People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Fyodor Grigorievich Uglov Фёдор Григорьевич Углов The oldest practicing surgeon in history and the key propagandist of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign
- Gury Ivanovich Marchuk Гурий Иванович Марчук Last President of the USSR Academy of Sciences and pioneer of computational mathematics in Siberia
- Yevgeny Ivanovich Chazov Евгений Иванович Чазов The father of Soviet cardiology who ran Kremlin medicine for 20 years
- Endel Teodorovich Lippmaa Endel Teodorovich Lippmaa The Estonian scientist who blocked phosphorite mining from inside the system
- Nikolai Pavlovich Laverov Николай Павлович Лавёров The last chairman of Soviet state science policy and a uranium geologist
- Zhores Ivanovich Alferov Жорес Иванович Алфёров Communist physicist whose semiconductor heterostructures opened the IT era
- Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov Анатолий Степанович Дятлов The deputy chief engineer who supervised the Chernobyl safety test and later argued the reactor's design was the real cause
- Viktor Petrovich Bryukhanov Виктор Петрович Брюханов The first director of Chernobyl who built the plant and was held responsible for its catastrophe
- Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov Евгений Павлович Велихов Soviet physicist who linked fusion science, Chernobyl, and nuclear disarmament
- Valery Alekseyevich Legasov Валерий Алексеевич Легасов The Kurchatov chemist who led science at Chernobyl, then left the full truth on tapes before hanging himself
- Nikolai Maximovich Fomin Николай Максимович Фомин The chief engineer who refused to believe the reactor was destroyed and kept pumping water into its ruins
- Aleksandr Fyodorovich Akimov Александр Фёдорович Акимов Soviet nuclear engineer and Unit 4 shift supervisor who directed the response and died of radiation exposure
- Leonid Fedorovych Toptunov Леонид Фёдорович Топтунов The 25-year-old senior reactor control engineer who pressed the AZ-5 button at Chernobyl's Unit 4
- Volodymyr Pavlovych Pravyk Володимир Павлович Правик The first firefighter at Chernobyl, who climbed onto the roof of Unit 3 without being told of the radioactive danger