Would it help if I sent a few bales of hay for your nightmares? Sorry ; “…. a jest, a trifle overdone ….”

The Greatest Russians Of All Time would definitely have to include the nameless faceless forgotten people who endured terrible hardships - a bit like the Unknown Warrior in our culture …. whether they were the ancestors of the Sibiriaks or those who went through any one of the many appalling rebellions and reprisals or, as you said, those who went through The Siege Of Leningrad …. or those who had the courage to stand up to the abuse of power by Stalin and his henchmen.

A Gnome named Grimble Grumble [93]:

Catherine The Greatest? Of course.

b.t.w. How do we kill off the mythical horse so beloved by slanderers of Catherine the Greatest? It’s nothing but an annoying distraction in an otherwise fascinating epic. [Move over Cleopatra, you’re not even in the hunt].

Was this before or after Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon wrote and recorded “Tender”?

Before. Sorry I do like Gorrilaz but I think Albarn’s a little twerp. No I don’t like Noel Gallagher either.

Who is Beckham compared to Eric Cantona?

I raise my glass to you. I remember watching the FA Cup final Newcastle v Man U about 10 years back. Pub full of Brits. Beckham kept fiddling with his bangs to a chorus of ‘my hair, my hair’. The Beckhams are show-room dummies brought to life by someone like Frankenstein only much more evil.

There was a survey for the Great Human Who Ever Lived in the UK - winner: David (fucking) Beckham.

Was this before or after Damon Albarn and Graham Coxon wrote and recorded “Tender”?

But seriously, aren’t the truly great Russians those unfortunate souls who were caught up in the siege of Leningrad? Confronted by Hitler’s forces on one side, with Stalin’s at their back, and surrounded by the Russian winter. Nazi and Kampuchean extermination camps excepted, it doesn’t come any worse than that.

And then, at the commemoration service several years ago, the survivors had to endure a lecture from George W Bush on the wartime privations experienced by the US… They deserve better than that.

And who can forget Paulo Di Canio whose brain explosions were works of genius, and he’s sure to at least pick up to the fascist vote of a poll of top Italians (if they look past Berlusconi).

Great Human Who Ever Lived in the UK - winner: David (fucking) Beckham.
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Quite right Adrien. The native-born English have always been inferior to their immigrant Norman overlords.
Who is Beckham compared to Eric Cantona?

Terribly sorry. I apologize!

I was only JOKING. It’s not really true. Mine was really an out-of-date ‘Nineties satirical comment. Privatization and commercialization have hit some real lows …. but, thankfully, the Tretyakovskays Galereya is still - and remains - safe from the predators and plunderers.

Paul Norton [92]:

Kosta Tszyu might have been born a Sibiriak but he’s ours now - one of the top twenty Aussies!!

…. and on 91:

Wow! Move over Hercule Poirot …. title of World’s Greatest Detective has just been taken over by a bloke named Norton. L=O=L

Imagine what Australia would be like when choosing the greatest Australians. Sporting heros and rock musicians would be on the top of the list rather than scientists, important (as opposed to popular) politicians.

There was a survey for the Great Human Who Ever Lived in the UK - winner: David (fucking) Beckham.
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He played for Man U. And most of the time he spent fiddling with his hair!!!
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My vote is for Catherine the Great a walking illustration of Aristotle’s argument that monarchies are the best kind of government; and then of course there’s Ivan IV and Joe Steel illustrating that they are also the worst.
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But my favourite Russian was a writer, in the finest Dandy garb who dies in a duel over a woman sometime between the death of Napoleon and the start of the American Civil War. There’s so many to choose from.

On the LP poll, the standings are: Tolstoy leading on 8 votes, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Pushkin tied for second on 7 votes, Tchaikovsky and Zhukov equal fifth on 5 votes, Gorbachev, Nabakov and Mendeleev equal seventh on 4 votes, and a scrum contesting tenth place on 3 votes each - Stravinsky, Tarkovsky, Trotsky, Shostakovich, Lenin, Solzhenitsyn, Kropotkin, Gogol and Catherine the Great.

I have had to disqualify 18 votes for Trofim Lysenko from persons purporting to be Bob Carter, Jennifer Marohasy, Alan Moran, Andrew Bolt, Michael Costa, Ray Evans, Keith Windschuttle, Piers Akerman, Nick Minchin, John Howard, George Pell, Lord Monckton, S. Fred Singer, Pat Michaels, Richard Lindzen, Bjorn Lomborg, Nigel Lawson and Graeme Bird. I have ascertained that these commenters are all sock puppets for an obscure Brisbane academic in the field of environmental politics and policy.

Visual artists?

That’s easily explained.

According to this evening’s news ….

“The old-fashioned long-established Tretyakovskaya Galereya has been closed for good; the artifacts formerly displayed there are now being offered for sale to foreign tourists at bargain-basement prices [while stocks last]…. and the building will re-open in October, following extensive renovations as …. the Kansas Boot-Scoot Saloon - with happy-hour drinks at half-price every evening between 7 and 8 in the Victor Vasneezoff Bar & Grill”

On the other hand - in the visual arts - no-one (myself included) has mentioned Wassily Kandinsky. OMG! A colossal oversight!! Where do I go to make an advance booking for a self-condemn?

i.. Thank you all for not taking the mickey out of me, back at post 69, for misspelling the patronymic of Alexandr YAroslavich [with a <-R =ya, not a I-O =yu] Nevski.
ii.. Yeah. Just where are all the musicians, scientists, mathematicians and heroes of …. sorry Comrade Stakhanov; stop right there; you are definitely not allowed in at all; you really have disqualified yourself from this competition for very obvious reasons.

On further reflection ….

We do not know the names nor the graves of the two Greatest Russians Of All Time. Yes. There were two!! Husband and wife [well, presumably - but definitely father and mother]. They were the two who decided to be free, no matter what the cost; they were fed up with going hungry again and again because they worked their guts out only to have what they made taken by the Russian tax-collectors working for the Mongol overlords. They, like many of their fellows, fled eastwards and penetrated the impenetrable forests. They crossed hundreds of dangerous steams and struggled through uncrossable swamps. They fended off wolves, bears and hordes of savage insects. They kept themselves warm enough to survive the cruelest winters. Many of their fellows drowned, were eaten, froze to death, disappeared without trace, starved to death or died by violence …. or, worse yet, turned around and went back the way they had come.

Somehow, against impossible odds, this couple - and some like them - survived, found some way of getting enough food and robust enough shelter in one place to settle down there and raise a family, have their children live long enough to have families of their own …. and become the ancestors of the people who would, hundreds of years later. reach the Pacific Ocean.

No mistake. These two are indeed the Greatest Russians Of All Time.

The Feral Abacus:

You are right of course. My apologies for omitting Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyov from the short-list.

That would make it one of the world’s oldest urban legends, I suppose.

As part of some nefarious scheme, Monty Burns was gloating that he had millions of rubles which had been sitting in a bank account for a very long time collecting interest …

He explains: “When I was just a lad, I won a bet with Catherine the Great.”

Mr Smithers: “Lucky you. She’d have won if the rope hadn’t broken.”