List of Famous people named Vasili

Vasili III Ivanovich was the Grand Prince of Moscow from 1505 to 1533. He was the son of Ivan III Vasiliyevich and Sophia Paleologue and was christened with the name Gavriil (Гавриил). He had three brothers: Yuri, born in 1480, Simeon, born in 1487 and Andrei, born in 1490, as well as five sisters: Elena, Feodosiya, another Elena, another Feodosiya and Eudoxia. He is sometimes mockingly referred to as Vasili the Adequate due to his rule taking place between those of Ivan the Great and his son Ivan the Terrible, as well as the relative uneventfulness of his reign.

Vasili IV Shuisky was Tsar of Russia between 1606 and 1610 after the murder of False Dmitri I. His ruled coincided with the Time of Troubles. He was the only member of House of Shuisky to become Tsar and the last member of the Rurikid dynasty to rule as tsar.

Vasiliy Sergeyevich Oshchepkov ; was a researcher of different types of national wrestling and martial arts. He was ranked as a Merited Master of Sports of the USSR and an Honored Coach of the USSR. He was one of the founders of Sambo, a martial art developed in the Soviet Union. During the political purges of 1937, Oshchepkov was accused of being a Japanese spy, and was executed in prison as a result.

Vasiliy Vladimirovich Berezutski is a Russian football coach and a former player who played as a defender. He is an assistant coach with CSKA Moscow. He began his professional career in 1999 at the age of 17 with Torpedo Moscow, having graduated from their famed academy. He was a Russia national football team regular, earning his 100th cap on 6 September 2016 in a friendly against Ghana. He played as a fullback or centre-back and sometimes was also deployed as wingback or midfielder.

Vasili Aleksandrovich Arkhipov was a Soviet Navy officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.

Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was a Soviet Russian Major-General who served as the chief executioner of the Stalinist NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolai Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria.

Vasili Sergeyevich Kulkov was a Russian footballer.

Vasili Vasilyevich Merkuryev was a Soviet actor, stage director and drama teacher. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1960.

Vasili Vladimirovich Pichul was a Soviet and Russian film director, best known for his film Little Vera, released in 1988. His film How Dark the Nights Are on the Black Sea was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Vasili Yevgrafovich Samarsky-Bykhovets was a Russian mining engineer and the chief of Russian Mining Engineering Corps between 1845 and 1861. The mineral samarskite, and chemical element samarium are named after him. He was the first person whose name was given to a chemical element.