Famous people from Ryazan

Ivan Pavlov, the bearded fellow who did mean things to dogs to prove that they salivate in response to food, or to the bell that precedes their lunch. For this profound observation he got his Nobel Prize in 1904. Consider visiting his Ryazan estate.

Tsiolkovsky, a crazy school teacher obsessed with the idea of space travel, spend most of his life in a village 80km (50 miles) from Ryazan. Towards the end of his life he moved to Kaluga, which also has a museum dedicated to Tsiolkovsky's work.  Kaluga Region Cities, Towns, & Villages

Sergei Yesenin, a poet who, among other things, glorified Moscow crime scene and drinking establishments, married Isadora Duncan whom he beat regularly, and did a bunch of other things in the best of Gregory Rasputin's tradition.

General Scobelev, the who spent a lifetime fighting the Muslims, freed Bulgaria from the Turks, but is largely remembered by posterity for the fact that he died in in the act in a Moscow whorehouse.

Mikhail Zagoskin, the first explorer of Alaska.

Ivan Krikutnoy who, in 1731, which is 30-40 years before the Montgolfier brothers in France, "made himself a sack, filled it with smoke, and was lifted by the evil spirits higher than the birch tree, and rammed into a belfry". In those days' Russia his feat was not viewed as an achievement. The poor soul was denied access to communion for 10 years eventually forgiven.

Natalia Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the Great, was born 20km north-west (towards Moscow) from Ryazan.

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The City of Ryazan