Curated playlist
Russian Orthodox Christians from Russia
- Fyodor DostoevskyFyodor Dostoevsky stood before a firing squad in 1849, and a letter from the tsar arrived.
- Catherine the GreatCatherine the Great seized Russia's throne by overthrowing her own husband. The coup came in July 1762.
- Andrei TarkovskyIngmar Bergman called Andrei Tarkovsky the greatest of all filmmakers. Tarkovsky directed only seven feature films.
- Vladimir PutinVladimir Putin's grandfather cooked personal meals for both Lenin and Stalin. Putin later joined the KGB in 1975.
- Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Solzhenitsyn watched Moscow's victory fireworks from a prison cell. He was a decorated Red Army captain.
- Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky quit a law career at age 30 to enroll in an art academy in Munich. He became a pioneer of abstraction.
- Sofia GubaidulinaSoviet officials called Sofia Gubaidulina's music "irresponsible." Her work later reached the BBC Proms.
- Nicolas SlonimskyA book of scales that was largely ignored became a favorite of John Coltrane. Nicolas Slonimsky wrote it in 1947.
- Alexei NavalnyAlexei Navalny was screaming on a plane because he knew he was dying. He was poisoned with Novichok in 2020.
- Nikolay LosskyIn 1922, philosopher Nikolay Lossky was exiled from the Soviet Union on the Philosophers' Ship.
- Nikolai BerdyaevNikolai Berdyaev told the Soviet secret police chief what was wrong with Bolshevism, and was freed.
- Semyon FrankOn the 29th of September 1922, some 160 prominent Russian intellectuals and their families boarded a ship at Petrograd. Among them was the philosopher Semyon Frank. The Soviet authorities called it an expulsion, and they made the…
- Valentina TereshkovaValentina Tereshkova, a former textile worker, orbited Earth 48 times in 1963. She was 26 and skydived as a hobby.
- Alla PugachevaAlla Pugacheva sold more than 250 million records, yet few outside Eastern Europe know her.