Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ivan Yegorovich Starov (the 23rd of February 1745 - the 17th of April 1808) was a Russian architect from St. Petersburg who designed master plans for cities including Yaroslavl, Voronezh, Pskov, Yekaterinoslav, and Nikolaev. He is also known for the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg and the Holy Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.
Starov's radial urban master plan for Yaroslavl, created in 1778, is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The plan was notable for highlighting dozens of the city's existing historic churches and towers rather than displacing them.
Starov trained at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from 1758 to 1762, where his teachers included Alexander Kokorinov and Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe. He then studied in Paris under Charles de Wailly from 1762 to 1767, followed by a period in Rome from 1767 to 1768.
Starov designed the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg (1783), the Potemkin Palace in Yekaterinoslav (1786), a chateau in Ostrovki on the Neva River (1783), and the Potemkin mansion in Bogoyavlensk-on-the-Bug (1790). He also planned the city of Nikolaev and designed its magistrate and cathedral at Potemkin's commission in 1790.
Starov was elected an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1769, promoted to adjunct professor in 1770, and named full professor in 1785. By 1794 he had been appointed adjunct rector. He also held the post of principal architect of St. Petersburg between 1772 and 1774.
Ivan Starov was buried in the Lazarevskoe Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, the same complex where his Holy Trinity Cathedral still stands.