I'm going to leave out the current crop in my listing, as I can't oversee whether I will still like them in overviewing their whole body of work. So, sorry Alena, Dmitri, Alexandra/Dimitrii, and so on. I'll only take skaters/couples into account that were present for a while, never one year wonders.
Pairs: Miskuteniok and Dmitriev. They're my absolute favourites, although of course I like others. G&G come to mind. I love the Protopopovs too. Bereshnaia/Sikuralidze also score high.
Dance: I rather liked Usova and Zhulin while Klimova and Ponamarenko also come to mind. Krylova and Oksianikov would also score high with me.
Ladies: I just love Irina Slutskaya (her Wonderland Free skate can still move me to tears, and that was in 2005), and Maria Butyrskaya also scores high.
Men: Alexei, Alexei, Alexei. I'm just a big fan of Yagudin's. Having said that, I also admire Ivgeni Plushenko and Alexander Abt who both had some wonderful skates. I like Ilia Kulik as well, but he's too much of a one day wonder to get as high marks as the others.
Pairs: Miskuteniok and Dmitriev. They're my absolute favourites, although of course I like others. G&G come to mind. I love the Protopopovs too. Bereshnaia/Sikuralidze also score high.
Dance: I rather liked Usova and Zhulin while Klimova and Ponamarenko also come to mind. Krylova and Oksianikov would also score high with me.
Ladies: I just love Irina Slutskaya (her Wonderland Free skate can still move me to tears, and that was in 2005), and Maria Butyrskaya also scores high.
Men: Alexei, Alexei, Alexei. I'm just a big fan of Yagudin's. Having said that, I also admire Ivgeni Plushenko and Alexander Abt who both had some wonderful skates. I like Ilia Kulik as well, but he's too much of a one day wonder to get as high marks as the others.