Famous People Born In Kharkiv

Mark Taimanov was a Soviet and Russian chess player. A leading player of his generation, Taimanov was ranked among the top 20 players in the world from 1946 to 1971. In 1952, he was honored with the Grandmaster title. A multi-talented personality, Mark Taimanov was also a concert pianist. He had formed a piano duo with his wife Lyubov Bruk. 

Ida Rubinstein was a Russian dancer, art patron, and actress. She is best remembered for performing with the popular itinerant ballet company, the Ballets Russes. She also served as a subject for Russian painter Valentin Alexandrovich Serov's portrait Salomé.

Lyudmila Gurchenko was a popular Russian and Soviet entertainer, actress, and singer. In 1983, she was honored with the prestigious People's Artist of the USSR award for her contribution to the arts in the Soviet Union.

Born into the famous Russian astronomer Struve family, Otto Struve began his career in the USA as a staff member at Yerkes Observatory, investigating stellar spectroscopy. Later, he focused mainly on binary and variable stars, stellar rotation and interstellar matter. He established the presence of hydrogen in interstellar space, a discovery that played significant part in the development of radio astronomy.

Natalia Dudinskaya was a Russian ballet dancer who dominated the Imperial Russian Ballet between the 1930s and the 1950s. Dudinskaya, who originated many roles during her illustrious career, won four Stalin Prizes. She also received the prestigious People's Artist of the USSR award in 1957. After her retirement, Natalia Dudinskaya served as a teacher and taught at the Vaganova Institute.

French geographer Jean Gottmann is best remembered for introducing the concept of megalopolis. Starting his career as a research assistant at the Sorbonne, he later taught at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Paris, and Oxford. He was a specialist in urban, regional, and historical geography.