Curated category
Recipients of the Order of Lenin
- Nikita KhrushchevNikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was born on the 15th of April 1894 in Kalinovka, a small village in western Russia. His parents were poor peasants who…
- Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin signed his articles "K. Stalin", an alias drawn from the Russian word for steel, translated as "Man of Steel." The man who chose it was born…
- Fidel CastroFidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born out of wedlock on the 13th of August 1926 at his father's farm in Birán, Cuba. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, had…
- Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born on the 2nd of March 1931 in Privolnoye, a small village in the North Caucasus region of what is now Russia.
- Alexei KosyginAlexei Nikolayevich Kosygin was born in the city of Saint Petersburg on the 18th of February 1904. He grew up in a Russian working-class family with his…
- Mikhail SuslovMikhail Suslov died on the 25th of January 1982, ending a life that began in rural Russia in 1902. His early years were spent in Shakhovskoye, a small…
- Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Ilyich Brezhnev was born on the 19th of December 1906 in Kamenskoye, Ukraine. His father worked as a metalworker and his mother came from Yenakiieve.
- Vyacheslav MolotovVyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin was born in the village of Kukarka, Yaransk Uyezd, Vyatka Governorate. He grew up as the son of a merchant and spent his…
- Valentin GlushkoValentin Glushko was born on the 2nd of September 1908 in Odesa to a Ukrainian Cossack father and a Russian peasant mother.
- Yuri AndropovYuri Vladimirovich Andropov was born on the 15th of June 1914 in Stanitsa Nagutskaya, a town that now belongs to Stavropol Krai.
- Kim Il SungKim Song Ju arrived in the small village of Namni near Pyongyang on the 15th of April 1912. His family belonged to the Jeonju Kim clan, which had settled in…
- Konstantin ChernenkoKonstantin Chernenko was born to a poor family in the Siberian village of Bolshaya Tes on the 24th of September 1911. He joined the Komsomol Communist Youth…
- Lavrentiy BeriaLavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was born in the village of Merkheuli, near Sukhumi, within the Kutais Governorate of the Russian Empire.
- Lev KuleshovLev Kuleshov was born in 1899 into an intellectual Russian family. His father Vladimir Sergeyevich Kuleshov studied art at the Moscow School of Painting…
- Alexei LeonovAlexei Leonov was born on the 30th of May 1934 in Listvyanka, West Siberian Krai. His grandfather had been forced to relocate to Siberia for his role in the…
- Boris YeltsinBoris Yeltsin was born on the 1st of February 1931 in the village of Butka, Ural Oblast. His family had lived in this area of the Urals since at least the…
- Josip Broz TitoJosip Broz was born on the 7th of May 1892 in Kumrovec, a small village in northern Croatia. At that time, the land belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
- Svetlana SavitskayaSvetlana Savitskaya was born on the 8th of August 1948 into a privileged family in Moscow. Her father Yevgeny Savitsky served as a decorated fighter pilot…
- Kliment VoroshilovKliment Voroshilov was born on the 4th of February 1881 in Verkhnyeye, a small settlement within the Bakhmut uyezd of the Russian Empire.
- Wojciech JaruzelskiIn June 1941, a young boy named Wojciech Jaruzelski stood on a railway platform in Poland. He watched his family stripped of their possessions before being…
- Dmitri ShostakovichDmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was born on the 9th of August 1875 in Podolskaya Street, then part of the Russian Empire.
- Andrei SakharovAndrei Dmitrievich Sakharov entered the world on the 21st of May 1921 in Moscow. His father, Dmitri Ivanovich Sakharov, worked as a physics professor at the…
- Nikolai PodgornyNikolai Viktorovich Podgorny was born on the 18th of February 1903 in the city of Karlovka to a Ukrainian working-class family.
- Andrey VyshinskyAndrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky was born in Odessa into a Polish Catholic family. His father, Yanuary Vyshinsky, worked as an experienced inspector for the…
- Lev LandauLev Davidovich Landau was born on the 22nd of January 1908 in Baku, then part of the Russian Empire. His father worked as an engineer for the local oil…
- Maxim GorkyAlexei Maximovich Peshkov adopted the pseudonym Maxim Gorky in 1892. The name meant bitter, reflecting his simmering anger about life in Russia and a…
- Sergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein was born on the 11th of February 1898 in Riga, within the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire.
- Alexander ProkhorovAlexander Michael Prochoroff entered the world on the 11th of July 1916 at Russell Road in Peeramon, Queensland. His parents Mikhail Ivanovich and Maria…
- Trofim LysenkoTrofim Denisovich Lysenko was born on the 29th of September 1898 in the village of Karlovka. His family belonged to a peasant class within the Poltava…
- Valentina TereshkovaValentina Tereshkova was born on the 6th of March 1937 in Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a small village along the Volga River. Her father Vladimir died in the…
- Yuri GagarinOn the 18th of October 1941, Nazi forces captured the village of Klushino. The occupiers burned down the local school and twenty-seven houses in a single day.
- Valeri PolyakovValeri Vladimirovich Polyakov was born in the city of Tula on the 27th of April 1942. He entered the world under the name Valeri Ivanovich Korshunov before…
- Erich HoneckerErich Honecker was born on the 25th of August 1912 in Neunkirchen, a town in what is now Saarland. His father Wilhelm worked as a coal miner and political…
- Sergey MikhalkovSergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov entered the world on the 27th of August 1913 within a noble family in Moscow. His father was Vladimir Aleksandrovich Mikhalkov…
- Richard SorgeRichard Gustavovich Sorge was born on the 4th of October 1895 in the settlement of Sabunchi, a suburb of Baku. His father worked as a German mining engineer…
- Georgy SviridovGeorgy Vasilyevich Sviridov was born on the 16th of December 1915 in the town of Fatezh. His father, a Bolshevik sympathizer named Vasily, died when Georgy…