March 31

Sergei Diaghilev

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (31 March 1872 – 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresarioand founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.

March 30

Vasily Andreevich Tropinin was born March 30 , 1776. He was a Russian Romantic painter. Much of his life was spent as a serf; he didn't attain his freedom until he was more than forty years old. Three of his more important works are a portrait of Alexander Pushkin and paintings called The Lace Maker and The Gold-Embroideress.

The most notable of his works:

The Lace Maker, 1823

:

Girl from Podillya, 1804-1807

Family portrait of counts Morkovs, 1813

March 29

Prince Alexander Sergeevich Obolensky (Russian: Александр Сергеевич Оболенский; 17 February 1916 — 29 March 1940) was a Rurikid prince of Russian origin who became a naturalised Briton, having spent most of his life in England, and who went on to represent England in International Rugby Union. He was, and is, popularly known as "The Flying Prince", "The Flying Slav", or simply as "Obo" by many sports fans.

A member of the Rurik Dynasty,[1] he was born in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) on 17 February 1916 and was the son of Prince Serge Obolensky, an officer in the Czar's Imperial Horse Guards, and his wife Princess Lubov' (née Naryshkina). Their name derived from the Russian town of Obolensk. They fled Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917, settling in Muswell Hill, London, England.

Prince Obolensky won three caps for England later that year (against Wales on 18 January, Ireland on 8 February and Scotland on 21 March), and scored no further tries. He was selected as a member of the touring party for the 1936 British Lions tour to Argentina.

By August 1939, Obolensky was already serving as an A/P/O with 615 Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force, stationed at Kenley; and, on the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he joined the Royal Air Force's 504 Squadron. 

 Stanislav Sergeyevich Govorukhin PAR (Russian: Станислав Сергеевич Говорухин) (born March 29, 1936 in Berezniki, Perm Krai,[1] Russian SFSR) has been one of the most popular Soviet and Russian film directors since the 1960s. His films, often featuring detective or adventure plots, are commonly dominated by strong male characters who seek to revenge criminal acts but have to eschew commonly accepted social norms in order to succeed.

Govorukhin has been a member of the State Duma since its inauguration in 1993, running the Duma culture committee for some time. Following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, he had abandoned his previous democratic anti-communist convictions and sided with the national-communist opposition. In 1996, he supported Gennady Zyuganov against Boris Yeltsin during the second round of the presidential election campaign. In 2000, he took part in Russian presidential elections, but failed to be elected. At a Duma by-election in 2005, Govorukhin's opponent, the journalist and satirist Victor Shenderovich, accused him of using illegal funds to guarantee his victory.

In 2009 Stanislav Govorukhin started to shoot a movie by Ksenya Stepanycheva screenplay; the movie’s name is “Hearts of Four”.

March 28

Alexander Naumovich Mitta (Russian: Алекса́ндр Нау́мович Митта́; born 28 March 1933 in Moscow) is a Soviet and Russian film director, screenwriter and actor.
Mitta's birth name was Alexander Naumovich Rabinovich (Рабино́вич). He studied engineering (graduated in 1955), then worked as a cartoonist in art and humour magazines. In 1960 Mitta graduated at the film directing faculty of the VGIK.
Mitta's career as film director and screenwriter spans from the 1960s until the 2000s. Among the movies are Gori, gori, moya zvezda (Гори, гори, моя звезда, 1969) about actors trying to survive and work during the time of the Russian revolution or the high budget catastrophe movie Air Crew (1979). For his work Mitta obtained numerous awards in the Soviet Union and Russia.
In 1980, he was a member of the jury at the 30th Berlin International Film Festival

March 27

      World Theatre Day is the creation of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day International Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace. The first World Theatre Day International Message was written by Jean Cocteau (France) in 1962.

     Each year a figure outstanding in theatre or a person outstanding in heart and spirit from another field, is invited to share his or her reflections on theatre and international harmony. What is known as the International Message is translated into more than 20 languages, read for tens of thousands of spectators before performances in theatres throughout the world and printed in hundreds of daily newspapers. Colleagues in the audio-visual field lend a fraternal hand, with more than a hundred radio and television stations transmitting the Message to listeners in all corners of the five continents.

March 26

Andrey Ivanovich Lavrov (born March 26, 1962 in Krasnodar) is a Russian handball goalkeeper and the only three times Olympic handball champion.
Lavrov is also the only athlete to have won Olympic gold medals for three different nation's teams, winning gold for Soviet Union in 1988, the Unified Team in 1992, and for Russia in 2000. Four years later, at the age of 42, he won his fourth olympic medal, another unique feat for a handball player, when his Russian team earned third place and the bronze medals at the 2004 Athens Olympic games. Lavrov was a long time captain for the Russian handball team, and he was Flag Bearer for the Russian athletes at the 2000 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Summer Olympics. Lavrov has also won two World Championships for Russia, in 1993 and in 1997, as well as the European Championship in 1996. In 2001, Andrey Lavrov was voted "Russian handball player of the century" in his home country.

Konstantin Alekseevich Andreev (14 March 1848 – 29 October 1921) was a Russian mathematician, best known for his work on geometry, especially projective geometry. He was one of the founders of the Kharkov Mathematical Society. This society is one of the early mathematics societies in Russia and was founded in 1879.

Eduard Viktorovich Dyomin (born March 26, 1974) is a former Russian footballer, now a coach for FC Kaluga. He made his debut in the Russian Premier League in 1993 for FC Asmaral Moscow and played 1 game in the UEFA Cup 1996–97 for FC Dynamo Moscow.

Mikhail Yakovlievitch Voronin (26 March 1945 – 22 May 2004) was a Russian gymnast, who competed for the USSR in the late 1960s-early 1970s. He won seven medals at the 1968 Summer Olympics, including two gold medals, as well as two silver medals at the 1972 Summer Olympics.

March 25

Efim (Nakhim) Zalmanovich Shifrin 

 

(born on March 25, 1956)– Soviet and Russian actor.
Efim Shifrin was born in 1956 in Magadan region (Neksikan village). In 1973—1974 he studied at philological faculty of Latvian University, and from 1974 to 1978 at stage department of State University of Circus and Stage Art, at the course of Roman Viktiuk.
Since 1977 he started to play in his stage studio of Moscow State University. Among Efim’s theatre works of that time there are the performances «Good-buy, Boys!», «The Night After Release», «Duck Hunting». In 1979 Efim Shifrin became prize winner of the 1st Moscow Contest of Stage Actors. In 1983 Shifrin became prize winner of the 7th USSR’s Contest of Stage Actors. The first solo performance «I Would Like to Say», mainly based on works by Viktor Kokliushkin, was played by Shifrin in 1985. Texts of V. Kokliushkin also became the base of performances «Three Questions» and «Round Moon».

March 24

Klavdiya Ivanovna Shulzhenko (Russian: Кла́вдия Ива́новна Шульже́нко; March 24 1906, Kharkov – June 17, 1984, Moscow) was a popular female singer of the Soviet Union.

Shulzhenko started singing with jazz and pop bands in the late 1920s. She rose to fame in the late 1930s with her version of Sebastian Yradier's La Paloma. In 1939, she was awarded at the first all-Soviet competition of pop singers.

During World War II, Shulzhenko performed about a thousand concerts for Soviet soldiers in besieged Leningrad and elsewhere. The lyrics of one of her prewar songs, The Blue Headscarf, were adapted so as to suit wartime realities. Another iconic song of the Eastern Front (World War II), Let's Smoke, was later used by Vladimir Menshov in his Oscar-winning movie Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears.

On April 10, 1976 Shulzhenko performed to enraptured audience in the Column Hall of the House of Unions in what would become her most famous concert.

March 23

Aleksey Feofilaktovich Pisemsky  (March 23, 1821 – February 2, 1881) was a Russian novelist and dramatist who was regarded as an equal of Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the late 1850s, but whose reputation suffered a spectacular decline after his fall-out with Sovremennik magazine in the early 1860s. A realistic playwright, along with Aleksandr Ostrovsky he was responsible for the first dramatization of ordinary people in the history of Russian theatre. D.S. Mirsky said: "Pisemsky's great narrative gift and exceptionally strong grip on reality make him one of the best Russian novelists."
His first novel Boyarschina (1847, published 1858) was originally forbidden for its unflattering description of the Russian nobility. His principal novels are The Simpleton (1850), One Thousand Souls (1858), which is considered his best work of the kind, and Troubled Seas, which gives a picture of the excited state of Russian society around the year 1862. He also wrote plays, including A Bitter Fate (also translated as "A Hard Lot"), which depicts the dark side of the Russian peasantry. The play has been called the first Russian realistic tragedy; it won the Uvarov Prize of the Russian Academy.

March 22

Georgiy Stepanovich Zhzhonov (Russian: Гео́ргий Степа́нович Жжёнов, ; March 22, 1915 – December 8, 2005) was a Soviet actor and writer.
Having matriculated from the Leningrad Circus Tekhnikum in 1932, he appeared in several movies, including the legendary Chapaev (1934).

In 1939, Zhzhonov was repressed and spent 15 years in the Siberian GULAG labour camps (particularly, as an inmate lorry driver in remote areas). When released in 1955, he started his film career anew and rose to become a People's Artist of the USSR in 1980. In a curious twist of fate, Zhzhonov was frequently cast in the roles of policemen and KGB agents. This Gulag victim was even awarded a special KGB prize for the screen versions of three novels by Yulian Semyonov. Zhzhonov was also invited to play Stierlitz, but declined for personal reasons.


During the Perestroika, Zhzhonov started publishing his own fiction. In the 1990s, he received many awards, including the Nika Award for lifelong career. A monument to him was opened in Chelyabinsk in 2000.


Zhzhonov spent his 90th birthday acting in the Soviet Army Theatre. Later that day, he was invited to the Kremlin to be invested with the highest civilian decoration of Russia. During a conversation that followed, President Putin admitted that Zhzhonov's roles had prompted him to become an intelligence officer.

March 21

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (Russian: Модéст Петрóвич Мýсоргский; 21 March [O.S. 9 March] 1839 – 28 March [O.S. 16 March] 1881) was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.

Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other nationalist themes. Such works include the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bare Mountain, and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition.

For many years Mussorgsky's works were mainly known in versions revised or completed by other composers. Many of his most important compositions have recently come into their own in their original forms, and some of the original scores are now also available.

Alexander Fedorovich Mozhaysky (Russian: Александр Фёдорович Можайский) (March 21 [O.S. March 9] 1825, Rochensalm (current Kotka), southern Finland – 1 April [O.S. March 20] 1890, Saint Petersburg), was a Russian naval officer, aviation pioneer, researcher and designer of heavier-than-air craft." In 1884, Mozhaysky's monoplane made a failed attempt to fly (only a spring of ca. 100 ft).

His design relied upon a ramp rather than engine power to generate sufficient speed for lift. The wing design of his craft lacked the curvature necessary to generate lift. While it is possible that Mozhaysky's wings slowed his monoplane's descent after launch from the ramp, the wings were unlikely ever to have provided sufficient lift for sustained flight unless used at angles of attack that would have been impractical, given the engines available to Mozhaysky. He also experimented with different angles of attack.

In 1909 a Russian newspaper claimed Mozhaysky's hop was the first powered flight. This false claim was later repeated many times by the Soviet Union as propaganda. In 1971-1981 TsAGI researched the topic and disproved the claim. Mozhaysky's original aircraft was found incapable of generating lift because of low engine capacity. It was also shown that with a more powerful engine, which Mozhaysky had planned shortly before his death, the aircraft might have been able to fly.

March 20

       Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter (March 20 1915 – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.

Ekaterina Strizhenova (born March 20, 1968) - Russian actress and TV presenter.

March 19

Yegor Timurovich Gaidar was a Soviet and Russian economist, politician and author, and was the Acting Prime Minister of Russia from 15 June 1992 to 14 December 1992.

He was best known as the architect of the controversial shock therapy reforms administered in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which brought him both praise and harsh criticism. Many Russians held him responsible for the economic hardships that plagued the country in the 1990s that resulted in mass poverty and hyperinflation among other things, although liberals praised him as a man who did what had to be done to save the country from complete collapse.Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, who advised the Russian government in the early 1990s, called Gaidar "the intellectual leader of many of Russia's political and economic reforms" and "one of the few pivotal actors" of the period.

Gaidar died of pulmonary edema, provoked by myocardial ischemia on 16 December 2009.

Gaidar was often criticized for imposing ruthless reforms in 1992 with little care for their social impact. Many of Gaidar's economic reforms led to serious deterioration in living standards. Millions of Russians were thrown into poverty due to their savings being devalued by massive hyperinflation. Moreover, the privatization and break-up of state assets left over from the Soviet Union, which he played a big part in, led to much of the country's wealth being handed to a small group of powerful business executives, later known as the Russian oligarchs, for much less than what they were worth. As society grew to despise these figures and resent the economic and social turmoil caused by the reforms, Gaidar was often held by Russians as one of the men most responsible.

One of Gaidar's most outspoken critics was the liberal economist and MP Grigory Yavlinsky, who had proposed since 1990 a 500 Days programme for the transition of the whole USSR to market economic, which was first backed and then dismissed by the government of Nikolai Ryzhkov. Yavlinsky emphasized the differences between his and Gaidar's reforms program, such as the sequencing of privatization vs. liberalization of prices and the applicability of his program to the entire Soviet Union.

Gaidar's supporters contend that although many mistakes were made, he had few choices in the matter and ultimately saved the country both from bankruptcy and from starvation. According to the BBC's Andrei Ostalski, "There were only two solutions – either introduce martial law and severe rationing, or radically liberalize the economy. The first option meant going all the way back to the Stalinist system of mass repression. The second meant a colossal change, a journey – or, rather, a race – through uncharted waters with an unpredictable outcome."

March 18

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was born on the 18^th of March in 1908. He was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five. He was a master of orchestration. His best-known orchestral compositions—Capriccio Espagnol, the Russian Easter Festival Overture, and the symphonic suite Scheherazade—are staples of the classical music repertoire, along with suites and excerpts from some of his 15 operas. Scheherazade is an example of his frequent use of fairy tale and folk subjects.

Rimsky-Korsakov left a considerable body of original Russian nationalist compositions. He prepared works by The Five for performance, which brought them into the active classical repertoire (although there is controversy over his editing of the works of Modest Mussorgsky), and shaped a generation of younger composers and musicians during his decades as an educator. Rimsky-Korsakov is therefore considered "the main architect" of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition. His influence on younger composers was especially important, as he served as a transitional figure between the autodidactism which exemplified Glinka and The Five and professionally trained composers which would become the norm in Russia by the closing years of the 19th century. While Rimsky-Korsakov's style was based on those of Glinka, Balakirev, Hector Berlioz, and Franz Liszt, he "transmitted this style directly to two generations of Russian composers" and influenced non-Russian composers including Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Paul Dukas and Ottorino Respighi.

Tatyana Arntgolts (born March 18, 1982) is a Russian stage, film and television actress.
Arntgolts is the daughter of Kaliningrad actors Albert Arntgolts and Valentina Galich. She has an identical twin sister Olga, who is also an actress. Together they studied at M.S. Schepkin Higher Theatre School in Moscow.In 2008, Tatyana married actor Ivan Zhidkov. In September 2009, she gave birth to daughter Mariya in Moscow.
In 1999 Arntgolts made her acting debut in the youth drama series Prostie isinty (The Simple Truth), in which she played student Katya Trofimova.




 
Alexei Konstantinovich Yagudin (born 18 March 1980) is a former Russian figure skater. His major achievements in his six years of eligible sports career include being the 2002 Olympic Champion, a four-time World Champion (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002), a three-time European Champion (1998, 1999, 2002), a two-time Grand Prix Final Champion (1998-1999, 2001-2002), a World Junior Champion (1996) and a two-time World Professional Champion (1998, 2002).

March 17

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel was born this day. He usually regarded amongst the Russian painters of the Symbolist movement. In reality, he deliberately stood aloof from contemporary art trends, so that the origin of his unusual manner should be sought in Late Byzantine and Early Renaissance painting.

Vrubel was born in Omsk, Russia, into a military lawyer's family. His father was of Polish ancestry (Polish: Wróbel), while his mother who was Danish died when he was three years old. And though he graduated from the Faculty of Law at St Petersburg University in 1880, his father had recognized his talent for art and had made sure to provide, through numerous tutors, what proved to be a sporadic education in the subject. The next year he entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied by direction of Pavel Chistyakov. Even in his earliest works, he exhibited great talent for drawing and an idiosyncratic style. He would later develop a penchant for fragmentary composition and an "unfinished touch".

In 1886, he returned to Kiev, where he submitted some designs to the newly-built St Volodymir Cathedral. The jury, however, failed to appreciate the novelty of his works, and they were rejected. At that period, he executed some illustrations for Hamlet and Anna Karenina which had little in common with his later Demon and Prophet themes.
In 1905 he created the mosaics of the hotel "Metropol" in Moscow, of which the centre piece of the facade overlooking Teatralnaya Ploschad is occupied by the mosaic panel, 'Princess Gryoza' (Princess of Dream).

While in Kiev, Vrubel started painting sketches and watercolours illustrating the Demon, a long Romantic poem by Mikhail Lermontov. The poem described the carnal passion of "an eternal nihilistic spirit" to a Georgian girl Tamara. At that period Vrubel developed a keen interest in Oriental arts, and particularly Persian carpets, and even attempted to imitate their texture in his paintings.

In 1890, Vrubel relocated to Moscow where he could best follow the burgeoning innovations and trends in art. Like other artists associated with the Art Nouveau style, he excelled not only in painting but also in applied arts, such as ceramics, majolics, and stained glass. He also produced architectural masks, stage sets, and costumes.

Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel – The Artist's Wife (1898)

It is the large painting of Seated Demon (1890) that brought notoriety to Vrubel. Most conservative critics accused him of "wild ugliness", whereas the art patron Savva Mamontov praised the Demon series as "fascinating symphonies of a genius" and commissioned Vrubel to paint decorations for his private opera and mansions of his friends. Unfortunately the Demon, like other Vrubel's works, doesn't look as it did when it was painted, as the artist added bronze powder to his oils in order to achieve particularly luminous, glistening effects.

During 1896, he met the famous opera singer Nadezhda Zabela. Half a year later they married and settled in Moscow, where Zabela was invited by Mamontov to perform in his private opera theatre. While in Moscow, Vrubel designed stage sets and costumes for his wife, who sang the parts of the Snow Maiden, the Swan Princess, and Princess Volkhova in Rimsky-Korsakov's operas. Using Russian fairy tales, he executed some of his most acclaimed pieces, including Pan (1899), The Swan Princess (1900), and Lilacs (1900).

March 16

Alexey Mitrophanov ( 16 March, 1962, Moscow) is a Russian politician and State Duma member. The member of High Council and Parliamentary Faction of LDPR.

Bogdan Titomir (16 March, 1967, Odessa) is a Russian crooner, danser, deejay, raper and anchorman.

March 15

Svetlana Vladimirovna Medvedeva (Russian: Светла́на Влади́мировна Медве́дева) (born 15 March 1965), is the wife of current Russian Prime minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev. 

After the couple moved to Moscow, Medvedeva directed several Russian-Italian initiativesSister cities Milan – Saint Petersburg and Venice – Saint Petersburg which intended to develop tourism between these cities. In 2006, she initiated the annual Russian art festival in Bari, Italy.

Took over as president following his victory in Russian Presidential elections on 7 May 2008. In the same year, she headed the initiative for the institution of Family Day in Russia. She has already caused something of a media frenzy even though she shies away from photographers and rarely gives interviews.Medvedeva currently chairs the management council of multitier program Spiritual and moral culture of younger generation of Russia created with blessing of Alexy II of Moscow. In a recent interview, Svetlana detailed her views on the interaction between the Russian Orthodox Church and the government of Russia in promoting family policies.She has taken up the pro-life cause in Russia's efforts to restrict abortion in 2011. In addition to her native language Russian, Medvedeva speaks French.

March 14

Naina Yeltsina

Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina (born 14 March 1932) is the widow of the firstPresident of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

Naina Yeltsina was born in the Orenburg Oblast in 1932. After graduating from the construction faculty at the Ural Polytechnic Institute in Sverdlovsk in 1955, she worked with various projects at the Sverdlovsk Institute. In 1956, she married Boris Yeltsin, whom she met at the institute, and lives, since 1985, in Moscow. They have two daughters, Yelena and Tatyana, born in 1957 and 1960, respectively.


Naina Yeltsina was rarely seen in public. She accompanied her husband on some of his foreign visits, including 1997 visits to Sweden, Finland, and a 1999 visit to China. As a rule, Naina Yeltsina never interfered in her husband's political work. However, in the 1996 election campaign, she met with voters and gave interviews to the media. A major public appearance was the state funeral of her late husband in Moscow in April 2007.

March 13

Sergey Vladimirovich Mikhalkov (Russian: Серге́й Влади́мирович Михалко́в; 13 March [O.S. 28 February] 1913 − 27 August 2009) was a Soviet and Russian author of children's books and satirical fables who had the opportunity to write the lyrics of his country's national anthem on three different occasions, spanning almost 60 years. Mikhalkov was born to Vladimir Alexandrovich Mikhalkov and Olga Mikhailovna ( Glebova) Mikhalkov stemmed from the noble family of Mikhalkovs and had tsarist admirals, governors, and princes among his grandparents. Since the 1930s, he has rivalled Korney Chukovsky and Agniya Barto as the most popular poet writing for Russophone children. His poems about enormously tall "Uncle Styopa" ("Дядя Стёпа") enjoyed particular popularity. Uncle Styopa is a friendly policeman always ready to rescue cats stuck up trees, and to perform other helpful deeds. In English, his name translates as Uncle Steeple.

March 12

Volodymyr Ivanovich Vernadsky (12 March 1863 – 6 January 1945) was a Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and of radiogeology. His ideas of noosphere were an important contribution to Russian cosmism. He also worked in Ukraine, where he founded theUkrainian Academy of Sciences (now National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). He is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he inadvertently worked to popularize Eduard Suess’ 1885 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth. In 1943 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. 

March 11

Anton Viktorovich Yelchin (Russian: Анто́н Ви́кторович Ельчи́н; born March 11, 1989) is a film and television actor. He began performing in the late 1990s in the USA, appearing in several television roles, and the Hollywood films Along Came a Spider and Hearts in Atlantis (both 2001). Yelchin later appeared on the television series, Huff, and starred in the films House of D (2005), Star Trek (2009), Terminator Salvation (2009), The Smurfs (2011), Fright Night (2011), and Like Crazy (2011). Yelchin's role as "Jacob Clarke" in the Steven Spielberg mini series, Taken, was significant in furthering his career as a child actor.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Nabokov (Russian: Иван Александрович Набоков) (11 March 1787 – 21 April 1852) was a Russian Adjutant general and general of infantry prominent during the Napoleonic wars.

He distinguished himself at Borodino (for this battle he was awarded with Order of St. Anna of 2nd degree), Lützen (was awarded with Order of St. Vladimir of 3rd degree), Bautzen, Kulm, Leipzig and other engagements.

On 15 September 1814 he was elevated to Major General for the prowess in the Battle of Kulm and became the chief of Sevsky Infantry Regiment (September 28). With this regiment he took part in the battles of Bar-sur-Aube, Laon, Craonne, Arcis-sur-Aube, in which he was sustained a head wound. For the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube he received the Order of St. Anna of 1st degree.

March 10

Alexander Goldenweiser (composer)

This is the day, when Alexander Goldenweiser was born
He was a distinguished Russian pianist, teacher and composer.
Goldenweiser was born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia, and studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Sergei Taneyev and Vassily Safonoff, winning the Gold Medal for Piano upon his graduation in 1897. He joined the faculty of the Conservatory shortly afterward, and during his tenure there, his pupils included Grigory Ginzburg, Lazar Berman, Samuil Feinberg, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Galina Eguiazarova, Nikolai Petrov, Nikolai Kapustin, Alexander Braginsky, Sulamita Aronovsky, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Dmitry Paperno, Oxana Yablonskaya, Nelly Akopian-Tamarina, Dmitri Bashkirov and many others. He made a number of renowned recordings as a pianist. He died in 1961, in Moscow Oblast.

Unfortunately this day is also the day of death of Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov 

Mikhaíl Afanasyevich Bulgakov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century

March 9

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was born 9 March 1934. Yuri was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on 12 April 1961.
Gagarin became an international celebrity, and was awarded many medals and titles, including Hero of the Soviet Union, the nation's highest honour.Vostok 1 marked his only spaceflight, but he served as backup crew to the Soyuz 1 mission (which ended in a fatal crash). Gagarin later became deputy training director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre outside Moscow, which was later named after him. Gagarin died in 1968 when the MiG 15training jet he was piloting crashed.

March 8

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women's Day, is marked on March 8 every year. In different regions the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women to a celebration for women's economic, political and social achievements. Started as a Socialist political event, the holiday blended in the culture of many countries, primarily Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet bloc.

Happy International Women's Day!

March 7

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (March 7, 1878 – May 28, 1927) was a Russian painter and stage designer.







Between 1893 and 1896, Boris studied in theological seminary and took private art lessons in Astrakhan from Pavel Vlasov, a pupil of Vasily Perov. Subsequently, from 1896 to 1903, he attended Ilya Repin’s studio at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Concurrently, he took classes in sculpture under Dmitry Stelletsky and in etching underVasiliy Mate. He first exhibited in 1896.

"I have great hopes for Kustodiev," wrote Repin. "He is a talented artist and a thoughtful and serious man with a deep love of art; he is making a careful study of nature..." When Repin was commissioned to paint a large-scale canvas to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the State Council, he invited Kustodiev to be his assistant. The painting was extremely complex and involved a great deal of hard work. Together with his teacher, the young artist made portrait studies for the painting, and then executed the right-hand side of the final work.Also at this time, Kustodiev made a series of portraits of contemporaries whom he felt to be his spiritual comrades. These included the artist Ivan Bilibin (1901,Russian Museum), Moldovtsev (1901, Krasnodar Regional Art Museum), and the engraver Mate (1902, Russian Museum). Working on these portraits considerably helped the artist, forcing him to make a close study of his model and to penetrate the complex world of the human soul.


In 1903, he married Julia Proshinskaya (1880–1942).
He visited France and Spain on a grant from the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1904. Also in 1904, he attended the private studio of René Ménard in Paris. After that he traveled to Spain, then, in 1907, to Italy, and in 1909 he visited Austria and Germany, and again France and Italy. During these years he painted many portraits and genre pieces. However, no matter where Kustodiev happened to be – in sunny Seville or in the park at Versailles – he felt the irresistible pull of his motherland. After five months in France he returned to Russia, writing with evident joy to his friend Mate that he was back once more "in our blessed Russian land".

March 6

     Mikhail Mikhaylovich Zhvanetsky (Russian: Михаи́л Миха́йлович Жване́цкий; Ukrainian: Михайло Михайлович Жванецький, transliterated:Mykhailo Mykhailovych Zhvanetsky) (born 6 March 1934, Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union) is best known for his shows targeting different aspects of the Soviet and post-Soviet everyday life. His monologues have been interpreted by other actors including Arkady Raikin, Roman Kartsevand Viktor Ilchenko. Zhvanetsky is a member of the Union of Soviet Writers since 1978 and has authored several books.
     Zhvanetsky's monologues and sketches were performed by Arkady Raikin, Roman Kartsev and Viktor Ilchenko. He joined the Union of Soviet Writersin 1978 and has authored several books of humor and satire.

     Vasily Vasilyevich Mate (Russian: Василий Васильевич Матэ; 1856–1917), or Mathé, was a Russian artist and engraver. While he was not the author of any major original works, he was one of the major engravers in Russia during the late 19th century. He collaborated with major Russian painters and produced engravings of their paintings, thus helping popularize Russian art.