"What are you going to be when you grow up?" – my parents asked me when I was a child. Perhaps, when I was in kindergarten my answer was like almost any boy has in this age – to be a cosmonaut or a frontier guard. But I don’t remember it. But I remember quite well that when I had found out about the existence of the profession of zoologist and what people of this profession do, the problem of choosing a future job for me, a first-former, was solved. Of course I will be a zoologist! I will have a tame panda (it seemed to me then that any zoologist must have this teddy bear), two St. Bernard dogs (I was crazy about this breed till I was in the 5th or 6th form) and my flat will be full of stuffed animals (!!!???.... then it seemed to me a decorative attribute of any flat).

In my dreams I pictured myself walking my pets in the huge park, travelling around in search of undiscovered animals, writing scientific works and being awarded for them. Perhaps in that period I began extending my dreams to the paper. But not only dreams. I was drawing everything and nearly always. And I was drawing everywhere: in my school diary and copybooks there was such a quantity of those pandas, that if all of them could have been animated, the question of protection of these wonderful animals would not need to be settled. I drew dogs of various breeds (not only St. Bernards) with shut eyes. But what did I do with the pictures on the last pages of the literature textbooks! I vitalized these "dull" masterpieces of Repin and Serov, Levitan and Shishkin...

If my parents had known what would result from my inclination to the writing/drawing tools, they would have thought more than twice before taking me to the paint shop. However, then, in the first form, there were neither literature textbooks nor diaries but I had a little notebook where made my first sketches (how much I would like to see once again what I was daubing then). It was this notebook that helped my parents choose the hobby group or sport section where my parents took me (one day my mother looked through it and noted that there were much more drawings than exercises in writing in my copybooks). I began attending the paint shop under the fantastic name Fairy Bird. And there was everything truly like in the fairy tale there - we were drawing, sculpturing, reading magic stories and then extended them to the paper, fooling around and joking, we were living full life...

Over the time of these magic 8 years I took part in the numerous municipal, region, republic, all-Union and international exhibitions, for which I was more than once awarded by various prizes. Staying in still all-Union at that time Molodaya Gvardiya summer camp as a prize for the victory in one of the all-Union competitions of children’s drawings seemed to me a top grade in evaluating my creation (1987).

After the tenth form in 1992 I entered the Kharkov Veterinary Institute (the infant dream to become a zoologist with a little amendment has become true). All the rear desks in the lecture halls were mine! Practically all lecture themes that seemed to me interesting were at once depicted on the desks after some indoctrination. For the next generations of students! And the antique atlantes and mythical creatures were gazing from the walls in my friends` rooms in the student hostel (I hope the Dean of that time never reads this).

Though I drew very much I never thought seriously about the career of artist. I was sure that I would be a vet! So after graduating from the Institute in 1997 I became that. It is still a puzzle for me how I have been first employed. During the interview I answered all the questions "no", "don’t know", "I can’t" though deep in my mind I knew the correct answers "YES", "I KNOW", "I ALWAYS COULD DO THIS!". I was almost ready to that they would show me the door but by some miracle I was remained for the evaluation period and began to be proudly called Consulting Veterinarian. I gained knowledge very fast and after the evaluation period I was admitted to the staff for a year. It was a great year! I had to work much, but I dreadfully liked my job and besides I was paid not bad money for these times. I cordially recollect the period of 1997-1998.

In December 1998, two weeks before the New Year, my family and I left for Germany. For permanent residence...

Germany. The new country, new life, new universe...People speaking incomprehensible language (it should be taken into account that I was learning German nearly for a year before leaving), the hostel mishpukha, the goods in supermarkets that I had never seen before, my first CD-player, language courses, thinking of future, nostalgic mood for the past.

I started drawing very much again. I drew nearly every day. For the first six months I have made more than 50 drawings - with black ball pen on the A-3 sheets of paper to the accompaniment of Enigma or Era. Adaptive period a la Lunyakov...Again but more advanced language course, attestation of my Ukrainian veterinary diploma (17 exams during 1 year), unfinished doctoral work on pharmacology and toxicology, private enterprise, which by the laws of genre has given place to my vocation - I has begun drawing professionally.

It turned out that even after so long intermission I did not practically lose any skills in drawing and graphic arts, but I had to restore afresh the painting technique: I sat for a long time before the canvas to make a first stroke, but after making this I was sometimes ready to throw the canvas out because - it’s enough, the work is a fail! But to my surprise I fast got into a painting vein. Not later than painting the fifth or sixth work I felt I liked it, and after the tenth I began to experiment. And by and large I continue doing this to this very day.