Unknown Russians

This is a list of a relatively unknown people with Russian roots, whose works or lives I admire. Some of them (most of them?) had a really hard life yet they manage to make an impact on all of us.

Alekseev, Rostislav - a pioneer of hydrofoil ships and ground effect
vehicles. Alekseev was an accomplished designer of hydrofoil ships, such as
the Raketa, and became a prominent developer of ground effect vehicles,
particularly the Caspian Sea Monster and the A-90 Orlyonok.
Bartini, Robert - a pioneer of amphibious aircraft and ground effect
vehicles.
Chaplina, Vera - a children's literature writer and naturalist.
Demiknov, Vladimir - an organ transplantation pioneer, who performed several
transplants in the 1940s and 1950s, including the transplantation of a heart
into an animal and a heart–lung replacement in an animal. He is also well
known for his dog head transplants, which he conducted during the 1950s,
resulting in two-headed dogs
Kondratyuk, Yuri - a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight, a theoretician
and a visionary who, in the early 20th century, developed the first known
lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR), a key concept for landing and return spaceflight
from Earth to the Moon.
Kuindzhi, Arkhip - a landscape painter, known for his light effects and
intense colors shown in main tones.
Prokudin-Gorsky, Sergey - a pioneer in colour photography. Best known for
his early 20th-century Russia photoarchive.
Rakhmanov, Nikolai - a photographer. His book "Moscow" won "The most
beautiful book" award in 1972.
Shukhov, Vladimir - an engineer-polymath, scientist and architect renowned
for his pioneering works on new methods of analysis for structural engineering
that led to breakthroughs in industrial design of the world's first
hyperboloid structures, diagrid shell structures, tensile structures,
gridshell structures, oil reservoirs, pipelines, boilers, ships and barges.
He is also the inventor of the first cracking method.
Theremin, Leon - a pioneer of the first electronic musical instruments,
creator of Thereminvox and surveillance device called "The Thing", which hung
in the US ambassador’s residential office in Moscow for seven years.
Vertov, Dziga - a pioneer documentary film and newsreel director,
as well as a cinema theorist. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted
Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the 8th best film ever made.
Yermolyeva, Zinaida - a microbiologist most notable for independently
synthesizing penicillin for the Soviet military during World War II.
Yourkevich, Vladimir - naval engineer and designer of the ocean liner
SS Normandie.
Zworykin, Vladimir - an engineer, and pioneer of television technology.
Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing
cathode ray tubes.

See also