Events from the year 1789 in Russia

• Monarch – Catherine II

• Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790)
  • June 13 - Battle of Porrassalmi
  • July 26 - Battle of Öland (1789)
  • August 24 - Battle of Svensksund (1789)
  • September 30 - Battle of Elgsö

• Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792)
  • August 1 - Battle of Focșani
  • September 22 - Battle of Rymnik

• Kirov Plant (factory) established
• Mykolaiv (city) founded
• Moscow Gostiny Dvor shopping mall rebuilt
• St. Vladimir's Cathedral (St. Petersburg)
• Tauride Palace built

• Thaddeus Bulgarin - writer and publisher
• Prince Constantine of Imereti (1789–1844) - Georgian prince, general in Russian service
• Johann Cornies - Prussian Mennonite settler and agricultural reformer
• Pavel Gagarin - statesman
• Fedor Mirkovich - general
• Dmitri Osten-Sacken - Baltic German/Russian general
• Maria Szymanowska - Polish composer and pianist who settled in St. Petersburg
• Mikhail Tikhanov - artist
• Nikolay Turgenev - economist and political theorist

• Nikita Akinfiyevich Demidov, industrialist, landowner, scientist
• Semyon Desnitsky, legal scholar