Mikhail Shemyakin the acclaimed theater artist and sculptor from Saint Petersburg was acquainted with Hoffman's fairy tales ever since a young age. Shemyakin, was a patron of German romanticism literature. Hoffman's stories were noteworthy to the director whom he believes has influenced Russian authors such as Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Serapion Brothers. Shemyakin is a resident of East Germany, and his favorite city is Königsberg (Kaliningrad) where his father was commandant just before World War 2. There he would grow up reading about Hoffman and Brothers Grimm. As an artist, he can discern an Hoffman-like influence in all the cities in Russia he would visit. In 2001, Shemyakin already was an Hoffman artist who created sketches for costumes, sets, and masks for the ballet "The Nutcracker" for the Mariinsky Theater. The director had an initial idea of adapting the stories to the theater screens. The project was initiated by Soyuzmultfilm director Akop Kirakosyan, who invited Shemyakin to the project. Animation director Stanislav Sokolov stated Mikhail Shemyakin's direction gave new impetus to the art of drawing and animation at Soyuzmultfilm.