# 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rostislav_Alexeyev) - a pioneer of hydrofoil ships and ground effect&#x20;

  vehicles. Alekseev was an accomplished designer of hydrofoil ships, such as&#x20;

  the Raketa, and became a prominent developer of ground effect vehicles,&#x20;

  particularly the  Caspian Sea Monster and the A-90 Orlyonok.
* [Bartini, Robert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ludvigovich_Bartini) - a pioneer of amphibious aircraft and ground effect&#x20;

  vehicles.
* [Chaplina, Vera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Chaplina) - a children's literature writer and naturalist.
* [Demiknov, Vladimir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Demikhov) - an organ transplantation pioneer, who performed several&#x20;

  transplants in the 1940s and 1950s, including the transplantation of a heart&#x20;

  into an animal and a heart–lung replacement in an animal. He is also well&#x20;

  known for his dog head transplants, which he conducted during the 1950s,&#x20;

  resulting in two-headed dogs
* [Kondratyuk, Yuri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Kondratyuk) - a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight, a theoretician

  and a visionary who, in the early 20th century, developed the first known&#x20;

  lunar orbit rendezvous (LOR), a key concept for landing and return spaceflight

  from Earth to the Moon.
* [Kuindzhi, Arkhip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhip_Kuindzhi) - a landscape painter, known for his light effects and&#x20;

  intense colors shown in main tones.
* [Prokudin-Gorsky, Sergey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky) - a pioneer in colour photography. Best known for&#x20;

  his early 20th-century Russia photoarchive.
* [Rakhmanov, Nikolai](https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D1%85%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%2C_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B9_%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_\(%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84\)) - a photographer. His book "Moscow" won "The most&#x20;

  beautiful book" award in 1972.
* [Shukhov, Vladimir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Shukhov) - 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&#x20;

  hyperboloid structures, diagrid shell structures, tensile structures,

  gridshell structures, oil reservoirs, pipelines, boilers, ships and barges.&#x20;

  He is also the inventor of the first cracking method.
* [Theremin, Leon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Theremin) - 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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dziga_Vertov) - a pioneer documentary film and newsreel director,&#x20;

  as well as a cinema theorist. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, critics voted&#x20;

  Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) the 8th best film ever made.
* [Yermolyeva, Zinaida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinaida_Yermolyeva) - a microbiologist most notable for independently&#x20;

  synthesizing penicillin for the Soviet military during World War II.
* [Yourkevich, Vladimir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Yourkevich) - naval engineer and designer of the ocean liner&#x20;

  SS Normandie.
* [Zworykin, Vladimir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_K._Zworykin) - an engineer, and pioneer of television technology.&#x20;

  Zworykin invented a television transmitting and receiving system employing&#x20;

  cathode ray tubes.

## See also

* [List of Russian inventors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_inventors)
