List of Famous people named Nikolai

Nikolai Alekseyevich Slichenko is a Russian singer and chief director of the Romen Theatre in Moscow. He was the only Romani person to be awarded the title People's Artist of the USSR (1981).

Nikolai Sergeyevich Valuev is a Russian politician and former professional boxer. He competed in boxing from 1993 to 2009, and held the WBA heavyweight title twice between 2005 and 2009. Standing at a height of 2.13 metres (7.0 ft) and a peak weight of 149 kilograms (328 lb), Valuev is best known for being the tallest and heaviest world champion in boxing history.

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov was a prominent Russian and Soviet agronomist, botanist and geneticist best known for having identified the centers of origin of cultivated plants. He devoted his life to the study and improvement of wheat, maize and other cereal crops that sustain the global population. Vavilov's work was criticized by Trofim Lysenko, whose anti-Mendelian concepts of plant biology had won favor with Joseph Stalin. As a result, Vavilov was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death in July 1941. Although his sentence was commuted to twenty years' imprisonment, he died in prison in 1943. In 1955 his death sentence was retroactively pardoned under Nikita Khrushchev. By the 1960s his reputation was publicly rehabilitated and he began to be hailed as a hero of Soviet science.

Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov was a prominent Russian Empire scientist, medical doctor, pedagogue, public figure, and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1847), one of the most widely recognized Russian physicians. Considered to be the founder of field surgery, he was the first surgeon to use anaesthesia in a field operation (1847) and one of the first surgeons in Europe to use ether as an anaesthetic. He is credited with invention of various kinds of surgical operations and developing his own technique of using plaster casts to treat fractured bones.

Nikolai (Nikolay) Ivanovich Yezhov was a Soviet secret police official under Joseph Stalin who was head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938, during the height of the Great Purge.

Josip Hrvoje Peruzović, better known by his ring name of Nikolai Volkoff, was a Croatian-American professional wrestler who was best known for his performances in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Although the Volkoff character was often portrayed as a villainous Russian, Peruzović originated from Yugoslavia.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Dobrynin is a Soviet and Russian stage and cinema actor, Meritorious Artist (2002).

Nikolai Ivanovich Noskov is a Russian singer and former vocalist of the hard rock band Gorky Park. Five-time winner of the Golden Gramophone. He was also a member of Москва (Moscow) ensemble in the early 1980s, in band Гран-при in 1988 just before joining Gorky Park, and much later in the 1990s in band Николай (Nikolai). Starting 1998 Noskov had a solo career releasing six solo albums. In 2015 he was jury in second season of reality TV series Glavnaya Stsena

Nikolai Nikolaevich Gubenko was a Soviet and Russian actor, film and theatre director, screenwriter, founder of the Community of Taganka Actors theatre. His movie Wounded Game was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. He was named People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1985.

Nikolai Petrovich Burlyayev is a Soviet and Russian actor. Born into a family of actors, Burlyayev started his career in film and theatre when he was still a child. He is best known for his title role in Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood. He worked with Tarkovsky again four years later, as Boriska in Andrei Rublev.