Eduards Berklavs (June 15, 1914 - November 25, 2004) was a Latvian politician. Berklavs was born in Kuldiga County. During his youth, he was active in labour and communist organizations. In 1930s, he was arrested and served a prison sentence for his communist activities. After Latvia being occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, he being a Komsomol and Communist Party official, rising to the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of Latvian SSR in 1950s.

Anatolijs Gorbunovs (b. February 10, 1942 in Pilda parish, Ludza District, Latvia) is a prominent Latvian politician. From 1974 to 1988, he held various positions in the Communist Party of the Latvian SSR, with his highest position being the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvian SSR. Unlike most of Communist Party in Latvia, Gorbunovs supported the Latvian independence movement.

Vilis Lācis was a Latvian writer and Communist politician. Lācis was born in a working class family in Mangali, a village next to the city of Riga. He was working manual labour, mostly in the port of Riga and writing in his free time, until 1933, when he published his novel "Zvejnieka dēls" ("Son of a fisherman") which made him one of the most popular and commercially successful Latvian writers of 1930s.

Boris Karlovich Pugo was a Latvian Communist political figure. Pugo was born in Kalinin, USSR (now Tver, Russia) into a family of Latvian communists who had left Latvia following the loss of Communists in the Latvian independence war of 1918-1920. His family returned to Latvia after Soviet Union occupied and annexed it in 1940. Pugo graduated from Riga Polytechnical in 1960 and worked in various Komsomol, Communist Party and Soviet government positions since then, …

Arvīds Pelše ;, Mazais, Latvia – May 29, 1983, Moscow) was a Soviet statesman. As a worker in Riga, Pelše joined the Social-Democratic Party (Bolsheviks) of the Latvian Region in 1914. During the First World War, 1914-1918 he worked in Vitebsk, Kharkiv, Petrograd and Arkhangelsk; On behalf of the local committees had joined the revolutionary propaganda. Participated in February revolution in 1917, a member of the famous Petrograd Soviet.

Tatjana Arkadevna Ždanoka,, born May 8 1950 in Riga, is a Latvian politician and Member of the European Parliament for For Human Rights in United Latvia; part of the European Greens–European Free Alliance group. Ždanoka is the leader of the party Equal Rights since 2001 and as its representative/co-chairperson of ForHRUL. Her political stance is self-described as left centrism and protection of national and linguistic minorities (in Latvia, …

Deborah Mazar (born August 15, 1964), better known as Debi Mazar, is an American actress, best known for her trademark "Jersey Girl"-type appearances, and as edgy, sharp-tongued women in independent films. Mazar was born in Queens, New York. Her father, Harry Mazar, was born in the Latvian SSR, Soviet Union, to a Jewish family, …

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"

Hovhannes Khachatury Bagramyan (September 21 1982) was a Soviet Armenian military commander and Marshal of the Soviet Union. During World War II, Bagramyan was the first non-Slavic military officer to become a commander of a Front. He was among several Armenians in the Soviet Army who held the highest proportion of high ranking officers in the Soviet military during the war, and one of fifty Armenians who attained the rank of General in the same period.

Vilnis-Edvīns Bresis is a Latvian politician who was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of Latvian SSR from October 6, 1988 to May 7, 1990. During the Soviet period, Bresis worked in various management positions in agriculture and the Communist Party of Latvian SSR, becoming the Prime Minister at the end of Soviet period. Bresis supported the idea of Latvia as an independent country, voting in favour of the Declaration of Independence on May 4, 1990.

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.

Pavel Loskutov (born 2 December 1969 in Latvian SSR) is an Estonian long-distance runner who specializes in marathon races. He won the silver medal at the 2002 European Championships in 2:13:18 hours.

Vladimir Antyufeev, also known under his assumed names Vladimir Aleksandrov and Vladimir Shevtsov (born on February 19, 1951) is the minister of state security of Transnistria. He is a Transnistrian citizen of Russian origin born in Novosibirsk, in Siberia who grew up in Magadan. Among the purposes of the Ministry of State Security ("MGB", …

Jānis Ivanovs was a Soviet Latvian classical music composer of ethnic Russian (Old Believer) origin. He is regarded as being the foremost Latvian composer for his use of Latvian folk melodies. While he composed in many forms, he is most remembered for his twenty-one symphonies, and after that for his symphonic "picture" "Rainbow" and his concertos for piano, violin and cello. He became the People's Artist of the USSR in 1965, …

Kaysyn Shuvayevich Kuliev aka Qaysin Quli was a Balkar poet. He wrote in the Karachay-Balkar language and his poems are widely translated mostly to USSR languages, such as Russian and Ossetian. Quli was born on November 1, 1917, in Balkar aul Upper Chegem to a family headed by a stock-breeder and hunter. He spent his childhood in the mountains, but became an orphan and started to work at an early age. In 1926 a school was established in his aul, …