Mikhail Lomonosov

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711–1765) was Russia's first major natural scientist and a poet who shaped the modern Russian literary language. Born near Kholmogory, a fisherman's son, he left in 1730 with a fish convoy for Moscow, where he entered the Slavic Greek Latin Academy by posing as a nobleman's son.

He joined the Academy of Sciences in 1735, studied in Germany at Marburg and Freiberg from 1736, and reached St Petersburg in 1741. In 1745 he became professor of chemistry, the Academy's first Russian member in natural science. In 1748 he set up Russia's first chemistry laboratory, and in 1755 drew up the first plan for Moscow University.

On 26 May 1761 he watched Venus cross the Sun, saw an arc of light around it, and correctly concluded that Venus has an atmosphere. He died in St Petersburg in 1765, and in 1940 Moscow University was renamed for him.