Shpilenok, Igor Petrovich

Born in 1960 in the Bryansk region . He graduated from the Bryansk Pedagogical Institute ^[7] . He began to study photography in his school years, from the age of 13, persuading his grandmother to buy him a camera. For 15 years he lived and worked in the Bryansk Forest reserve, later Kamchatka became the main place of work and filming ^[8] . He spends several months in the Kronotsky Reserve , for hours patiently waiting for a good shot with animals and birds. He takes a lot of pictures of bears from fairly close range, keeps a blog in LiveJournal , where he talks in detail about the nature of animals, about the places where he is. In 2012, Igor’s blog received the “Rynda of the Year” award in the “Image of the Year” nomination ^[9]

In the summer of 2007, Igor Shpilenok left the Valley of Geysers on the eve of a giant landslide that overwhelmed many geysers and blocked the valley. One of the first to return there to describe this phenomenon. He later published a book on the Valley of Geysers and its recent history.

Igor's works have been published in numerous international and Russian magazines, including Smithsonian , National Wildlife , Geo , BBC Wildlife .

April 10, 2013 Igor Shpilenok went on a trip around Russia in a GAZ-33081 car with a diesel engine. The purpose of the trip from the Bryansk Forest to the Kamchatka Peninsula is to talk about Russia's nature reserves. ^{[10] [11]}

• First wife - Alla Shpilenok (nee?, Born 1960), teacher, head of the Nerussov elementary educational school (NOS), village council deputy ^[12] , now an employee of the environmental department of the Bryansk Forest reserve ^[13]
  • Son - Tikhon (1980–2016 ^[14] ) - Director of the Kronotsky Biosphere Reserve ^[15] from 2009 until the end of his life,
  • Son - Peter (born September 8, 1984), director of the Kronotsky Biosphere Reserve since 2017 ^{[16] [17]} ,
• The second wife is Laura Williams (1969–2018 ^[18] ), founder of the Russian program of the World Wide Fund for Nature ( WWF ) ^{[19] [20]} , creator of the WWF office in Kamchatka, enthusiast and organizer of the hippotherapy movement, author of new original techniques in this direction .
  • Son - Andrey (born in 2001 ^[21] )
  • Son - Makar (born in 2004 ^[21] )
• Brother - Nikolay Shpilenok, naturalist photographer.
• Brother - Dmitry Shpilenok, director and cameraman of popular science films.

• Valley of Geysers, photobook. - “The New Book”, 2009. - (The reserve Kamchatka with Igor Shpilenk). - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-87750-152-2 ^{[22] [23]}
• Kuril Lake, photobook. - “New Book”, 2011. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-87750-163-8 ^[24]
• My Kamchatka neighbors. 370 days in the Kronotsky reserve. - “Scooter”, 2013 - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91759-168-1 ^{[25] [26]}
• Kamchatka, which I love. Stories in the frame and behind the scenes. - Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2013 .-- 174 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91657-791-4 .

•   - Igor Shpilenok in LiveJournal