Events from the year 1791 in Russia

• Monarch – Catherine II

• Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792) continues
  • July 10: Battle of Măcin
  • August 11: Battle of Cape Kaliakra

• Kakhovka founded
• Pale of Settlement established
• Zoological Museum of Moscow University founded

• Vladimir Fyodorovich Adlerberg, general
• Sergey Aksakov, writer
• Nikolay Bestuzhev, navy officer, writer, inventor, painter, Decembrist
• Kapiton Pavlov, portrait painter
• Yekaterina Saltykov, courtier
• Pyotr Sokolov (portraitist), portrait painter
• Alexandru Sturdza, diplomat and writer

• Prince Alexander of Kartli (1726–1791), Georgian prince
• Yakov Knyazhnin, writer
• Grigory Potemkin (born 1739)
• Potap Kuzmich Zaikov, navigator in Russian America