Meet the Team

CHICKENS AND FOXES
 

I studied at Nizhny Novgorod Technical University, specializing in computer security systems. I ended up there by accident. I actually wanted to be an architect or a journalist. I had good grades in school, but I didn’t get accepted into architecture. Meanwhile, this new, experimental program at the tech university didn’t even require entrance exams—honor students were accepted based on interviews. At the time, I didn’t even have a computer at home. But I showed up for the interview, we talked—and they accepted me.
 

I got my first computer only at the end of my first year. Studying without your own machine is really hard—it’s like learning to play piano without having one at home. I saw my first website as a university student, while some of my classmates were already hacking all sorts of things. It took me a while to realize I was in a cool place, studying cool stuff. One day we had to do a project, and I realized that the project didn’t have to be just code—it could have a visual element. Instead of just letters scrolling on a black screen, I could make something you could see and play.
 

So I created a kind of game, and I called it “Chickens and Foxes.” It was a pixel field where I drew little chickens and foxes. The chickens would wander around, and the player could place chickens near foxes or foxes near chickens. The foxes would eat the chickens. It was all based on basic logic algorithms, but for me—and for my professor—it was a personal revolution. He was amazed by the visual side of the program.
 

One day I walked into a lab and saw people at a computer, placing bets on who would win—the chickens or the foxes. They were playing my game.

I think that was the moment I truly fell in love with what I do.

 

PRESS THE BUTTON – GET A RESULT
 

As a student, I interned at Ericsson. We were working on a platform for mobile communication. It was the kind of project where you can’t quite grasp what you’re building—somewhere, huge systems are gathering and processing data. But for me, it was all too abstract. Sure, you know you’re working on something important, that it’s making phone signals travel somewhere… but it’s hard to feel joy or pride from being part of that kind of project.

I need to touch the result.
 

That’s why I moved into mobile development—here, you can press a button and see the result instantly. And thousands of people press the same button and see the same thing you built. That’s really important to me—to feel that direct connection with the result.

 

AN APP AS FUN
 

At one point, I worked for a really fun company that I liked a lot. They didn’t build a product of their own, but they did have mobile apps—and I built those apps. It was an event agency that organized parties and corporate events in cities all over the world. For each event, they needed a custom app. Not an easy task, but it was so much fun. There were city-wide quests where people roamed around with tablets, searching for clues. As the developer, I built those quest apps and lived through each quest myself, every time.

 

AN APP AS A CORPORATION
 

My main job now is with a big company. I build a mobile app for a corporation based in Silicon Valley—one of the leaders in call management systems. What’s a call organizer? Well, let’s say you call a hospital. Someone picks up, routes your call, maybe puts you in a queue, or logs your number and calls you back. The point is, no matter how many calls come in at once, you’ll be heard and taken care of. The company I work for organizes all of that. And the mobile app I build is one piece of that huge infrastructure.

 

AN APP AS A HELPER
 

First and foremost, I’m not just a programmer—I’m a traveler. And I truly believe that if we can make the ArtCracker product great, I would personally enjoy using it simply because it exists. And because I helped build it. The thought that I’m part of something that brings value—real value—not just to me, but to many others, is incredibly inspiring.

This isn’t the first project in my life where you have to experiment, get creative, and translate client language into tech solutions under unusual conditions. Projects like this are a huge challenge—but they also bring enormous learning opportunities, even in areas you never cared about before. It’s not just about coding. It’s about life. You end up making lots of decisions on your own. You learn to communicate with very different people—people who might have no idea what you’re talking about. And that’s where real growth happens—not just professionally, but personally.

What’s great about ArtCracker is that I’m essentially building it for myself. I care deeply about its functionality. I need this app—because I love planning my trips. And trip planning is hard work. You need help. Any product that helps with that is valuable. Planning a trip is really about how quickly you can feel connected to the place you’re in. When I travel—with family, with small kids—I need to be extremely flexible.
 

That’s what ArtCracker is all about—flexibility.

You’re somewhere new, something catches your eye, and you can instantly find out what it is—right there, on the spot, with a tap. Of course, you might have planned stops ahead of time. You may think you know what you’ll see. But most of the time, when you travel with little kids, nothing goes as planned.

And even if everything falls apart, if you have our app—you can still immerse yourself in the culture around you. You’ve got five minutes to feel something, to learn something.

And that’s magic.