Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Kotyonochkin (also known as Kotenochkin) (Russian: Вячеслав Михайлович Котёночкин) (June 20, 1927 – November 20, 2000) was a Soviet and Russian animation director, animator and artist. He was named People’s Artist of the RSFSR in 1987. He is most famous for directing the popular animated series Well, Just You Wait! Early life Vyacheslav Kotyonochkin was born in Moscow into a Russian family of Mikhail Mikhailovich Kotyonochkin (1900—1941), an accountant and a native Muscovite who died from tuberculosis shortly before the Great Patriotic War, and Eugenia Andreevna Kotyonochkina (née Shirshova) (1906—1962), a housewife whose family moved to Moscow from Kimry, Tver Governorate. His maternal grandfather Andrei Ivanovich Shirshov came from peasants, while his wife Maria Vasilievna Komissarova belonged to a wealthy family with an estate in Kimry which they had to abandon after the October Revolution. His earliest known paternal ancestor lived under a Koshkin surname (from the word koshka — cat) and owned a restaurant and a confectionery store in Moscow, but his twin sons were nicknamed "kittens" which transformed into a rare Kotyonochkin surname with time (from the word kotyonok — kitten). Vyacheslav was baptized in a Moscow Orthodox church soon after birth. In 1938 he visited a New Year celebration for children at the House of the Unions where they were shown a collection of the first Soviet color animated films. He was so impressed that he started taking drawing courses at a Pioneers Palace. In 1942 Kotyonochkin finished seven classes of the middle school and entered an artillery special school, then he was sent to the Penza anti-tank artillery school where he studied until the war's end. He also learned to play cornet in a military band. Career Soon after the war Kotyonochkin met the acclaimed Soviet animator Boris Dyozhkin who suggested him to enter the animation courses organized by Soyuzmultfilm. In 1947 he graduated and started his career as an animator at the studio. During the next 50 years he worked on more than 80 films. From 1962 on he served as an animation director. He became closely associated with the Fitil satirical almanac by Sergey Mikhalkov and created 17 animated shorts for it during the next 25 years.