Yakov Hanecki, real name Jakub Fürstenberg (Fuerstenberg) also known as Kuba was a prominent Polish communist and close associate of Vladimir Lenin, famous as one of the financial wizards who arranged, through his close working relationship with Alexander Parvus, the secret German funding that helped the Bolsheviks seize power in the October Revolution of 1917 - after which he served as a middle ranking Soviet official until his arrest and execution in 1937.

Yakov Karlovich Grot was a nineteenth-century Russian philologist of German extraction who worked at the University of Helsinki.

Yakov Borisovich Knyazhnin was Russia's foremost tragic author during the reign of Catherine the Great. Knyazhnin's contemporaries hailed him as the true successor to his father-in-law Alexander Sumarokov, but posterity, in the words of Vladimir Nabokov, tended to view his tragedies and comedies as "awkwardly imitated from more or less worthless French models".

Yakov Krotov is a Russian essayist, historian, radio host and priest of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Yakov Aleksandrovich Malik (Russian: Я́ков Алекса́ндрович Ма́лик;English: Jacob A. Malik; 19 December [O.S. 6 December] 1906 – 11 February 1980) was a Soviet diplomat.

Yakov Isaevich Neishtadt was a Soviet and Israeli chess player and author.

Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was a Soviet Red Army soldier who became a Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in defending the eponymous "Pavlov's House" during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Yakov Isidorovich Perelman was a Russian Empire and Soviet science writer and author of many popular science books, including Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun.

Yakov Petrovich Polonsky was a leading Pushkinist poet who tried to uphold the waning traditions of Russian Romantic poetry during the heyday of realistic prose.

Prince Yakov Petrovich Shakhovskoy was a Russian statesman.