I know it's a bit offtop,
Why not make a new thread with people's choices of famous Russians and inhabitants from country (and previous Russias) of Russia?
I agree about Tchaikovsky, and would add Rimsky-Korsakov, Gogol, Bulgakov and others. Like Mikhail Tsvet. No one now-a-days knows anything about Tsvet, but all the advances of modern sciences in chemistry, biochemistry, genetics, and many others use his invention or some variant of his invention, chromatography. Truly a great invention. One of the most important inventions of all time. Only scientists know about it. Sorry about offtop.