Since childhood I loved animals, even favorite toys were animals, and in school time I was deeply involved in reading books such as Grzhimek, Durrell, Goodall, Corbett, Anderson, Sladkov, Bianki, Drozdov etc. Many of these books were illustrated by great wildlife artists such as Charushin, Kapustina, Vatagin, Gorbatov and others. Their works were a big inspiration for me. I started drawing on my own when my mother gave me pen and paper in early childhood, and later I dedicated my drawings mostly to animals of all kinds both real and fantastical ones. In the beginning these even included microbes and active molecules such as ferments and antibodies which were as much imaginary as dragons!
Most of the time I was drawing on my own, following only own imagination or living nature. I am from St. Petersburg where I live and work. While attending school outing classes in Leningrad Zoo I was totally involved in watching and drawing my dear animals. My favorite ones were horses, big cats, big birds and baby birds.
There in Leningrad zoo for the first time I met a true wildlife artist Vladimir Chernoglazov. He worked as an artist in the zoo for 40 years. A zoo artist’s job in old time required a lot of various skills such as making fully handmade info boards for hundreds of animal enclosures, wall painting and decorating, illustration, decorating of the park, buildings and enclosures etc. Despite of loads of routinely technical work, Chernoglazov managed to draw on his own and he was an amazing artist. Although he never gave me any class or workshop, a part of several valuable advices, it was he who introduced me into understanding of animal drawing, their anatomy, behavior and drawing techniques.
Later I attended art school and then went to study zoology in St Petersburg State University, and a fellow zoologist introduced me to another famous wildlife artist Tatiana Kapustina. Kapustina was creating illustrated books since 1960’s, and several generations of Soviet children (including me) grew up on her wonderful illustrations. Her unique style is easily recognizable even for people in foreign countries such as India where soviet books used to be translated and published in local languages. Her warm works of fluffy and kind animals done in watercolor or lithography are a great inspiration for me.