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Russian people of German descent

  • Pyotr Ilyich TchaikovskyPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky once listened to a playback of his own voice on an Edison recording device and said: "This trill could be better." That was January…
  • Fabian Gottlieb von BellingshausenFabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen stood on the deck of the sloop Vostok on the 27th of January 1820, and looked out at something no human being had ever…
  • Peter II of RussiaPeter II of Russia was an emperor who died on the morning of his own wedding day. He was fourteen years old. The date was the 30th of January 1730, and the…
  • Alexander BlokAlexander Alexandrovich Blok heard something in the summer of 1917 that most people could not. Writing in his diary, he recorded: "I feel that a great event…
  • Catherine the GreatCatherine the Great was born Princess Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, on the 2nd of May 1729, in the Ducal Castle of Stettin in…
  • Vladimir NabokovVladimir Nabokov arrived in the United States in May 1940 aboard the SS Champlain, a Russian exile who spoke three languages and had already written nine…
  • Helena BlavatskyHelena Blavatsky preferred to be known by three letters: HPB. The sobriquet came from her friend Henry Steel Olcott, and it stuck to a woman who spoke…
  • Nicholas RoerichNicholas Roerich left behind more than 7,000 paintings, a spiritual movement that still has followers today, and an international treaty signed at the White…
  • Wassily KandinskyWassily Kandinsky stood in his studio one day and stared at a painting on the wall for a long moment before realising it was his own work, hanging upside…
  • Alexander ScriabinAlexander Scriabin died on the 14th of April 1915 from a pimple. That sentence sounds absurd, but it is true. A small sore on his upper lip, first noticed as…
  • Alfred SchnittkeAlfred Garrievich Schnittke was born on the 24th of November 1934 in Engels, a city in the Volga German ASSR of the Russian SFSR, to parents who straddled…
  • Richard SorgeRichard Sorge arrived in Yokohama on the 6th of September 1933, carrying press credentials from the most prestigious newspaper in Germany and a Nazi Party…
  • Afanasy FetAfanasy Fet died on the 21st of November 1892 with a paper knife in his hand and a suicide note on the table. His secretary had just wrestled the blade away…