A stakhanovite is a worker, particularly someone in manual labor, who works excessively hard and overachieves. It is named after one Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, a miner in mid 1930s Russia. He rose to fame during a propaganda campaign that claimed he managed to mine 102 tons of coal in 5 hours and 45 minutes. The idea was that the celebration of hard workers in the Russian media would increase productivity in all industries. It is believed that the campaign was successful in this regard.

Some months after setting his record, Stakhanov broke it again by moving 227 tons over the same time period. Approximately 6 months later, the record was beaten by Nikita Izotov, who managed 607 tons.

In reality, 607 tons is more than 40 times the amount that a very strong human is physically able to deal with, and all the records set by Stakhanov and Izotov were either the result of a combined effort from an entire mining team, or an outright fabrication.