Russia
65 profiles with fame based in Russia
Russia — figures with Russian and Soviet roots
This page documents 65 notable figures based in Russia whose biographies connect to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, or the states that succeeded them — through birth, parentage, or earlier ancestry. Each profile is sourced and records the specific origin and connection.
Alexander Grischuk
Moscow's fearless blitz king and three-time Candidates finalist
Alexei Navalny
Russia's most prominent dissident, martyred for truth.
Andrei Sakharov
Physicist and Nobel Peace laureate (1975), born in Moscow
Anna Chapman
Russia's most glamorous Cold War ghost
Daniil Dubov
Moscow chess prodigy who became world rapid chess champion and Magnus Carlsen's second
Daniil Kvyat
Ufa-born Formula 1 driver with three Grand Prix podiums
Danila Kozlovsky
Russia's most celebrated young actor and director, famous in Russia and globally for Vampire Academy
Eugene Kaspersky
Cybersecurity expert born in Novorossiysk in 1965; co-founder in 1997 and chief executive since 2007 of Kaspersky Lab
George Blake
Dutch-British double agent who spied for the KGB and became one of the Cold War's most notorious moles
Ian Nepomniachtchi
Bryansk-born chess prodigy and two-time World Chess Championship Challenger
Igor Akinfeev
CSKA Moscow goalkeeper since 2003 and Russia's most capped goalkeeper, with 111 caps
Ilya Segalovich
Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod)-born co-founder and CTO of Yandex
Kazimir Malevich
Painter and theorist born in Kiev; founder of Suprematism and painter of the Black Square
Konstantin Khabensky
Leningrad-born actor who starred in Night Watch and became the face of modern Russian cinema internationally
Lev Landau
Theoretical physicist born in Baku; Nobel Prize in Physics (1962)
Ludwig Faddeev
Leningrad mathematical physicist who solved the three-body problem and transformed quantum field theory
Maria Butina
Barnaul-born Russian operative who infiltrated the NRA and US Republican circles — imprisoned then deported
Nikita Mazepin
Moscow-born Formula 1 driver, son of billionaire Dmitry Mazepin — lost his F1 seat after Russia's Ukraine invasion
Pavel Bure
Moscow-born NHL winger nicknamed the Russian Rocket, Hockey Hall of Fame 2012
Peter Svidler
Leningrad-born chess grandmaster — eight-time Russian Chess Champion and Candidates stalwart
Petr Badmaev
Born a Buryat Buddhist in Siberia — became Tsar's personal physician, geopolitical adviser, and Russia's most exotic figure
Regina Todorenko
Odessa-born presenter who became one of Russia's most popular TV hosts — now in exile
Svetlana Khodchenkova
Moscow-born actress who played Viper in The Wolverine and became Russia's most internationally recognised star
Ilya Varlamov
Russia's most popular urban blogger who fled to exile after opposing the Ukraine war
Viktor Pelevin
Born in Moscow — Russia's most mysterious and celebrated contemporary novelist
Viktor Tsoi
Leningrad rock idol with Korean roots — the voice of Soviet youth who died at 28 and became a cult god
Vladimir Spivakov
Born in Ufa to a family of musicians — founded the Moscow Virtuosi and became Russia's most beloved conductor
Yevgeny Kafelnikov
Sochi-born tennis player — first Russian to win a Grand Slam singles title and a former World No. 1
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Writer born in Kislovodsk; Nobel Prize in Literature (1970)
Vadim Moshkovich
Moscow-born founder of the Russian agricultural group Rusagro
Mikhail Shelkov
Main owner of VSMPO-AVISMA, the world's third-largest producer of titanium sponge
Dmitry Pumpyansky
Ural industrialist; chairman of Sinara Group and builder of the pipe maker TMK
Vagit Alekperov
Born in Baku — founded LUKOIL, Russia's largest private oil company, and became one of the world's richest men
Vladimir Potanin
Born in Moscow — controls Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of nickel and palladium
Alexei Mordashov
Born in Cherepovets — controls Severstal, Russia's most efficient steelmaker, and was the majority shareholder of TUI travel group
Tatyana Bakalchuk
Founded Wildberries from her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave — built the largest e-commerce platform in Russia
Ludwig Knoop
The Bremen apprentice who became the Russian Empire's cotton baron
Immanuel Nobel
The Swede who armed the Tsar's navy and fathered a dynasty
Ludvig Nobel
Built Russian oil, and his death created the Nobel Prize
Robert Nobel
Sent to buy walnut wood, bought an oil refinery instead
Marius Petipa
The Frenchman who created Russian classical ballet
Leonhard Euler
The greatest mathematician of the age spent most of his life in Saint Petersburg
Georg Wilhelm Steller
The naturalist whose name is on half the North Pacific's wildlife
Vitus Bering
The Dane who mapped the gap between Asia and America for Russia
Peter Carl Faberge
Jeweller to the Romanovs, died stateless in Lausanne
Bartolomeo Rastrelli
Paris-born architect who gave Saint Petersburg its face
John Field
The Irishman who invented the nocturne, in Russia
Savva Morozov
Textile magnate who bankrolled the theatre and the revolutionaries
Etienne Maurice Falconet
Sculpted the Bronze Horseman, Russia's defining monument
Karl von Meck
Baltic German engineer who built Russia's railways
Nadezhda von Meck
Tchaikovsky's patron for thirteen years, by correspondence only
Charles Cameron
Scottish architect of the imperial summer palaces
Auguste de Montferrand
Forty years building one cathedral in Saint Petersburg
Moritz Hermann von Jacobi
Invented electrotyping and the electric boat, in Russia
Franz Lefort
The Genevan who became Peter the Great's closest advisor
Vasily Grossman
Born in Berdichev, author of Life and Fate — the novel the KGB confiscated in 1961
Abram Gannibal
African-born godson of Peter the Great who became a Russian general-in-chief and military engineer; great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Pushkin
Russia's national poet, born in Moscow; great-grandson of the African-born general Abram Gannibal
Lily Golden
Soviet historian of Africa born in Tashkent to an African-American agronomist and a Jewish mother; mother of Yelena Khanga
Yelena Khanga
Moscow-born journalist and TV host, granddaughter of African-American agronomists who moved to Soviet Uzbekistan in 1931
Mirra Andreeva
Tennis player born in Krasnoyarsk in 2007; 2026 French Open champion, the youngest since 1992, and Olympic doubles silver medallist
Joseph Günzburg
Banker born in Vitebsk in 1812, founder of the Günzburg bank in St Petersburg and of the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia; died in Paris
Rafael Potelyakhov
Bukharan Jewish merchant of the first guild in Kokand, one of the largest suppliers of Central Asian cotton to Russian industry; later lived in Berlin and London
Nikolai Bernstein
Physiologist born in Moscow in 1896 who founded the modern study of motor control and biomechanics, posing the 'degrees-of-freedom problem'
Yuri Knorozov
Soviet linguist born in Kharkov in 1922 whose phonetic reading of Maya hieroglyphs, published in 1952, opened the way to their decipherment