Yuriy Norshteyn was born during a World War II evacuation in Penza Oblast. He studied at an art school, but his first career was working in a furniture factory. He soon took a two year animation course, though, and was able to find work at an animation studio. He was involved with the animation for the 1962 film "Who Said Meow?" He would work on about 50 films before getting the opportunity to co-direct the 1968 film, "25th October, The First Day" and he went on to work on other films such as "Times of the Year" and "The Battle of Kerzhenets". He works with the multiplane camera technique.
He was working on an animated adaption of Gogol's Overcoat when he was fired from the studio for working too slowly. By that time, he and a few other people had managed to finish 10 minutes in 2 years. H managed to overcome this and co-found an animation studio/school. 26 years later, he is STILL working on "The Overcoat". About the same number of minutes have been completed as the nuber of years it has taken to work on it. It is going to be about 65 minutes long when it is finished. He has also written the book, Snow on the Grass.

Image+info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuriy_Norshteyn