Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko was born on July, 18th at the Zima Station in the Krasnoyarsk Region. His father was a geologist, who wrote poetry throughout all his life and inculcated the love of poetry to his son. After the family moved to Moscow, the future poet as a schoolboy attended a poetry studio at a local Pioneers’ Palace. Later he took literary consultations at the publishing house Young guards, where for more than three years poet A.Dostal tutored the young poet, who wrote a lot, displaying fantastic capacity for work. Yevtushenko started to be regularly published from the age of 16, but considers that his serious work began from his poems "Carriage" and "Before the meeting" written in 1952.

In 1951 he entered the Gorky Literary Institute that assembled a whole galaxy of future poets and prose writers within its walls (V.Sokolov. B.Akhmadulina, R.Rozhdestvensky, Y.Kazakov, etc.). Later the poet would write about them in his memoirs.

In the 1950s he published a series of poetry books: “The Third Snow" (1955), " Enthusiasts’ Highway" (1956), "Promise" 1957), etc. His poem "Do Russian Want a War?" set to music, became a popular song.

After publication of his "Autobiography" (1963) in the French weekly journal "Express" the poet was subjected to sharp criticism. Together with Yuri Kazakov he left for Pechora and lived in the North, where he got familiar with work and life of fishermen and hunters. That trip left a bright trace in his writings, giving soil to a big cycle of poems published subsequently in Russian literary journals "The New World" and "Youth" ("Ballad about Poaching", "Ballad about Mirages", "Rolling", etc.).

Yevtushenko has not only been to all continents on the Earth, but has also written verses and poems about each country he has visited. His name is known all over the world. The poet’s popularity was also prompted by his manner of recitation on stage.

The Georgian theme takes a special place in Yevtushenko’s writing. He has made a lot of translations from Georgian, and written much about Georgia. In 1979 the Merani Publishing House issued a big volume of his poems about Georgia and translations of Georgian poetry under the title “Heavier than Earth”.

Starting from the mid 1960s, when he wrote "Bratskaya Hydropower", Yevtushenko constantly addressed to the big poetic form. He has published 14 long narrative poems ("Kazan University", 1970; "Calicos of Ivanovo", 1976; "Under the skin of Statue of Liberty", 1968; "Snow in Tokyo", 1974; "Pigeon in Santiago", 1978; "Mum and Neutron Bomb", 1982, etc.).

Yevtushenko started writing prose when a student yet. His first short story - "The Fourth Meschanskaya Street” was published in the journal "Youth" in 1959. It was followed by the second one - "Chicken god" - four years later. The writer’s several trips to Cuba resulted in his poem in prose "I am Cuba", which turned to be the base for a script of the same-name film made in 1964.

Yevtushenko’s career in cinema also turned successful – the film "Launch" (1979) starred him as Tsiolkovsky, and later his entirely auteur film "Kindergarten" (1984) was released.

In 1967 he wrote the story "Pearl Harbor" and after a long break, in the early eighties - the story "Ardabiola" and the novel "Berry Places", positively estimated by writer V.Rasputin.

Yevtushenko is the author of the book "Talent is a non-random miracle” (1980), a collection of his best critical works. The year 1996 saw the publication of the album book "God grant..." with his latest verses.

V.Ivanova