Famous people from Belarus
Here is a list of famous people from Belarus. Curious if anybody from Belarus made it our most famous people in the world list? Read the aformentioned article in order to find out.
Victoria Azarenka
Tennis Player
Victoria Azarenka is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She is a former World No. 1 and she is currently World No. 2 as of 5 August 2013. She has won two Australian Open singles titles, becoming the first Belarusian player to win a Grand Slam in singles. Her other achievements include winning the bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, two mixed doubles Grand Slam titles—the 2007 US Open with Max Mirnyi, the 2008 French Open with Bob Bryan—and the gold medal in the mixed doubles at the 2012 London Olympics with Max Mirnyi.
Marc Chagall
Painting Artist
Marc Zakharovich Chagall was a Russian-French artist. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.
Shimon Peres
Politician
Shimon Peres is a Polish-born Israeli statesman. He is the ninth and current President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as the Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and, except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, served continuously until 2007, when he became President. He held several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after Israel's War of Independence. His first high-level government position was as Deputy Director-General of Defense in 1952, and Director-General from 1953 until 1959. During his career, he has represented five political parties in the Knesset: Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labor and Kadima, and has led Alignment and Labor. Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks that he participated in as Israeli Foreign Minister, producing the Oslo Accords. Peres was nominated in early 2007 by Kadima to run in that year's presidential election, and was elected by the Knesset to the presidency on 13 June 2007 and sworn into office on 15 July 2007 for a seven-year term. He is the first former Prime Minister to be elected President of Israel.
Lev Vygotsky
Psychologist
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Soviet Russian-Belarusian psychologist, the founder of a theory of human cultural and biosocial development commonly referred to as cultural-historical psychology, and leader of the Vygotsky Circle. Vygotsky's main work was in developmental psychology, and he proposed a theory of the development of higher cognitive functions in children that saw the emergence of the reasoning as emerging through practical activity in a social environment. During the earlier period of his career he argued that the development of reasoning was mediated by signs and therefore contingent on cultural practices and language as well as on universal cognitive processes. Vygotsky also posited a concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, often understood to refer to the way in which the acquisition of new knowledge is dependent on previous learning, as well as the availability of instruction. During his lifetime Vygotsky's theories were controversial within the Soviet Union. In the 1930s Vygotsky's ideas were introduced in the West where they remained virtually unknown until 1970s when they became a central component of the development of new paradigms in developmental and educational psychology. While initially Vygotsky's theories were ignored in the West, they are today widely known, although scholars do not always agree with them, or agree about what he meant. The early 21st century has seen a trend towards reevaluating scholarly understandings of many of Vygotsky's central concepts and theories.
Menachem Begin
Military Commander
Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections, but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labour Party political dominance. Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which was captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion, Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.
Alexander Lukashenko
Politician
Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko is President of Belarus, having assumed the post on 20 July 1994. Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm and spent time with the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army. When he first entered politics, he was seen as a champion against corruption and was the only deputy to vote against the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union. Lukashenko's resistance to Western-backed "shock therapy" during the post-Soviet transition has met great resistance from the U.S. and Europe. Belarus is labelled as 'Europe's last dictatorship' by much of the West. Western governments accuse Lukashenko of an authoritarian style of government. Lukashenko responds that his policies are the only alternative to instability, and have spared Belarus from the poverty seen elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and from powerful networks of organized crime known as the "Russian mafia." Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials are also the subject of sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States for alleged human rights violations off and on since 2006. Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, under Lukashenko's leadership, Belarus has largely maintained government control over key industries and eschewed the large-scale privatizations seen in other former Soviet republics.
Alexander Rybak
Pop Artist
Alexander Igoryevich Rybak or in Belarusian Alyaxandr Igaravich Rybak, born 13 May 1986 in Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union is a Norwegian-Belarusian singer-composer, violinist, pianist, writer, and actor. Representing Norway in the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Russia, Rybak won the contest with 387 points—the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed. His debut album, Fairytales, charted in the top 20 in nine European countries, including a No. 1 position in Norway and Russia.
Max Mirnyi
Tennis Player
Maxim Mirnyi is a professional tennis player from Belarus. Today Mirnyi is a doubles specialist, but he also enjoyed a good singles career, reaching a career-high of World No. 18 and finishing in the top 50 in the world for seven straight years, as well as representing Belarus in Davis Cup competition since April 1994, where he holds a record of 47 wins and 27 losses in 35 ties played. Mirnyi reached the World No. 1 doubles ranking in June 2003 and holds ten Grand Slam titles: Men's Doubles in the 2000 and 2002 US Open and in the 2005, 2006, 2011 and 2012 French Open; and mixed doubles in the 1998, 2007, and 2013 U.S. Opens and 1998 Wimbledon. He earned the nickname "The Beast" during his time on tour. Mirnyi has played with a host of doubles partners, namely forming long-term partnerships with Mahesh Bhupathi, Jonas Björkman, Lleyton Hewitt, Jamie Murray, Andy Ram, and Daniel Nestor, and short-term partnerships with other top competitors on the doubles tour and the top singles tennis player Roger Federer. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Mirnyi carried the flag of Belarus at the Opening Ceremony on 27 July 2012, and won the Gold medal in the Mixed Doubles with Victoria Azarenka on 5 August 2012.
Olga Govortsova
Tennis Player
Olga Govortsova is a professional Belarusian tennis player. Her highest WTA singles ranking was world number 35, which she reached on 23 June 2008.
Meyer Lansky
Gangster
Meyer Lansky, known as the "Mob's Accountant", was a major organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the "National Crime Syndicate" in the United States. For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful individuals in the country. Lansky developed a gambling empire which stretched across the seas. He was said to own points in casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba, The Bahamas and London. Although a member of the Jewish Mob, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld. Despite all the reports, the U.S. Justice Department never found Lansky guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling.
Artem Milevskiy
Soccer
Artem Volodymyrovych Milevskiy is a Ukrainian football striker who currently playing for Turkish club Gaziantepspor. Master of Sports of Ukraine, International Class. He is also a Ukrainian international. Milevskiy is known for his technical ability and physical bulk that allows him to play with a quicker forward.
Natasha Zvereva
Tennis Tournament Champion
Natasha Zvereva, or Zverava, is a former tennis player from Belarus. Zvereva was the first major athlete in the Soviet Union to demand publicly that she should be able to keep her tournament earnings. The team of Zvereva and Gigi Fernández won more women's doubles titles and Grand Slam women's doubles championships than any other team since the team of Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver. Navratilova, speaking of the abilities of the two teams, said that she and Shriver were better, but "We were power. They are finesse. It would have been close." Zvereva is currently the captain of the Belarusian Fed Cup team. On 12 July 2010, Zvereva was inducted in the International Tennis Hall of Fame alongside Fernandez.
Alexander Hleb
Soccer
Alyaksandr Paulavich Hleb commonly referred to in English as Alexander Hleb, is a Belarusian footballer who currently plays for FC BATE Borisov. His natural and preferred position is attacking midfielder or 'in the hole' behind the strikers, but he is often deployed on the wing.
Andrei Arlovski
Martial Artist
Andrei Valeryevich Arlovski, nicknamed The Pit Bull, is a Belarusian mixed martial artist, actor and former UFC Heavyweight Champion, who currently competes in the World Series of Fighting he has also competed for Strikeforce, Affliction, EliteXC, ONE FC, and M-1 Challenge. Arlovski is also the only man to ever knockout Roy Nelson. In the ring, he is known for his extremely fast hands and knockout power.
Ryszard Kapuściński
Journalist
Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsk—now in Belarus—in the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that he felt at home in Africa as "food was scarce there too and everyone was also barefoot". Kapuściński himself called his work "literary reportage", and reportage d'auteur. In the English-speaking world, his genre is sometimes characterised as "magic journalism", a term coined for him by Adam Hochschild in 1994. More recently, during the period since his death, scholars have indicated the similarities between Kapuściński's style of writing and the traditional Polish form known as the gawęda szlachecka. He was one of the top Polish writers most frequently translated into foreign languages, having been surpassed on this count only by the Nobel Prize-winner Wisława Szymborska.
Chaim Weizmann
Politician
Chaim Azriel Weizmann was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was also a chemist who developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation. He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
Andrei Gromyko
Diplomat
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1988. In the 1940s Western pundits called him Mr. Nyet, because of his frequent use of the Soviet veto in the UN Security Council. Gromyko's political career started in 1939 with his employment at the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. In 1943 Gromyko became the Soviet ambassador to the United States, leaving in 1946 to become the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Upon his return to the Soviet Union he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952. Gromyko played a direct role in the Cuban Missile Crisis in his role as the Soviet Foreign Minister. Gromyko helped negotiate arms limitations treaties such as the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and SALT I and II among others. Under Leonid Brezhnev's leadership Gromyko helped build the policy of détente between the US and the USSR. He supported Mikhail Gorbachev's candidacy for General Secretary in 1985. Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister when Gorbachev became General Secretary, and was instead appointed to the largely ceremonial office of head of state. Gromyko retired from political life in 1988 and died the following year in Moscow.
Olga Korbut
Olympic athlete
Olga Valentinovna Korbut, also known as the "Sparrow from Minsk", is a Belarusian former gymnast who won four gold medals and two silver medals at the Summer Olympic Games, in which she competed in 1972 and 1976 for the Soviet team.
Yitzhak Shamir
Politician
Yitzhak Shamir (help·info) (Hebrew: יצחק שמיר, born Icchak Jaziernicki; 15 October 1915 - 30 June 2012) was a former Israeli politician, the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, in 1983–84 and 1986–92. Shamir was born in Ruzhany (Yiddish: Rozhinoy, Polish: Różana), Russian Empire (now Belarus). He studied at a Hebrew High School in Białystok, Poland. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement. He studied at the law faculty of Warsaw University, but cut his studies short to immigrate to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1935, after settling in Palestine, he Hebraized his surname to Shamir. In 1944 he married Shulamit Shamir (1923 – July 29, 2011),[1] whom he met in a detention camp. Shulamit immigrated to Mandate Palestine from Bulgaria on a rickety boat in 1941 and was sent to prison because she entered the country illegally. They had two children, Yair and Gilada.[2] Shulamit died on July 29, 2011.[3]
Chaim Soutine
Painting Artist
Chaïm Soutine was a French painter of Belarusian Jewish origin. Soutine made a major contribution to the expressionist movement while living in Paris. Inspired by classic painting in the European tradition, exemplified by the works of Rembrandt, Chardin and Courbet, Soutine developed an individual style more concerned with shape, color, and texture over representation, which served as a bridge between more traditional approaches and the developing form of Abstract Expressionism.
Louis B. Mayer
Film Producer
Louis Burt Mayer was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. He was one of the founders of AMPAS famous for its "Oscars" Academy Award. Known always as Louis B. Mayer and often simply as "L.B.", he believed in wholesome entertainment and went to great lengths so that MGM had "more stars than there are in the heavens".
Anatoly Chubais
Politician
Anatoly Borisovich Chubais is a Russian politician and businessman who was responsible for privatization in Russia as an influential member of Boris Yeltsin's administration in the early 1990s. During this period, he was a key figure in introducing market economy and the principles of private ownership to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. From 1998 to 2008, he headed the state-owned electrical power monopoly RAO UES, while a 2004 survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Financial Times named him the world's 54th most respected business leader. Currently, he is the head of the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation. He has been a member of the Advisory Council for JPMorgan Chase since September 2008 and a member of global board of advisers at the Council on Foreign Relations since October 2012.
Zhores Alferov
Physicist
Zhores Ivanovich Alferov is a Belarusian, Soviet and Russian physicist and academic who contributed significantly to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. He is the inventor of the heterotransistor and the winner of 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is also a Russian politician and has been a member of the Russian State Parliament, the Duma, since 1995. Lately, he has become one of the most influential members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
Dmitry Koldun
Pop Artist
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Koldun is a pop singer from Minsk, Belarus. Koldun participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 and has been the most successful entrant from Belarus to date. His song "Work Your Magic" was the first Belarusian song to enter the Eurovision final which later achieved sixth place and top chart positions in Eastern Europe.
Immanuel Velikovsky
Author
Immanuel Velikovsky was a Russian-Jewish psychiatrist and independent scholar, best known as the author of a number of controversial books reinterpreting the events of ancient history, in particular the US bestseller Worlds in Collision, published in 1950. Earlier, he played a role in the founding of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His books use comparative mythology and ancient literary sources to argue that Earth suffered catastrophic close contacts with other planets in ancient times. In positioning Velikovsky among catastrophists including Hans Bellamy, Ignatius Donnelly, and Johann Gottlieb Radlof, the British astronomers Victor Clube and Bill Napier noted "... Velikovsky is not so much the first of the new catastrophists ...; he is the last in a line of traditional catastrophists going back to mediaeval times and probably earlier." Velikovsky argued that electromagnetic effects play an important role in celestial mechanics. He also proposed a revised chronology for ancient Egypt, Greece, Israel and other cultures of the ancient Near East. The revised chronology aimed at explaining the so-called "dark age" of the eastern Mediterranean and reconciling biblical history with mainstream archaeology and Egyptian chronology.
Vilna Gaon
Rabbi
Elijah ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer, known as the Vilna Gaon or Elijah of Vilna, or by his Hebrew acronym Gra or Elijah Ben Solomon, was a Talmudist, halachist, kabbalist, and the foremost leader of non-hasidic Jewry of the past few centuries. He is commonly referred to in Hebrew as ha-Gaon ha-Chasid mi-Vilna, "the saintly genius from Vilnius." Through his annotations and emendations of Talmudic and other texts he became one of the most familiar and influential names in rabbinic study since the Middle Ages, counted by many among the sages known as the Acharonim, and ranked by some with the even more revered Rishonim of the Middle Ages. Large groups of people, including many yeshivas, uphold the set of Jewish customs and rites, the "minhag ha-Gra," which is named for him, and which is also considered by many to be the prevailing Ashkenazi minhag in Jerusalem. Born in Vilnius, capital city of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Gaon displayed extraordinary talent while still a child. By the time he was twenty years old, rabbis were submitting their most difficult halakhic problems to him for legal rulings. He was a prolific author, writing such works as glosses on the Babylonian Talmud and Shulchan Aruch known as Bi'urei ha-Gra, a running commentary on the Mishnah
Ossip Zadkine
Visual Artist
Ossip Zadkine was a Belarusian-born artist who lived in France. He is primarily known as a sculptor, but also produced paintings and lithographs.
Vasil Kiryienka
Professional Road Racing Cyclist
Vasili Kiryienka is a Belarusian racing cyclist, racing as of 2013 for UCI ProTeam Team Sky.
Darya Domracheva
Biathlete
Darya Vladimirovna Domracheva is a Belarusian biathlete who has been competing in the Biathlon World Cup since 2005. Darya Domracheva started her sports career with cross-country skiing in 1992 but switched to biathlon in 1999. She joined Belarus’ national biathlon team in 2006. Darya won sprint and pursuit at the 2005 IBU Youth and Junior World Championships in Kontiolahti. She finished 40th in the individual race Darya Domracheva took the 3rd place in the pursuit and the 4th place in the individual at the 2006 Junior World Championships in Presque Isle. In 2007 she picked up two silver medals in sprint and pursuit at the Junior World Championships in Vall Martello. Her definite breakthrough came during the 2008/2009 season when she earned two third places and one second place. At the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, she won the Bronze medal in the Women's 15 Kilometre Individual race, at the Whistler Olympic Park venue. Later in the same season, on 13 March, she won her first World Cup race in the sprint in Kontiolahti, Finland. The next day she also won the pursuit.
Stanisław Moniuszko
Opera Artist
Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. His output includes many popular art songs and operas, and his musical style is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He is generally referred to as the father of Polish national opera.
Aleksandr Dedyushko
Actor
Aleksandr Viktorovich Dedyushko was a Russian television actor, best known for war dramas and the Russian version of Dancing with the Stars. Born as Aliaksandr Dziadziushka in Vawkavysk, Hrodna Voblast, Belarus, he worked with the Vladimir City Theatre from 1989 until 1995. Starting in the early 2000s, Dedyushko became a popular Russian television presenter, actor and singer. Dedyushko was killed along with his wife and son in a car accident on November 3, 2007, in Petushki, Vladimir Oblast, Russia. Their car apparently skidded on an ice covered road.
Boris Gelfand
Chess Player
Boris Abramovich Gelfand is an Israeli chess Grandmaster. He won the 2011 Candidates Tournament and faced World Champion Viswanathan Anand for the World Chess Championship 2012. Although the match was level at 6–6, Gelfand lost in the rapid tie break games.
Gary Vaynerchuk
Entrepreneur
Gary Vaynerchuk is co-founder and CEO of a social media brand consulting agency, video blogger, co-owner and director of operations of a wine retail store, and an author and public speaker on the subjects of social media, brand building and e-commerce. Vaynerchuk immigrated to the U.S. in 1978, and moved with his family to Edison, New Jersey. After graduating from Mount Ida College in Newton, MA, transformed his father's Springfield Township, Union County, New Jersey liquor store into a retail wine store named Wine Library, and in 2006 started the video blog Wine Library TV, a daily internet webcast on the subject of wine. In August 2011, Vaynerchuk announced he would be stepping away from his daily wine video series to focus his attention on VaynerMedia, the social media brand consulting agency he co-founded in the Spring of 2009.
David Sarnoff
Businessperson
David Sarnoff was a Belarusian-born American businessman and pioneer of American radio and television. Throughout most of his career he led the Radio Corporation of America in various capacities from shortly after its founding in 1919 until his retirement in 1970. He ruled over an ever-growing telecommunications and consumer electronics empire that included both RCA and NBC, and became one of the largest companies in the world. Named a Reserve Brigadier General of the Signal Corps in 1945, Sarnoff thereafter was widely known as "The General." Sarnoff is credited with Sarnoff's law, which states that the value of a broadcast network is proportional to the number of viewers.
Marek Edelman
Military Person
Marek Edelman was a Jewish-Polish political and social activist and cardiologist. Before his death in 2009, Edelman was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Before World War II, he was a General Jewish Labour Bund activist. During the war he co-founded the Jewish Combat Organization. He took part in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, becoming its leader after the death of Mordechaj Anielewicz. He also took part in the city-wide 1944 Warsaw Uprising. After the war, Edelman remained in Poland and became a noted cardiologist. From the 1970s, he collaborated with the Workers' Defence Committee and other political groups opposing Poland's communist regime. As a member of Solidarity, he took part in the Polish Round Table Talks of 1989. Following the peaceful transformations of 1989, he was a member of various centrist and liberal parties. He also wrote books documenting the history of wartime resistance against the Nazi German occupation of Poland.
Angelica Agurbash
Pop Artist
Angelica Agurbash, born 17 May 1970, is a Belarusian singer and former model perhaps most known for representing Belarus at the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. Angelica Agurbash was born in Minsk, Belarussian SSR, Soviet Union. In 1988, she won the first Miss Belarus title when she was a student of the Belarusian Academy of Arts. Between 1990 and 1995, she was in the band Verasy. In 1991, Angelica earned her second title "Miss Photo USSR" becoming the most photoed model in Belarus. Since Angelica left Verasy, she has had numerous hit singles as well as releasing three albums - "Paper Moon", "Night Without a Dream" and "For You". In 2002, Angelica presented her brand-new album "The Farewell Kiss of Lika Yalinskaya" the same year. Angelica now lives in Korolev, Moscow. There is a well-equipped recording studio near her house. She has two children from her first marriage, daughter Dasha and son Nikita. On 12 August 2004, she gave birth to her third child Anastas. Angelica Agurbash was the Belarusian Eurovision Song Contest entrant in 2005. Her original song, Boys and Girls, a rock ballad themed after the Beslan school hostage crisis, was chosen by a jury after a pre-selection vote by Belarusian viewers. However, due to the song's poor reception across Europe, the Belarusian state broadcaster decided in a highly unusual move to allow Angelica to sing a different song in Kiev. Agurbash ordered songs from two composers with successful Eurovision records: the Israeli author of 1998 winner Diva Svika Pick, and the author of Antique's hit Die For You Nikos Terzis. After long hesitation, Agurbash picked the Greek disco anthem Love Me Tonight. The song change succeeded in producing hype around the Belarusian entry, to which added also a transformer dress, inspired by Marie N's victory in 2002. She entered the show amongst the pre show favourites. However, in the contest she did not fare as well as expected, failing to make it past the semi-finals. Love Me Tonight ended a lowly 13th out of 25.
Vitaly Scherbo
Olympic athlete
Vitaly Venediktovich Scherbo, born 13 January 1972 in Minsk, Byelorussian SSR, is a Belarusian former artistic gymnast. One of the most successful gymnasts of all time, he is the only male gymnast ever to have won a world title in all 8 events. He was the most successful athlete at the 1992 Summer Olympics, winning 6 of 8 events - team, all-around, and 4 of 6 event finals.
Nadzeya Ostapchuk
Olympic athlete
Nadzeya Ostapchuk is a Belarusian shot putter. She briefly became the Olympic Champion in 2012, but was subsequently stripped of the title for failing a drug test and the gold medal was awarded to New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams. She was World Champion in 2005, but in March 2013, the IAAF reported that her drug test sample from that event had been retested and found to be positive. Ostapchuk was bronze medallist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and was the World Indoor and European Champion in 2010. Her overall personal best of 21.70 m makes her the third best athlete ever indoors. She is a four-time runner-up at the World Indoor Championships and a three-time World Championships silver medallist outdoors. She holds the Championship record for the former event, with her winning throw of 20.85 m in 2010. In continental competition, she was the 2005 European Indoor champion and came second at the 2006 European Athletics Championships. In addition to her medal in Beijing, she was fourth at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Simon Kuznets
Economist
Simon Smith Kuznets was a Russian American economist at Harvard University who won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development".
Zalman Shazar
Politician
Zalman Shazar was an Israeli politician, author. and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel from 1963 to 1973.
Yanka Kupala
Poet
Janka Kupala – was the pen name of Ivan Daminikavich Lutsevich, a Belarusian poet and writer. Kupala is considered one of the greatest Belarusian-language writers of the 20th century.
Svetlana Boginskaya
Olympic athlete
Svetlana Leonidovna Boginskaya is a Soviet/Unified Team/Belarusian gymnast. She was called the "Belarusian Swan" and the "Goddess of Gymnastics" because of her height, balletic grace, and long lines. Her last name derives from "boginya" literally meaning "goddess" in Russian. She is especially renowned for the drama and artistry she displayed on floor exercise. Boginskaya is a three-time Olympic Champion, winning an individual gold medal in Vault at the 1988, and team golds in 1988 and 1992.
Léon Bakst
Painting Artist
Léon Samoilovitch Bakst was a Russian painter and scene- and costume designer. He was a member of the Sergei Diaghilev circle and the Ballets Russes, for which he designed exotic, richly coloured sets and costumes. Born as Lev Samoilovich Rosenberg, he was also known as Leon Nikolayevich Bakst.
Siarhei Liakhovich
Professional Boxer
Siarhei "White Wolf" Liakhovich, is a Belarusian boxer and a former WBO heavyweight champion.
Otto Schmidt
Mathematician
Otto Yulyevich Schmidt was a Soviet scientist, mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, statesman, academician, Hero of the USSR, and member of the Communist Party.
Valeriya Novodvorskaya
Politician
Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya is a liberal Russian politician, Soviet dissident, the founder and the chairwoman of the "Democratic Union" party, and a member of the editorial board of The New Times.
Alexander Parvus
Politician
Alexander Lvovich Parvus, born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand, was a Marxist theoretician, revolutionary, and a controversial activist in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. He also is said to have acted as a German intelligence agent.
Ignacy Domeyko
Geologist
Ignacy Domeyko or Domejko was a Polish geologist, mineralogist and educator. Domeyko spent most of his life, and died, in his adopted country, Chile. After a youth passed in the partitioned Polish-Lithuanian lands, Domeyko participated in the November 1830 Uprising against the Russian Empire. Upon its suppression, he was forced into exile and spent part of his life in France before eventually settling in Chile, of which he became a citizen. He lived some 50 years in Chile and made major contributions to the study of that country's geography, geology and mineralogy. His observations on the circumstances of poverty-stricken miners and of their wealthy exploiters had a profound influence on those who would go on to shape Chile's labor movement. Domeyko is seen as having had close ties to several countries and thus in 2002, when UNESCO organized a series of commemorations of the 200th anniversary of his birth, he was referred to as "a citizen of the world".
Igor Gouzenko
Author
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West. This forced Prime Minister Mackenzie King to call a Royal Commission to investigate espionage in Canada. Gouzenko exposed Joseph Stalin's efforts to steal nuclear secrets, and the technique of planting sleeper agents. The "Gouzenko Affair" is often credited as a triggering event of the Cold War, with historian Jack Granatstein stating "Gouzenko was the beginning of the Cold War for public opinion" and journalist Robert Fulford writing "I am absolutely certain the Cold War began in Ottawa". The New York Times described Gouzenko's actions as having "awakened the people of North America to the magnitude and the danger of Soviet espionage."
Ksenia Sitnik
Children's Artist
Ksenia Mikhailovna Sitnik; born on 15 May 1995 in Mazyr, Belarus, sometimes also transliterated as Kseniya Sitnik or Xenia Sitnik, is a Belarusian child singer. She represented her home country in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2005, which she won with the self-penned song "My Vmeste".
Andrei Kostitsyn
Professional Ice hockey Player
Andrej Alehavič Kaścicyn, better known as Andrei Kostitsyn, is a Belarusian professional ice hockey forward who currently plays for Traktor Chelyabinsk in the Kontinental Hockey League. The media have nicknamed him AK-46, a play on his initials and player number in reference to the Soviet AK-47 rifle. His younger brother Sergei plays for Avangard Omsk. Both Andrei and Sergei played together on the Canadiens as well as the Predators.
Natalia Podolskaya
Pop Artist
Natalia Podolskaya is a Belarusian singer that performed for Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest on May 21, 2005 and was ranked No. 15. In 2008, she became a Russian citizen.
Alexey Ignashov
Man
Alexey "The Red Scorpion" Ignashov is a Belarusian Super Heavyweight kickboxer. He is a four-time Muay Thai World champion, K-1 World GP 2003 in Paris and K-1 World GP 2001 in Nagoya tournament champion. He is currently living in Auckland, New Zealand and training at Balmoral Lee Gar Gym under Lollo Heimuli.
Ruslan Salei
Professional Ice hockey Player
Ruslan Albertovich "Rusty" Salei was a Belarusian professional ice hockey player. Salei played 14 seasons in the National Hockey League for the Detroit Red Wings, Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, who selected him ninth overall in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft. Salei died on September 7, 2011, when a Yakovlev Yak-42 passenger aircraft, carrying the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team of the Kontinental Hockey League except for player Maxim Zyuzyakin and goaltending coach Jorma Valtonen, crashed near Yaroslavl on its way to Minsk, Belarus, to start the 2011–12 KHL season.
Mendele Mocher Sforim
Author
Mendele Mocher Sforim, originally Sholem Yankev Abramovich, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Hebrew literature.
Alyona Lanskaya
Pop Artist
Alyona Lanskaya is a Belarusian singer. In 2011, Alyona Lanskaya won the Slavianski Bazaar Contest in Vitebsk. Alyona represented Belarus in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö, Sweden with the song "Solayoh", qualifying from the semi-final of the competition and placing 16th in the final by scoring 48 points.
Abraham Foxman
Author
Abraham H. Foxman is a Soviet-born American lawyer. He is the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Aleksandra Gerasimenya
Swimmer
Aleksandra Viktorovna Gerasimenya is a swimmer from Belarus. She specialises in sprint freestyle and backstroke events. Despite a two-year ban for a positive test for norandrosterone in 2003, Gerasimenya returned to win gold medals at both the European and World Championships. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, she won silver medals in the 50 and 100 meter freestyle events.
Joseph B. Soloveitchik
Rabbi
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik was an American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a descendant of the Lithuanian Jewish Soloveitchik rabbinic dynasty. As a Rosh Yeshiva of Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University in New York City, The Rav, as he came to be known, ordained close to 2,000 rabbis over the course of almost half a century. He is widely viewed as having advocated the compatibility of Torah scholarship and Western, academic scholarship as well as positive involvement with the broader community. He served as an advisor, guide, mentor, and role-model for tens of thousands of Jews, both as a Talmudic scholar and as a religious leader. He is regarded as a seminal figure by Modern Orthodox Judaism, though it is questionable whether he would approve of many "Modern Orthodox" halachic and philosophical positions.
Sergei Kostitsyn
Professional Ice hockey Player
Siarhiej Alehavič Kaścicyn, better known as Sergei Kostitsyn, is a Belarusian professional ice hockey winger currently playing for Avangard Omsk in the Kontinental Hockey League. He has previously played with the Montreal Canadiens and the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League alongside his older brother Andrei.
Wilfrid Michael Voynich
Antiquarian
Wilfrid Michael Voynich, born Wilfrid Michał Habdank-Wojnicz, was a Polish revolutionary, British antiquarian and bibliophile, and the eponym of the Voynich manuscript.
Anna Smashnova
Tennis Player
Anna Smashnova is a former professional tennis player from Israel. She retired from professional tennis after Wimbledon 2007. Smashnova, who has been noted as having a great last name for a tennis player, reached her career-high singles ranking of world number 15 in 2003. She was in 13 finals, and won 12 of them. In addition, she won a junior Grand Slam championship. She speaks three languages: Russian, English, and Hebrew.
Vladimir Matyushenko
Martial Artist
Vladimir Vladimirovich Matyushenko is a Belarusian mixed martial artist currently competing in Bellator's Light Heavyweight division. He has also competed for the UFC, IFC, Affliction, Jungle Fight, and is the former IFL Light Heavyweight Champion.
Vitali Kutuzov
Soccer
Vitali Vladimirovich Kutuzov is a Belarusian football striker .
Leonid Kuchuk
Soccer
Leonid Kuchuk is a Belarusian football manager and former professional player. He currently manages Russian Premier League club Lokomotiv Moscow. He is the father of FC Yenisey Krasnoyarsk's Aliaksei Kuchuk in the Russian First Division.
Tuvia Bielski
Organization founder
Tuvia Bielski was the leader of the partisan group the Bielski partisans who were situated in the Naliboki forest in pre-war Poland during World War II.
Yisrael Meir Kagan
Rabbi
Yisrael Meir, known popularly as The Chofetz Chaim, was an influential Lithuanian Jewish rabbi of the Musar movement, a Halakhist, posek, and ethicist whose works continue to be widely influential in Jewish life. His surname, Poupko, is not widely known.
Boris Moiseev
Pop Artist
Boris Mikhaylovich Moiseev is a Russian singer, choreographer, dancer, writer, actor, head of dance group and author of popular shows in Russia.
Pola Raksa
Actor
Pola Raksa is a Polish movie star, singer, model who was especially popular in Poland and abroad in the 1960s and 1970s. The daughter of Edward Raksa, Pola was born in Lida on April 14, 1941. Her parents left Nazi-occupied territory in 1943 and after the World War II settled in Wrocław. Her career started in the 1950s, when she was spotted by a reporter of the Dookoła Świata magazine in a bar mleczny. He took some shots of her and Raksa appeared in the magazine as Girl of the Week. Soon afterwards, she was offered her first cameos in movies. After graduating from the Liceum ogólnokształcące No.1 in Wrocław, she studied in the Wroclaw University, Department of Philologie. Raksa participated in the student theater Kalambur. Later she changed her major and moved to Łódź, to the National Film School in Łódź. She graduated in 1964 and in the same year debuted on stage. Between 1964 and 1968, she played in Teatr Powszechny in Łódź, then moved to Warsaw, to play in Teatr Wspolczesny. In 2003 readers of the Super Express daily chose her the best of all Polish blonde actresses. Raksa was awarded several prizes. Have a son, Marcin Kostenko, with her first husband, Andrzej Kostenko.
Francysk Skaryna
Deceased Person
Francysk Skaryna was a Belarusian humanist, physician, translator and one of the first book printers in Eastern Europe, laying groundwork for the development of the Belarusian language. He was into the family of a wealthy merchant in Polatsk, then a major trade and manufacturing center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Francysk Skaryna had an older brother named Ivan, also a merchant. The brothers had a property in Polatsk, perhaps it was ancestral.
Yakub Kolas
Poet
Yakub Kolas, real name Kanstancin Mickievič was a Belarusian writer, People's Poet of the Byelorussian SSR, and member and vice-president of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. In his works, Yakub Kolas was known for his sympathy towards the ordinary Belarusian peasantry. This was evident in his pen name 'Kolas', meaning 'ear of grain' in Belarusian. He wrote collections of poems Songs of Captivity and Songs of Grief, poems A New Land and Simon the Musician, stories, and plays. His poem The Fisherman's Hut is about the fight after unification of Belarus with the Soviet state. His trilogy At a Crossroads is about the pre-Revolutionary life of the Belarusian peasantry and the democratic intelligentsia. He was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1946 and 1949. In honor of Yakub Kolas, a square and a street in the center of Minsk bear his name.
Yuri Foreman
Professional Boxer
Yuri Foreman is a Belarusian-born Israeli professional boxer, based in the United States. He is a former World Boxing Association super welterweight champion. Foreman turned professional in January 2002 in the Junior Middleweight Division and remained undefeated for 29 fights until June 5, 2010, in which he lost by TKO in the ninth round to Miguel Cotto.
Siarhei Rutenka
Professional Team Handball Player
Siarhei Rutenka, also Sergej Rutenka is a Belarusian handball player. Besides Belarusian citizenship in 2003 he acquired also Slovenian citizenship. In January, 2008, he received the Spanish nationality, renouncing the Slovenian nationality. His preferred position is outside left, but he is also capable of playing as the pivot and playmaker. He came to prominence while playing for the Slovenian club Celje Pivovarna Laško and earlier for RK Gorenje. He currently plays for FC Barcelona in Spain. The club acquired him for €1 million. His hobbies include bowling and films. Rutenka was the top goalscorer at the 2006 European Men's Handball Championship, representing Slovenia. Currently he is back to representing native Belarus.
Kanstantsin Sivtsov
Cyclist
Kanstantsin Siutsou is a Belarusian professional road bicycle racer for UCI ProTeam team Team Sky.
Vladimir Samsonov
Olympic Table Tennis Player
Vladimir Samsonov is a Belarusian professional table tennis player, ranked ninth in the world as of October 2011. He is known in China as the "Tai Chi Master" because of his superb all-around style. He is known as Mr.ECL for participating in the tournament for at least 15 years straight and because he currently holds nine ECL winner titles - three with Borussia, five with Charleroi, and one with Fakel Orenburg. He began his European club career when he joined Borussia Düsseldorf in 1994, then seven years later moved to Royal Charleroi in Belgium. In 2008 he moved to Spain to play for Cajagranada, but the things didn't go the way he planned and two years later he decided to join Russian superleague club Fakel Orenburg. He is famous for being a top-10 player longer than anyone else in official ranking history save for the legend of table tennis Jan-Ove Waldner. He first joined the top-10 in 1996, then climbed to the top position in 1998. He stayed in the top-10 for 15 years until November 2011. He is ranked #11 as of December 2012. He also currently holds the distinction of being the player with most ITTF ProTour gold medals under his belt alongside triple world champion Wang Liqin. Both have 24 ProTour titles.
Raphael Lemkin
Lawyer
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1944 from the rooted words genos and -cide. He first used the word in print in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress, and defined it as "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group."
George de Mohrenschildt
Geologist
George de Mohrenschildt was a petroleum geologist and professor who befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962 and maintained that friendship until Oswald's death, two days after Oswald allegedly assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy. His testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.
Виктор Смольский
Progressive metal Artist
Victor Dmitrievich Smolski is a Belarusian musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist. He is a constant member of the German heavy metal band Rage, since 1999.
Ruslan Alekhno
Pop Artist
Ruslan Alekhno is a Russian and Belarusian singer who rose to popularity after winning Narodniy Artist - 2 translated as People's Artist-2, the Russian version of Pop Idol.
Maryna Linchuk
Fashion Model
Maryna Linchuk is a Belarusian fashion model best known for gracing the cover of Italian and Portuguese Vogue. Along with Mat Gordon and Valeria Garcia, Linchuk was one of the faces of Escada's Moon Sparkle fragrance under the alias Simone. She was also the Fall/Winter 2008 face of the Miss Dior Cherie fragrance. She has appeared in advertisements for Versace, Donna Karan, Dior, Gap, H&M, Kenneth Cole, Escada, Dolce & Gabbana resort and Max Mara, and Nordstrom catalogue. She walked in the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Victoria's Secret fashion shows, as well as for designers Derek Lam, Givenchy, Gucci, Michael Kors, Prada, and haute couturier Christian Lacroix. Maryna Linchuk starred for China Vougue in 2013. Vogue Paris declared her one of the top 30 models of the 2000s.
Andrei Mikhnevich
Olympic athlete
Andrei Anatolyevich Mikhnevich is a Belarusian shot putter with a personal best of 22.00 metres, set in 2008. He holds the Belarusian record indoors with a throw of 21.81 m at the national indoor championships. He started competed at global championships in 1999 and attended the 2000 Summer Olympics, but he was banned for a doping offence in 2001. He returned after a two year suspension and promptly became the shot put world champion at the 2003 World Championships in Athletics. He took part in the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2005 World Championships but failed to reach the global podium over this period. He had a resurgence of form in 2006, taking silver at the IAAF World Indoor Championships as well as silver at the 2006 European Athletics Championships. He won the bronze at the 2007 World Championships and took his first Olympic honour, another bronze medal, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He won indoor world silver for a second time at the 2010 IAAF World Indoor Championships and the gold medal at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona. He was given a lifetime ban for doping by the Belarus Athletics Federation in 2013, retroactive to 2005. Mikhnevich is appealing the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Uladzimir Ignatik
Tennis Player
Uladzimir Ignatik is a Belarusian professional tennis player, who is the top-ranked male Belarusian tennis player in singles.
Sergei Aleinikov
Soccer Midfielder
Sergei Yevgenyevich Aleinikov is a former football player from Belarus, former coach of Kras.
Arkadi Duchin
Pop Artist
Arkadi Duchin is an Israeli singer-songwriter and musical producer.
Pavel Sukhoi
Aerospace Engineer
Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi was a Soviet aerospace engineer. He designed the Sukhoi military aircraft and founded the Sukhoi Design Bureau.
Tatiana Poutchek
Tennis Player
Tatiana Poutchek is a tennis player from Belarus. Her career high ranking is No. 55 in the world, achieved on July 22, 2002. Many of Poutchek's greatest career results have come in Tashkent reaching 1 singles final and 7 doubles finals winning 5. . In 2002, she made her first and so far only WTA Tour singles final there, losing to Marie-Gayanay Mikaelian. In doubles she won seven WTA titles in 2002–2010 and 20 ITF titles in 1997–2009.
Mstislav I of Kiev
Monarch
Mstislav I Vladimirovich the Great was the Grand Prince of Kiev, the eldest son of Vladimir II Monomakh by Gytha of Wessex. He figures prominently in the Norse Sagas under the name Harald, taken to allude to his grandfather, Harold II of England. Mstislav's Christian name was Theodore.
Valyantsin Byalkevich
Soccer Midfielder
Valyantsin Byalkevich is a former Belarusian football player. He is most notable for being a member of the Ukrainian club Dynamo Kyiv from 1996 to 2008 and their all time leader in assists. During the late 1990s, he was instrumental as a playmaker for Dynamo Kyiv during their UEFA Champions League triumphs, including helping them reach the semi-finals in the 1998–99 competition. In September 1994 while playing for FC Dinamo Minsk, Byalkevich was banned from European competitions for one year by UEFA after testing positive for anabolic steroids following a UEFA Cup match. In 1995, Byalkevich won the Belarusian Footballer of the Year award. Byalkevich married Ukrainian pop singer Anna Sedokova in 2004. They had a daughter on 8 December 2004 and divorced in 2006. In October 2005, Byalkevich retired from the Belarus national team, having scored 10 goals, while being capped 56 times. In 2008 he accepted a Ukrainian citizenship and continues to work in the Dynamo Kyiv football academy.
Evgeny Morozov
Author
Evgeny Morozov is a Belarusian writer and researcher who studies political and social implications of technology.
Piotr Jaroszewicz
Politician
Gen. Piotr Jaroszewicz was a post World War II Polish political figure. He served as the Prime Minister of Poland between 1970 and 1980. Piotr Jaroszewicz was born on 8 October 1909 in Nieśwież. After finishing the secondary school in Jasło he started working as a teacher and headmaster in Garwolin. After the outbreak of World War II and the Nazi-Soviet alliance he moved to Soviet-occupied zone of Poland. It has been claimed that he was a headmaster in Pinsk gymnasia. However, on 10 July 1940 he was deported to Slobodka, Krasnoborski raion, Arkhangelsk, from Stolin together with his first wife Oksana Gregorevna and daughter Olila. In 1943 he joined the 1st Polish Army of Gen. Zygmunt Berling. The following year he joined the Polish Workers Party and was promoted to deputy political commander of the 1st Army. After the war he became the deputy minister of defense. Since 1956 he was the Polish ambassador to COMECON. At the same time between 1952 and 1970 he served as a deputy Prime Minister of Poland and briefly as the minister of mining industry. Jaroszewicz was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party since its creation in 1948 and since 1964 he was also a member of the Political Bureau. From December 1970 until February 1980 he was the Prime Minister of Poland. The economical policies of Jaroszewicz and Edward Gierek led to a wave of protests in 1976 and 1980. After his failure in suppressing the Solidarity movement in 1980 he gave up all his posts and was expelled from the party the following year.
Simon Dubnow
Author
Simon Dubnow was a Jewish historian, writer and activist. He is the father-in-law of Henryk Erlich, a famous Bundist leader.
Sergei Kornilenko
Soccer
Sergei Aleksandrovich Kornilenko is a Belarusian professional footballer who plays as a striker for FC Krylia Sovetov Samara of the Russian Premier League. In Belarus, both Belarusian and Russian languages are official. Thus his name, usually transliterated as Sergei Kornilenko, can be alternatively spelled as Syarhey Karnilenka.
Aleksei Antonov
Military Person
Aleksei Innokentievich Antonov was a General of the Soviet Army, awarded the Order of Victory for his efforts in World War II.
Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz
Rabbi
Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, popularly known by the name of his magnum opus, Chazon Ish, was a Belarusian born Orthodox rabbi who later became one of the leaders of Haredi Judaism in Israel, where his final 20 years, from 1933 to 1953, were spent.
Igor Kornelyuk
Musical Artist
Igor Yevgenyevich Kornelyuk, born on November 16, 1962 in Brest, is a Soviet and Russian musician, singer and composer.
Al Hoffman
Songwriter
Al Hoffman was a Russian born American song composer. He was a hit songwriter active in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, usually co-writing with others and responsible for number one hits through each decade, many of which are still sung and recorded today. He was posthumously made a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984. The popularity of Hoffman's song, "Mairzy Doats", co-written with Jerry Livingston and Milton Drake, was such that newspapers and magazines wrote about the craze. Time magazine titled one article "Our Mairzy Dotage". The New York Times simply wrote the headline, "That Song". Hoffman's songs were recorded by Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine Perry Como, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Nat "King" Cole, Tony Bennett, the Merry Macs, Sophie Tucker, Eartha Kitt, Patsy Cline, Patti Page, Bette Midler, and most everyone who was a star of that era. In October, 2007, Hoffman's "I'm Gonna Live Til I Die" was the lead single from Queen Latifah's album, "Trav'lin' Light".
Stanislav Shushkevich
Politician
Stanislav Stanislavovich Shushkevich is a Belarusian politician and scientist. From September 28, 1991 to January 26, 1994 he was the first leader and head of state of independent Belarus after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He supported free market and democratic reforms and played a key role in the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. As a scientist, he was Corresponding Member of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, Doctor in Physics and Mathematics, recipient of various state awards, professor, and the author and originator of textbooks and over 150 articles and 50 inventions.
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov
Author
Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov, born Lev Feldbin, 21 August 1895 – 25 March 1973, was a General in the Soviet secret police and NKVD Rezident in the Second Spanish Republic. In 1938, Orlov refused to return to the Soviet Union because he realized that he would be executed, and fled with his family to the U.S.. He is known mostly for secretly transporting the entire gold reserve of the Spanish Republic to the USSR and for his book, The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes.
Oleg Tkachev
Actor
Oleg Tkachyov is an actor.