Alexandr Poltorak is the creator of several popular Russian children's books, magazines, and television programs.

Leo Tolstoy is one of the preeminent novelists and humanist philosophers of the 19th century. His world-famous novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina are widely considered classics and his philosophical works and commitment to pacifism, which led to his excommunication from the Russian Orthodox Church, continue to inspire readers more than a century after his death.