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10 Famous People from Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is the second-largest city in Russia, situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703 on the site of a captured Swedish fortress, and was named after apostle Saint Peter.

The city of Saint Petersburg is known as the “Cultural Capital of Russia,” closely associated with the birth of the Russian Empire and Russia’s entry into modern history as a European great power. It is also home to some of the greatest minds, ranging from exceptional musicians, pioneering artists, renowned actors and groundbreaking authors. Below is a list of 10 famous people from Saint Petersburg;

1. Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin – Flickr

Vladimir Putin was born on 7^th October 1952 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia). He is the current president of Russia, serving since 2012 and previously held this office from 1999 to 2008. Putting is the second-longest current serving European president, after Alexander Lukashenko.

During Putin’s first two terms as president, he signed into law a series of liberal economic reforms, such as the flat income tax of 13 percent, reduced profits-tax and new land and civil codes. Within this period, poverty in Russia reduced by more than half and real GDP has grown rapidly. However, lower oil prices and sanctions for Russia’s annexation of Crimea led to recession and stagnation in 2015 that has persisted into the present day.

2. Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand, 1943 – Wikipedia

Alice O’Connor was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire on January 20^th 1905. She is a Russian-born American writer and philosopher, better known by her pen name Ayn Rand. Ayn achieved fame with her 1943 novel, The Fountainhead.

She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Rand described Objectivism as “the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute”.

Although academic philosophers have generally ignored or rejected her philosophy because of her polemical approach and lack of methodological rigor, the Objectivist movement continues to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.

On March 6, 1982, Rand died of heart failure.

3. Nicholas II

Nicholas II of Russia – Wikipedia

Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov also known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer was born on 18 May 1868, in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo south of Saint Petersburg. He was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

After the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the Germans, who were allied to Austria-Hungary, sent a message to the Russians, who were allied to the Serbs, saying they would stay out of the fight if Russia did. Nicholas opted to retaliate, resulting in the Great War, later known as the First World War.

Nicholas was reviled by Soviet historians and state propaganda as a “callous tyrant” who “persecuted his own people while sending countless soldiers to their deaths in pointless conflicts”.

On 17 July 1918, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were executed.

4. Anna Pavlova

Anna Pavlova,1910 – Wikimedia Commons

Anna Pavlovna Pavlova was born Anna Matveyevna Pavlova on 12 February [O.S. 31 January] 1881 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire. She was a Russian prima ballerina of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, recognized for her creation of the role of The Dying Swan.

Pavlova is attributed with much of the development of modern ballet, including the modern pointe shoe. She was the first ballerina to tour around the world, including performances in South America, India and Australia.

On Friday, 23 January 1931, Pavlova died of pleurisy.

5. Boris Spassky

Boris Spasski, 1956 – Simple Wikipedia

Boris Vasilievich Spassky was born on January 30, 1937, in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. He is a Russian chess player, who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972 known for his excelled middlegame and in tactics.

His contributions to opening theory extend to reviving the Marshall Attack for Black in the Ruy Lopez, developing the Leningrad Variation for White in the Nimzo-Indian Defence, the Spassky Variation on the Black side of the Nimzo-Indian, and the Closed Variation of the Sicilian Defence for White.

On 27 March 2010, at 73 years old, he became the oldest surviving former World Chess Champion following the death of Vasily Smyslov.

6. Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich – Wikipedia

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was born on 25 September [O.S. 12 September] 1906 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist whose music is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality.

Shostakovich is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century and one of its most popular composers. His orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. His chamber output includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two piano trios, and two pieces for string octet. Dmitri’s solo piano works includes two sonatas, an early set of 24 preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Other works include three operas, three ballets, several song cycles, and a substantial quantity of music for theatre and film.

Dmitri Shostakovichdied of heart failure on 9 August 1975.

7. Nikolai Sergeyevich Valuev

Nikolay Valuev, 2018 – Wikipedia

Nikolai Sergeyevich Valuev was born on 21 August 1973 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union (now Saint Petersburg, Russia). He is a Russian politician and former professional boxer who held the WBA heavyweight title twice between 2005 and 2009. He is best known for being the tallest and heaviest world champion in boxing history, being one of five heavyweight champions to have retired without having suffered a stoppage loss during his career.

Valuev announced his retirement from boxing in a Russian newspaper three days after the loss to Haye on 10 November 2009. In December 2011 Russian parliamentary election, Valuev became a member of the State Duma through the United Russia Party.

8. Sergei Krikalev

Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev – Wikimedia Commons

Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev was born on August 27, 1958, in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. He is a Soviet and Russian mechanical engineer and former cosmonaut who is a veteran of six space flights and ranks third to Gennady Padalka and Yuri Malenchenko for the amount of time in space: a total of 803 days, 9 hours, and 39 minutes.

Kirkalev was stranded on board the Mir during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. As the country that had sent him into space no longer existed, his return was delayed, and he stayed in space for 311 consecutive days, twice as long as the mission had originally called for.

He retired from spaceflight in 2007.

9. George Sanders

George Sanders – Wikipedia

George Henry Sanders was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire on 3 July 1906. He was a British actor whose heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth, bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters.

His career span 40 years and is best known for his role as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940, a rare heroic part), The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah (1949), the most popular film of the year, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950, for which he won an Oscar), Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman (1966), the voice of Shere Khan in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967), the suave crimefighter The Falcon during the 1940s and Simon Templar, The Saint, in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.  

He died from cardiac arrest on 25^th April 1972 after swallowing the contents of five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal.

10. Peter Carl Faberge

A Faberg̩ Egg РFlickr

Peter Carl Fabergé, also known as Karl Gustavovich Fabergé was born on 30 May 1846 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He was a Russian jeweller best known for the famous Fabergé eggs made in the style of genuine Easter eggs, but using precious metals and gemstones rather than more mundane materials.

Peter Carl Fabergé never recovered from the shock of the Russian Revolution. He died in Switzerland on September 24, 1920. His family believed he died of a broken heart.