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian state.
- Pyotr Vologodsky, Minister of Supply of the Russian State.
Soviet statesmen
- Marxist theoretician, economist and prolific author, Politburo member in the 1920s, editor of government newspapers Pravda and Izvestia, author of The ABC of Communism
- Nikolai Bulganin, leading Communist politician, served as the Minister of Defense and the Premier of the Soviet Union, backed de-Stalinization
- Mikhail Gorbachev last General Secretary of the CPSU and the only President of the Soviet Union, launched the policies of glasnost and perestroika, presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union
- Head of state of the Soviet Unionin 1938–1946
- de-Stalinisation and many erratic policies, backed the progress of the early Soviet space program
- capitalist management
- Bolshevik party, the leader of the October Revolution, the first Soviet head of state in 1917–1922, founder of the Soviet Union, creator of Leninism
- Anatoly Lunacharsky, first Soviet Minister of Enlightenment
- Georgy Malenkov, close associate of Stalin, Soviet Premier and one of the leaders after Stalin's death
- Vyacheslav Molotov Soviet Premier in the 1930s, Foreign Minister during World War II, a close associate of Stalin
- Russian SFSR
- ideologistduring the Brezhnev era
- August Coupthat attempted to depose Gorbachev
- Nikolai Yezhov, Interior Minister and head of the NKVD during the period of the Great Purge, was executed soon after
Contemporary Russian politicians
- Viktor Chernomyrdin, leading politician and businessman, served as the first Chairman of Gazprom and the Premier of Russia
- free market economyin Russia
- Boris Gryzlov, leading politician, parliamentarian and diplomat, served as the Minister of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Chairman of the State Duma, currently serves as the Russian Ambassador to Belarus
- Mikhail Fradkov, leading politician, intelligence official and scholar, served as Premier of Russia and the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, currently heads the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies
- Sergei Kiriyenko, leading politician and apparatchik, served as the Premier of Russia and the General Director of Rosatom, currently serves as the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia
- Russian Ambassador to the United Nations, currently the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia
- Yury Luzhkov, leading politician, served as the Mayor of Moscow, was one of the founders of the ruling United Russia party
- Chairman of the Federation Council
- Dmitry Medvedev, leading politician and security official, served as the President and the Premier of Russia, currently the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia
- A Just Russia — For Truthparty
- Yevgeny Primakov, leading politician, diplomat, intelligence officer and academician, served as the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Premier of Russia, presided over the start of Russian economic recovery and a significant change in foreign policy
- Vladimir Putin, leading politician and intelligence officer, served as the Director of the Federal Security Service and the Premier of Russia, currently the President of Russia, presided over impressive Russian economic recovery and military build-up, annexed Crimea
- Anatoly Sobchak, first post-Soviet mayor of St. Petersburg
- Sergei Stepashin, Prime Minister in 1999, currently the head of the Account Chamber of Russia (the state audit agency)
- Boris Yeltsin, the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999
- Vladimir Zhirinovsky, founder and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vice-chairman of the State Duma
- Gennady Zyuganov, head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation since 1993
Military
Army
- Transcaspian Railway
- Baltic Offensive and Operation Bagrationduring World War II
- Pyotr Bagration, general and hero of the Napoleonic Wars, mortally wounded in the Battle of Borodino
- Roman Bagration, general and brother of Pyotr Bagration, participated in the Napoleonic Wars
- Aleksandr Baryatinsky, field marshal, perfected the mountain warfare tactics of the Russian Army, captured Imam Shamil during the Caucasian War
- Krasnovodsk
- Vasily Blücher, one of the first five Soviet marshals, prominent in the Russian Civil War and the Northern Expeditionin China
- Women's Battalion of Deathduring World War I
- Brusilov Offensive, destroying the military of Austria-Hungary almost completely
- Semyon Budyonny, Civil War commander, statesman, triple Hero of the Soviet Union
- Vasily Chapayev, legendary Civil War commander, prototype for Chapaev movie and Chapayev and Void novel, hero of many Russian jokes
- Mikhail Chernyayev, general, captured Tashkent during the conquest of Central Asia, the governor of Russian Turkestan
- Vasily Chuikov, commander and hero in the Battle of Stalingrad, Soviet marshal, double HSU
- Denis Davydov, general, guerilla fighter and soldier-poet of the Napoleonic Wars, invented a genre of hussar poetry noted for its hedonism and bravado
- White Movement
- Adrianople during the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829)
- Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov (1780–1808), Russian major-general who was killed in the Battle of Virta Bro against the Swedes
- Nadezhda Durova, "the Cavalry Maiden", a female hero of the Napoleonic wars
- Siege of Kazan (1552)
- blockade of Leningrad
- Soviet Defence Ministerunder Brezhnev
- Ivan Gudovich, field marshal, conquered Khadjibey and Anapa in the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), conquered Dagestan in the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812)
- Iosif Gurko, commander and hero of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), won the battles of Shipka Pass, Gorni Dubnik and Plovdiv, liberated the Bulgarian capital Sofia
- Mikhail Frunze, revolutionary, a prominent Civil War commander
- Nikolay Kamensky, victor over the Swedes at Salmi, Oravais, and Sävar, victor over the Turks at Batin
- Konstantin Kaufmann, conqueror of the Khanate of Khiva, the first governor of Russian Turkestan
- Ivan Konev, Soviet marshal, led Red Army on the Eastern Front,
- Kornilov Affair
- Nikolay Krylov, Soviet marshal, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces under Brezhnev, double HSU
- Mikhail Kutuzov, hero of the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), defeated Napoleon's Grande Armée during French invasion of Russia in 1812, turning the tide of the Napoleonic Wars
- Andrey Kurbsky, associate and then a leading political opponent of Tsar Ivan IV, hero of the Russo-Kazan Wars
- Peter Lacy, field marshal, led the Siege of Danzig (1734), commander-in-chief during Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743)
- Soviet Defense Ministerunder Khrushchev
- Alexander Matrosov, World War II soldier, self-sacrificed himself to win the battle, Hero of the Soviet Union
- Aleksandr Menshikov, associate of Peter the Great, field marshal in the Great Northern War, won the principal Battle of Poltava
- Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive which liberated the northern Norway from Nazi occupation, prominent in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria
- Mikhail Miloradovich, hero of the Napoleonic Wars, killed in attempt to pacify the Decembrist revolt
- Kuzma Minin, national hero, merchant who led Russia's struggle for independence against Poland-Lithuania during the Time of Troubles
- Russo-Austrian-Turkish War (1735–1739)
- Semyon Andreevich Pugachov, captain in World War one, commanded several fronts across the USSR.
- Trinity Sergius Lavra, hero of the Battle of Kulikovo
- Fabian Gottlieb von Osten-Sacken, conquered the Duchy of Warsaw and governed Paris during the War of the Sixth Coalition
- Pyotr Rumyantsev-Zadunaysky
- Ivan Paskevich, hero and commander in the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828) and the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829), crushed the Polish November Uprising and the Hungarian Revolution of 1848
- Soviet sniper, credited with 309 kills, the most successful female sniper in history
- Alexander Peresvet, monk from Trinity Sergius Lavra, hero of the Battle of Kulikovo, fought with the Tatar champion Chelubey in single combat where they killed each other
- Grigory Potyomkin-Tavrichesky, conqueror and coloniser of Novorossiya, reformer of the Russian Army, led the Siege of Ochakov (1788) during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)
- Dmitry Pozharsky, national hero, prince who led Russia's struggle for independence against Poland-Lithuania during the Time of Troubles
- Alexander Prozorovsky, commander-in-chief during the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812)
- Nikolay Raevsky, hero of the Napoleonic Wars and the Battle of Borodino
- Anikita Repnin, field marshal in the Great Northern War, conquer and the first governor of Riga
- Nicholas Repnin, field marshal and diplomat, hero of the Russo-Turkish wars, key man in the Partitions of Poland, pacified the Germans in the War of the Bavarian Succession
- Moscow Victory Parade of 1945
- Grigory Romodanovsky, leading Russian general of Tsar Alexey's reign, commander-in-chief during the Russo-Turkish War (1676–1681)
- Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, commander-in-chief of the Russian Army at the start of World War I, then commanded the Caucasus front
- Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74 by the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, military writer
- battle of Paltzig and the battle of Kunersdorf. Shortly after his Kunersdorf victory, Zakhar Chernyshev's Russians raided Berlin.
- Igor Sergeyev, only marshal of the Russian Federation, Defense minister in the late 1990s
- Roza Shanina, World War II Soviet sniper, 54 confirmed kills
- Boris Shaposhnikov, Soviet marshal, chief of the general staff during the start of the German invasion, military theorist and author of The Brain of the Army
- Azov campaigns
- Boris Sheremetev, field marshal in the Great Northern War, won the battle of Erastfer and the battle of Poltava
- Ivan Sidorenko, World War II Soviet sniper, over 500 confirmed kills
- Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78
- Sergei Sokolov, Soviet marshal, chief commander during the Soviet–Afghan War
- Vasily Sokolovsky, Soviet marshal, prominent in the Battle of Moscow and the Battle of Kursk, military theorist
- Italian and Swiss expedition through the Adda, the Trebbia, and Novi, author of The Science of Victory (Russian: Наука побеждать)
- Semyon Timoshenko, World War II Soviet marshal, won the Winter War, senior professional officer of the Red Army at the start of the German invasion
- Fyodor Tolbukhin, World War II Soviet marshal, liberated Bulgaria and Yugoslavia
- Michael Barclay de Tolly, field marshal, led a strategic retreat during the French invasion of Russia, led Russian Army to Paris in the War of the Sixth Coalition
- Hero of Russia
- Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Red Army commander during the Russian Civil War, Soviet marshal, military theorist
- Dmitriy Ustinov, Soviet marshal, proponent of the Soviet space program, Defence Minister in the late Brezhnev era
- Soviet General Staff during most of World War II, led the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, double HSU
- Vera Voloshina (1919–1941), heroic partisan in World War II
- Varna in the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828), led decisive campaigns of the Caucasian War
- Eduard Totleben, general and military engineer, hero of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)
- Kliment Voroshilov, Civil War commander, statesman, double HSU
- , eliminating the threat of Ottoman expansion into Russia
- St Petersburg in 1812, hero of the War of the Sixth Coalition
- Ivan Yakubovsky, Soviet marshal, commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact under Brezhnev, double HSU
- Aleksey Yermolov, hero of the Napoleonic Wars and the Battle of Borodino, military ruler of the Caucasus at the start of the Caucasian War
- Andrey Yeryomenko, World War II Soviet marshal, prominent in the Battle of Stalingrad
- Hero of Russia
- Soviet sniper, killed 412 enemy soldiers and officers, including 6 snipers, a hero of the Battle of Stalingrad
- Moscow Victory Parade of 1945
- Fyodor Apraksin, general admiral, won the Battle of Gangut during the Great Northern War, led the Russian Navy in the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723)
- Aksel Berg, admiral and scientist, major developer of radiolocation and cybernetics
- Russo-Swedish War of 1788-90to an end
- Russian Baltic Fleet
- Port Arthurunder Russian control
- Sergey Gorshkov, admiral, led major landing operations during WII, commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy during most of the Cold War
- Samuel Greig, admiral, won the Battle of Chesma during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) and the Battle of Hogland during the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)
- Ivan Grigorovich, admiral, chief of Port Arthur's port during the Siege of Port Arthur
- Lodewijk van Heiden, admiral who won the Battle of Navarino
- Ivan Isakov, admiral, held the rank Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, served during World War II
- Vladimir Istomin, rear-admiral, hero of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) during the Crimean War, died in action
- Aleksandr Kolchak, admiral, polar explorer, a leader of the White movement during the Russian Civil War
- Vladimir Kornilov, vice-admiral, hero of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855), died in the Battle of Malakoff
- ironcladships
- Nikolay Kuznetsov, admiral, World War II commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy
- Azov in the Battle of Navarino, tutor to Nakhimov, Kornilov and Istomin
- insubmersibility theory, killed in the Russo-Japanese War when his ship struck a naval mine
- Battle of Sinope, commander and hero at the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)
- Pyotr Velikiy
- Odessa, hero of the Siege of Izmail
- Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, general admiral and Naval Minister during the Russo-Japanese War
- Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, general admiral and statesman, oversaw the rapid transition of the Russian Navy to ironclad warships
- Alexei Senyavin, re-established the Don Military Flotilla and played a crucial role in Russia's gaining access to the Black Sea
- Dmitry Senyavin, admiral, won the battle of the Dardanelles (1807) and the battle of Athos against Ottomans during the Napoleonic Wars
- Battle of Oselduring the Great Northern War
- Grigory Spiridov, admiral, destroyed the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Chesma during the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774)
- Russian circumnavigations
- Vladimir Tributs, admiral, a leading navy commander during the Siege of Leningrad, led the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn
- Russian admiral of the 18th century, saint, won the battles of Fidonisi, Kerch Strait, Tendra and Cape Kaliakra during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), single-handedly carved out the Greek Septinsular Republic, did not lose a single ship in 43 battles
- Ivan Yumashev, admiral, reclaimed Southern Sakhalin and Kuril Islands for the USSR during the Soviet–Japanese War, commander-in-chief of the Soviet Navy in the late 1940s
- Amur River, repelled the superior British-French forces in the Siege of Petropavlovsk during the Crimean War
- Matija Zmajević, vice-admiral, hero of the battle of Gangut and the battle of Grengam during the Great Northern War
Air Force
- fighter aces
- Valery Chkalov, leader of the first ultralong flight from Moscow to the Russian Far East, leader of the first transcontinental flight by airplane over the North Pole, Hero of the Soviet Union
- concentration camp on the Baltic island of Usedom, Hero of the Soviet Union
- Nikolai Gastello, first Soviet pilot to direct his burning aircraft on a ground target, HSU
- Long Range Aviation
- Battle of Khalkhin Gol, the first to become twice the Hero of the Soviet Union
- Heroes of the Soviet Union, set a record for woman's ultralong flights
- Mikhail Gromov, set a record during the transcontinental flight over the North Pole, founded the Gromov Flight Research Institute, HSU
- OKB Sukhoi, HSU
- Alexander Kazakov, most successful Russian flying ace of World War I, the first to perform an aerial ramming and survive
- Marshal of Aviationduring World War II, Chief of Staff of the Soviet Air Force
- Vladimir Kokkinaki, famous Soviet test pilot, set 22 world records, a president of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, double HSU
- Zinaïda Kokorina, pilot and flight instructor, in 1925 became the world's first military pilot
- Ivan Kozhedub, top fighter ace in the aviation of the Allies of World War II, credited with 62 individual victories, thrice the Hero of the Soviet Union
- chief marshal of Aviation under Leonid Brezhnev, double HSU
- Sigizmund Levanevsky, polar aviator, among the first to receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union, died in a transpolar flight attempt
- general majorof Aviation
- fighter aces, HSU
- Alexey Maresyev, World War II fighter ace, HSU, the prototype for The Story of a Real Man
- polar aviator, World War I flying ace
- aerobatic loop, died in the world's first aerial rammingduring World War I
- chief marshalof Aviation during World War II, double HSU
- Yevgeny Pepelyaev, top Soviet fighter ace in the Korean War, HSU
- Viktor Pokrovsky, World War I flying ace, the first Russian pilot to capture an enemy plane and pilot
- Alexander Pokryshkin, World War II fighter ace, credited with 59 individual victories, triple Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of Aviation
- Georgy Prokofiev, balloonist who coordinated military stratospheric balloon program in the 1930s, set world record in altitude on USSR-1
- Su-27
- Endel Puusepp, long-range bomber pilot, famous for flying a Soviet delegation over the front line from Moscow to Washington, D.C. and back to negotiate the opening of the Western Front, HSU
- Marina Raskova, navigator, founder of the three female air regiments during World War II, HSU
- Yevgeniya Rudneva, World War II bomber pilot, one of the Night Witches, HSU
- Yevgeniya Shakhovskaya, first woman military pilot
- Mark Shevelev, World War II Soviet polar aviation commander, HSU
- Lev Shestakov, top Soviet fighter ace during the Spanish Civil War, HSU
- Battle of Khalkhin Gol, double HSU
- Nelson Stepanyan, World War II dive bomber pilot, destroyed scores of enemy ships, tanks, cars, planes and guns, double HSU
- Nikolay Sutyagin, top Korean WarSoviet fighter ace, HSU
- Victor Talalikhin, World War II fighter ace, among the first to perform aerial rammingat night, HSU
- Hero of Yugoslavia
- Mikhail Vodopianov, polar aviator, among the first to receive the title Hero of the Soviet Union, commanded the first World War II Soviet air raid on Berlin in 1941
- Yekaterina Zelenko, World War II pilot, the only woman ever to have performed and died in aerial ramming, HSU
Religious figures
Orthodox leaders
- Metropolitan Alexius, saint, ruled Russia during Prince Dmitry Donskoy's minority
- Patriarch Alexy I, longest serving Patriarch in the Soviet era
- Patriarch Alexy II, first post-Soviet Patriarch, oversaw the period of major church restoration and religious renaissance
- Roman Catholic Church, which instead led to independence of the Russian Orthodox Church
- Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
- Patriarch Philaret
- iconographer
- Raskol
- Metropolitan Philaret, saint, the principal Russian theologian of the 19th century
- Tsar Mikhail
- Patriarch Tikhon
- Patriarch Sergius, led the Russian Orthodox Church during World War II, when the earlier Soviet militant atheism was scaled down and the Church was re-legalised
- Patriarch of Moscow and All Russiaafter restoration of the Patriarchate in the early Soviet era
Orthodox saints
- Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod and Vladimir, military hero, patron saint and the Name of Russia
- Andrei Rublev, famous icon-painter, author of the Trinity
- Anthony of Kiev, co-founder of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, the first monastery in Russia
- St. Basil's Cathedral on the Red Square
- Boris and Gleb, children of Vladimir the Great, the first saints canonized in Kievan Rus'
- Ivan IV, mysteriously died or killed, later impersonated by the impostors False Dmitry I and False Dmitry II during the Time of Troubles
- Dmitry Donskoy, war hero, the first Prince of Moscow to openly challenge Mongol authority in Russia
- Feodor Kuzmich, starets who according to a legend was in fact Alexander I of Russia who faked his death to become a hermit
- Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod
- John of Shanghai and San Francisco, a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
- Kirill of Beloozero, founder of Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery
- Maximus the Greek, 16th century humanist scholar
- new-martyrs
- Nicholas of Japan, brought the Eastern Orthodoxy to Japan
- Olga of Kiev, first Christian among Russian rulers
- Savvatiy, founder of Solovetsky Monastery
- Trinity Sergius Lavra, blessed Dmitry Donskoy for the Battle of Kulikovo
- Vladimir I of Kiev "the Great", Kievan Prince who turned from pagan to saint and enacted the Christianization of Kievan Rus'
Explorers
Siberian explorers
- Semyon Dezhnyov
- Pyotr Beketov, discoverer of Buryatia, founder of Yakutsk and Chita
- Ivan Chersky, geologist and explorer of Siberia, explained the origin of Lake Baikal
- Semyon Dezhnyov, discoverer of Kolyma, Chukchi Peninsula, Bering Strait and the east extremity of Eurasia, Cape Dezhnyov
- Johann Georg Gmelin, traveled over 34,000 km through Siberia, discovered that the Caspian Sea lies below the ocean level
- Kurbat Ivanov, discoverer of Lake Baikal, author of the earliest maps of the Russian Far East and the Bering Strait area
- Amur River, founder of Khabarovsk
- Kamchatka
- Alexander Middendorf, explorer of the Taymyr Peninsula, founder of permafrost science, discoverer of Putorana Plateau
- Nicolae Milescu, explorer of Siberia and China, the first to point out Baikal's unfathomable depth
- Ivan Moskvitin, first Russian to reach the Pacific Ocean, discoverer of the Sea of Okhotsk
- Amurland and Primorsky Krai
- Gennady Nevelskoy, founder of Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, proved that Sakhalin is an island
- Vladimir Obruchev, geologist, explorer of Siberia and Central Asia, wrote the comprehensive Geology of Siberia and two popular science fiction and travel novels, Plutonia and Sannikov Land
- Kamchatka
- Amur River
- Lena River and Yakutia, made an 8,000 km long journey along the previously unknown Siberian rivers
- Remezov Chronicle and the first large format cartographic atlas of Siberia
- Nikolay Shkot, explorer of Sakhalin and Primorsky Krai, a founder of Nakhodka and Vladivostok
- Alexander Sibiryakov, sponsor of the multiple expeditions in Siberia and the Arctic
- Okhotsk Sea
- Urals, established the early trade between Russia and Siberian tribes
- Semyon Stroganov, coloniser of the Urals and Siberia, sponsor of Yermak's conquest of the Khanate of Sibir
- Vasily Tatishchev, supervisor of the first instrumental mapping of Russia, coloniser of the Urals and Siberia, founder of Perm and Yekaterinburg
- Tatyana Ustinova, discoverer of the Valley of Geysers in Kamchatka, the world's second largest geyser concentration
- Yermak Timofeyevich, conqueror of Siberia, explorer of West Siberian rivers
- Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands
Explorers of Russian America
- Fort Ross in California
- Vitus Bering, organiser of the Great Northern Expedition, explorer of the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait, founder of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, discoverer of the southern Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and the Commander Islands
- Aleksei Chirikov, discoverer of the Aleutian Islands and the northwestern coast of North America
- Ivan Fyodorov, discoverer of Alaska
- Okhotsk Sea and Sakhalinshores
- Gerasim Izmailov, author of the first detailed map of the Aleutian Islands, founder of the first permanent Russian settlement in America
- Pacific islands and Kotzebue Soundon Alaska
- Gavriil Pribylov, discoverer of the Pribilof Islands
- Nikolai Rezanov, founder of the Russian-American Company, protagonist of the rock opera Juno and Avos
- Gavriil Sarychev, explorer of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Aleutian Islands
- Grigory Shelikhov, founded the precursor of the Russian-American Company and the first permanent Russian settlements in America
- Lavrenty Zagoskin, author of the first detailed description of the inner areas of Alaska
- Explorers Grand Slam, set a record for the solo yacht circumnavigation of Antarctica
- Pacific islands, triple circumnavigator, war hero
- Yuri Lisyansky, leader of the first Russian circumnavigation, discoverer of a number of Pacific islands
- Fyodor Litke, oceanographer, explorer of Novaya Zemlya, Bering Sea, Bonin Islands, and the Carolines, double circumnavigator
- Possiet Bay, Minister of Ways and Communications of Russia
- Yevfimy Putyatin, leader of the circumnavigation on Pallas, diplomat, explorer of the Sea of Japan
- Russian America, protagonist of the rock operaJuno and Avos
- Fyodor Tolstoy, "the American", mischief-making participant of the first Russian circumnavigation, celebrity adventurer
- Ivan Unkovsky, leader of the circumnavigation on Pallas
- Amur River, war hero
Travelers in the tropics
- Eastern Africa
- Wilhelm Junker, explorer of Eastern and Equatorial Africa
- Grigory Langsdorf, explorer of Alaska and Brazil
- anti-racist
- Afanasy Nikitin, one of the first Europeans to travel and to document his visit to India, author of A Journey Beyond the Three Seas
- and reed boats), anchorman of the Travelers' Club TV show for the record 30 years
Explorers of Central Asia
- Nikolai Przhevalsky
- Alexey Fedchenko, naturalist and explorer, discovered the Trans-Alay Range in Pamir Mountains
- lowest land pointon Earth)
- Peak Korzhenevskaya
- Pyotr Kozlov, explorer of Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, discoverer of the ancient Tangut city of Khara-Khoto
- father)
- Ivan Petlin, first Russian to reach China on an official diplomatic mission, left a popular description of his journey
- Grigory Potanin, explorer of Mongolia, Tibet and China
- Nikolai Przhevalsky, traveled over 40,000 km through Central Asia, discovered the only extant species of wild horse
- Nicholas Roerich, painter, philosopher, archeologist, writer and public figure, explorer of Mongolia, China and India
- Tian Shan Mountains, discoverer of the Peak Khan Tengri, for 40 years the head of the Russian Geographical Society
- Gombojab Tsybikov, explorer and the first photographer of Tibet
Polar explorers
- Faddey Bellingshausen
- Faddey Bellingshausen, discoverer of Antarctica
- Vitus Bering, organiser of the Great Northern Expedition, explorer of the Bering Sea and the Bering Strait
- Georgy Brusilov, commander of Svyataya Anna, a prototype for The Two Captains
- Artur Chilingarov, leader of the Arktika 2007 expedition, the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole
- Valery Chkalov, led the first transcontinental flight by airplane over the North Pole
- bathymetricmap of the Arctic Ocean
- Siberian polynya
- Maria Klenova, a founder of marine geology, made the first complete seabed map of the Barents Sea, one of the first women explorers of Antarctic
- Ernst Krenkel, radioman for many polar expeditions, set a world record of long-distance radio communication (between Franz Josef Land and Antarctica)
- Dmitry Laptev, explorer of the Laptev Sea shores
- Khariton Laptev, explorer of the Laptev Sea shores
- Mikhail Lazarev, discoverer of Antarctica, war hero
- Fyodor Litke, explorer of Novaya Zemlya, Bering Sea, and Pacific
- the first polar icebreaker, war hero
- Stepan Malygin, author of the first Russian manual on navigation, leader of the western unit of the Great Northern Expedition
- North Cape sea current
- aviator
- Gydan Peninsula
- Pyotr Pakhtusov, explorer of Novaya Zemlya
- Ivan Papanin, head of the first drifting ice station North Pole-1
- Fedot Popov, discoverer of Chukotka and the Bering Strait
- Vasili Pronchishchev, discovered the Byrranga Mountains and multiple islands off Taymyr Peninsula
- Arctic explorer
- Vladimir Rusanov, explorer of Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard, a prototype for The Two Captains
- RMS Titanic, the first to reach the seabed under the North Pole
- Airship Italiacrew
- Yakov Sannikov, explorer of the New Siberian Islands, originated the legend about the Sannikov Land
- Otto Schmidt, leader of the first passage of the Northern Sea Route without wintering, supervised many Arctic expeditions
- Georgy Sedov, explorer of Novaya Zemlya and Kolyma River, died in attempt to reach the North Pole, a prototype for The Two Captains
- Pyotr Shirshov, member of the North Pole-1 crew, founder of Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, proved that there is life in high latitudes of the Arctic Ocean
- Alexander Sibiryakov, sponsor of the multiple expeditions in Siberia and the Arctic, including that of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld
- Soviet drifting ice station North Pole-2, leader of the 1st Soviet Antarctic Expedition, founder of the first Soviet Antarctic stations Mirny and Vostok
- Gamburtsev Mountains
- Eduard Toll
- Nikolay Urvantsev, explorer of Severnaya Zemlya, discoverer of nickel in Taimyr and founder of Norilsk
- Georgy Ushakov, founder of the first settlement on the Wrangel Island, explorer of Severnaya Zemlya, discoverer of Ushakov Island (the last unknown island outside any archipelago)
- Boris Vilkitsky, discoverer of Severnaya Zemlya (the last archipelago on Earth to be explored), led the first voyage from Vladivostok to Arkhangelsk via the Northern Sea Route
- pack ice movement in the Kara Sea
- Vladimir Voronin, leader of the first passage of the Northern Sea Route without wintering, captain of SS Chelyuskin
- Ferdinand Wrangel, explorer of the East Siberian Seaand Alaska
Cosmonauts
- Pavel Belyayev, member of the first two-person space crew
- Georgy Beregovoy, oldest human to go into space (by date of birth, 1921)
- Valery Bykovsky, performer of the longest solo spaceflight
- Konstantin Feoktistov, member of the first three-person space crew
- Yuri Gagarin, first ever human to travel into space
- spacewalkand crew transfer between spacecraft
- Vladimir Komarov, member of the first three-person space crew, the first human to die during a space mission (landing accident)
- Sergei Krikalyov, accumulated most time in space (803 days) during six flights
- spacewalk, a member of the first two-person space crew, space painter
- Musa Manarov, first to spend over a year in orbit
- Andrian Nikolayev, participant of the first parallel flight, the first to perform spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications, the first to spend two weeks in space
- Valeri Polyakov, performer of the longest continuous spaceflight (437 days)
- Pavel Popovich, participant of the first parallel flight, the first to perform spacecraft-to-spacecraft communications
- spacewalk
- Vitaly Sevastyanov, first to spend two weeks in space
- spacewalksand accumulated most time spacewalking (over 82 hours)
- Valentina Tereshkova, first woman and civilian in space
- Gherman Titov, second human to orbit the Earth, the first who spent a whole day and slept in space, the youngest cosmonaut/astronaut so far
- Vladimir Titov, first to spend over a year in orbit
- Boris Yegorov, member of the first three-person space crew, the first physician in space
- Aleksei Yeliseyev, participant of the first dual spacewalk and crew transfer between spacecraft
Inventors and engineers
Polymath inventors
- Genrich Altshuller, inventor of TRIZ ("The Theory of Solving Inventor's Problems")
- artificial leg
- smalt
- quick-firing battery, cannon telescopic sight
- sounding line with separating plummet, founder of the Russian Navy
- pipeline transport
- passive resonant cavity bug, introduced interlacetechnique
Weaponry makers
- largest bombard by caliber
- Degtyaryov-series firearms, inventor of self-loading carbine
- multibarreled mortar, introduced printingto Russia
- Vladimir Fyodorov, inventor of assault rifle (Fedorov Avtomat)
- modern mortar
- Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of AK-47 and AK-74 assault rifles, world's most popular (produced more than all other types of assault rifles combined)
- Tsar Bomb
- Sergei Korolyov, inventor of the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7 Semyorka)
- Mikhail Koshkin, designer of T-34 medium tank, the best and most produced tank of World War II
- Nikolai Lebedenko, designer of the Tsar Tank, the largest armoured vehiclein history
- Victor Makeyev, developer of the first intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missile
- Nestor Makhno, anarchist, legendary inventor of tachanka
- T-54/55 (the most produced tankin history)
- Sergey Mosin, inventor of the Mosin–Nagantrifle, one of the most produced in history
- ICBM (RT-21 Temp 2S) and the first reliable mobile ICBM RT-2PM Topol
- quick-firing battery and cannon telescopic sight
- rocket weaponry
- Aleksandr Porokhovschikov, inventor of Vezdekhod (the first prototype continuous track tank, or tankette, and the first continuous track amphibious ATV)
- Tsar Bomb, Nobel Peace Prizewinner
- underwater assault rifle
- TT-33 handgun and SVT-40self-loading rifle, main Soviet guns of WII
- ICBM (RT-23 Molodets)
- Ivan Vyrodkov, inventor of siege tower
Land transport developers
- caterpillar tractor
- Cherepanovs, Yefim and his son Miron, makers of the first steam locomotivein Russia
- Ivan Elmanov, inventor of monorail
- gear box, and bearing)
- Yury Lomonosov, designer of the first successful mainline diesel locomotive
- Russian broad gauge
- electric tram
- automobile)
- Pyotr Shilovsky, inventor of gyrocar
- Alexey Krylov
- nuclear icebreaker)
- hull icebreaker Pilot
- Stefan Drzewiecki, inventor of electric-powered and midget submarines, designed the first serial submarine, developed the blade element theory
- naval mining
- insubmersibilitytheory
- tide measurer
- the first polar icebreaker, author of the insubmersibility theory
- Victor Makeyev, developer of the first intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missile
- Ludvig Nobel, designer of the modern oil tanker
- electric naval mine
- Typhoon class)
- ship hulldesign
Aerospace engineers
- ekranoplans, including the Caspian Sea Monster
- An-225)
- soft lander spacecraft Luna 9
- launch complex (Baikonur Cosmodrome)
- ekranoplans and VTOL amphibious aircraft, physicist, tutor to many other aerospace designers
- BI-1
- Georgy Beriev, designer of the Be-series amphibious aircraft
- The Flying Octopus)
- Valentyn Glushko
- Evgeniy Chertovsky, inventor of pressure suit
- tandem rotorhelicopter
- liquid-fuel rocket engine RD-170
- Pyotr Grushin, inventor of anti-ballistic missile
- MiG-21
- most produced military aircraftin history)
- Aleksei Isaev, designer of the first rocket-powered fighter aircraft, BI-1
- Sputnik) and Keldysh bomber
- Kerim Kerimov, the secret figure behind the Soviet space program
- coaxial rotorhelicopters
- Lunokhod)
- propulsive devicedesign
- first human spaceflight
- knapsack parachute and drogue parachute
- Semyon Lavochkin, designer of the La-series aircraft and the first operational surface-to-air missile S-25 Berkut
- coaxial rotor and the first helicopter
- Spiral project
- Arkhip Lyulka, designer of the Lyulka-series aircraft engines, including the first double jet turbofan
- SLBM
- MiG-21
- Mil Mi-12(the world's largest helicopter)
- heavier-than-air craft in Russia, designed the largest of 19th century airplanes
- ICBM RT-21 Temp 2S and the first reliable mobile ICBM RT-2PM Topol
- most produced biplane)
- SSJ 100
- gyroscopically stabilized bombsight
- spacewalksupporting system
- Igor Sikorsky, inventor of airliner and strategic bomber (Sikorsky Ilya Muromets), father of modern helicopter, founder of the Sikorsky Aircraft
- Boris Shavyrin, inventor of air-augmented rocket
- Pavel Sukhoi, designer of the Su-series fighter aircraft
- Vladimir Syromyatnikov, designer of the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System
- Sputniks, including the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1
- Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, principal pioneer of astronautics
- Tu-144
- Tu-95
- Vladimir Vakhmistrov, supervisor of Zveno project (the first bomber with parasite aircraft)
- Yak-40
- GIRD-X, pioneer of astronautics
- hydrodynamics, pioneer of aviation
Structural engineers
- Nikolai Belelubsky, major bridge designer, invented a number of construction schemes
- St. Isaac's Cathedral, founded Goznak
- launch complex (Baikonur Cosmodrome)
- Akinfiy Demidov, built the Leaning Tower of Nevyansk (the first structure with rebars and cast iron cupola, as well as the first lightning rodin Europe)
- deep column station, Mayakovskaya
- Finite Element Method
- tallest freestanding structure)
- Lavr Proskuryakov, builder of multiple bridges along the Trans-Siberian Railway, inventor and tutor
- and multiple other structures
Electrical engineers
- heterotransistor, Nobel Prizewinner
- Nikolay Benardos, inventor of carbon arc welding (the first practical arc welding method)
- Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrovolsky, inventor of three-phase electric power
- galvanoplastic sculpture and electric boat
- underwater welding
- tungsten filament
- crystadine
- Vasily Petrov, inventor of electric arc and arc welding
- electric tram
- videotape recorder
- Georg Wilhelm Richmann, inventor of electrometer, died from ball lightning during an experiment
- electromagnetic telegraph
- Nikolay Slavyanov, inventor of shielded metal arc welding
- photoelectric cell
- electric lamp), transformer and headlamp
IT developers
- World Computer Chess Champion)
- Elbrus supercomputers
- Google web search engine
- Nikolay Brusentsov, inventor of ternary computer (Setun)
- Mikhail Donskoy, leading developer of Kaissa, the first computer chess champion
- Victor Glushkov, founder of cybernetics, inventor of the first personal computer MIR
- Anatoly Karatsuba, developed the Karatsuba algorithm (the first fast multiplication algorithm)
- anti-virus products
- Ellipsoid algorithm for linear programming
- Semen Korsakov, first to use punched cardsfor information storage and search
- Evgeny Landis, inventor of AVL tree algorithm
- Vladimir Levenshtein, developed the Levenshtein automaton, Levenshtein coding and Levenshtein distance
- Willgodt Theophil Odhner, inventor of the Odhner Arithmometer, the most popular mechanical calculator in the 20th century
- Alexey Pajitnov, inventor of Tetris
- RAR file format, WinRAR file archiver
- supercompilation
Optics and photography pioneers
- Dmitry Maksutov
- Nikolay Basov, physicist, co-inventor of laser and maser, Nobel Prize winner
- 3D holography
- Semyon Kirlian, inventor of Kirlian photography
- Ivan Kulibin, polymath inventor, introduced candle searchlight and searchlight-based optical telegraph
- Sergey Levitsky, inventor of the bellowscamera, one of the earliest photography pioneers
- night vision telescope
- Alexander Makarov, inventor of orbitrap
- Dmitry Maksutov, inventor of the Maksutov telescope
- Boris Mamyrin, inventor of reflectron
- Alexander Prokhorov, physicist, co-inventor of laser and maser, Nobel Prize winner
- motion pictures, famous for his multiple colour photos of Russian Empire
- NMR spectroscopy
Communication engineers
- Alexander Popov
- Leonid Kupriyanovich, inventor of man-portable mobile phone and pocket mobile phone
- crystadineradio
- Constantin Perskyi, inventor of the word "television", TV pioneer
- inventors of radio
- TVsystem
- electric telegraph
- Leon Theremin, polymath, inventor of interlace
- Vladimir Zworykin, "the Father of television", inventor of iconoscope and kinescope
Musical instrument makers
- Vasily Andreyev
- Vladimir Baranov-Rossine, inventor of Optophonic Piano
- largest bell in the world
- Yevgeny Murzin, inventor of the ANS synthesizer
- Andrei Sychra, inventor of the Russian guitar
- Leon Theremin, inventor of theremin (the first successful electronic musical instrument), terpsitone and rhythmicon (the first drum machine)
Miscellaneous inventors
- V-thread'
- pinscreenanimation
- sambo martial art
- Lisitsyns family, producers of the first Russian samovars
- Sergey Malyutin, painter, inventor of matryoshka doll
- Vera Mukhina, sculptor, inventor of welded sculpture
- Salad Olivier
- Ivan Polzunov, inventor of the two-cylinder steam engine
- cup sizes and nursing bra
- Alexander Sablukov, inventor of centrifugal fan
- Franz San Galli, inventor of radiator
- table-glass
- Viktor Vasnetsov, inventor of budenovka
- Ludwik Zamenhof, inventor of Esperanto
Scientists and scholars
Polymaths
- Borodin reaction, co-discovered Aldol reaction
- Russian cosmist
- Russian poetry through his odes
- Vladimir Obruchev, geologist, paleontologist, geographer and explorer of Siberia and Central Asia, author of the comprehensive Geology of Siberia and two popular science fiction novels, Plutonia and Sannikov Land
- Krasnojarsk meteorite) and multiple animals, including the Pallas's cat, Pallas's squirrel, and Pallas's gull
- Yakov Perelman, a founder of popular science, author of many popular books, including the Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun
- Russian Empire Census
- Sudebnik and the controversial Ioachim Chronicle, wrote the first full-scale account of Russian history, compiled the first encyclopedic dictionary of Russian language
- Russian cosmist
- Ivan Yefremov, paleontologist, philosopher, sci-fi and historical novelist, founder of taphonomy, author of The Land of Foam, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale and Thais of Athens
Earth scientists
- river erosion
- geomorphologicalevolution theory
- Alexander Fersman, a founder of geochemistry, discovered copper in Monchegorsk, apatites in Khibiny, sulfur in Central Asia
- seismograph, the President of International Association of Seismology
- Ivan Gubkin, founder of the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas
- Soviet Academy of Sciences
- Vladimir Köppen, meteorologist, author of the commonly used Köppen climate classification
- Kamchatka
- Pyotr Shirshov, polar explorer, founder of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, proved that there is life in high latitudes of the Arctic Ocean
- World Ocean
Biologists and paleontologists
- Johann Friedrich Adam, discovered the Adams mammoth, the first complete woolly mammoth skeleton
- Baer's laws
- Nikolai Bernstein, neurophysiologist, coined the term biomechanics
- cross-pollination
- air ionification
- grow lamp, developer of symbiogenesistheory
- Yuri Filipchenko, entomologist, coined the terms microevolution and macroevolution
- Dmitry Ivanovsky
- Alexander Gurwitsch, originated the morphogenetic field theory and discovered the biophoton
- human-ape hybrid
- Dmitry Ivanovsky, discoverer of viruses
- crossbreeding)
- Nikolai Koltsov, discoverer of cytoskeleton
- Soviet Academy of Sciences, founder of the Komarov Botanical Institute
- Nobel Prize in Medicinewinner
- endosymbiosistheory
- Ivan Michurin
- horse breeder
- Victor Motschulsky, prominent researcher of beetles
- Sergei Navashin, discovered double fertilization
- Telomere relations to cancer
- food production processes are based on biocatalysis
- germ layers
- Peter Simon Pallas, polymath naturalist, explorer, discoverer of multiple animals, including the Pallas's cat, Pallas's squirrel, and Pallas's gull
- Ivan Pavlov, founder of modern physiology, the first to research classical conditioning, Nobel Prize in Medicine winner
- EEG and the evoked potentialof the mammalian brain
- Carl Schmidt, researcher of biochemical crystal structures, proved the chemical similarity of animal and plant cells
- Boris Schwanwitsch, entomologist, applied colour patterns of insect wings to military camouflage during World War II
- Ivan Sechenov, founder of electrophysiology and neurophysiology
- Georg Wilhelm Steller, naturalist, participant of Vitus Bering's voyages, discoverer of Steller's jay, Steller's eider, extinct Steller's sea cow and multiple other animals
- Lina Stern, pioneer researcher of blood–brain barrier
- biogeographer
- Sergey Vinogradsky
- lower plantsand animals
- Mikhail Tsvet, inventor of chromatography
- centres of origin of main cultivated plants
- Ivan Yefremov, paleontologist, sci-fi author, founded taphonomy
- Sergey Zimov, creator of the Pleistocene Park
Physicians and psychologists
- Bekhterev's Disease
- Betz cells of primary motor cortex
- Sergey Botkin, major therapist and court physician
- Nikolay Burdenko, major developer of neurosurgery
- Konstantin Buteyko, developed the Buteyko method for the treatment of breathing disorders
- transplantology
- ophthalmologist, corneal transplantationpioneer
- Svyatoslav Fyodorov, inventor of radial keratotomy
- antibiotics
- space dog
- Vera Gedroitz, first female Professor of Surgeryin the world
- Waldemar Haffkine, invented the first vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague
- Gavriil Ilizarov, invented Ilizarov apparatus, developed distraction osteogenesis
- auscultatory blood pressure measurement, pioneered vascular surgery
- Korsakoff's syndrome, introduced paranoiaconcept
- Aleksey Leontyev, founder of activity theoryin psychology
- Peter Lesgaft, founder of the modern system of physical education in Russia
- Alexander Luria, co-developer of activity theory and cultural-historical psychology, major researcher of aphasia
- Nobel Prize in Medicinewinner
- dermatologist, discoverer of Nikolsky's sign
- Telomere relations to cancer
- Ivan Pavlov, founder of modern physiology, the first to research classical conditioning, Nobel Prize in Medicine winner
- field surgery, the first to perform anaesthesia in the field conditions, invented a number of surgical operations
- Leonid Rogozov, performed an appendectomy on himself during the sixth Soviet Antarctic Expedition, a famous case of self-surgery
- Grigory Rossolimo, pioneer of child neuropsychology
- Ivan Sechenov, founder of electrophysiology and neurophysiology, author of the classic work Reflexes of the Brain
- Victor Skumin, described Skumin syndrome
- Lina Stern, pioneer researcher of blood–brain barrier
- Fyodor Uglov, oldest practicing surgeon in history
- Alexander Varshavsky, researched ubiquitination, Wolf Prize in Medicine winner
- purulent surgery, saint
- Lev Vygotsky, founder of cultural-historical psychology, major contributor to child development and psycholinguistics, introduced zone of proximal development and cultural mediation concepts
- Josias Weitbrecht, first to describe the construction and function of intervertebral discs
- Sergei Yudin, inventor of cadaveric blood transfusion
- Bluma Zeigarnik, psychiatrist, discovered the Zeigarnik effect, founded experimental psychopathology
Economists and sociologists
- consumption-labour-balance principle
- Georges Gurvitch, major developer of sociology of knowledge and sociology of law
- Nobel Prize in Economicswinner
- Nikolai Kondratiev, discoverer of the Kondratiev waves
- Andrey Korotayev, historian, anthropologist, a founder of cliodynamics, prominent developer of social cycle theory
- GOELRO plan, the first Chief of Gosplan
- Absolute Income Hypothesis, Nobel Prize in Economics winner
- Vladimir Lenin, leader of the October Revolution and founder of the Soviet Union, introduced planned economy and Leninism
- Evsei Liberman, laid the scientific support for the Soviet Kosygin reform in economy
- input-output analysis and the Leontief paradox, Nobel Prize in Economics winner
- central planning
- Grigory Orlov, founder of the Free Economic Society
- Pitirim Sorokin, sociologist, a prominent developer of the social cycle theory
- Stanislav Strumilin, pioneer of the planned economy, developed the first five-year plans
Historians and archaeologists
- Novgorod
- Samarcand
- paleographer, founder of the Bestuzhev Coursesfor women
- Mongolian history, opened the first Chinese-language school in Russia
- civilisations
- Olbia
- Fayum portraits
- mediaeval studies in Russia, disproved the historicity of Vineta
- Boris Grekov, major researcher of Kievan Rus' and the Golden Horde
- Neo-Eurasianism
- Boris Hessen, physicist who brought externalism into modern historiography of science
- The Secret History of the Mongols
- Nikolai Karamzin
- Vasily Klyuchevsky, dominated Russian historiography at the turn of the 20th century, shifted focus from politics and society to geography and economy
- Byzantinist, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium
- Nikodim Kondakov, prominent researcher of Byzantine art
- Andrey Korotayev, historian and anthropologist, a founder of cliodynamics, a prominent developer of social cycle theory
- Noin-Ula
- sigillographer, major developer of auxiliary historical disciplines
- GenealogicalBook
- Normanist theory, published an early account of Russian history
- Hague Peace Conference
Nestor the Chronicler - Persia
- Yagutil Mishiev, author of books about the history of Derbent, Dagestan, Russia
- Normanist theory
- Aleksei Musin-Pushkin, prominent collector of ancient Russian manuscripts, discoverer of The Tale of Igor's Campaign
- hagiographies, saint
- Alexey Okladnikov, prominent historian and archaeologist of Siberia and Mongolia
- Academic Institute of Oriental Studies
- Byzantinist
- Avraamy Palitsyn, 17th-century historian of the Time of Troubles
- Anna Pankratova (1897–1957), leading Soviet historian
- Tatyana Proskuryakova
- Boris Piotrovsky, prominent researcher of Urartu, Scythia, and Nubia, long-term director of the Hermitage Museum
- Mikhail Piotrovsky, orientalist, current director of the Hermitage Museum
- Normanist theory
- Marxisthistorian prominent in the 1920s
- Pazyryk Ice Maiden
- Maecenas, founder of the Russian Historian Society
- Tatyana Proskuryakova, Mayanist scholar and archaeologist, deciphered the ancient Maya script
- Remezov Chronicle
- Ancient World, excavated Dura-Europos
- Nicholas Roerich, painter, archeologist, explorer of Central Asia, initiated the international Roerich's Pact on historical monuments protection
- Scythian Pazyryk burials
- Normanist theory
- Bactrian Goldin Central Asia
- Mikhail Shcherbatov, man of Russian Enlightenment, conservative historian
- Sergey Solovyov, principal Russian 19th-century historian, author of the 29-volume History of Russia
- Marxisttheory of five socio-economic formations that dominated the Soviet education
- Vasily Tatischev
- Sudebnik and the controversial Ioachim Chronicle; wrote the first full-scale account of Russian history
- paleographer, published the Complete Collection of Russian Chronicles
- Ancient East
- Peter Turchin, population biologist and historian, coined the term cliodynamics
- Aleksey Uvarov, founder of the first Russian archaeological society, discovered over 750 ancient kurgans
- Türks
- birch bark documents
- Dmitry Yurasov, historian of soviet repression
Linguists and ethnographers
- Ivan Baudouin de Courtenay
- folklorist, recorded and published over 600 Russian fairy tales, by far the largest folktale collection by any one man in the world
- mathematical linguistics
- Vladimir Bogoraz, researcher of Chukchi people, founder of the Institute of the Peoples of the North
- Sanskrit grammarian
- Mythological school of comparative literature
- Marina Butovskaya, ethologist and cultural anthropologist
- Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian language
- indigenous peoples of Russia
- Vladimir Dahl
- Nostraticlinguistics
- Vyacheslav Ivanov, founder of glottalic theory of Indo-European consonantism
- Jackobson's Communication Model
- The Secret History of the Mongols
- epigrapher and ethnographer, deciphered the Maya script, proposed a decipherment for the Indus script
- Nikolay Krushevsky, co-inventor of the concept of phonemeand the systematic treatment of linguistical alternations
- theaterin India
- Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai
- Mikhail Lomonosov, polymath scientist and artist, wrote a grammar that reformed Russian literary language by combining Old Church Slavonic with vernacular tongue
- Russian folk songs, published epic bylinas
- Richard Maack, naturalist and ethnographer of Siberia
- Orkhon script
- Nicholas Marr, put forth a pseudo-linguistic Japhetic theory on the origin of language
- Meaning-Text Theory
- anti-racist
- Sakha scripts)
- Komi Permyaks to Christianity and invented the Old Permic script
- polyglot, developed the cyrillization of Japanese
- Nicholas Poppe, prominent Altaic-language researcher
- mythology
- Isaac Jacob Schmidt, first researcher of Mongolian language
- Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography
- Old Russian and medieval Russian literature
- phonologist, author of the glokaya kuzdraphrase
- Buddhistphilosophy in the West
- Kiev Fragments
- Sergei Starostin, prominent supporter of Altaic theory, proposed the Dené–Caucasian languages macrofamily, reconstructed several Eurasian proto-languages
- Vasily Tatischev, geographer, ethnographer and historian, compiled the first encyclopedic dictionary of Russian language
- reindeer herder who created a writing system for the Chukchi language
- Prague School of structural linguistics
- Ludwik Zamenhof
- etymologist, author of the Etymological dictionary of the Russian language
- Viktor Vinogradov, linguist and philologist, founder of the Russian Language Institute
- East Slavic language), pioneered the research of Russian grammar
- Tale of Igor's Campaign
- L. L. Zamenhof, inventor of Esperanto, the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language
Mathematicians
- Pafnuti Chebyshev
- Alexandroff compactification and the Alexandrov topology
- Dmitri Anosov, developed Anosov diffeomorphism
- Arnold's rouble problems
- Bernstein inequalities in probability theory
- Nikolay Bogolyubov, mathematician and theoretical physicist, author of the edge-of-the-wedge theorem, Krylov–Bogolyubov theorem, describing function and multiple contributions to quantum mechanics
- Nikolai Chebotaryov, author of Chebotarev's density theorem
- Pafnuti Chebyshev, prominent tutor and founding father of Russian mathematics, contributed to probability, statistics and number theory, author of the Chebyshev's inequality, Chebyshev distance, Chebyshev function, Chebyshev equationetc.
- Soviet Student Olympiadin mathematics
- Vladimir Drinfeld, mathematician and theoretical physicist, introduced quantum groups and ADHM construction, Fields Medal winner
- Eugene Dynkin, developed Dynkin diagram, Doob–Dynkin lemma and Dynkin system in algebra and probability
- Euler's number, Euler circlesetc.)
- Yevgraf Fyodorov, identified Periodic graph in geometry, the first to identify all of the 230 space groupsof crystals
- Sofia Kovalevskaya
- Gelfand triple, integral geometryetc. Wolf Prize winner.
- Gelfond's theorem, provided means to obtain infinite number of transcendentals, including Gelfond–Schneider constant and Gelfond's constant, Wolf Prize in Mathematicswinner
- Gromov norm, Gromov productetc., Wolf Prize winner
- Nobel Prize in Economicswinner
- Khinchin inequality in probability
- Andrey Kolmogorov, preeminent 20th century mathematician, Wolf Prize winner; developed probability axioms, Chapman–Kolmogorov equation and Kolmogorov extension theorem in probability; Kolmogorov complexity etc.
- Kontsevich integral and Kontsevich quantization formula, Fields Medal winner
- Kovalevskaya top
- Krein space, Wolf Prize winner
- Nikolay Krylov, author of the edge-of-the-wedge theorem, Krylov–Bogolyubov theorem and describing function
- Yuri Linnik, developed Linnik's theorem in analytic number theory
- Lobachevskian or hyperbolic geometry)
- Luzin sets in descriptive set theory
- etc.
- Manin-Mumford conjecture and Manin obstruction in diophantine geometry
- Lie groups, Wolf Prize and Fields Medalwinner
- Markov processes, Markov random field, Markov algorithmetc.
- Matiyasevich's theorem in set theory, provided negative solution for Hilbert's tenth problem
- Burnside's problem
- Adams–Novikov spectral sequence and Novikov conjecture, Wolf Prize and Fields Medal winner
- infinite symmetric groups and Hilbert scheme, Fields Medal winner
- partial fractions in integration
- Fields medal and the first Clay Millennium Prize ProblemsAward (declined both)
- Pontryagin's minimum principle in optimal control
- Lev Schnirelmann, developed the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category in topology and Schnirelmann density of numbers
- Moses Schönfinkel, inventor of combinatory logic
- Sinai billiard, Wolf and Abel Prize winner
- triangular lattice, Fields Medalist
- mathematical distributions, co-developed the first ternary computer Setun
- Vladimir Steklov, founder of Steklov Institute of Mathematics, proved theorems on generalized Fourier series
- Jakow Trachtenberg, developed the Trachtenberg system of mental calculation
- Urysohn's Lemma and Fréchet–Urysohn spacein topology
- multi-valued logics
- Pólya–Vinogradov inequality in analytic number theory
- Vladimir Voevodsky, introduced a homotopy theory for schemes and modern motivic cohomology, Fields Medalist
- Georgy Voronoy, invented the Voronoi diagram
- Egorov's Theorem in mathematical analysis
- restricted Burnside problem, Fields Medal winner
Astronomers and cosmologists
- Alexander Fridman
- Vladimir Belinski, an author of the BKL singularity model of the Universe
- stellar spectra
- meteors and meteor showers, a director of the Pulkovo Observatory
- Jacob Bruce, statesman, naturalist and astronomer, founder of the first observatory in Russia (in the Sukharev Tower)
- Lyudmila Chernykh, astronomer, discovered 268 asteroids
- Nikolai Chernykh, astronomer, discovered 537 asteroids and 2 comets
- FLRWmetric of Universe
- quantum tunneling and Gamow factor in stellar nucleosynthesis, introduced the Big Bang nucleosynthesis theory, predicted cosmic microwave background
- Matvey Gusev, first to prove the non-sphericity of the Moon, pioneer of photography in astronomy
- Nikolai Kardashev, astrophysicist, inventor of Kardashev scale for ranking the space civilizations
- Isaak Khalatnikov, an author of the BKL singularity
- Marian Kowalski, first to measure the rotation of the Milky Way
- Anders Johan Lexell, mathematician, researcher of celestial mechanics and comet astronomy, proved that Uranus is a planet rather than a comet
- chaotic inflation theoryof the Universe
- Evgeny Lifshitz, an author of the BKL singularity
- Friedrich Wilhelm Struve
- Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov, invented the Maksutov telescope
- planet formation
- Grigory Shayn, first director of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, co-developed a method for stellar rotationmeasurement
- cosmic rays and extraterrestrial liferesearcher
- double stars, initiated the construction of 2,820 km long Struve Geodetic Arc, progenitor of the Struve familyof astronomers
- Otto Lyudvigovich Struve, co-developed a method for stellar rotationmeasurement, directed several U.S. observatories
- double stars
- Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect of CMB distortion
- neutron stars
- interstellar dust, author of the Morphological Catalogue of Galaxies
- Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, conducted the first intercontinental radar astronomy experiment, transmitted the Cosmic Calls
- Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect
Physicists
- superconductor (the Abrikosov vortex), Nobel Prizewinner
- heterotransistor, Nobel Prize winner
- nuclear reactors in the USSR, founder of Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics(ITEP)
- Lev Artsimovich, builder of the first tokamak, researcher of high temperature plasma
- Askaryan effect in the particle physics
- Nikolay Basov, physicist, co-inventor of laser and maser, Nobel Prize winner
- Nikolay Bogolyubov, co-developed the BBGKY hierarchy, formulated a microscopic theory of superconductivity, suggested a triplet quark model, introduced a new quantum degree of freedom (color charge)
- Boris Jacobi
- hydrodynamics, formulated the Chaplygin's equations and Chaplygin gasconcept
- Pavel Cherenkov, discoverer of Cherenkov radiation, Nobel Prize winner
- Yuri Denisyuk, inventor of 3D holography
- first nuclear power plant, developer of VVER-type reactors
- quantum physics
- Georgy Flyorov, an initiator of the Soviet atomic bomb project, co-discoverer of seaborgium and bohrium, founder of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
- Vladimir Fock, developed the Fock space, Fock state and the Hartree–Fock method in quantum mechanics
- Ilya Frank, explained the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation, Nobel Prize winner
- crystal lattice, described the Poole–Frenkel effect in solid-state physics
- diamagnetic levitation of a living frog
- hydrogen bomb, Nobel Prize winner
- DGLAP equations and Gribov ambiguity
- Abram Ioffe, founder of the Soviet physics school, tutor of many prominent scientists
- Dmitri Ivanenko, proposed the first atomic nucleus and nuclear shell models, predicted the synchrotron radiation, author of the hypothesis of quark stars
- galvanoplastic sculpture and electric boat
- Pyotr Kapitsa, originated the techniques for creating ultrastrong magnetic fields, co-discovered a way to measure the magnetic field of an atomic nucleus discovered superfluidity, Nobel Prize winner
- Tsar Bomb
- gravitational lensing
- marine nuclear reactorsfor surface ships
- plasma physics, pointed out the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, co-author of the famous Course of Theoretical Physics, Nobel Prize winner
- Grigory Landsberg, co-discoverer of Raman scattering of light
- Soviet Academy of Sciences and Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk
- Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism
- Heinrich Lenz, discovered the Lenz's law of electromagnetism
- Evgeny Lifshitz, an author of the BKL singularity model of the Universe, co-author of the Course of Theoretical Physics
- conservation of matter, disproved the phlogiston theory
- crystadine
- Alexander Makarov, inventor of orbitrap
- Boris Mamyrin, inventor of reflectron
- Raman effect
- gecko tape, Nobel Prize winner
- Yuri Oganessian, nuclear physicist in the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, co-discoverer of the heaviest elements in the periodic table; element Oganesson
- Heinrich Lenz
- quantum physics
- Alexander Polyakov, developed the concepts of Polyakov action, 't Hooft–Polyakov monopole and BPST instanton
- Isaak Pomeranchuk, predicted synchrotron radiation
- PMNS matrix
- inventors of radio, recorded the first experimental radiolocationat sea
- Victor Popov, co-discoverer of Faddeev–Popov ghosts in quantum field theory
- Alexander Prokhorov, co-inventor of laser and maser, Nobel Prize winner
- Georg Wilhelm Richmann, inventor of electrometer, pioneer researcher of atmospheric electricity, killed by a ball lightning in experiment
- Vasily Petrov
- Nikolay Semyonov, physical chemist, co-discovered a way to measure the magnetic field of an atomic nucleus, Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner
- Lev Shubnikov, discoverer of Shubnikov–de Haas effect, one of the first researchers of solid hydrogen and liquid helium
- cosmic rays, the first to observe positrons
- photoelectric cell, built the Stoletov curve, pioneered the research of ferromagnetism
- Igor Tamm, explained the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation, co-developer of tokamak, Nobel Prize winner
- Umov–Poynting vector and Umov effect, the first to propose the formula
- Petr Ufimtsev, developed the theory that led to modern stealth technology
- Kasha–Vavilov rule of quantum yields
- Vladimir Veksler, inventor of synchrophasotron, co-inventor of synchrotron
- Evgeny Velikhov, leader of the international program ITER (thermonuclear experimental tokamak)
- Alexey Yekimov, discoverer of quantum dots
- NMR spectroscopy
- Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effectof CMB distortion
- TsAGI, pioneer of aviation
Chemists and material scientists
- Aleksandr Butlerov
- aluminothermy, a founder of physical chemistry
- Friedrich Konrad Beilstein, proposed the Beilstein test for halogen detection, compiled the Beilstein database in organic chemistry
- Boris Belousov, discoverer of Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, a classical example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
- Borodin reaction, co-discovered Aldol reaction
- hexamine, formaldehyde and formose reaction (the first synthesis of sugar), the first to incorporate double bonds into structural formulae, a founder of organic chemistry and the theory of chemical structure
- Bodroux-Chichibabin aldehyde synthesis and Chichibabin reaction
- Yevgraf Fyodorov
- Aleksandr Dianin, discovered Bisphenol A and Dianin's compound
- artificial sweetener
- Alexey Favorsky, discoverer of Favorskii rearrangement and Favorskii reaction in organic chemistry
- Alexander Frumkin, a founder of modern electrochemistry, author of the theory of electrode reactions
- Yevgraf Fyodorov, the first to enumerate all of the 230 space groups of crystals, thus founding the modern crystallography
- gecko tape, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
- petrochemistry
- Russian vodka
- Sergei Lebedev
- Pyotr Kapitsa, discovered superfluidity while studying liquid helium, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
- Gottlieb Kirchhoff, discoverer of glucose
- chemical weapons
- Sergei Lebedev, inventor of polybutadiene, the first commercially viable synthetic rubber
- fire fighting foam
- gecko tape, Nobel Prize in Physics winner
- Dmitri Mendeleyev
- pipelines and a prominent researcher of vodka
- Nikolai Menshutkin, discoverer of Menshutkin reaction in organic chemistry
- irreversibility, Nobel Prize winner
- Sergey Reformatsky, discoverer of the Reformatsky reaction in organic chemistry
- Nikolay Semyonov, physical chemist, author of the chain reaction theory, Nobel Prize winner
- chemical cracking
- Mikhail Tsvet, botanist, inventor of chromatography
- Victor Veselago, the first researcher of materials with negative permittivity and permeability
- Russian porcelain
- Paul Walden, discovered the Walden inversion and ethylammonium nitrate, the first room temperature ionic liquid
- Zaitsev's rulein organic chemistry
- petrochemistry
- , the first President of the Russian Physical-Chemical Society
Philosophers
Imperial period
Soviet period
Modern
- Elena Oznobkina, researcher and translator of Kant, Nietzsche and Husserl, theorist and critic of Russian prison system, editor of Russian edition of Index on Censorship magazine, human rights activist.
Orientalists
East Asian studies
- Eliahu Eilat (1903–1990), Israeli diplomat and President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- St. Petersburg State University.
Middle East studies
Art
Visual arts
Architects
- Kremlin towers and Terem Palace
- Archangel Cathedral
- St Petersburg
- Tsaritsyno Park and the Russian State Library
- Joseph Bové, chief architect of Moscow after the Fire of 1812
- Vincenzo Brenna, court architect of Paul I of Russia
- Alexander Brullov, builder of the Pulkovo Observatory
- Charles Cameron, architect of Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk Palace
- Alberto Cavos, builder of the Bolshoi Theatre and the Mariinsky Theatre
- deep column station
- St Petersburgembankments
- Dormition Cathedral in Moscow
- Ivan Fomin, master of Russian neoclassical revival and postconstructivism
- Moisei Ginzburg, master of Constructivist architecture, founder of the OSA Group
- Church of Maria Magdalene and Chersonesus Cathedral
- Boris Iofan, grandmaster of Stalinist architecture
- Matvei Kazakov, builder of the Kremlin Senate
- TsUM
- Alexander Kokorinov, builder of the Imperial Academy of Arts
- Fyodor Kon, builder of the Smolensk Kremlin and Moscow's Bely Gorod
- rationalist architecture of ASNOVA
- HVAC technology, built Priory Palace in Gatchina
- Georg Johann Mattarnovy, architect of Kunstkamera
- Auguste de Montferrand, builder of Saint Isaac's Cathedral and the Alexander Column
- the tallest hotel in Europe
- the world's tallest)
- Bartolomeo Rastrelli
- Kitai-gorod Wall and the Ascension Church in Kolomenskoye
- Anatoly Polyansky, architect of the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow
- Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia
- Giacomo Quarenghi, builder of the Hermitage Theatre and Smolny Institute
- Antonio Rinaldi, architect of Oranienbaum and Tsarskoye Selo, builder of the Marble Palace
- General Staff Building in St. Petersburg
- Lev Rudnev, builder of Stalinist skyscrapers
- Kremlin towers and the Palace of Facets
- Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal
- Lenin Library, master of Stalinist architecture
- Hotel Moskva (Moscow)
- Vladimir Sherwood, builder of the State Historical Museum
- thin-shell structure, tensile structure, gridshell), builder of Shukhov Towers and multiple other structures
- Spasskaya tower and the Palace of Facets
- Narva Triumphal Gates
- Andrei Stackenschneider, builder of the Mariinsky Palace and Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace
- Ivan Starov, builder of the Tauride Palace
- Vladimir Tatlin, author of Tatlin's Tower project
- tallest Orthodox church)
- tallest Orthodox belltower)
- Vesnin brothers, leaders of constructivist architecture
- Saint Petersburg Mining Institute
- Postnik Yakovlev, builder of Saint Basil's Cathedral on Red Square
- Russian Admiralty
- Catherinethal
- Pyotr Baranovsky, preservationist of ancient Russian architecture, notable for saving Saint Basil's Cathedral from destruction by the Soviet authorities in the 1930s.
Sculptors and jewellers
- Peter Clodt
- Mihail Chemiakin, author of Children Are the Victims of Adult Vices
- Peter Clodt, famous for equestrian statues, author of the Anichkov BridgeHorse Tamers
- General Staff Building in St. Petersburg
- Fabergé Eggs
- Naum Gabo, sculptor, pioneer of kinetic art
- Tamerlane, Yaroslav the Wise, Rudakiand many other historical figures
- Ilya Kabakov, conceptual installation artist
- Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Battle of Kursk
- Sergey Konenkov, sculptor, "the Russian Rodin"
- Mars
- Ivan Martos, author of the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square
- St Petersburg, the monument to Bohdan Khmelnytsky in Kyiv
- Vera Mukhina, sculptor, inventor of welded sculpture, author of the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman
- Andrei Molodkin (born 1966), sculpture and installation
- Ernst Neizvestny, author of the Lotus Flower at the Aswan Dam in Egypt
- Aleksandr II
- Kazan Cathedral, St. Petersburg
- Avenir Sumin, competitor of Fabergé
- Lenin statues and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Moscow)
- Moscow War Memorial and the Freedom Monument (Tbilisi)
Painters
- Ivan Aivazovsky, author of The Ninth Wave and over 6000 paintings, mostly seascapes
- landscapist, "the Russian Canaletto"
- Ivan Argunov, major 18th century portraitist
- Léon Bakst, stage and costume designer for the Ballets Russes, author of the Terror Antiquus
- Pushkin's Bronze Horseman
- post-impressionistpainter, creator of Russian Symbolism
- Vladimir Borovikovsky, famous portraitist at the turn of the 19th century
- Karl Briullov, neoclassical painter, author of The Last Day of Pompeii
- Marc Chagall, polymath-artist, pioneer of modernism and figurative art, author of famous stained glasses
- Pavel Chistyakov, history and portrait painter, tutor of many celebrated artists
- Alexander Deyneka, master of socialist realism, author of the mosaics at Mayakovskaya (Moscow Metro)
- icon painter, author of frescoes in the Ferapontov Monastery
- Julia Dolgorukova, painter, landscapist, famous for works on stage, costume designer and new synthetic technologies in painting
- Andrey Esionov, painter
- Vladimir Favorsky, graphic artist, famous for woodcut illustrations of classic books
- Hogarth"
- Nikolai Ge, realist painter, famous for works on historical and religious motifs
- Feofan Grek, medieval fresco and icon-painter in Byzantine Empireand Russia
- Alexander Ivanov, neoclassical painter, author of The Appearance of Christ before the People
- Russian history
- Wassily Kandinsky, inventor of pure abstract art, founder of Der Blaue Reiter
- Orest Kiprensky, romantic painter and portraitist
- impressionistpainter
- Ivan Kramskoi, painter and art critic, author of the Christ in the Desert and the Unknown Woman
- Boris Kustodiev, author of famous portraits, holiday scenes and "Kustodiev's women" (The Merchant's Wife, Bathing, The Russian Venus)
- Mikhail Larionov, avant-garde painter, inventor of rayonism
- Alexei Leonov, cosmonaut and painter, made some of his works in outer space
- Isaac Levitan, landscapist, author of the Over Eternal Peace
- Rafail Sergeevich Levitsky, Peredvizhniki artist and court photographer to the Romanov dynasty
- El Lissitzky, avant-garde painter, typographer, author of Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge
- Konstantin Makovsky, famous for idealized history paintings
- Kazimir Malevich, inventor of suprematism, author of the Black Square
- Sergey Malyutin, painter and folk artist, designed the first matryoshka doll
- Rosta Windows agitprop
- The Vision of the Youth Bartholomew
- Petrine era portraitist
- Vasily Perov, realist painter, author of the Troika and The Hunters at Rest
- Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, symbolist painter, author of the Bathing of a Red Horse
- Vasily Polenov, landscape painter, author of A courtyard in Moscow and Grandma's garden
- Ilya Repin, archetypical Russian painter, famous for his portraits and history scenes, author of the Barge Haulers on the Volga and the Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks
- constructivist painter
- Nicholas Roerich, artist, scientist, traveler, public figure, initiator of the international Roerich Pact, author of over 7000 paintings
- Andrei Rublev, most famous Russian icon-painter, author of the Trinity
- Andrei Ryabushkin, history painter, works devoted mostly to the 17th century Russia
- landscape painter, creator of the lyrical landscape style
- nudes
- impressionist painter, portraitist, author of The Girl with Peaches and The Kidnapping of Europe
- Taras Shevchenko, romantic poet and painter
- Ivan Shishkin, author of the most celebrated Russian landscapes: the Morning in a Pine Forest, Rye Fields, the Rain in an Oak Forest
- Konstantin Somov, prominent Russian literature illustrator
- Russian history paintings: The Morning of Streltsy's Execution, Boyarynya Morozova, The March of Suvorov through the Alps
- Vasily Tropinin, romantic and realist portraitist
- Israel Tsvaygenbaum, painter
- icon painter, author of the Saviour Not Made by Hands
- Feodor Vasilyev, lyrical landscape painter
- Russian historyillustrator, many works devoted to Moscow
- Slavic mythology images, inventor of budenovka, author of the Flying Carpet, Tsar Ivan The Terrible, the Bogatyrs
- Alexey Venetsianov, prominent genre painter, founder of the "Venetsianov school"
- Vasily Vereshchagin, battle painter, author of The Apotheosis of War and the Blowing from Guns in British India
- Romanov Viktor(born 1959), painter
- Mikhail Vrubel, leader of the Russian Symbolism, author of The Demon Sitting and The Swan Princess
- Nikolai Yaroshenko, realist genre painter and portraitist
- Chechenorigin
- Leon Zernitsky, illustrator and artist
- Karp Zolotaryov, late 17th century icon painter, notable for realistic style
Literature
Novel and short story authors
- Chinghiz Aitmatov, Kyrgyz and Russian writer, author of Jamilya
- Vasily Aksyonov, author of the Moscow saga Generations of Winter
- Boris Akunin, famous for his detective fiction, author of The Diamond Chariot
- Sholem Aleichem, important Russian Jewish writer, the famous musical Fiddler on the Roof was based on Aleichem's story Tevye the Dairyman
- The Odessa Tales
- Andrei Bely, author of the novel Petersburg, poet
- Alexander Belyayev, major science fiction writer, author of Amphibian Man and Ariel
- Valery Bryusov, important symbolist writer, author of the novel The Fiery Angel
- Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century
- Half a Life
- Nobel Prize for Literature
- The Black Monk
- Nikolai Chernyshevsky, influential revolutionary writer, author of What Is to Be Done?
- The Possessed, The Brothers Karamazov
- Sergei Dovlatov, Russian writer who emigrated to the US, author of the novel Affiliate
- post-apocalyptic novel Metro 2033
- The Nose, Dead Souls
- Ivan Goncharov, author of Oblomov
- Maxim Gorky, founder of socialist realism, author of Twenty-six Men and a Girl
- Vasily Grossman, author of Life and Fate, described by Le Monde as "the greatest Russian novel of the twentieth century"
- Ilf and Petrov popular satirists, authors of The Twelve Chairs
- sentimentalistwriter and major historian, author of Poor Liza
- Valentin Katayev, author of the industrial novel Time, Forward!
- Veniamin Kaverin, author of the social and adventure novel The Two Captains
- surrealist and absurdistwriter
- A Hero of our Time, poet
- Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
- sci-fi writer, author of the Night Watch
- Modern Library 100 Best Novels
- Neznaikaseries
- Vladimir Obruchev, geologist and explorer, author of the science fiction and travel novels Plutonia and Sannikov Land
- Envy
- socialist realist writer, best known for his novel How the Steel Was Tempered
- Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, poet and translator, Nobel Prizewinner (was forced to decline the prize)
- Viktor Pelevin, postmodernist writer, author of the short novel Omon Ra
- Andrei Platonov, author of The Foundation Pit
- Aleksandr Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet, novelist, author of The Captain's Daughter
- radical writer, author of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow
- Ayn Rand, creator of Objectivism, author of The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged
- Varlam Shalamov, Gulag survivor, author of Kolyma Tales
- Nobel Prize for Literature, author of And Quiet Flows the Don
- Nobel Prize for Literature, author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- Vladimir Sorokin, one of the most popular writers in modern Russian literature
- collaborativeduo of Soviet science fiction writers
- essayist from the Tolstoy family
- Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Soviet writer, best known for his works of science fiction, author of Aelita
- Leo Tolstoy, widely considered to be one of the world's greatest novelists, author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich
- Ivan Turgenev, author of A Sportsman's Sketches, which had an influence on the abolition of serfdom in Russia
- Russian Formalist school, author of Lieutenant Kijé
- Eduard Uspensky, children's writer known for his fictional characters Gena the Crocodile and Cheburashka
- Vladimir Voinovich, author of the well-known novel The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin
- Ivan Yefremov, paleontologist and science fiction writer, founder of taphonomy, author of The Land of Foam, Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale and Thais of Athens
- Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of the dystopian novel We, which influenced George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Ayn Rand's Anthem
Philosophers and critics
- semiotician, and scholar who worked on literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language
- Mikhail Bakunin, well-known revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism
- Vissarion Belinsky, influential critic, and editor of two major literary magazines: Otechestvennye Zapiski, and Sovremennik
- Nikolai Berdyaev, religious and political philosopher
- Theosophy and the Theosophical Society
- Bolsheviks
- Nikolay Chernyshevsky, famous for his philosophical novel What is To Be Done?, he was the leader of the revolutionary democratic movement of the 1860s, and an influence on Vladimir Lenin
- Slavophilemovements
- Sergei Diaghilev, art critic and impresario
- Nikolay Dobrolyubov, literary critic, journalist, and revolutionary democrat
- inventor
- sociologistand philosopher of history
- collectivization
- Mikhail Katkov, conservative journalist and literary critic influential during the reign of Alexander III
- Slavophilemovement
- Slavophile movement, coined the term sobornost
- Peter Kropotkin, naturalist, geographer and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists
- narodism
- monarchist reactionaryphilosopher
- Aleksei Losev, one of the most prominent figures in Russian philosophical and religious thought of the 20th century
- Nikolay Novikov, writer and philanthropist, a man of Russian Enlightenment, often considered to be the first Russian journalist
- esoteric philosopher, author of In Search of the Miraculous
- radical writer and social critic whose works had an important influence on Lenin
- Ayn Rand, Objectivist philosopher, best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged
- existentialistphilosopher, author of the well-known works Penultimate Words and All Things are Possible
- Vladimir Solovyov, philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, and literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century
- Vladimir Stasov, preeminent 19th century art critic in Russia
- Tolstoyanmovement.
- Marxist, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution of 1917
Playwrights
- Leonid Andreyev, author of many popular plays, including He Who Gets Slapped
- Hizgil Avshalumov, soviet novelist, poet and playwright
- Mikhail Bulgakov, popular Soviet writer, author of the play Flight
- Anton Chekhov, famous for his short stories and plays, author of The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Seagull
- Denis Fonvizin, known chiefly for his famous play The Minor
- satirical play The Government Inspector
- Maxim Gorky, author of The Lower Depths, a hallmark of socialist realism
- Aleksandr Griboyedov, author of the popular play Woe from Wit
- Mikhail Lermontov, author of the play Masquerade
- Vladimir Mayakovsky, one of the foremost representatives of Russian Futurism
- Alexander Ostrovsky, known for his plays dealing with the merchant class, most notably The Storm
- Aleksey Pisemsky, realist writer, author of the well-known play A Bitter Fate, considered to be the first Russian realistic tragedy
- Alexander Pushkin, Russia's national poet, also known for his plays, including Boris Godunov and The Stone Guest
- Alexander Sumarokov, poet and playwright who single-handedly created classical theatre in Russia
- Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, author of historical dramas, including The Death of Ivan the Terrible and Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich
- Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest Russian writers, author of the plays The Power of Darkness, The Fruits of Enlightenment, and The Living Corpse
- Ivan Turgenev, author of the well known play A Month in the Country
Poets
- modernistpoet, author of Requiem
- Bella Akhmadulina, Soviet and Russian poet who has been cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language
- Russian Symbolism
- Konstantin Balmont, symbolist poet, one of the major figures of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry
- Evgeny Baratynsky, lauded by Alexander Pushkin as the finest Russian elegiac poet, rediscovered by Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodskyas a supreme poet of thought.
- Konstantin Batyushkov, an important precursor of Alexander Pushkin
- symbolist poet, namesake of the important Andrei Bely Prize.
- Russian Symbolist movement, author of "The Twelve"
- Joseph Brodsky, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature
- Korney Chukovsky, one of the most popular children's poets in the Russian language
- Denis Davydov, guerilla fighter and soldier-poet of the Napoleonic Wars, invented a genre of hussar poetry noted for its hedonism and bravado
- Gavrila Derzhavin, one of the greatest Russian poets before Alexander Pushkin
- Aleksandr Drakokhrust, Soviet poet
- National Anthem of the Soviet Union
- Nikolay Gumilyov, founded the acmeismmovement
- Russian Symbolismmovement
- Antiochus Kantemir, Russian poet-satirist, activist of early Russian Enlightenment
- Russian Futurist movement, regarded by his contemporariesas as "a poet's poet"
- Ivan Krylov, Russia's best known fabulist
- Yuri Kublanovsky, poet, essayist, critic and art historian
- Mikhail Lermontov, most important Russian poet after Alexander Pushkin's death, his influence on later Russian literature is still felt in modern times
- Osip Mandelstam, Acmeist poet, author of Tristia
- Vladimir Mayakovsky, among the most important representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism
- Apollon Maykov, his lyrical poems often showcase images of Russian villages, nature, and Russian history
- Nikolai Nekrasov, one of Russia's most popular poets, author of the long poem Who is Happy in Russia?
- Boris Pasternak, author of the influential poem My Sister Life, Nobel Prizewinner (was forced to decline the prize)
- Nikolai Ogarev, known to every Russian, not only as a poet, but as the fellow-exile and collaborator of Alexander Herzen on Kolokol, a newspaper printed in England and smuggled into Russia
- Yakov Polonsky, leading Pushkinist poet
- BaroqueBelarusian born Russian poet
- Alexander Pushkin, greatest Russian poet, author of Eugene Onegin
- Ilya Selvinsky, leader of the Constructivist movement
- Igor Severyanin, Russian lyrical poet who presided over the circle of the so-called Ego-Futurists.
- War generation of Russian poets
- symbolistpoet and writer
- Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, popular poet and dramatist, known for his humorous and satirical verse
- Vasily Trediakovsky, helped lay the foundations of classical Russian literature
- Marina Tsvetaeva, known primarily for her lyric poetry, widely admired by her fellow poets
- Vasili Tyorkin
- Fyodor Tyutchev, romantic poet, author of The Last Love
- freemason
- Pyotr Yershov, author of the famous fairy-tale poem The Humpbacked Horse
- Sergei Yesenin, one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century
- Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Soviet/Russian poet, director of several films
- Nikolay Zabolotsky, one of the founders of the Russian avant-garde absurdist group OBERIU
- Vasily Zhukovsky, credited with introducing the Romantic Movement to Russian literature
Performing arts
Actors
- Vera Alentova, known for her leading role in the famous 1980 Soviet drama Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
- Sergei Bodrov, Jr., played lead roles in several popular movies, son of playwright, actor, director and producer Sergei Bodrov
- Sergei Bondarchuk, acted in and directed the Academy Award-winning 1966–67 film production of War and Peace
- Yul Brynner, won the Academy Award for best actor in the 1956 film The King and I
- Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, played in more than 170 films, founded his own theater in Moscow
- Russian Federation State Prize and People's Artist of Russiain 1996
- Milla Jovovich, actress, model, and musician, best known for her role in the widely popular Resident Evil movies
- Lila Kedrova, winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1964 for the role of Mme Hortense in Zorba the Greek.
- Nikita Mikhalkov, co-wrote, directed and acted in the Academy Award-winning film Burnt by the Sun
- Helen Mirren, British actress born to Russian father and English mother.
- Lubov Orlova, theatre actress and gifted singer, the first recognized star of Soviet cinema
- Marina Orlova, host of the most popular YouTube guru channel, HotForWords
- stand-up comedianwho led the school of Soviet and Russian humorists for about half a century
- Tatiana Samoylova(1934–2014), actress
- Alexander Slastin, actor, best known for his role as Soviet general Vasily Chuikov in the 2004 film Downfall
- Georgy Vitsin, comic actor, best known for his comic roles such as Trus (Coward), a member of an antihero comic trio in a series of films by Leonid Gaidai
- Fyodor Volkov, 18th century actor and founder of the first permanent Russian theater
- From Here to Eternity
- Vladimir Zharikov, actor, stuntman, cinematographer
Theatre directors
- Michael Chekhov, Russian-American actor, director, author, and theatre practitioner, nephew of Anton Chekhov
- Yury Lyubimov
- Yury Lyubimov, Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the Taganka Theatrewhich he founded
- Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer, and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre
- system of acting, and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre
- Vakhtangov Theatre
- theater
Film directors and animators
- Lev Atamanov, animation director of Soyuzmultfilm, best known for The Snow Queen
- Fyodor Bondarchuk, director of the acclaimed film The 9th Company, son of Sergei Bondarchuk
- Grigori Chukhrai, Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay for the film Ballad of a Soldier
- Pavel Chukhrai, Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film for The Thief
- Alexander Dovzhenko, often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers
- Sergei Eisenstein, his work profoundly influenced early filmmakers owing to his innovative use of and writings about montage
- Vasily Goncharov, directed the first Russian feature film Defence of Sevastopol
- Leonid Gaidai, his movies broke theatre attendance records and are still some of the top-selling DVDs in Russia
- stop-motion animation
- Andrei Konchalovsky, director of popular movies including Runaway Train and Tango & Cash
- Fjodor Khitruk, one of the most influential Russian animators and animation directors
- Elem Klimov, best known for his film Come and See
- Grigori Kozintsev, known for his silent films and adaptations of Shakespeare
- Lev Kuleshov, taught at and helped establish the world's first film school (the Moscow Film School)
- Aleksandr Petrov, won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film for The Old Man and the Sea
- Yakov Protazanov, one of the founding fathers of Russian cinema
- Aleksandr Ptushko, referred to as "the Soviet Walt Disney", due to his prominent early role in animation in the Soviet Union
- Mikhail Romm, director and teacher, known for his film Nine Days in One Year
- Eldar Ryazanov, Soviet/Russian director famous for his comedies
- Karen Shakhnazarov, chairman of Mosfilm, one of the largest and oldest film studios in Russia
- Vasily Shukshin, actor, writer, screenwriter and movie director who specialized in rural themes
- Alexander Sokurov, critically acclaimed director, a regular at the Cannes Film Festival
- Ladislas Starevich, Russian and French stop-motion animator who used insects and animals as his protagonists
- Genndy Tartakovsky, Russian-American animator best known for Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, and Star Wars: Clone Wars
- Andrei Tarkovsky, internationally renowned director and film theorist
- Dziga Vertov, pioneering documentary film director and writer
Ballet dancers and choreographers
- Irina Baronova, ballerina, choreographer
- Mikhail Baryshnikov, ballet dancer
- Sergei Diaghilev, ballet impresario
- Irina Dvorovenko, ballet dancer
- Michel Fokine, choreographer, dancer
- Elizaveta Gerdt, ballerina
- Pavel Gerdt, dancer
- Alexander Godunov, ballet dancer
- Tamara Karsavina, ballerina
- Mathilde Kschessinska, prima ballerina
- Natalia Makarova, ballerina
- Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer, choreographer
- Ivan Novikoff, ballet master
- Rudolf Nureyev, ballet dancer
- Valery Panov, ballet dancer, choreographer
- Anna Pavlova, ballerina
- Maya Plisetskaya, ballerina
- Olga Preobrajenska, ballerina
- Tatiana Riabouchinska, ballerina
- Yuri Soloviev, ballet dancer
- Galina Ulanova, ballerina
- Agrippina Vaganova, ballet teacher
- Svetlana Zakharova, ballerina
- Maria Khoreva, ballet dancer
Classical composers and musicians
- Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov, composer
- Anton Arensky, composer
- Mily Balakirev, composer
- Alexander Borodin, composer
- Sergei Bortkiewicz, composer
- Valeri Brainin, composer, musical scientist
- César Cui, composer
- Maria Eklund, conductor
- Michael L. Geller, composer, viola player
- Valery Gergiev, pianist, conductor
- Emil Gilels, pianist
- Alexander Glazunov, composer
- Russlan and Ludmilla
- Nikolai Golovanov, conductor
- Alexander Gretchaninoff, composer
- Vladimir Horowitz, pianist
- Dmitry Kabalevsky, composer
- Aram Khachaturian, composer
- Tikhon Khrennikov, composer
- Leonid Kogan, violinist
- Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov, composer
- Sergei Lyapunov, composer
- Nikolai Medtner, composer, pianist
- Modest Mussorgsky, composer of Boris Godunov, Pictures at an Exhibition
- Nikolai Myaskovsky, composer
- Natasha Paremski, pianist
- Mikhail Pletnev, pianist
- Gregor Piatigorsky, composer
- Sergei Prokofiev, composer, pianist and conductor
- Sergei Rachmaninoff, pianist, composer, conductor
- Vadim Repin, violinist
- Sviatoslav Richter, pianist
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer
- Mstislav Rostropovich, cellist and conductor
- Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor
- Nikolai Rubinstein, pianist, conductor and composer
- Alexei Rumiantsev, pianist, composer
- Vasily Ilyich Safonov, composer and music educator
- Alfred Schnittke, composer
- Alexander Scriabin, composer and pianist
- Dmitri Shostakovich, composer and pianist
- Igor Stravinsky, composer
- Alexander Serov, composer
- Rodion Shchedrin, composer
- Vissarion Shebalin, composer
- Regina Spektor, musician
- Georgy Sviridov, composer
- Aleksandr Taneyev, composer
- Sergey Taneyev, composer
- Mikael Tariverdiev, composer
- Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composer
- Boris Tchaikovsky, composer
- Alexander Tcherepnin, composer
- Galina Ustvolskaya, composer
- Aleksander Vakoulsky, conductor
- Maxim Vengerov, violinist
Opera and choir singers
- Nikolay Baskov, opera singer
- Evgeny Belyaev, singer
- Feodor Chaliapin, opera singer
- Anna Netrebko, opera singer
- Elena Pankratova, opera singer
- Vladimir Rosing, singer, director
- Elizabeth Sandunova, opera singer
- Dmitri Hvorostovsky, opera singer
Modern musicians, singers and bands
- Yuri Antonov, composer, singer
- Sasha Argov (1914–95), composer
- Dima Bilan, composer, Eurovision winner
- Polina Gagarina, Singer, Eurovision runner-up
- Lena Katina, singer of musical duo t.A.T.u.
- Eduard Khil (1934–2012), singer
- Philipp Kirkorov, pop singer
- Sergey Lazarev, vocalist
- Origa, singer, performs theme songs for various anime series
- Celtic folk)
- Aleksandra Pakhmutova, composer
- Alla Pugacheva, singer and composer
- Second Hand Band, musical group from Moscow
- Andrey Shibko (born 1975), pianist
- Regina Spektor, musician
- Valery Leontiev, singer
- Viktor Tsoi, poet, composer, musician, actor in the 1980s
- Julia Volkova, singer of musical duo t.A.T.u.
- Vladimir Vysotsky (1938–80), poet, composer, musician, actor in the 1970s
- KREC, rap band from St. Petersburg
- Alyona Shvets, pop singer
Radio and TV people
- Joe Adamov, journalist and presenter on Radio Moscow and its successor the Voice of Russia for over 60 years
- Dinara Sadretdinova, TV presenter
- Marussia
- parodist, singer and host for the Russian adaptations of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? from 2001 to 2008, and The Million Pound Drop
- news anchor of the Soviet Central Television's prime time news program Vremya
- Channel One, host and author of the program Odnako
- Channel One, founder of the Pole Chudesand other popular TV shows
- Alexander Maslyakov, for over 45 years the host for the humour game show KVN
- Yevgeny Petrosyan, popular stand-up comedian and host of a number of humour TV shows
- Vladimir Posner, political pundit and host on radio and TV, for many years working in the United States, Soviet Union and Russia
- Yuri Senkevich, participant of Thor Heyerdahl's voyages, anchorman of the Travelers' Club show for the record 30 years
- Margarita Simonyan, journalist, editor-in-chief of RT (Russia Today)
- Kseniya Sobchak, TV celebrity, host for a number of popular programs, Russia's "It girl" and "Russia's Paris Hilton"
- Roman Trakhtenberg, actor, popular host of humour shows on radio and TV, an expert on Russian jokes
- bodybuilder, TV and radio presenter, actor and singer
- 2009 Eurovision Song Contest
- Vladimir Voroshilov, author, producer and anchorman of the intellectual game show What? Where? When? from 1975 to 2000
- Leonid Yakubovich, actor and TV anchorman, the host for the Pole Chudes show for 20 years
- Anatoly Wasserman, erudite, journalist and political pundit, a frequent winner of intellectual TV games such as What? Where? When? and Svoya Igra (Russian version of Jeopardy!)
- Mikhail Zadornov, stand-up comedian and writer, particularly famous for his satirical comparisons of Russians and nationals of other countries, especially Americans
Fashion models
- Alena Shishkova, Miss Russia 2012 runner up
- Irina Antonenko, Miss Russia 2010
- Oxana Fedorova, Miss Universe
- Ksenia Kahnovich
- Tatiana Kovylina
- Irina Kulikova
- Elena Melnik
- Sasha Pivovarova
- Natasha Polevshchikova
- Vlada Roslyakova
- Anna Selezneva
- Irina Shaykhlislamova
- Katya Shchekina
- Tatiana Sorokko
- Natasha Stefanenko, model and actress
- Daria Strokous
- Natalia Vodianova
- Anne Vyalitsyna
- Inna Zobova
Sportspeople
Basketball
- Russian national basketball team[1]
- Alex Chubrevich (born 1986), Israeli basketball player
- USSR national team for 30 years, including victory in 1988 Summer Olympics, Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, FIBA Hall of Fame
- Andrei Kirilenko, NBAbasketball player
- Daniel Koperberg (born 1997), Israeli basketball player
- Egor Koulechov (born 1994), Israeli-Russian professional basketball player for Israeli team Ironi Nahariya
- Kirill Pishchalnikov, PBL, NCAA, basketball player
Boxers
- Boris Lagutin, double Olympic gold medalist light-middleweight division
- Oleg Maskaev, professional boxer, former WBC Heavyweight Champion
- WBOMiddleweight Champion
- Alexander Povetkin, Olympic gold medalist
- Natascha Ragosina, boxing world champion
- Shamil Sabirov, Olympic gold medalist light flyweight
- Oleg Saitov, double Olympic gold medalist in the welterweight division
- Aleksei Tishchenko, Olympic gold medalist featherweight and lightweight divisions
- Kostya Tszyu, professional boxer, former Undisputed Junior Welterweight champion
- Nikolai Valuev, professional boxer, former 2x WBA Heavyweight champion
Chess players
- Alexander Alekhine
- Yuri Averbakh
- Mikhail Chigorin
- Mikhail Botvinnik
- Semen Furman
- Anatoly Karpov
- Garry Kasparov
- Victor Korchnoi
- Vladimir Kramnik
- Grigory Levenfish
- Andor Lilienthal
- Vyacheslav Ragozin
- Vasily Smyslov
- Boris Spassky
- Leonid Yudasin
Fencers
- Sergey Bida (born 1993), épée fencer, Olympic silver medalist living in the United States
- Violetta Khrapina Bida(born 1994), Olympic épée fencer living in the United States
- Konstantin Lokhanov (born 1998), sabre fencer, 2x junior world champion and Olympic fencer living in the United States
- Maria Mazina (born 1964), épée fencer, Olympic gold medalist, bronze
- Mark Midler (1931–2012), foil fencer, 2-time Olympic champion
- Mark Rakita (born 1938), saber fencer, 2-time Olympic champion, 2-time silver
- Yakov Rylsky (1928–1999), saber fencer, Olympic champion
- Sergey Sharikov (1974–2015), sabre fencer, two-time Olympic gold medalist, silver, bronze
- David Tyshler (1927–2014), sabre fencer, Olympic bronze medalist
- Eduard Vinokurov (1942–2010), sabre fencer, 2-time Olympic gold medalist, silver, six-time team world champion
- Iosif Vitebskiy (born 1938), épée fencer, Soviet Ukrainian Olympic medalist and world champion, US fencing coach
Figure skaters
- Ludmila Belousova, two-time Olympic pairs champion
- Ekaterina Gordeeva, two-time Olympic pairs champion
- Aleksandr Gorelik, pair skater, Olympic silver, World Championship 2-time silver, bronze
- Sergei Grinkov, two-time Olympic pairs champion
- Gennadi Karponossov, Olympic champion, 2-time World Champion, silver, 2-time bronze, ice dancer & coach
- Evgenia Medvedeva, 2-time Olympic silver, 2 time World Champion, 2-time European champion, European silver, World Bronze, First singles skater to set a 13-competition winning Streak, 2-time back to back Grand Slam (figure skating) winner.
- Evgeni Plushenko, 2006 Olympic champion
- Oleg Protopopov, two-time Olympic pairs champion
- Julia Shapiro, pair skater
- Irina Slutskaya, two-time World Champion, 3-time silver, bronze, Olympic silver, bronze
- Maxim Staviski, World Champion ice dancer, silver, bronze[2]
- Alexandra Trusova, First woman to land a quad Lutz jump, quad Toe loop and quad flip, Olympic silver.
- Alexei Urmanov, 1994 Olympic champion
- Alexei Yagudin, 2002 Olympic champion
- Alina Zagitova, 2018 Olympic champion and Grand Slam (figure skating) winner
Gymnasts
- Nikolai Andrianov, winner of 15 Olympic medals
- Yelena Davydova, 1980 Olympic all-around champion
- Svetlana Khorkina, winner of 7 Olympic medals
- Olga Korbut, winner of 4 Olympic medals
- Yevgeniya Kanayeva, only rhythmic gymnast to win two Olympic all-around gold medals
- Sofia Muratova, winner of 8 Olympic medals
- Aliya Mustafina, 2012 Olympic gold medalist
- Alexei Nemov, winner of 12 Olympic medals
- Natalia Shaposhnikova, 2x Olympic champion
- Yelena Shushunova, Olympic champion
- Aleksandr Tkachyov, 2x Olympic champion
Ice hockey players
- Maxim Afinogenov, NHL player
- Yevgeny Babich, Olympic gold medalist
- Phoenix Coyotes goalie. former NHLstar.
- Pavel Bure, NHL player
- Valeri Bure
- Pavel Datsyuk, NHL player
- Vitaly Davydov, 3-time Olympic gold medalist, World & European champion 1963–71, runner-up 1972
- Sergei Gonchar, NHL player
- Sergei Fedorov, NHL player
- Viacheslav Fetisov
- Kirill Kaprizov, NHL player
- Nikolai Khabibulin, NHL goalie
- Valeri Kharlamov, international ice hockey player
- Vladimir Konstantinov
- Ilya Kovalchuk, NHL player
- Alexei Kovalev
- Vyacheslav Kozlov
- Alfred Kuchevsky, Olympic champion 1956, bronze 1960; twice world champion.
- Oleg Kvasha
- Igor Larionov
- Yuri Lyapkin (born 1945), ice hockey player, Soviet Hockey League, Olympic gold medal, Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame
- Evgeni Malkin, NHL player
- Sergei Makarov
- Andrei Markov
- Boris Mikhailov
- Alexander Ovechkin, NHL player
- KHLplayer
- Semyon Varlamov, NHL goalie
- Vladimir Petrov
- Alexei Ponikarovsky
- Alexander Semin, NHL player
- Vladislav Tretiak, goalie
- Alexander Yakushev
- Alexie Yashinforward
- Yevgeni Zimin Olympic champion 1968–72, World & European champion 1968–69, 1971
- Viktor Zinger, Olympic champion 1968; world champion 1965–69
- Sergei Zubov
Motorsport
- Daniil Kvyat, Formula One driver
- Nikita Mazepin, Formula One driver
- Vitaly Petrov, Formula One driver
- Sergey Sirotkin, Formula One driver
Association football players
- Igor Akinfeev, goalkeeper
- Dmitri Alenichev, midfielder
- Andrei Arshavin, midfielder, striker
- Vladimir Beschastnykh, striker
- Konstantin Beskov, striker, coach
- Grigori Bogemsky, striker
- Valentin Bubukin, midfielder, coach
- Mikhail Gershkovich (born 1948), striker, coach
- Valentin Ivanov, Sr., striker, coach
- Gavriil Kachalin, midfielder, coach
- Andrei Kanchelskis, midfielder
- Valery Karpin, midfielder, coach
- Dmitri Kharine, goalkeeper
- Rushan Khasanov, defender, midfielder, striker
- Shmuel Kozokin (born 1987), Israeli defender
- Gennady Logofet (1942–2011), footballer and football coach
- Aleksandr Mostovoi, midfielder
- Igor Netto, defender, coach
- Viktor Onopko, defender
- Sergei Ovchinnikov, goalkeeper, coach
- Roman Pavlyuchenko, striker
- Boris Razinsky (1933—2012), goalkeeper/striker, Olympic gold medal, manager
- Oleg Salenko, striker
- Nikita Simonyan, first vice-president of the Russian Football Union
- Eduard Streltsov, midfielder, striker
- Andrey Tikhonov, midfielder
- Arkadi Tyapkin (1895-1942), defender
- IFFHS.[3]
- Ivan Yegorov(1891–1943), striker
- Valery Voronin, midfielder
- Yuri Zhirkov (born 1983), defender, midfielder
- Mihail Titow, forward
Swimmers
- Semyon Belits-Geiman, Olympic freestyle swimmer
- Aleksandr Vladimirovich Popov, swimmer
- Yevgeny Sadovyi, freestyle swimmer
Tennis players
- Nikolay Davydenko, former consistent top 10 player
- Elena Dementieva, silver medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics and gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics
- Natela Dzalamidze (born 1993), tennis player, took on Georgian citizenship
- Yevgeny Kafelnikov, former world no. 1 tennis player
- Anna Kournikova, former top 10 tennis player
- Svetlana Kuznetsova, former world no. 2 tennis player. Won the 2004 U.S. Open and 2009 French Open
- Evgenia Linetskaya (born 1986), Russian-born Israeli tennis player
- Anastasia Myskina, former world no. 2 tennis player. Won the 2004 French Open (becoming the first Russian woman to win a grand slam title)
- Daniel Prenn (1904–1991), Russian-born German, Polish, and British world-top-ten tennis player
- Marat Safin, former world no. 1 tennis player. Won 2000 U.S. Open and 2005 Australian Open.
- Dinara Safina, former world no. 1 ladies tennis player
- Maria Sharapova, former world no. 1 tennis player. Won 2004 Wimbledon, 2006 U.S. Open, 2008 Australian Open, 2012 French Open and silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics
- Vera Zvonareva, two time Grand Slam finalist
- Daniil Medvedev, former world no. 1 tennis player and 2021 US Open champion.
Weightlifters
- Vasily Alexeev, Olympicweightlifter, set 80 World Records
- Yuri Vlasov, weightlifter, 1960 Olympic gold medalist
- Arkady Vorobyov, weightlifter, 2x Olympic gold medalist
- Leonid Zhabotinsky, weightlifter, 2x Olympic gold medalist
Wrestlers
- Alexander Karelin, wrestler
- Boris Maksovich Gurevich, Olympic champion wrestler
- Roho(Soslan Boradzov), wrestler
Other sportspeople
- Evgeny Abalakov, mountaineer
- Vitaly Abalakov, mountaineer
- Inga Artamonova, speed skater
- John Barsha, American football player
- Yuriy Borzakovskiy, middle distance runner
- Anatoli Boukreev, mountaineer
- Fedor Emelianenko, MMA fighter
- Khabib Nurmagomedov, former UFC Lightweight Champion
- Lisa Cross, body builder
- Maria Leontyavna Itkina, sprinter
- Mikhail Mamistov, 2-time world champion acrobatic pilot
- Natalya Nazarova, sprinter
- Svetlana Kapanina, pilot
- Svetlana Krivelyova, shot putter
- Yelena Isinbayeva, pole vaulter, 2004 Olympic gold medalist
- glider aerobaticpilot
- Lidia Skoblikova, 2x Olympic gold medalist speed skater
- Lev Vainshtein, shooter
Activists and revolutionaries
- Vera Karelina, labor activist
- Elena Prushakevich, populist who typeset underground publications
Legendary and folk heroes
- Tugarin Zmeyevichby trickery
- cabin on chicken legs
- Zmey Gorynych
- Ilya Muromets, bogatyr of peasant origin, saint, the greatest of all the legendary bogatyrs, defeated the forest-dwelling monster Nightingale the Robber, defended Rus' from numerous attacks by the steppe people
- Koscheiand rescuing young girls
- Ivan the Fool, typical simple-minded but lucky protagonist of Russian fairy tales
- Koschei "the Deathless", chief male antagonist of Russian fairy tales, an ugly senile sorcerer and kidnapper of young maids, possesses immortality
- Vladimir the Fair Sunfrom the dragon's captivity
- Sadko, musician and merchant from Veliky Novgorod, procured wealth and wife from the Sea Tsar by playing gusli
- Svyatogor, giant "sacred mountain" bogatyr, passed his strength to Ilya Muromets
- Vasilisa the Beautiful, young, attractive and often cunning heroine of Russian fairy tales
See also
- History of Germans in Russia and the Soviet Union
- List of Chuvashs
- List of Jews from the Soviet Union
- List of people from Saint Petersburg
- List of people from Tambov
- List of Armenians
- List of Azerbaijanis
- List of Belarusians
- List of Georgians
- List of Karelians
- List of Kazakhs
- List of Tajiks
- List of Tatars
- List of Tuvans
- List of Ukrainians
- List of Uzbeks
References
- ISBN 978-0-8032-2293-9. Retrieved May 25, 2010.
- ^ Bloom, Nate (February 16, 2006). "The Tribe goes to Torino: Sketches of Jewish Olympic-Bound Athletes". JWR. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
- ^ Stokkermans, Karel. "IFFHS' Century Elections". RSSSF. Retrieved June 25, 2008.