"He himself was a neural network"

The culturologist, philosopher and producer Anatoly Prokhorov left left

When you think about the loss of a person of this scale, intelligence, various talents - you do not know where to start.

Together with Alexander Tatarsky, they created the legendary “pilot”. They came up with and launched the first independent animation studio in the USSR, ahead of the time. And what a studio! Among the many famous films “Pilot”, for example, is a fabulous cycle “Mountain of Semlodes”. Or awarded the Cannes Palm branch "Gagarin". A whole generation of gifted directors and artists came out of this studio, many of them are now working in Hollywood.

Prior to that, he developed quantum statistics at the Department of Theoretical Physics in the Academy of Sciences. He was generally terribly smart. His dissertation was devoted to the theory of nucleation.

And then he threw the Academic Institute, despite the tears of his mother, the general son with the prospects of a great scientist, went into animation.

He generally liked to start a big business from scratch.

Together with the producer Ilya Popov, they launched the Smeshariki Megaproject to the world orbit, more than 200 episodes were made. The history of spherical friends continues today, gaining millions of views in almost all countries.

And he was engaged in the Eastern Theater: but, Kabuki, he studied the Vietnam Theater, he knew the history of the movie well.

He was also a genuine, non -ostentatious philosopher. And we listened to his lectures on the philosophy of life.

And what amazing animated seminar they made with the wonderful director Konstantin Bronzit in St. Petersburg!

There was nothing more interesting than talking with him: about self -identification, about God, about love. About death.

He was ahead of the time, and in his professional trajectory (to amazement and, what to hide, irony) moved from the profession to the profession, developing, comprehending new meanings, exploring the boundaries of the possible. Today there is so lacking meaning, thoughts. And he knew how, in the words of Nietzsche, controlling the thought, to control his happiness. How to learn this?

Norstein cannot forget when he first saw Tolya. It was 1976, a discussion of animation in the Cinema House. And then some blond, physicist came, and suddenly, so accurately, brightly, smartly began to talk about the “Hedgehog in the fog” that the author heard: “Where does this person understand the animation so well, so professionally analyzes the work?”

The scale of his gaze is wider than professional, he was engaged in the philosophy of life, anthropology, and recently - anthropogy, in fact, the possibility of gaining knowledge, improving people throughout life. Actually, he was doing this.

He was himself - a neural network that connects the seemingly incompatible: science and art, scientists and artists. And now the acute sensation of a cliff of communication. What would Tolya say about this?