1. Andriy Shevchenko. is a Ukrainian footballer who plays for Dynamo Kyiv and the Ukraine national team as a striker. He is the third-highest goalscorer in Champions League history with 58 goals as of 10 March 2011, behind Ruud van Nistelrooy (60) and Raul (71). Shevchenko is ranked as the third top goalscorer in all European competitions with 67 goals. The most prestigious of Andriy’s awards were the Ballon d'Or in 2004 (becoming the third Ukrainian, after Oleg Blokhin and Igor Belanov to receive it) and the UEFA Champions League in 2003 with Milan. Besides the Golden Ball, Shevchenko was awarded other individual awards.
2. Liliya Podkopayeva is the 1996 Olympic all-around champion. She is widely regarded as one of the best gymnasts in history. She is the proud owner of 45 gold, 21 silver and 14 bronze medals.
3. Yana Klochkova (Яна Клочкова) is a Ukrainian swimmer, who has won five Olympic medals. 4 gold medals came in the 200 meter individual medley and the 400 meter individual medley at the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. Her silver medal came in the 800 meter freestyle at the 2000 Summer Olympics.
4. Maria Pryimachenko (Марія Приймаченко) was a renowned Ukrainian village folk art painter, representative of naive art. The artist was involved with drawing, embroidery and painting оn ceramics.
Іn her childhood Maria was taken ill with polio, and this painful disease influenced the girl's life. By reports of her relatives, Maria grew а thoughtful and considerate person, having compassion for nature and every living thing.
The works of Pryimachenko can be subdivided into thematic, symbolic and ornamental pieces. Maria Pryimachenko has developed a style of her own.
Her talent was noticed due to the communist slogan of the 1930s: any person who “delves and spins” can become a poet and an artist. Her works – pictures as well as pottery- and textile painting – were promoted by the regime and sent to international exhibitions in Paris, Warsaw. Sophia, Montreal, Prague.
During her life Maria Prymachenko painted more than a thousand pictures. About half of them are now at Kyiv Museum of Decorative Art, some 200 – in other museums of Ukraine and the ex-USSR, another 200 are owned by private collectors.
Maria Prymachenko was right-handed, but she painted all her pictures with her left hand. She might have instinctively felt that this world and the world of her imagination did not overlap. Maria died at the age of 89.
The year 2009 was announced by UNESCO the year of Maria Prymachenko.
5. Serge Lifar (Сергій Михайлович Лифар) was born in Kiev, Russian Empire.
He was the pupil of Bronislava Nijinska in Kiev. In 1921 he left Soviet Union and was noticed by Serge Diaghilev who sent him to Turin in order to improve his technique with Enrico Cecchetti. He made his debut at the Ballets Russes in 1923 where he quickly became a principal dancer. He played the lead roles in the ballets of George Balanchine and at the death of Diaghilev in 1929 he entered the Paris Opera Ballet and created his first ballet.
From 1930 on, Serge Lifar was immensely successful, essentially in his own ballet creations, notably with Les Creatures de Promethee (1929), a personal version of Le Spectre de la rose (1931) and L'Apres-midi d'un faune (1935), Icare (1935) with costumes and decor by Picasso, Istar (1941) or Suite en Blanc (1943), which he qualified as neoclassical, all created for the Paris Opera.
As ballet master of the Paris Opera from 1930 to 1944 then 1947 to 1958, he devoted himself to the restoration of the technical level of the Paris Opera Ballet in order since the 1930s and until now to return it to its place as one of the best company in the world. He undoubtedly influenced Yvette Chauvire, Janine Charrat and Roland Petit.
While bestowing Serge Lifar with the National Order of the Legion of Honour, Charles de Gaulle offered him to become a citizen of France, but Lifar replied: “I am a Ukrainian and proud of that.” In Soviet Ukraine name of Serge Lifar was forbidden. He died in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1986, aged 81.
6. Max Rafael Levchin (Максиміліан Левчин) is a Ukrainian-born computer scientist and entrepreneur widely known as co-founder (with Peter Thiel) and former chief technology officer of PayPal. Originally from Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union), he moved to the United States with his family, under a political asylum, and settled in Chicago, Illinois in 1991. Along with Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek and Ken Howery he developed a popular payment product known as PayPal. After a merger with X.com, the combined entity was renamed PayPal Inc. PayPal Inc. went public in February 2002, and was subsequently acquired by eBay. In 2004, Levchin founded Slide, a personal media-sharing service for social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Slide was sold to Google in August 2010 for $182 Million and, on August 25, Levchin was named Google’s newest Vice President of Engineering.
7. Ruslan Ponomariov (Руслан Пономарьов) is a Ukrainian chessplayer and former FIDE world champion. In 1998, at the age of fourteen, he was awarded the Grandmaster title, making him the youngest ever player at that time to hold the title. In 2002 Ruslan became FIDE world champion at the age of 18, the first teenager and youngest person to ever become FIDE world champion.
8. Mykola Leontovych (Микола Леонтович) was a Ukrainian composer, choral conductor, priest, and teacher of international renown. Leontovych specialized in a cappella choral music, ranging from original compositions, to church music, to elaborate arrangements of folk music.
He is recognized for composing "Shchedryk" in 1904 (which premiered in 1916), known to the English speaking world as "Carol of the Bells" or as "Ring Christmas Bells." Based on an old Ukrainian folk song, the original lyrics describe a swallow flying into a household to proclaim the plentiful year that the family will have. The song's title is derived from the Ukrainian word "shchedryi" which means "bountiful." The folk melody was sung in many Ukrainian villages.
The song has been used many times in the soundtracks for films and television. E.g., it was used in the box office hits The Santa Clause and Home Alone, Will Vinton's award-winning A Claymation Christmas Celebration, and as a parody called "Carol of the Meows" in The O.C. show's "The Chrismukkah That Almost Wasn't". It has also been arranged and performed by many groups, regardless of singing style or genre, ranging from classical (Vienna Boys Choir), to traditional music groups (Celtic Woman), to pop singers and groups (Jessica Simpson, Destiny's Child
9. Kvitka "Kacey" (or "Cassie") Cisyk (Квітка Цісик) was an American soprano of Ukrainian ethnicity.
Her given name, Kvitka, is Ukrainian for "flower". Her father, Volodymyr Cisyk, a well known Ukrainian concert violinist and teacher, taught his daughter the violin when she was 5 years old, grooming her for a career as a classical musician.
Cisyk, a classically-trained opera singer, successfully pursued a career in four different musical genres: popular music, classical opera, Ukrainian folk music and commercial jingles for radio and TV advertisements. Cisyk recorded the version of "You Light Up My Life" heard in the movie (this song won the Best Song Oscar in 1977), sang the "Have you driven a Ford lately?" and "You deserve a break today!" jingles and also released two critically acclaimed albums of Ukrainian songs.
10. Vasyl Virastyuk (Василь Вірастюк) is a strongman competitor from Ukraine. He competed in the finals of the World's Strongest Man contest in 2003 (3rd place) and 2004 (1st place). As well he won the 2007 IFSA Strongman World Championship.
27. Most famous people in the UK.Their achievements.
