April 30

Filipp Kirkorov (30 April 1967, Varna, Bulgaria) is a Ryssian pop-singer.Best selling Russian artist at the 1996 & 1999 World Music Awards.
Brilliantly debuted as a theatrical actor in 2000 at a musical "Metro", Moscow, Russia, where he played Filipp.

Andrey Viktorovich Gubin (born April 30, 1974 in Ufa) is a Russian pop-singer, poet, composer and record producer.

April 28

Dmitri Yevgenyevich Torbinski (Russian: Дмитрий Евгеньевич Торбинский; born 28 April 1984 in Norilsk) is a professional association footballer who currently plays as a midfielder for Lokomotiv Moscow and the Russian national team. He is a winger known for his pace and accurate crosses.

He began as a futsal player, but moved into football and signed with Spartak's youth academy at a young age. He toiled for several years in the reserve team before making his first team debut in 2002. He continued as a part-time player in the squad in 2003, but was limited by a serious injury in 2004, making only one appearance.

Like Vladimir Bystrov and Dmitry Sytchev, Torbinsky is also known for his blistering pace and impressive change of speed which makes him very hard to stop. Hence, being a target for various clubs in Europe.

In 2005, he was sent to Spartak Chelyabinsk on loan in order to get regular playing time and has since returned to the Moscow side, having recovered from his injuries. Torbinski left the club on a free transfer at the end of 2007 season for Lokomotiv Moscow.

April 27

Yevgen Alexandrovich Morgunov (April 27, 1927 – June 25, 1999) 

was a Soviet and Russian actor, film director, and script writer, Meritorious Artist of  Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. He started out as a worker in a Moscow factory, but - "a little naive and obsessed with becoming an actor" - he wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin about his dream. Morgunov reportedly received a reply from Stalin that said that a place was allocated for him in the acting class at the State Cinematography Institute. Morgunov launched his film career while still a student.

April 26

World Intellectual Property Day

 

It  is observed annually on 26 April. The event was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2000 to "raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs impact on daily life" and "to celebrate creativity, and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies across the globe".April 26th was chosen as the date for World Intellectual Property Day because it coincides with the date on which the Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization entered into force in 1970.

April 25

Vladimir Zhirinovsky

Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky, born Vladimir Volfovich Eidelstein on 25 April 1946, is a Russian politician and political activist. He is a colonel in the Russian Army, founder and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Vice-Chairman of the State Duma, and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Zhirinovsky is often viewed as "a showman of Russian politics, blending populist and nationalist rhetoric, anti-Western invective and a brash, confrontational style".

April 23

Alexandra Konstantinovna Kosteniuk (Russian: Алекса́ндра Константи́новна Костеню́к; born April 23, 1984 in Perm) is a Russian chess Grandmaster and a former Women's World Chess Champion.





 Kosteniuk learned to play chess at the age of five after being taught by her father. She has a younger sister named Oxana, who is a FIDE master level chess player.

In 2001, at the age of 17, she reached the final of the World Women's Chess Championship, but was defeated by Zhu Chen. Three years later, she became European women's champion by winning the tournament in Dresden, Germany. She also won the 2005 Russian Women's Championship, held in Samara, Russia, finishing with a score of +7 −0 =4 . In August 2006, she became the first Chess960 women's world champion after beating Germany's top female player Elisabeth Pähtz 5½–2½. She defended that title successfully in 2008 by beating Kateryna Lahno 2½–1½. However, her greatest success so far has been to win the Women's World Chess Championship 2008, beating in the final the young Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan, with a score of 2½–1½.
In November 2004, she was awarded the International Grandmaster title, becoming the tenth woman to receive the highest title of the World Chess Federation, FIDE
In the Women's World Chess Championship, 2010 she was eliminated in the third round by Ruan Lufei and thus lost her title

April 22

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov ( 22 April ,1899 – 2 July 1977) was a Russian-American novelist.Nabokov's first nine novels were in Russian. He then rose to international prominence as a writer of English prose. He also made serious contributions as a lepidopterist and chess composer.
Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is his most famous novel, and often considered his finest work in English. It exhibits the love of intricate word play and synesthetic detail that characterised all his works. The novel was ranked at No. 4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels. Pale Fire (1962) was ranked at No. 53 on the same list. His memoir, Speak, Memory, was listed No. 8 on the Modern Library nonfiction list. He was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times, but never won it.

April 21

Anastasia  Prikhodko ( born on April 21, 1987 in Kiev, Ukraine) is a Ukrainianfolk rock and traditional pop singer, known for her deep contralto. She won the Russian Star Factory contest in 2007. Prikhodko represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 on May 16, 2009 in Moscow finishing at the 11th position.

April 20

Konstantin Nikolaevich Lavronenko (Russian: Константи́н Никола́евич Лавро́ненко; b. 20 April 1961, Rostov-on-Don, Russia) is a Russian actor most commonly accredited for his performance as the mysterious father of two boys in 2003 film Vozvrashcheniye (international English title The Return). He won the Best Actor prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for The Banishment.

Yelena Välbe, née Trubitsyna (Russian: Елена Валерьевна Вяльбе (Трубицына), born 20 April 1968 in Magadan, Russian SFSR) is a Russian former cross-country skier. She has been president of the Russian Cross-Country Ski Association since 2010, and manager of the Russian cross-country team since 2012.

April 19

Maria Sharapova was born on the 19^th of April in 1987. She is a Russian professional tennis player. As of March 4, 2013 she is ranked world no. 3. A United States resident since 1994, Sharapova has won 27 WTA singles titles, including four Grand Slam singles titles. She has also won the year-end WTA Tour Championships in 2004. The Women's Tennis Association has ranked Sharapova world no. 1 in singles on five separate occasions, for a total of 21 weeks. She became the world no. 1 for the first time on August 22, 2005, and regained the ranking for the fifth time on June 11, 2012. She has been in seven Grand Slam finals with a record of 4–3. Sharapova made her professional breakthrough in 2004 at age 17, when she defeated two-time defending champion and top seed Serena Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final for her first Grand Slam singles title. Sharapova has been featured in a number of modeling assignments, including a feature in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. She has been featured in many advertisements, including for Nike, Prince, and Canon, and is the face of several fashion houses, most notably Cole Haan. Since February 2007, she has been a United Nations Development Programme Goodwill Ambassador, concerned specifically with the Chernobyl Recovery and Development Programme. In June 2011, she was named one of the "30 Legends of Women's Tennis: Past, Present and Future" by Time, and in March 2012 was named one of the "100 Greatest of All Time" by Tennis Channel.

Oksana Akinshina (born 19 April 1987) is a Russian actress. She is probably best known for her roles in films “Sisters”, “Lilya 4-ever”, “The Bourne Supremacy”, and “Hipsters”. Starting acting at age 12, Akinshina was discovered by Sergei Bodrov, Jr., and she made her screen debut in the Russian crime film “Sisters” (2001). Her second film, “Lilya 4-Ever” (2001), earned her a 2002 European Film Award nomination for Best Actress. She lost, however, to the eight actresses of the film “8 Women” (2002), directed by François Ozon. For her role in “Lilya 4-Ever”, she also received the award for Best Actress in Leading Role from the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden's national film awards. Since then Akinshina has acted in the films “Het Zuiden”, directed by Martin Koolhoven, and “The Bourne Supremacy” (2004), directed by Paul Greengrass.

April 18

Elena Vladimirovna Temnikova was born 18 April 1985. He is a Russian singer. She came to prominence as a contestant in the talent show Star Factory and as one of the three members of the Russian girl group Serebro.

Temnikova started to study music when she was five years old; she was playing violin and singing in thechoir. Temnikova came to media prominence as a contestant on Channel One talents show Star Factory in 2003. She was spotted by Maxim Fadeev, the main producer of Star Factory, and signed a recording contract with Fadeev's recording company Monolit Records.

Although Temnikova released two disco singles, "Begi" and "Taina", she did not continue her solo career, and did not release a solo album. She instead joined Serebro, a girl group formed by Fadeev. In an interview for the magazine In Style, in February 2008, Temnikova said: "After Star Factory, Maxim Fadeev offered me a new job. He offered me to be lead singer in girl band. I decided to do it, and we together found second and third member". Olga Seryabkina and Marina Lizorkina also joined the group.

Serebro — consisting of Temnikova, Olga Seryabkina and Marina Lizorkina — represented Russia in theEurovision Song Contest 2007 with the song "Song #1" and won the 3rd place, behind Serbia and Ukraine.

After their successful performance at the Eurovision Song Contest, Serebro has rapidly become one of the most successful artists in Russia. After "Song #1", they also released number-one singles "Дыши", "Опиум" and "Скажи, не молчи".After a release delay of their debut album, Opiumroz, it was finally released on 25 April 2009, and was presented at the band's concert in Bolshoi Theatre. Serebro was supported by other musicians, including by Russian entrant at the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 Yulia Savicheva; Opiumroz was prepared for two years.  Currently, Karpova, Seryabkina and Temnikova are currently working on their second album.

April 17

Stanislav Chistov

Prior to playing professionally, Chistov played for the Georgetown Raiders Junior A hockey club in Georgetown, Ontario.

Chistov began his career in the Avangard Omsk organization, playing for their Russian Hockey Super League team in Omsk from 1999–2002. In the 2001 NHL Entry Draft, Chistov was drafted fifth overall by the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (now known as the Anaheim Ducks). While military obligations complicated Chistov's transfer to North America, he and fellow draftee Alexander Frolov managed to defect from Russia in 2002.

In his rookie season in the NHL (2002–03), Chistov managed 30 points in 79 regular season games. The next year, Chistov struggled, and he was sent down to Anaheim's American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate at the time, the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks. He remained there for the NHL's lockout season of 2004–05, until he decided he did not want to play in the minor pros, and he and the club parted ways.

Chistov returned to Russia for the 2005–06 season, where he enjoyed a solid campaign playing on Evgeni Malkin's line for the Super League's Metallurg Magnitogorsk. In the summer of 2006, Chistov signed a two-year, one-way contract with the Anaheim Ducks. On November 13, 2006, Chistov was traded to the Boston Bruins for a third round draft pick in the 2008 NHL entry draft. In the summer of 2007, Chistov decided to sign with Salavat Yulaev Ufa of the Russian Super League. As of February 2008, Chistov has parted ways with Salavat Yulaev Ufa but has not been taken back by the Boston Bruins. According to GM Peter Chiarelli, there is no room for Chistov at this time. However, Chistov was reportedly skating with the Bruins' minor league affiliate, the Providence Bruins.

On August 23, 2008, he moved from Avangard Omsk to Metallurg Magnitogorsk.

April 16

Nikolay Pavlovich Akimov (April 16, 1901, – September 16, 1968) was an experimental theatre director and scenic designer noted for his work with the Leningrad Comedy Theatre. His most notorious production was the cynical version of Hamlet (1932), with Ophelia as a drunken prostitute and the king's ghost as a clever mystification arranged by Hamlet. Akimov, who was the Comedy Theater director in 1935-1949 and 1956-1968, wrote several books, among themAbout Theater and Not Just About Theater , and was designated a People's Artist of the USSR in 1960.

Yevgeny Valerianovich Samoilov (16 April 1912, St. Petersburg — 17 February 2006, Moscow) was a Soviet actor who gained prominence in youthful heroic parts and was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1974. He is the father of Tatiana Samoilova.

Ivan Andreevich Urgant (born 16 April 1978) is a Russian television personality, showman, and an actor.Ivan Urgant was born in Leningrad in a family of actors Andrey Urgant (son of Nina Urgant and Leo Milinder) and Valeriya Kiseleva. He graduated fromSaint Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy.

In the late 1990s Ivan Urgant was a leader of Maxim Leonidov's soul project nicknamed Vnuk (Russian: Внук - Grandson).Ivan also judged KVN games several times.In 2007, 2008, and 2010 Ivan Urgant was awarded TEFI.On May 16, 2009 he presented the final of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest with former Russian Eurovision participant Alsou.I n 2012 Ivan released his first solo album called "Estrada" under the name Grisha Urgant.

April 15

Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilev was born this day. He was an influential Russian poet who founded the acmeism movement.Nikolai was born in the town of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, into the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilev (1836–1920), a naval physician, and Anna Ivanovna L'vova (1854–1942). His childhood nickname was Montigomo the Hawk's Claw.He studied at the gymnasium of Tsarskoe Selo, where theSymbolist poet Innokenty Annensky was his teacher. Later, Gumilev admitted that it was Annensky's influence that turned his mind to writing poetry.




In 1910, Gumilev fell under the spell of the Symbolist poet and philosopher Vyacheslav Ivanov and absorbed his views on poetry at the evenings held by Ivanov in his celebrated "Turreted House". His wife Anna Akhmatova accompanied him to Ivanov's parties as well. Gumilev and Akhmatova married on April 25. On September 18, 1912, their child Lev was born. He would eventually become an influential and controversial historian.


Dissatisfied with the vague mysticism of Russian Symbolism, then prevalent in the Russian poetry, Gumilev and Sergei Gorodetsky established the so-called Guild of Poets, which was modeled after medieval guilds of Western Europe. They advocated a view that poetry needs craftsmanship just like architecture needs it. Writing a good poem they compared to building a cathedral. To illustrate their ideals, Gumilev published two collections, The Pearls in 1910 and the Alien Sky in 1912. It was Osip Mandelstam, however, who produced the movement's most distinctive and durable monument, the collection of poems entitled Stone (1912).


According to the principles of acmeism (as the movement came to be dubbed by art historians), every person, irrespective of his talent, may learn to produce high-quality poems if only he follows the guild's masters, i.e., Gumilev and Gorodetsky. Their own model was Théophile Gautier, and they borrowed much of their basic tenets from the French Parnasse. Such a program, combined with colourful and exotic subject matter of Gumilev's poems, attracted to the Guild a large number of adolescents. Several major poets, notably Georgy Ivanov and Vladimir Nabokov, passed the school of Gumilev, albeit informally.

April 14

Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (Russian: Дени́с Ива́нович Фонви́зин, from German: von Wiesen; 14 April [O.S. 3 April] 1744 or 1745 – 12 December [O.S. 1 December] 1792) was a playwright of the Russian Enlightenment, whose plays are still staged today. His main works are two satirical comedies which mock contemporary Russian gentry.

April 13

Tatyana Aleksandrovna Navka (born April 13, 1975 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR) is a Russian ice dancer who has also competed for the Soviet Union and Belarus. With partner Roman Kostomarov, she is the 2006 Olympic Champion, two-time World champion (2004–05), three-time Grand Prix Final champion (2003–05), and three-time European champion (2004–06).

Tatiana Navka became interested in skating at the age of five after seeing it on television.

April 12

Cosmonautics Day is a holiday celebrated in Russia and some other former USSR countries on April 12. This holiday celebrates the first manned space flight made on April 12, 1961 by the 27-year-old Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Gagarin circled the Earth for 1 hour and 48 minutes aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft. Coincidentally, it is also the anniversary of the first Space Shuttle launch that occurred 20 years after the historic Vostok flight.
The holiday was established in the Soviet Union one year later, on April 9, 1962. In modern Russia, it is celebrated in accordance with Article 1.1 of the Law "On the Days of Military Glory and the Commemorative Dates in Russia". Gagarin's flight was a major success for the Soviet space program, and opened a new era in the history of space exploration. Gagarin became a national hero of the Soviet Union and eastern bloc and a famous figure around the world. Major newspapers around the globe published his biography and details of his flight. Moscow and other cities in the USSR held parades, the scale of which were second only to WWII Victory Parades. Gagarin was escorted in a long motorcade of high-ranking officials through the streets of Moscow to the Kremlin where, in a lavish ceremony, he was awarded the highest Soviet honour, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.

Until today the commemoration ceremony on Cosmonautics Day starts in the city of Korolyov, near Gagarin's statue. Participants then proceed under police escort to Red Square for a visit to Gagarin's grave in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, and continue to Cosmonauts Alley, near the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. Finally, the festivities are concluded with a visit to the Novodevichy Cemetery.
On April 7, 2011 United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring April 12 as the International Day of Human Space Flight.

April 11

Sergei Vasilievich Lukyanenko (born 11 April 1968) is a science fiction and fantasy author, writing in Russian, and is one of the most popular contemporary Russian sci-fi writers. His works often feature intense action-packed plots, interwoven with the moral dilemma of keeping one's humanity while being strong.
Lukyanenko is hort stories. Recently his works have been adapted into film productions, for which he wrote the screenplays. He was also a blogger, keeping a blog at LiveJournal, and posting both personal and public information or snippets of a book in progress. His first blog was discontinued on 11 July 2008 after a conflict with readers over the issue of foreign (American) adoptions of Russian children. He started another blog a few days later, promising firmer moderation policies.

April 10

Izabella Akhatovna "Bella" Akhmadulina (Russian: Бе́лла (Изабе́лла) Аха́товна Ахмаду́лина,; 10 April 1937 – 29 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian poet, short story writer, and translator, known for her apolitical writing stance. She was part of the Russian New Wave literary movement. She was cited by Joseph Brodsky as the best living poet in the Russian language.
Despite the aforementioned apolitical stance of her writing, Akhmadulina was often critical of authorities in the Soviet Union, and spoke out in favour of others, including Nobel laureates Boris Pasternak, Andrei Sakharov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. She was known to international audiences via her travels abroad during the Khrushchev Thaw, during which she made appearances in sold-out stadiums. Upon her death in 2010 at the age of 73, President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev hailed her poetry as a "classic of Russian literature."
The New York Times said Akhmadulina was "always recognized as one of the Soviet Union's literary treasures and a classic poet in the long line extending from Lermontov and Pushkin." Sonia I. Ketchian, writing in The Poetic Craft of Bella Akhmadulina, called her "one of the great poets of the 20th century. There's Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Mandelstam, and Pasternak – and she's the fifth".

April 9

Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (Russian: Ви́ктор Степа́нович Черномы́рдин, 9 April 1938 – 3 November 2010) was the founder and the first chairman of the Gazprom energy company, the longest serving Prime Minister of Russia (1992–1998) and Acting President of Russia for a day in 1996. He was a key figure in Russian politics in the 1990s, and a participant in the Russian transition from a planned to a market economy. From 2001 to 2009, he was Russia's ambassador to Ukraine. After that he was designated as a presidential adviser.
Chernomyrdin is known in Russia and Russian-speaking countries for his unique language style, containing numerous malapropisms and syntactic errors.Many of his sayings became aphorisms and idioms in the Russian language, the most famous being his expression "We meant to do better, but it came out as always" (Russian: Хотели как лучше, а получилось как всегда).
Chernomyrdin died on 3 November 2010 after a long illness. He was buried beside his wife in Novodevichy Cemetery on 5 November, and his funeral was broadcast live on Russian federal TV channels.

April 8

Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky (Russian: Сергей Леонидович Магнитский; 8 April 1972 – 16 November 2009) was a Russian accountant andauditor whose arrest and subsequent death in custody generated international media attention and triggered both official and unofficial inquiries into allegations of fraud, theft and human rights violations. Magnitsky had alleged there was a large-scale systematic theft from the Russian state sanctioned and carried out by Russian officials. He was arrested and eventually died in prison seven days before the expiration of the one year term during which he could be legally held without trial. In total, Magnitsky served 358 days in Moscow's notorious Butyrka prison. He developed gall stones, pancreatitis and a blocked gall bladder and received inadequate medical care. A human rights council set up by the Kremlin found that he was beaten up just before he died. The Independent 19 March 2013 His case has become an international cause célèbre and led to the adoption of the Magnitsky bill by the US government at the end of 2012. Russian officials believed to be involved in the lawyer’s death were barred from entering the United States or using its banking system. In response Russia blocked hundreds of foreign adoptions. In early January 2013, the Financial Times editorialised that "the Magnitsky case is egregious, well documented and encapsulates the darker side of Putinism" and endorsed the idea of imposing similar sanctions against the implicated Russian officials by the EU countries.

In 2013 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a D.C-based nonprofit news organization, obtained records of companies and trusts created by two offshore companies which included information on at least 23 companies linked to an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia, a case that was being investigated by Sergei Magnitsky. The ICIJ investigation also revealed that the husband of one of the Russian tax officials deposited millions in a Swiss bank account set up by one of the offshore companies.

April 7

Anna Bogomazova

Anna Bogomazova (born 7 April 1990) is a Russian kickboxer, martial artist, professional wrestler and valet. She is currently signed to WWE competing in their developmental territory NXT Wrestling, under the ring name Anya.

April 6

Surikov Ivan Zakharovich 

Surikov Ivan Zakharovich born Mar. 25 (Apr. 6), 1841, in the village of Novoselovo, Uglich District, Yaroslavl Province; died Apr. 24 (May 6), 1880, in Moscow. Russian poet.

The son of an enserfed peasant, Surikov lived in poverty, first as a tradesman in Moscow with his father beginning in 1849 and later as the owner of a small grocery store. He taught himself to read and write and to compose poetry. In 1862, Surikov met A. N. Pleshcheev, who helped develop his talent.

Surikov began publishing in 1864; three collections of his poems appeared in 1871, 1875, and 1877. His poetry dealt mainly with the hard life of impoverished village and city dwellers. Surikov’s simple, melodious lyrics, which at first depicted everyday life, later expressed social protest; examples are “The Laborer” and “To a Toiling Brother.” His works drawn from Russian history reflected rebellious sentiments, for example, the narrative poems The Execution of Sten’ka Razin and Sadko; the latter was the basis of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera of the same name.

Many of Surikov’s poems dealt with children and with the Russian landscape. His work is related to the democratic tradition in Russian literature and to folklore. Some of his poems have become popular folk songs, for example, “The Mountain Ash” (“Why do you sway”) and “In the Steppe” (in the popular version, “All Around There Is Only the Steppe”). On Surikov’s initiative, the joint collection The Dawn (1872) was published; its appearance marked the establishment of the Surikov Literary and Musical Circle.

«Тонкая рябина»

"Что шумишь, качаясь,

Тонкая рябина,

Низко наклоняясь

Головою к тыну?"

- "С ветром речь веду я

О своей невзгоде,

Что одна расту я

В этом огороде.

Грустно, сиротинка,

Я стою, качаюсь,

Что к земле былинка,

К тыну нагибаюсь.

Там, за тыном, в поле,

Над рекой глубокой,

На просторе, в воле,

Дуб растет высокий.

Как бы я желала

К дубу перебраться;

Я б тогда не стала

Гнуться да качаться.

Близко бы ветвями

Я к нему прижалась

И с его листами

День и ночь шепталась.

Нет, нельзя рябинке

К дубу перебраться!

Знать, мне, сиротинке,

Век одной качаться".

<1864>

April 5

Evelyna Visvaldovna Bledans - Soviet and Russian theater and film actress, singer, TV presenter.
 Bledans Evelyn was born in Yalta in a family with Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Latvian, German and Jewish roots. Father - Visvaldis Karlovic Bledans Latvian by birth, photographer. Mother - Tomila N., Latvian German descent.

April 4

Arkady Arkadyevich Vyatchanin 

 

(Russian: Аркадий Аркадьевич Вятча́нин) (born 4 April 1984) is a Russian backstroke swimmer. Vyatchanin has lived and trained in Taganrog since 1999 and is a student of the South Federal University. Vyatchanin has been a member of the Russian National Team since 2000.

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky

 

  (Russian: Андре́й Арсе́ньевич Тарко́вский; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director. Tarkovsky's films include Andrei Rublev, Solaris, The Mirror, and Stalker. He directed the first five of his seven feature films in the Soviet Union; his last two films were produced in Italy and Sweden, respectively. They are characterized by spirituality and metaphysical themes, long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure, and distinctively authored use of cinematography.

April 3

Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky (Russian: Ива́н Васи́льевич Кире́евский; 3 April 1806, Moscow – 23 June 1856, Saint Petersburg) was a Russian literary critic and philosopher who, together with Aleksey Khomyakov, is credited as a co-founded of the Slavophile movement.

April 2

International Children's Book Day is a yearly event sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), an international non-profit organization. Founded in 1967, the day is observed on or around Hans Christian Andersen's birthday, April 2. Activities include writing competitions, announcements of book awards and events with authors of children's literature.

Unity of People of Russia and Belarus Day

April, 1

April Fools' Day is celebrated in many countries on April 1 every year. Sometimes referred to as All Fools' Day, April 1 is not a national holiday, but is widely recognized and celebrated as a day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other.
In Russia, we have always respected the good humor and a healthy laughter. In the first warm days (which approximately begin in the beginning of April) the ancient Slavs went out to "scare" the winter away. They dressed in animal skins, wore masks and staged noisy presentations accompanied by laughter. Well, the actual April Fool's Day was first introduced by Peter I. Since then, this unofficial holiday in Russia has been adored both by adults and children. To mark April 1 in Russia means charging with positive emotions for the upcoming year. Perhaps it is only in this country that they treat humor so "seriously" and cannot imagine the holiday without the funny practical jokes. The joke might be kind, funny and even extreme, if you want, but in the end it all should end in laughter with tears (of joy, of course). Besides, on April 1 in Moscow and other Russian cities they arrange various comedy shows and concerts, which are worth visiting in order to experience unforgettable pleasure.