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Famous Russians Quiz

Can you name these famous Russians, past and present?
Includes people who emigrated to other countries
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: December 22, 2019
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First submittedSeptember 7, 2012
Times taken20,964
Average score59.1%
Rating4.16
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Clue
Russian
First Premier of the USSR
V. I. Lenin
"Terrible" ruler and first tsar
Ivan the Terrible
"Great" tsar who built St. Petersburg
Peter the Great
"Great” female tsar
Catherine the Great
Last tsar
Nicholas II
"War and Peace"
Leo Tolstoy
Chelsea football owner
Roman Abramovich
First post-Soviet Russian leader
Boris Yeltsin
First man to orbit Earth
Yuri Gagarin
Photogenic winner of 5 tennis Grand Slam titles
Maria Sharapova
Made dogs salivate with a bell
Ivan Pavlov
"Lolita"
Vladimir Nabokov
"The Brothers Karamazov"
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Current President
Vladimir Putin
"Swan Lake"
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
"Mad Monk" who was hard to kill
Rasputin
All-time highest rated chess player (until 2014)
Garry Kasparov
Soviet leader with a famous birthmark
Mikhail Gorbachev
Famous male ballet dancer who defected to France in 1961
Rudolf Nureyev
"The Rite of Spring"
Igor Stravinsky
Soviet leader who killed millions of his own people
Joseph Stalin
Google cofounder
Sergey Brin
HighFidelity
+1
Level 57
Dec 5, 2012
No Regina Spektor? :(
TheCrusher
+2
Level 72
Jan 25, 2018
Russian-born American... Does that really count on quizzes like this one?
dwo
+11
Level 93
Dec 5, 2012
Stalin wasn't Russian. He was Georgian.
BlendedCow
+7
Level 44
Dec 5, 2012
In the same way that Hitler wasn't German, he was Austrian.

Or someone else was Kenyan. ;)

dwo
+3
Level 93
Dec 7, 2012
Still believing that?
What
+1
Level 27
Dec 23, 2012
And Catherine the Great was 100% German too... I would at least include such things in a hint.
buck1017
+4
Level 77
Apr 13, 2014
Really? "Great" female tsar wasn't good enough for you? You know she's German, but couldn't get the answer without that little nugget? Come on...
QueenOfSpades
+1
Level 29
Jul 13, 2022
Well, what really defines nationality - where you are born, where you live, or which culture you are closest to? By looking purely from a genealogical standpoint, it gets really hard to tell what her nationality actually is.

If we just say, oh well she's Germany cause her parents and grandparents were German, then technically, the older members of the British royal are German too, since Queen Elizabeth I and even more so, Prince Charles have more "German" blood than English...

Quizmaster
+1
Level ∞
May 17, 2015
Can't he be both? Georgia was part of Russia at the time.
snix
+4
Level 55
Jul 7, 2015
Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, not Russia. MAJOR difference.
DonTheLamplighter
+7
Level 84
Aug 14, 2017
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was made up of 15 republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Of these, Russia was, by far, the largest one.

Saying that Stalin was Russian would be like saying that Bill Clinton was Alaskan, since Alaska is, by far, the largest state in the U.S.

And saying that Georgia was part of Russia would be like saying that Arkansas was part of Alaska.

Quizmaster
+9
Level ∞
Aug 14, 2017
@Don I'm sure you're smart enough to realize the difference. Alaska didn't annex the other 49 states into a country called the "Empire of Alaska".
Kahikatea
+4
Level 76
Aug 11, 2018
The Soviet Union was founded after Stalin was already an adult and living in Moscow. When he was born and grew up in Georgia, Georgia was part of the state of Russia.
JoanSR
+3
Level 74
Jan 28, 2020
It seems that many people remember Stalin was Georgian but nobody pointed out that Kasparov was born in Azerbajan and had very little appreciation for Russia.

And, to summarize the relationship between USSR and Russia:

- Intelligence is to know that they were not the same country.

- Wisdom is to know that they were the same country indeed.

MadameDegrassi
+1
Level 29
Dec 5, 2012
No Carl Marx?
piotrr
+4
Level 15
Dec 5, 2012
try harder
malchior
+6
Level 45
Dec 5, 2012
Karl Marx was German.
elcampeador
+3
Level 78
Mar 18, 2023
Sure, but what about Carl?
kal413
+1
Level 32
Dec 5, 2012
Can you accept Katherine?
Quizmaster
+2
Level ∞
May 17, 2015
Okay
FirefromtheEast
+3
Level 46
Dec 5, 2012
These names are so hard to spell.
pawelkrknh
+4
Level 32
Jul 22, 2015
Yeah, especially the English transcription is horribly complicated. For exaple I wonder why "Tchaikovsky" is not written like "Chaikovski" while "Abramovich" is not "Abramovitch" ("tch" and "ch" are represented by the same letter Ч in Russian). I'm not English speaking and I don't understand, my native transcription of Russian (Polish) makes more sense.
Ozchris
+2
Level 33
Dec 22, 2012
Yuppers, the spelling made it tough huh? Can't believe the Karl Marx comment! :) Even spelt it wrong.
Morgain
+3
Level 42
Aug 31, 2013
English spelling of russian (and all slavic) names never stops to amaze me..It's a bit frustrating to know the anwsers and not being able to gues how to spell them..
Thorvald
+1
Level 69
Jul 6, 2015
Have the same problem - always struggling with "how do they write it in this weird English transcription?" :)
kitshef
+2
Level 84
Jun 24, 2014
Seconding the comment that Magnus Carlsen is the highest rated chess player
sillie
+1
Level 77
Jun 27, 2014
I read it "Includes people who emigrated to other quizzes." Time for a break?
Terradraconum
+1
Level 33
Jul 29, 2014
Please accept Tolstoi. I tried several different ways of spelling it, but to no avail.
arrow1972
+6
Level 85
Aug 31, 2014
should include Mendeleev
fitheach
+1
Level 59
Jun 8, 2017
Why?
theperiodictable
+3
Level 47
Sep 28, 2019
ALWAYS SHOULD INCLUDE THE GOD THAT IS MENDELEEV I LOVE HIM I AM HIM
kalbahamut
+1
Level 82
Jul 6, 2015
couldn't spell swan lake guy and was getting very frustrated trying to spell baryshnikov.. but apparently that wasn't the answer.
ander217
+1
Level 75
Jul 7, 2015
I kept trying different spellings for Baryshnikov, too, but Wikipedia says he defected to Canada in 1974. Still, I should have gotten Nureyev. I remember when his defection was big news.
PrinceEric
+1
Level 56
Jul 6, 2015
I know that the letter "C" does not fit into the Russian language, but I couldn't stop friendly-ghosting Kasparov's name. Maybe an acceptable spelling, por favor?
LarryLovage
+1
Level 55
Jul 6, 2015
Wouldn't that be CaspErov?
Maladroit
+1
Level 51
Mar 20, 2017
Well...JetPunk is weird about area names in other languages. For instance, they tend to lean toward Myanmar (called Burma in the U.S.) but often accept Edinburg (Edinburgh in Scotland).
vorak
+2
Level 70
Mar 12, 2021
that isn't true buddy
domvog
+1
Level 80
Jul 6, 2015
Maria Sharapova has won 5 Grand Slam titles to date
Quizmaster
+1
Level ∞
Jul 7, 2015
Updated
redsplat
+1
Level 74
Jul 7, 2015
If you want to expand you could add: Ayn Rand (philosopher; author of Atlas Shrugged), Emma Goldman (famous anarchist: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution"), Pussy Riot (feminist punk rock protest band), Mikhail Kalashnikov (inventor of the AK-47), Anna Chapman (spy arrested in 2010), Isaac Asimov (sci-fi writer, 'I, Robot'), Fabergé (jewelled eggs).
ander217
+2
Level 75
Jul 7, 2015
I didn't realize Asimov owns the company that makes my Roomba. ;) Other than Asimov, Faberge', and Rand, I never heard of the others you mentioned, therefore they must not be important. ;) ;)
BlackLab
+2
Level 65
Jul 7, 2015
Playwright who produced such plays as; The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard...
Samprasion
+1
Level 69
Jul 9, 2015
Jesus Christ, can people stop with the nitpicking. We've all made mistakes so don't pretend that you never have. I didn't know that humans could be so ugh.
PatoPotato
+1
Level 52
Aug 19, 2016
People point out the mistakes because it makes them feel better when they point out other people's mistakes.
PatoPotato
+1
Level 52
Aug 19, 2016
Stalin was Georgian not Russian.
Papaya
+1
Level 47
Feb 23, 2018
Trotsky anyone?
divantilya
+1
Level 37
Mar 4, 2018
Yeah, I missed Trotsky too. Having Lenin on a quiz w/o Trotsky is like having Fidel w/o Che.
Froststar101
+1
Level 74
Apr 30, 2021
Perfectly acceptable?
PoetsCorner
+1
Level 85
Jul 12, 2022
He's right in between Runsky and Walksky.
EcceHomo
+1
Level 79
Apr 7, 2021
I tried so many different spellings of Kournikova before realising there was another (equally) photogenic Russian tennis player who was more successful at the tennis thing.
tervuren
+1
Level 56
Aug 6, 2021
It would be nice to add less famous, but more influential composers like Glinka and Mussorgsky, as well as poets like Pushkin or Mayakovsky.
Ilia
+1
Level 74
Aug 8, 2021
How about accepting Nikolai for the last russian tsar?
Saftra
+1
Level 52
Dec 20, 2021
Kasparov is azer
31415
+1
Level 48
Sep 15, 2023
Stalin is actually not a Russian
31415
+1
Level 48
Sep 15, 2023
Could you add Nikolai II as the answer
YTBRSosyalEmre
+1
Level 64
Jan 22, 2024
Abramovich is not the owner of the Chelsea anymore.
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