Abram Samoilovitch Besicovitch was a Russian mathematician, who worked mainly in England. He was born in Berdyansk on the Sea of Azov to a Karaite Jewish family.

Andrey Andreyevich Markov was a Russian mathematician best known for his work on stochastic processes. A primary subject of his research later became known as the Markov chain. He was also a strong, close to master-level chess player.