Rasul Gamzatov (born September 8, 1923, Khunzakh, Dagestan ASSR, RSFSR - died November 3, 2003, Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer and politician. People's poet of Dagestan ASSR (1959). Hero of Socialist Labor (1974). Laureate of Lenin (1963) and third-degree Stalin Prize (1952). He is perhaps best known for his poem Zhuravli (English: The Cranes, or The Storks), which also became a well-known Soviet song.