Arkadiy Strugatskiy

Born on August 28, 1925 in Batumi, Georgian SSR, Transcaucasian SFSR, USSR (now in Georgia), Arkadiy Natanovich Strugatskiy was a Soviet/Russian sci-fi writer, often writing in collaboration with his younger brother Boris Strugatskiy. Strugatskiys' father Natan Strugatskiy was a Jewish art critic and their mother was a Russian Orthodox teacher. When Arkadiy was a child, the family moved to Leningrad. He was evacuated from the city during the siege of Leningrad in 1942 along with his father, who didn't survive the journey. The following year he was drafted into the Soviet army and went to study at the artillery school in Aktyubinsk. In 1949 he graduated the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow as Japanese and English interpreter. He worked for the military until 1955, when he became a writer instead. In 1958 the Strugatskiy brothers begun their artistic collaboration, which lasted until Arkadiy's death. In 1979, the brothers' best-known novel, "Piknik na obochine" ("Roadside Picnic") was loosely adapted for the screen by Andrei Tarkovsky as Stalker (1979). Arkadiy died on October 12, 1991 in Moscow, USSR (now in Russia). Writings of the Strugatskiys continue to inspire creators of movies (such as Dark Planet (2008)) and video games (such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) and its sequels).