The Indian Parsi conductor of Western classical music. Zubin Mehta first ended up in Russia, or the Soviet Union to be precise, in 1962 as the leader of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, playing the music of the Russian émigré to the USA, Igor Stravinsky.
Since then his life journey has bought him in contact with Russia many times.
For example he was the first conductor who worked with the American Russian Youth Orchestra, which was created in the 1980s. He performed at the Festival of the World's Symphony Orchestras, which was timed to coincide with Russia Day.
9. Pandit Ravi Shankar
The Sitar maestro, was the music icon of the world. Ravi Shankar first did concerts in the USSR in 1954.
But his visit in 1988 is probably of greater significance, when he performed on the stage of the Bolshoi theatre accompanied by Russian ballet dancers.
The recording of this concert became one of the musician's most successful albums.
Ravi Shankar's third and final visit to Russia, to St. Petersburg, was in 2005 as part of his European tour with his daughter Anoushka Shankar.
10. Viswanathan Anand
In Russia, people are fond of chess and not cricket surprisingly. The chess champion, Viswanathan Anand, became immensely popular.
He was the man who stole the leadership crown from a whole dynasty of Soviet chess-players, who had been world champions for fifty years, only once and for a short time yielding their place to the American player, Robert Fisher.
