Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov (also mistransliterated as Jablochkoff) (Павел Николаевич Яблочков in Russian) (September 14 [O.S. September 2] 1847 – March 31 [O.S. March 19] 1894) was a Russian electrical engineer, the inventor of the Yablochkov candle (a type of electric carbon arc lamp) and businessman.

Jablochkov graduated from Nikolayev Engineering Institute as a military engineer in 1866, now Military engineering-technical university (Russian Военный инженерно-технический университет), and from Technical Galvanic School in Saint Petersburg in 1869. After serving in the army, Yablochkov settled in Moscow in 1873, where he was appointed Head of Telegraph Office at the Moscow-Kursk railroad. He opened up a workshop for his experiments in electrical engineering, which laid down the foundations for his future inventions in the field of electric lighting, electric machines, galvanic cells and accumulators.

Yablochkov’s major invention was the first model of an arc lamp that eliminated the mechanical complexity of competing lights that required a regulator to manage the voltaic arc. He went to Paris the same year where he built an industrial sample of the "electric candle" (French patent № 112024, 1876). It was in Paris that he developed his arc light idea into a complete system of electric lighting powered by Zénobe Gramme direct current dynamos fitted with an inverter to supply single-phase alternating current. The first public use of the Yablochkov system was in October 1877 at Halle Marengo of the Magasins du Louvre which was lit by 6 arc lights. By 1880, the system had grown in size to 120 lamps with 84 lit at a time powered by a 100 horsepower steam engine and had been operating every night for two and one half years.