Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov (Russian: Васи́лий Ива́нович Баже́нов; 12 March [O.S. 1 March] 1737 or 1738 – 13 August [O.S. 2 August] 1799) was a Russian neoclassical architect, graphic artist, architectural theorist and educator. Bazhenov and his associates Matvey Kazakov and Ivan Starov were the leading local architects of the Russian Enlightenment, a period dominated by foreign architects (Charles Cameron, Giacomo Quarenghi, Antonio Rinaldi and others). According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in the 1770s, Bazhenov became the first Russian architect to create a national architectural language since the 17th-century tradition interrupted by Peter the Great.

Bazhenov's early success was followed by a tragic professional and private life. His two main construction projects were abandoned for political or financial reasons. His magnum opus, the neoclassical Grand Kremlin Palace, was cancelled shortly after groundbreaking. The imperial palace in Tsaritsyno Park fell victim to the Battle of the Palaces; Bazhenov's palace core was demolished on the orders of Catherine II. Another project, for the Moscow State University building, ended in a bitter conflict with Bazhenov's former benefactor Prokofi Demidov and led Bazhenov into bankruptcy. Before his death, Bazhenov implored his children to stay aside from the treacherous construction business.

Bazhenov's legacy remains debated. The attributions of Pashkov House and lesser projects to Bazhenov, backed by a sketchy paper trail, deductions and conjectures, are uncertain to the point where his life and work became subject of conspiracy theories. Even his place of birth and the location of Bazhenov's grave are unknown. His life story, as reconstructed by Igor Grabar and popularized by the historians of the Soviet period, is regarded by modern critics as the "Bazhenov myth", and even most recent academic research fails to replace this myth with a reliable biography.

The exact year and place of Bazhenov's birth is uncertain; he was born in 1737 or 1738 in a family of a church clerk either in Moscow or in the village of Dolskoye near Maloyaroslavets. According to the second version, the family relocated to Moscow when Vasily was three months old. In 1753 Vasily volunteered (but was not formally hired) into the Kremlin-based architectural company of Dmitry Ukhtomsky, then the only Moscow institution providing basic architectural training. There Bazhenov acquired practical construction skills; poverty forced him to seek paid work instead of classroom training.

In 1755 Bazhenov joined the first class of the newly opened Moscow State University. Bazhenov's first biographer, Eugene Bolkhovitinov (1767–1837, Metropolitan of Kiev since 1822), wrote that Bazhenov also studied at the Slavic Greek Latin Academy but this opinion is firmly refuted by 20th century biographers. Bolkhovitinov, perhaps, knowingly twisted the facts to raise the prestige of clerical colleges.

In the beginning of 1758 the University, requested by Ivan Shuvalov, dispatched a group of sixteen students, including Bazhenov and Ivan Starov, to Saint Petersburg to continue training at the newly established Imperial Academy of Arts. They, along with twenty boys selected in Saint Petersburg, became the first class of the Academy. In May 1758 the class was reduced to thirty students (8 nobles and 22 raznochintsy); at the first exam, twenty-year-old Bazhenov ranked first, also being the oldest student; fourteen–year–old Starov ranked seventh while the youngest student, Stefan Karnovich, was only twelve. Bazhenov, according to his own statement, was assigned to the class of Savva Chevakinsky, chief architect of the Russian Admiralty, worked on the construction of the Saint Nicholas church and became a personal mentor and blood brother of younger Starov.

Three years later Bazhenov and painter Anton Losenko became the first students of the Academy of Arts to be awarded a scholarship out of Russia. Bazhenov trained in Paris at the workshop of Charles De Wailly (Starov joined him there in October 1762). Bazhenov's entries to the competitions of the French Academy of Architecture were a success; he "triumphantly concluded" the scholarship, being elected to the Roman Academy of Saint Luke, Academy of Fine Arts of Florence and Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna. Later, Bazhenov became the principal promoter of French neoclassicism in Russia and set the stylistic canon of neoclassical Moscow along the ideas of De Wailly.

He returned to Russia in May 1765 possessing "unusual and impeccable credentials for a Russian of that day" and applied for a degree and tenure at the Academy, but the new management had no intention to hire Bazhenov. He was subjected to a rigorous formal examination and was ordered to submit a new graduation project; he had no success with the Academy but was noticed by Catherine II and her son Paul, who commissioned Bazhenov to design and build a private mansion on Kamenny Island. At the end of 1766 Grigory Orlov, then commander of imperial artillery and military engineers, hired Baznenov into his retinue, in the military rank of captain of artillery, and commissioned him the Arsenal in Saint Petersburg. Next year, Bazhenov followed Orlov into Moscow where he would live for most of his remaining life "giving a Russian reality to French Classical and Italian Palladian modes to which he was exposed."