Alumni
Nobel laureates
- Valery Leibin - psychoanalyst, professor
- Ilya Mechnikov - Russian-French, Physiology or Medicine in 1908
- Yuri Orlov - zoologist, paleontologist
- Ivan Pavlov - physiologist, psychologist, and physician; Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1904
- Nikolay Semyonov - Chemistry in 1956
- Lev Landau - physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics in 1962
- Aleksandr Prokhorov - Australian-Soviet-Russian, Physics in 1964
- Wassily Leontief - Soviet-American economist; Nobel laureate in Economics in 1973
- Leonid Kantorovich - economist, Nobel laureate in Economics in 1975
- Joseph Brodsky - Russian-American, Literature in 1987
Fields medal
Academia
- Gregory Areshian - Armenian-American archaeologist and historian.
- Rakhat Achylova - Kyrgyz sociologist and politician
- Volodymyr Barvinok — Ukrainian historian and writer
- Kazimieras Būga — Lithuanian linguist and philologist
- Nina Dyakonova- professor, Doctor of Philology
- Viktor Fainberg - philologist and dissident
- Nikolai Girenko - ethnologist and human rights activist
- Lev Gumilev — historian, ethnologist, anthropologist, and translator
- Igor Ivanov — pedagogue
- Marju Lepajõe - classical philologist
- Dmitry Likhachev — scholar
- Anne Lill - classical philologist
- Vladimir Lossky — Eastern Orthodox theologian
- Yakov Lyubarsky - scholar, Doctor of Philology, specialist in Byzantine studies
- Stepan Malkhasyants — Armenian academician, philologist, linguist, and lexicographer
- Nikolay Marr — historian and linguist
- Sergey Oldenburg — orientalist
- Boris B. Piotrovsky — academician, historian-orientalist and archaeologist
- Sergey Platonov — historian
- Isaak Izrailevich Prezent - philosopher of biology
- Fyodor Shcherbatskoy — Indologist
- Mikhail Shultz — chemist, academician
- Pitirim Sorokin — sociologist
- Vasily Vasilievich Struve — orientalist
- Max Vasmer — German linguist
Government and politics
- Vladimir Burtsev, revolutionary activist, scholar, publisher and editor
- David Dallin - Belarusian-American one-time Menshevik leader; writer and lecturer
- Ben-Zion Dinur - Minister of Education of Israel
- Dalia Grybauskaite - President of Lithuania 2009–19
- Ion Inculeţ, president of the Moldavian Democratic Republic
- Alexander Kerensky, second Prime Minister of the Russian Provisional Government
- Vladimir Lenin - first head of the Russian SFSR
- Dmitry Medvedev - politician, businessman, lawyer, and the third President of the Russian Federation (2008–2012)
- Lyudmila Narusova - Russian Federation Senator
- Vladimir Putin - second President of the Russian Federation (2000–2008, 2012-present); (2008–2012)
- Mark Slonim - politician, literary critic, scholar, and translator
- Antanas Smetona - President of Lithuania (first term 1919-1920; second term 1926-1940)
- Anatoly Sobchak - Russian politician and a co-author of the Constitution of the Russian Federation
- Ksenia Sobchak - candidate for Russian presidency, public figure, TV anchor, journalist, socialite, and actress
- Levon Ter-Petrosyan - first President of Armenia (1991–1998)
- Jazep Varonka - first Chairman of the People's Secretariat (i.e. Prime Minister) of the Belarusian National Republic
- Augustinas Voldemaras - Prime Minister of Lithuania
Literature and the arts
- Johann Admoni - composer, pianist, teacher, and public person
- Alexander Blok - poet
- Joseph Brodsky - Russian and American poet and essayist; Nobel Prize winner
- Ilia Chavchavadze - Georgian writer, politician and public benefactor
- Igor Chubais - philosopher, sociologist, and author
- Solomon Dodashvili - Georgian philosopher, grammarian, belletrist
- Ayn Rand - Russian-born American novelist and philosopher [1]
- Boris Grebenshchikov - founder and lead singer of the band Aquarium
- Yehuda L. Katzenelson - writer and doctor
- Alexander Kugel - theatre critic and editor
- Julian Henry Lowenfeld - American-Russian poet, playwright, trial lawyer, composer, and translator
- Salomon Mandelkern - poet and author
- Olga Ozarovskaya - folklorist, storyteller, performer, writer, and an archivist of fairy tales
- Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan - Indian historian
- Nicholas Roerich - artist
- Lyubov Speranskaya - theater artist
- Maximilian Steinberg - composer of classical music
- Igor Stravinsky - composer
- Ivan Turgenev - writer
Science and mathematics
- Alexander Barvinok - mathematician
- Raissa Berg - Russian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist
- Abram Besicovitch - Russian-British mathematician
- Lev M. Bregman - Soviet-Israeli mathematician
- Pafnuty Chebyshev - mathematician
- Yakov Eliashberg - Russian-American mathematician
- Vera Faddeeva - mathematician
- Vladimir Fock - physicist
- Sergey Fomin - Russian-American mathematician
- Leonid Frankfurt - Russian-Israeli physicist
- George Gamow - Soviet-American cosmologist
- Israel Gohberg - Soviet-Israeli mathematician
- Mikhail Gromov - Franco-Russian mathematician, Abel Prize winner
- Alexander Alfonsovich Grossheim - Ukrainian botanist
- Georges Gurvitch - Russian-born French sociologist and jurist
- Solomon Herzenstein - zoologist
- Cecil Hoare FRS - British protozoologist and parasitologist
- Alexander Its - mathematician
- Ivan Ivanov - mathematician
- Dmitry Ivanovsky - biologist
- Faina Mihajlovna Kirillova - mathematician and control theorist
- Leo Klejn - archaeologist, anthropologist, and philologist.
- Wladimir Köppen - Russian-German geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist
- Yuri Linnik - mathematician
- Mikhail Lomonosov - scientist, writer and polymath
- Aleksandr Lyapunov - mathematician, mechanician and physicist
- Victor Lyatkher, renewable energy engineer
- Andrey Markov - mathematician
- Dmitri Mendeleev - chemist; creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements
- Boris Nikolsky - chemist
- Grigori Perelman - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2006, declined), and only man to solve a Millennium Prize Problem (2010, prize declined)
- Konstantin Petrzhak - physicist
- Lev Pavlovich Rapoport - theoretical physicist
- Alexander Raikhel - Soviet-American entomologist
- Natasha Raikhel - Soviet-American plant cell biologist
- Vladimir Rokhlin - mathematician
- Nikolai Semenov - physicist and chemist
- Stanislav Smirnov - mathematician, Fields Medal winner (2010)
- Jacob Tamarkin - Russian-American mathematician
- Vladimir Vernadsky - mineralogist and geochemist
- Georgy Voronoy - mathematician
- Emil Wiesel - Russian-German artist; museum curator; full member of the Russian Imperial Academy of Arts (since 1914); organizer of international art exhibitions; councilor of Hermitage and Russian museum
- Sergei Winogradsky - microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist
- Yuri Yappa - theoretical physicist
- Victor Zalgaller - Russian-Israeli mathematician
Other
- Alexander Alekhine - Russian-French fourth World Chess Champion
- Viktor Korchnoi - Soviet and Swiss chess grandmaster and chess writer
- Grigory Levenfish - chess player; 2x Soviet champion
- Vladas Petronaitis - Lithuanian patriot, soldier and martyr
- Józef Pluskowski - Polish poet and member of the Polish Resistance
- Yakov Rekhter - co-founder of BGP and MPLS networking protocols
- Gennadiy Shatkov - Olympic champion in boxing
- Eduard Vinokurov (1942–2010) - Kazakh-born Soviet Olympic and world champion fencer
- Mahinda Balasuriya - 32nd Inspector General of the Sri Lanka Police (IGP) (2009–2011).
