A well-known production designer Valery Petrovich Kostrin was born in Nizhny Novgorod (then known as Gorky) in 1938. He studied at a teacher training college for two years in his hometown. Later, he enrolled in the All-Russia State University of Cinematography, named after S.A. Gerasimov, on the art faculty taught by Mikhail Alexandrovich Bogdanov. Valery Kostrin has been the production designer for several famous films, including "The White Sun of the Desert," "The Star of Captivating Happiness," "The Forest," all directed by Vladimir Motyl; "Mother," directed by Gleb Panfilov; and "Kidnapping, the Caucasian Style," directed by Sergei Bodrov. He regularly participated in exhibitions dedicated to theatre and cinema, both in the USSR and in foreign countries. In addition, the artist created unique and interesting canvases by skillfully combining techniques and materials. In 1997, a solo exhibition was held at the Cinema Museum in Moscow. To date, Valery Kostrin's works are represented in private and public collections worldwide. You can watch a video interview with Valery Kostrin about his memories of Rustam Khalfin on Rustam Khalfin's YouTube channel. Kostrin recalls Rustam Khalfin's work: "It was always interesting how he gets to the last result, starting from reality, it's unclear. In order to reach another level of abstraction later, which begins to live by itself not as paint, smear, expression, but as some kind of a cosmic world," he also comments, "he was looking for an additional element through the "pulota", through a portrait of his body without a mirror."

Rustam Khalfin visited Valery Kostrin's workshop in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in turn, Valery Kostrin came to Alma-Ata. "He really conveyed something to me without words," Valery Kostrin recalls. In July 1990, Rustam Khalfin visited Valery Kostrin's dacha, where he created a number of his works, which can be seen on our website at the link.