Vasili Bazhenov

Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov was a Russian neoclassical architect, graphic artist, architectural theorist and educator. Bazhenov and his associates Matvey Kazakov and Ivan Starov were the leading local architects of the Russian Enlightenment, a period dominated by foreign architects. According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in the 1770s, Bazhenov became the first Russian architect to create a national architectural language since the 17th-century tradition interrupted by Peter the Great.