Eduard Nazarov

Eduard Vasilievich Nazarov (Russian: Эдуард Васильевич Назаров; 23 November 1941 – 11 September 2016; Moscow) was a Russian (and Soviet) animator, screenwriter, voice actor, book illustrator and educator, artistic director at the Pilot Studio (2007–2016), vice-president of ASIFA (1987–1999) and a co-president of the KROK International Animated Films Festival. Eduard Nazarov was born in a bomb shelter during the Battle of Moscow. His parents were Russian engineers who met at the end of 1930s while studying at Moscow institutes. Nazarov's ancestors came from the Bryansk Oblast and had a peasant background. He became engaged in painting since childhood and while in the 9th grade entered an art school where he got acquainted with Yuri Norstein, his close friend since.

After three years in the Soviet Army Nazarov entered Stroganov Institute. Simultaneously he started working at Soyuzmultfilm in 1959 as an apprentice, self-educating, since he was too late for the animation courses. He worked as an artist-renderer, an art director's assistant under Mikhail Tsekhanovsky and as an art director under Fyodor Khitruk, most famously creating Winnie-the-Pooh for the Soviet adaptation of the fairy tale.