Some people from St Petersburg

This list relates to the article on Russia:  Read more...

The List (abbreviated from and links to Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia):

• Vladimir Lenin, revolutionary, politician and political theorist born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in 1870 in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). Leader of the October (second or Bolshevik) Revolution in 1917 after he was smuggled in by the Germans to end Russia's involvement in World War I. A disciple of Karl Marx and the founding figure of the communist era. St Petersburg was renamed Leningrad for him from his death in 1924 until 1991.  He never knew - he was dead.
• Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, born in Leningrad in 1952
• Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of Russia, born in Leningrad in 1965


A-Z

• George Balanchine, one of the 20th century's most prolific and famous choreographers, born in St Petersburg in 1904
• Mikhail Baryshnikov, dancer, actor, graduated from the Vaganova ballet school and worked in the Kirov Ballet, defected to Canada in 1974, woos Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City
• Daniel Bernoulli, mathematician and physicist (enunciated the principle behind the carburettor and the aircraft wing), see elsewhere on this website (Cars, Radios, TV and other Pastimes:  Click here),  lived in St Petersburg 1724
• Alexander Borodin, composer and chemist.
• Marc Chagall, cubist-expressionist artist, studied in St Petersburg
• Leonhard Euler, pre-eminent mathematician of the 18th century, one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived, worked in St Petersburg and died there, colleague of Bernoulli
• Peter Carl Fabergé, jeweller
• Alexander Friedmann, mathematician and physicist, author of the Friedmann equations describing the expanding universe, born St Petersburg 1888 died Leningrad 1925 (aged 37)
• George Gamow, physicist, world leading theorist in quantum mechanics and cosmology, studied at University of Leningrad in 1923–1929 under Friedmann
• Viktor Korchnoi, chess grandmaster born in Leningrad in 1931
• Peter Kropotkin, philosopher, writer prominent anarchist and communist
• Mikhail Lermontov, writer and poet
• Andrey Markov, mathematician, gave his name to discrete-time Markov chains or DTMCs
• Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, father of modern chemistry, died in St Petersburg in 1907
• Modest Mussorgsky, composer, died in St Petersburg in 1881 and is buried there
• Vladimir Nabokov, writer,  including one of the top-ten English novels of the 20th century, born in St Petersburg in 1899
• Alexander Ney, artist, born in Leningrad in 1939
• Vaslav Nijinsky, ballet dancer, choreographer, cited as the greatest male dancer, lived and worked in St Petersburg
• Rudolf Nureyev, as above, graduated from the Vaganova ballet school and worked in the Kirov Ballet
• Alfred Bernhard Nobel, chemist, engineer, arms manufacturer, inventor of dynamite, established the five Nobel Prizes, lived and worked in St Petersburg
• Ivan Pavlov, physiologist, physician, known for classical (Pavlovian) conditioning, died in Leningrad in 1936
• Anna Pavlova, prima ballerina after whom the creamy meringue based desert is named, born in St Petersburg in 1881
• Grigori Perelman, precocious mathematician who famously rejected the Clay Millennium Prize of $1 million in 2010, for resolution of the Poincaré conjecture, saying: 'I'm not interested in money or fame; I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo', born Leningrad 1966
• Aleksandr Pushkin, greatest romantic era poet, novelist, playwright, died following a duel in St Petersburg in 1837
• Sergei Prokofiev composer, studied since 1904 at the Petersburg Conservatorium
• Sergei Rachmaninoff, composer, conductor and pianist, extremely large hands enabled mastery of the most complex chordal configurations, ranked among the finest pianists of the 20th century, educated in St Petersburg from 1882
• Ayn Rand, novelist, philosopher, playwright and screenwriter, prominent American rationalist and developer of Objectivism, born in St Petersburg in 1905
• Grigory Rasputin, mystic, faith healer and private adviser to the Romanovs, the incarnation of evil, put to death in St Petersburg in 1916
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer, worked primarily in St Petersburg
• Dmitry Shostakovich, composer, born in St Petersburg in 1905 and spent most of his life there
• Carl von Siemens, telegraph pioneer, brother of Werner von Siemens, lived there in 1853-1867
• Igor Sikorsky, pioneer of aviation, first multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft (Russky Vityaz 1913), first airliner (Ilya Muromets 1914), first mass-produced helicopter (Sikorsky R-4 1940 in the US), worked in St Petersburg 1903–1906, 1907–1909, 1912–1919
• Boris Spassky, chess grandmaster, born in Leningrad in 1937
• Friedrich Heinrich Stöckhardt, architect, born in St Petersburg in 1842, left it as a child about 1848
• Igor Stravinsky, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, pianist and conductor, born in a suburb of St Petersburg in 1882
• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, another of the most important composers of the 20th century, educated there and died in St Petersburg in 1893 and is buried there
• James McNeill Whistler, American-born, British-based artist, went to school in St Petersburg

In addition there were a number of people who became famous not for creating anything or trying to make the world a better place but for amusing themselves with things like: running, jumping and swimming; for carrying, hitting or kicking balls; or for making war. A more complete list can be seen here - Read more...