Alexander Ivanovich Palm was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, who also used the pseudonym P. Alminsky. A member of the Petrashevsky Circle, Palm in 1847 was arrested, spent 8 months in the Petropavlovsk Fortress, had his death sentence changed to deportation and served 7 years in the Russian Army. Among his best known works are Alexey Slobodin. The History of One Family and Our Friend Neklyuzhev.
Alexander Nikolayevich Panchenko was a Russian chess Grandmaster and honored coach who headed the All-Russian chess school. Chessmetrics.com, which provides retroactive guesstimates on the ratings of older players, places his highest ranking as 45th in the world in 1981. He should not be confused with a younger and somewhat weaker player of the same name. Panchenko's middle initial is "N", while his namesake has a middle initial of "G".
Alexander Valeryanovich Peskov ; born February 13, 1962, Koryazhma, Arkhangelsk Oblast, RSFSR, USSR) is a Russia's popular entertainer. The artist calls his work synchro-buffoonery.
Alexander Ivanovitch Petrunkevitch was a Russian arachnologist. From 1910 to 1939 he described over 130 spider species. One of his most famous essays was "The Spider and the Wasp." In it he uses effective word choices and some comic touch.
Alexander Moiseyevich Piatigorsky was a Soviet dissident, Russian philosopher, scholar of Indian philosophy and culture, historian, philologist, semiotician, writer. Well-versed in the study of language, he knew Sanskrit, Tamil, Pali, Tibetan, German, Russian, French, Italian and English. In an obituary appearing in the English-language newspaper The Guardian, he was cited as "a man who was widely considered to be one of the more significant thinkers of the age and Russia's greatest philosopher." On Russian television stations he was mourned as "the greatest Russian philosopher."
Alexander Ivanovich Pokryshkin was a Soviet fighter pilot in World War II, and later a Marshal of Aviation. He was one of the highest-scoring Soviet aces, and the highest-scoring pilot ever to fly an American aircraft, having achieved the great majority of his kills in the Lend-Lease Bell P-39 Airacobra. During the war Pokryshkin earned the title Hero of the Soviet Union three times: 24 May 1943, 24 August 1943, and 19 August 1944. After the war, he served in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, reaching the rank of Marshal of Aviation; he retired in 1981.
Alexander Ivanovich Polezhayev was a controversial Russian poet, best known for his satirical poem Sashka which in 1826 resulted in his being demoted to the Russian Army in the Caucasus, by a special decree of Nicolas I who saw this daring challenge as a continuation of the Decembrist revolt. He was arrested by the police, brought to the tsar, and forced to recite the poem out loud in the presence of the emperor, after which the emperor said, "I give you the means of rehabilitating yourself by military service. Are you ready to serve as a private in the army?" His service in the military was considered admirable by those who otherwise would have disliked Polezhayev.
