- Vladimir Putin
President Vladimir Putin said air strikes did nothing to settle the situation around Iraq and urged any action taken against it to be sanctioned by the United Nations.
- Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (Russian: Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев; born September 14, 1965 in Leningrad), is a Russian politician and businessman. He was appointed first deputy prime minister of the Russian government on November 14, 2005. Formerly Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, he is also the chairman of Gazprom's board of directors, a post he has held for the second time since 2000.
- Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996), born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) and was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). He had an honorary degree of the University of Silesia.
- Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia on September 25, 1906. Years after his death, he remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century classical music and one of the most controversial. Under pressure from Soviet authorities, he compromised his art. At least that was how it seemed. (09/25/2006)
- Paul I of Russia
Paul I of Russia ("Pavel Petrovich") (October 1 1754-March 23 1801) was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801.
- Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, considered by many in both the West and his native land to be the most influential composer of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by "Time" magazine as one of the most influential people of the century. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works.
- Anna Pavlova
Anna Pavlovna Pavlova (31 January 1881 (Old Style)/12 February 1881 (New Style) – 23 January 1931) was a famous ballet dancer of the early 20th century. Pavlova was born in St. Petersburg, Russia two months premature. She later claimed her father had died when she was two years old. She was rejected at the age of eight from the Imperial Ballet School because she was too small for her age and was asked to return when she reached her tenth year.
- Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand (March 6 1982), born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, was a Russian-born American novelist and philosopher, best known for creating a philosophy she named "Objectivism" and for writing the novels "We the Living," "The Fountainhead," "Atlas Shrugged" and the novella "Anthem." Her influential and controversial ideas have attracted both enthusiastic admiration and scathing denunciation. <br
- Alexander III of Russia
Alexander III reigned as Emperor of Russia from 14 March 1881 until his death in 1894.
- Boris Grebenshchikov
Boris Grebenshchikov is one of the most prominent members of the generation which is widely considered the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music. Due as much to his personal contribution as to the undisputed and lasting success of his main effort, the band Åquarium, he is a household name in Russia. Colloquially known as "BG" (after his initials), Grebenshchikov was born on November 27, 1953 in Leningrad.
- Viktor Tsoi
Viktor Robertovich Tsoi was a famous Soviet artist and leader of the rock group Kino. Tsoi was born to a Korean father and Russian mother on June 21, 1962 in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia). Tsoi's mother, Valentina Vasilyevna, was a teacher and his father, Robert Maximovich, was an engineer. Tsoi's Korean family name is usually transcribed in English as Choi or "Choe". He married Marina Tsoi in 1985 and had a son with her--Alexander (Sasha).
- Alexander I of Russia
Aleksandr I Pavlovich, was Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801-1 December 1825 and Ruler of Poland from 1815-1825, as well as the first Grand Duke of Finland. He was born in Saint Petersburg to Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, later Emperor Paul I, and Maria Feodorovna, daughter of the Duke of Württemberg. Alexander succeeded to the throne after his father was murdered, and ruled Russia during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars.
- George Balanchine
George Balanchine was an American ballet choreographer of Georgian descent. Balanchine is one of the 20th century's foremost choreographers, and one of the founders of American ballet. His work formed a bridge between classical and modern ballet.
- Galina Ulanova
Galina Sergeyevna Ulánova (8 January 1910 (O.S. 26 December 1909) - 21 March, 1998) has the reputation of the greatest Soviet ballerina. Her flat in Moscow is designated a national museum, and there are monuments to her in Saint Petersburg and Stockholm. Ulanova studied in Petrograd under Agrippina Vaganova and her own mother, a ballerina of the Imperial Russian Ballet. When she joined the Mariinsky Theatre in 1928, the press found in her "much of Semyonova's style, grace, …
- Natalia Makarova
Nataliya Romanovna Makarova is a retired ballet dancer. She was born November 21, 1940 in Leningrad in the USSR. When she was 13, she auditioned for the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and was accepted despite being significantly older than most applicants. She was a permanent member of the troupe with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad from 1956 to 1970, holding her status as primaballerina during the 1960s. She made the decision to defect to the West while on tour in 1970, …
- Mikhail Boyarsky
Mikhail Sergeevich Boyarsky (b. December 26, 1949 in Leningrad) is a Russian actor and singer, currently living in the city of Saint Petersburg. He is most known and loved for the role of d'Artagnan in a Russian version of The Three Musketeers (1978) and its sequels (1992, 1993). He was also a popular singer of the 1980s and completed several tours. He played the big bad wolf in the 1976 movie Ma-ma.
- Alexander Glazunov
Aleksandr Konstantinovich Glazunov was a major Russian composer, as well as an influential music teacher.
- Mikhail Zoshchenko
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko was the foremost Russian satirist of the Soviet period. Zoschenko's father was a mosaicist responsible for the exterior decoration of the Suvorov Museum in Saint Petersburg. The future writer attended the Faculty of Law at the Saint Petersburg University, joined the army during World War I, then shared the views of the Serapion Brothers.
- Sergei Ivanov
Sergei Borisovich Ivanov (born January 31, 1953, Leningrad) is a first deputy prime minister of Russia and former minister of defense (March 2001 - February 2007). Previously, as secretary of the Russian Security Council, Ivanov served as an adviser to President Boris Yeltsin and later President Vladimir Putin (November 1999-March 2001) on matters of national security.
- Sergey Mironov
Sergey Mikhailovich Mironov (born February 14, 1953), is a Russian statesman and the current Speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament. Sergey Mironov is from Saint Petersburg and is considered to be a close ally of the Russian president Vladimir Putin. In the 1970's Sergey Mironov served in airborne troops in the Soviet Army. Later he graduated from Leningrad Mining Institute worked as an engineer-geophysicist.
- Svetlana Kuznetsova
Svetlana Aleksandrovna Kuznetsova (Cyrillic: ; born June 27, 1985) is a Russian professional tennis player. She is currently the fourth ranked women's player in the world.
- Boris Spassky
Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasskij) (born January 30, 1937) is a Russian-French chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky won the Soviet Championship twice outright (1961, 1973), and twice more lost in playoffs (1956, 1963), after tieing for the top during the event proper. He was a World Championship Candidate on seven occasions (1956, 1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, and 1985).
- Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (<small>31 October</small>/12 November 1833 - <small>15 February</small>/27 February 1887) was a Russian composer of Georgian parentage who made his living as a notable chemist. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five (or "The Mighty Handful"), who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music. He is best known for his symphonies, his opera "Prince Igor", …
- Boris Gryzlov
Boris Vyacheslavovich Gryzlov or Boris Grizlov (b. December 15, 1950—), is a Russian politician and a current Speaker of the Russian lower house known as the State Duma as well as a leader of the largest Russian political party United Russia. Boris Gryzlov is a close ally of the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Gryzlov was born in Vladivostok and raised in Vladimir Putin's hometown of Saint Petersburg.
- Nicholas Repnin
Prince Nikolai Vasilyevich Repnin was an Imperial Russian statesman and general from the Repnin princely family who played a key role in the downfall of Polish statehood.
- Kirill Lavrov
Kirill Yuryevich Lavrov (September 15, 1925 - April 25, 2007) was a well-known Russian film and theatre actor and director, as well as political figure in the former Soviet Union.
- Tanya Savicheva
Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva, commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva was a Russian child diarist who died during the Siege of Leningrad during World War II.
- Alexander Zaitsev
Alexander Zaitsev is a World and Olympic figure skating champion from the former Soviet Union. He is now a figure skating coach. His hometown is Saint Petersburg. Zaitsev is best remembered for his successful partnership with Irina Rodnina. From 1973 to 1980 they won every event they entered, including the 1976 and 1980 Olympic games. They were coached by Stanislav Zhuk and trained in Moscow. Rodnina and Zaitsev were married in April 1975.
- Maria Alexandrovna Of Russia
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (later Duchess of Edinburgh and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; 17 October 1853 - 24 October 1920) was a daughter of Alexander II of Russia and his first Empress consort Marie of Hesse. Maria became the wife of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
- Alexandre Benois
Alexandre Nikolayevich Benois (May 4, 1870, St. Petersburg-February 9, 1960, Paris), was a prominent member of the St. Petersburg artistic intellectual Benois family, an influential art critic, artist, preservationist, and founding member of Mir iskusstva. His influence on the modern ballet and stage design is considered seminal. Alexandre's father Nicholas Benois and brother Leon Benois were noted Russian architects.
- Leonid Kantorovich
Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich was a Soviet/Russian mathematician and economist. He is famous for his theory and development of techniques for the optimal allocation of resources. He was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1975. Kantorovich worked for the Soviet government. He was given the task of optimizing production in a plywood industry. He came up (1939) with the mathematical technique now known as linear programming, …
- Elena Valova
Elena Aleksandrovna Valova is an Olympic and world pairs figure skating champion. Valova was born in Leningrad, Russia, to parents Alla Borisovna Valova and Aleksander Dmitrievich Valov. She began training at age seven under Tatiana and Alexei Mishin and Nina Monahova. She was chosen for pair skating by coach Tamara Moskvina and was paired with Oleg Vasiliev. Valova represented VSS Trud.
- Andrey Arshavin
Andrey Arshavin (first name also transliterated as Andrei) (born May 29, 1981 in Saint Petersburg, then Leningrad) is a Russian international footballer. He is the top player of the Russian Premier League team Zenit St. Petersburg. He can play both as a midfielder and as a striker. Andrey Arshavin graduated from Smena football school. In 1999 and early 2000 he played for Zenit's farm club, Zenit-2, in the Second Division.
- Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi (Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й), born March 23, 1931, in Leningrad, USSR, is a professional Swiss chess player and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the world tournament circuit. Korchnoi is best known for playing three matches against Anatoly Karpov for the World Chess Championship. In 1974, he lost the Candidates final to Karpov, who went on to win the World championship by forfeit against Bobby Fischer).
- Alexander Khalifman
Alexander Valeryevich Khalifman is a Russian chess grandmaster and former world champion. When he was 6 years old, he was taught chess by his father. He gained the International Grandmaster title in 1990 with one particularly good early result being his first place in the 1990 New York Open ahead of a host of strong players. His most notable achievement was winning the FIDE World Chess Championship in 1999, a title he held until the following year.
- Evgeny Mravinsky
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Mravinsky (January 19, 1988) was a Russian conductor.
- Galina Vishnevskaya
Galina Pavlovna Vishnevskaya is a Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist who was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1966. Vishnevskaya was born in Leningrad. She made her professional stage debut in 1944 singing operetta. After a year studying with Vera Nikolayeva, she won a competition held by the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (with Rachmaninoff's song "O, Do Not Grieve" and Verdi's aria "O patria mia" from "Aida") in 1952.
- Tamara Moskvina
Tamara Nikolayevna (Bratus) Moskvina (b. June 26 1941) is a Russian pairs figure skating coach. She was born in Leningrad. During the Siege of Leningrad in World War II, she was evacuated to a village in the Ural Mountains where her mother had relatives. Moskvina has said that she owes her small stature to childhood malnutrition during the war years. The family returned to Leningrad in 1948, where she began to skate.
- Karl Briullov
Karl Pavlovich Briullov, called by his friends "the Great Karl" (December 12, 1799, St Petersburg - June 11, 1852, Rome), was the first Russian painter of international standing. He is regarded as a key figure in transition from the Russian neoclassicism to romanticism.
- Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich,, was a Russian painter and spiritual teacher. He was the father of Tibetologist George Roerich (a.k.a. Yuri Roerich) and artist Svetoslav Roerich. Nicholas and his wife Helena Roerich were co-founders of the theosophical Agni Yoga Society. Born in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, Russia to the family of a well-to-do notary public, he lived around the world until his death in Punjab, India.