Mikhail Shchepkin, an outstanding Russian actor and one of the founders of the Russian acting school, was an artist of the Moscow Maly Theatre. Shchepkin's parents were serfs of the Counts Volkenshtein. His father, Semy…

Karl Ivanovich Blank (1728, 1793) was a Moscow architect and construction engineer, known as one of the last masters of baroque and the first architect of early classicism. He became famous for his temple constructions, …

Georgy Grebenshchikov was born in the village of Nikolaevsky Rudnik in Altai, which no longer exists, in the family of a miner. In 1894, without completing his primary school education, he began an independent life. Afte…

Ilya Lvovich was born on May 22, 1866. Despite his abilities, he did not complete his education at the gymnasium and joined the Sumy Dragoon Regiment. In 1888, he married Sofia Nikolaevna Filosofova. Throughout different…

Pyotr Dementyev was born into a noble family and spent his childhood in an ancient estate in the Tver province. He studied in a school in St. Petersburg, and then served for three years as an officer in the Yeger Guard R…

Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov, born on May 20 (June 1) 1844 in St. Petersburg, came from an educated noble family. His father, Dmitry Vasilyevich Polenov, was a diplomat with a passion for archaeology and bibliography, whil…

Isaak Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900) was born in a small Lithuanian town, Kibarty, into a poor Jewish family, where his father, Ilya Abramovich Levitan, taught foreign languages. In the late 1860s, the family moved to Mosco…

Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar was born on March 25, 1871, in Budapest to the public figure Emmanuil Grabar, who became a deputy in the Hungarian parliament in the late 1860s. He was baptized by an Orthodox priest of Serbian …

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov was born in St. Petersburg in 1865. His talent emerged when he found himself in a commune, where he continued to study after his mother moved to Munich. A year later, after the commune disban…

Robert Rafailovich Falk was born in Moscow on October 27, 1886, into a family of a lawyer from the Baltic region. He received a general education at a real school, graduating in 1902. In 1903 and 1905, he studied paintin…