Vladimir Suteev  Vladimir Grigorevich Suteev () (5 July 1903 – 10 March 1993) was a Russian author, artist and animator who primarily wrote stories for children. He was among the founders of the Soviet animation industry. Suteev's books have been translated into 36 languages and published in countries such as Norway, France, Mexico, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Japan. Vladimir Suteev was born in Moscow into a family of Zinaida Vasilievna Suteeva and Grigory Osipovich Suteev (1879–1960), a prominent Russian physician, dermatologist, mycologist, one of the leading actinomycosis researches who served as the head of the venereology section at the Moscow Department of Healthcare during the Soviet days. A graduate of the Imperial Moscow University, Grigory Suteev was also practicing painting and music, performing with concerts at the Assembly of the Nobility. All this influenced Vladimir, but it was Stepan Erzia, a close family friend who made the greatest impact on him. His mother posed for Erzia, and his father left many biographical notes about his friend that were published as a "Sculpture Erza" book after Suteev's death. Even as a young man, Suteev's works were periodically published in the magazines "Pioner", "Murzilka", "Druzhnye Rebyata", and "Iskorka" and in the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda". He came to children's literature from cinema. In 1928 he graduated from the Faculty of Art of the Institute of Cinematography where he studied along with his brother Vyacheslav Suteev (1904–1993) and his cousin Dmitry Bogolepov (1903–1990), both of whom became prominent Soviet popular science directors. While still a student, he made drawings for "China in Flames" (1925), one of the earliest Soviet cutout animated films made in support of the Chinese national liberation movement. Noted for a variety of styles contributed by various young animators, including Nikolai Khodataev, Yuri Merkulov, Ivan Ivanov-Vano and the Brumberg sisters, it also became one of the world's first animated feature films: with 1000 meters of film and 14 frames per second it ran over 50 minutes at the time. Suteev made his director's debut with the first Soviet animated talkie "Athwart Street" (1931) and some other experimental works before joining the Soyuzmultfilm collective in 1936 where he took part in more than 30 films as a director, screenwriter and animator.