- Mikhail Tal
Mikhail Tal (November 9, 1936–June 28, 1992) was a Soviet-Latvian chess player, and the eighth World Chess Champion.
- Alexei Shirov
Alexei Shirov (Aleksejs Širovs, Алексей Широв, a chess grandmaster. On the July 2007 FIDE rating list he was ranked number eleven in the world with an ELO rating of 2735.
- Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997), was a political philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the 20th century. Born in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first Jew to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford.
- Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov (b January 27, 1948) is a Russian dancer, choreographer, and actor. He is often called the world's greatest living male ballet dancer. Critic Clive Barnes once called him "the most perfect dancer I have ever seen"
- Mikhail Eisenstein
Mikhail Eisenstein, (1867, St. Petersburg - 1921, Berlin), was a Russian architect and civil engineer. Being of Jewish descent, he converted to Orthodox Christianity. He graduated from the Institute of Civic Engineering in St. Petersburg in 1893. He was the designer of a number of Art Nouveau buildings in Riga (now in Latvia). He built several apartment buildings for State Counsellor A. Lebedinsky, including the ones at Alberta iela 4 (1904), 6 (1903) and 13, …
- Raimonds Pauls
Raimonds Pauls is a Latvian composer and piano player who is well-known and respected in Latvia and the former Soviet Union. Pauls was interested in music since his childhood years and attended the music school of Emils Dārziņš. In 1958, Pauls graduated from the Latvian State Conservatoire, Professor H. Braun's piano class. At that time he was already seen as an excellent piano player, he played in restaurants, learning jazz classics and contemporary songs.
- Gidon Kremer
Gidon Kremer (born February 27, 1947) is a Latvian violinist and conductor. Kremer was born in Riga to parents of German-Jewish origin, his father being a Holocaust survivor. He began to play the violin at the age of four, receiving tuition from his father and his grandfather, who were both professional violinists. He went on to study at the Riga School of Music and with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory.
- Laila Freivalds
Laila Freivalds (born June 22, 1942) is a Latvian-born Swedish Social Democratic politician and a former Swedish Minister for Justice, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister. Freivalds was born in Riga, Latvia, during World War II, and escaped to Sweden with her family. She graduated with a Candidate of Law ("juris kandidat") from Uppsala University in 1970 after which she served in the Swedish Court System until 1976.
- Friedrich Zander
Friedrich Zander, often transliterated "Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander" from Фридрих Артурович Цандер, the Russian version of his name, or "Frīdrihs Canders" in the Latvian version, was a pioneer of rocketry and spaceflight in the Soviet Union. He designed the first liquid-fuelled rocket to be launched in the Soviet Union and made many important theoretical contributions to the road to space.
- Yeshayahu Leibowitz
Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) was an Israeli scientist, philosopher and public figure noted for his outspoken and often controversial opinions regarding morals, ethics, politics, and religion.
- Walter Zapp
Walter Zapp (born September 4 1905 in Riga, Latvia; died July 17 2003 in Binningen near Basel, Switzerland) was the inventor of the subminiature camera (Minox). In 1934, he began developing the then revolutionary subminiature camera by first creating wooden models, which led to the first prototype in 1936. It was introduced to the market in 1938. After World War II, in 1945, he founded the Minox GmbH in Wetzlar. In 2001 at the age of 96, when visiting Tallinn, …
- Albert Of Riga
Albert of Riga or Albert of Livonia (ca. 1165 - 17 January 1229) was the third Bishop of Riga in Livonia. In 1201 he founded Riga, the modern capital of Latvia, and built the city's cathedral in 1221. Albert headed the armed forces that forcibly converted the eastern Baltic region to Christianity, in the nature of a crusade that was undertaken while the Fourth Crusade was sacking Constantinople.
- Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch (born Aron Niemzowitsch and also known as Nimzovich was a Latvian-born Danish chess player of grandmaster strength and a very influential chess writer. He was the foremost figure amongst the "hypermoderns".
- Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman (2 May, 1906 Riga, Latvia - 25 June, 1979 New York City) was a Latvian-born American portrait photographer. Born to a Jewish family of Max Halsman, a dentist, and Ita Grintuch, a grammar school principal, in Latvia. Halsman studied electrical engineering in Dresden, but moved into photography in Paris in 1931.
- Juris Hartmanis
Juris Hartmanis (born July 7, 1928 in Riga, Latvia) is a prominent computer scientist and computational theorist who, with Richard E. Stearns, received the 1993 ACM Turing Award "in recognition of their seminal paper which established the foundations for the field of computational complexity theory". Hartmanis was born in Latvia. He was a son of Martins Hermanis, a general in the Latvian Army. After the Soviet Union occupied Latvia in 1940, …
- Lipman Bers
Lipman Bers (May 22, 1914, Riga, Latvia – October 29, 1993, New Rochelle, New York) was an American mathematician who worked on Riemann surfaces. Bers received his Ph.D. in 1938 from the University of Prague. His advisor was Charles Loewner. He worked at Syracuse University (1945-1951), New York University (1951-1964) and at Columbia University (1964-1982). He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Finnish Academy of Sciences, …
- Helmuts Balderis
Helmuts Balderis-Sildedzis (born July 31, 1952 in Riga, Latvia) is a retired Latvian ice hockey player. He played right wing.
- Jānis Liepiņš
Jānis Liepiņš was born on August 9, 1894 in Riga, Latvia. He studied at J Madernieks Studio in Riga between 1909-1910, in Kazan 1911-1913 and M Bernstein's Studio in St Petersburg 1913-1917. He was a member of the Riga Artists' Group and Professor of painting at the Art Academy of Latvia 1940-1950. In the 1920s he was active in the left-wing press. Liepiņš is credited with having introduces a fisherman's theme in Latvian genre painting, …
- Konstantin Sokolsky
<b>Konstantin Sokolsky</b> (also spelled: <b>Sokolski</b>, Rus. Константин Сокольский, original name Konstantin Kudryavtsev, Константин Кудрявцев) Russian singer (7 December, 1904- May 1991). Sokolsky was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russia, but for most of his life lived in Riga, Latvia (his father came from the Ludzas county, which is where the family moved to after the revolutionary turmoil of 1917 began in Saint-Petersburg).
- Alexander Koblencs
Alexander Koblents (Latvian Aleksandrs Koblencs, German Koblenz) (born 3 September, 1916, Riga - died 9 December, 1993, Riga) was a Latvian chess International Master, trainer, and writer. As a player, Koblencs took 4th place in Rosas in 1934. The next year, he took 5th in Reus. In 1937, he won in Brno with 9/11. In 1938, he took 5th in Milan. In 1939, he tied for 13-14th in Kemeri-Riga. Koblencs won the Latvian Championship four times (1941, 1945, 1946, 1949).
- Aleksandrs Petukhovs
Aleksandrs Petukhovs is a screenwriter and film director. Petukhovs was born 1967 in Riga, Latvia. He studied film at the National Filmschool VGIK in Moscow. He worked as a film critic for the daily newspaper "Pravda". In the 1990s he immigrated to Poland and became assistant director of Baranowski, Kieślowski and Polański. His 2004 film "The Last Soviet Movie" was selected for the European Film Award.
- Ernst Jaakson
Ernst Jaakson (11 August 1905, Riga, Latvia (then Russian Empire) – 4 September 1998, New York, USA) was an Estonian diplomat whose unique contribution was to keep Estonia's legal continuity with his uninterrupted diplomatic service for 69 years.
- Mischa Maisky
Mischa Maisky (born January 10, 1948 in Riga) is a celebrated cellist who won 6th Prize at the Moscow International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966. Maisky began studies with Mstislav Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatory whilst pursuing a concert career throughout the Soviet Union. In 1970, he was imprisoned in a labor camp near Gorky for 18 months. After his release, he emigrated to Israel to avoid further persecution by the Soviet regime.
- Heinz Erhardt
Heinz Erhardt (born February 20, 1909 in Riga; died June 5, 1979 in Hamburg) was a German comedian, musician, entertainer, actor, and poet. Heinz Erhardt was the son of Baltic German Kapellmeister Gustl Erhardt. He lived most of his childhood at his grandparents in Riga, where his grandfather, Paul Nelder, owned a music house.
- Eliyahu Rips
Eliyahu Rips (born 1948) - is an Israeli-Latvian mathematician known for his research in geometric group theory. He achieved public notoriety as a result of coauthoring a paper on the Bible codes. Rips grew up in Latvia (then part of Soviet Union). He was the first high school student from Latvia to participate in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
- Andris Biedriņš
Andris Biedriņš is a Latvian professional basketball player who plays the power forward and center positions for the NBA's Golden State Warriors. He was drafted by the Warriors with the 11th overall selection in the 2004 NBA Draft.
- Solomon Rosowsky
Solomon Rosowsky (1878-1962) was a famous cantor and composer in his own right, and son of the renowned cantor of Riga, Latvia, Baruch Leib Rosowsky. It is likely that Rosowsky's family is related to the Rasofsky branch of the Barney Ross family.
- Nechama Leibowitz
Nechama Leibowitz (1905 in Riga, Latvia - 12 April 1997 in Jerusalem) was a noted Israeli biblical scholar and commentator, who rekindled an intense interest in the study of the Bible and its commentaries among Jews everywhere. Leibowitz was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Riga, two years after her elder brother, the philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz.
- Arkady Raikin
Arkady Isaakovich Raikin was a Soviet stand up comedian of Jewish descent who led the school of Soviet and Russian humorists for about half a century. Raikin was born in Riga (today's Latvia), then part of Russian Empire. He graduated from the Leningrad Theatrical Technicum in 1935 and worked in both state theatres and variety shows.
- Hermanis Matisons
Hermanis Matisons, (also known as Herman Mattison), was a Latvian chess player and one of world's most highly regarded chess masters in the early 1930s. He was also a leading endgame composer. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 38. In 1924, Matisons won the first Latvian chess championship tournament. Later that year he finished ahead of Euwe and Colle to win the first world amateur tournament, …
- Baruch Leib Rosowsky
Baruch Leib Rosowsky was a famous cantor and composer in Riga, Latvia. His son was also a famous cantor, named Solomon Rosowsky. It is likely that Rosowsky's family is related to the Rasofsky branch of the Barney Ross family.
- Edward Leedskalnin
Edward Leedskalnin was an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States and amateur sculptor who, it is alleged, single-handedly built the monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. He was also known for his unusual theories on magnetism.
- Marie Seebach
Marie Seebach was a German actress. She was born at Riga, in Russia, being the daughter of an actor, Wilhelm Friedrich Seebach (1798-1863). After appearing first at Nuremberg as Julie in "Kean", she played soubrette parts at Lubeck, Danzig and Cassel. In 1852 she achieved her first great success at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg as Gretchen in Goethe's "Faust", and she remained there until 1854, when she appeared in Vienna.
- Leo Michelson
Leo Michelson was an American artist considered part of the École de Paris, although his works span many periods and styles.
- Aleksis Dreimanis
Aleksis Dreimanis (b. August 13, 1914) is an award winning Quaternary geologist. Dreimanis was born in Latvia. He first studied geology at the Institute of Palaeontology at the University of Latvia in Riga. In 1939, he worked as a lecturer at the University. As World War II was being fought, he also took on the responsibility of consulting in Quaternary mapping in the Latvian Institute of Mineral Resources.
- Ainārs Kovals
Ainārs Kovals is a Latvian javelin thrower. His personal best throw is 85.95 metres, achieved in August 2006 in Gothenburg at the European Athletics Championships, where he finished fifth.
- Werner Bergengruen
Werner Bergengruen, was a German novelist. After growing up in Lübeck attending the Katharineum, Bergengruen started studying theology in Marburg in 1911. He later changed to studying Germanistics and art history, but failed to graduate. He then moved to Munich. He served as a lieutenant during World War I and joined the Landwehr in 1919 to fight against the Soviets.
- Vladimirs Koļesņičenko
Vladimirs Koļesņičenko is a football midfielder from Latvia. As of August 2006 he has played 31 international matches and scored 4 goals for the Latvia national team. He debuted in 1997, but did not play at the Euro 2004. He started his career in Skonto-Metāls, and has since played for FC Skonto, FC Moskva and now for FK Ventspils.
- Herman Jadlowker
Herman Jadlowker was a Russian tenor. In order to escape from a commerciual career into which his father wished to force him, he ran away from home as a lad of 15 and finally went to Vienna, where he studied singing with Gänsbacher. In 1899 he made his début at Cologne in Kreutzer's "Nachtlager von Granada". He then secured engagements in Stettin and Karlsruhe.
- Bill Rebane
Bill Rebane (born February 8, 1937 in Riga, Latvia) is a movie director. He is best known for low budget horror movies such as "Monster A Go-Go" and "The Giant Spider Invasion". Rebane also ran for governor of Wisconsin in 2002. Rebane's mother was a Latvian and father an Estonian, Arnold Rebane.