History of Russian Furry Community and Art

We were interested in anthropomorphic arts almost from the beginnings of furry community in Russia. Since 2003 our team is creating an annual anthology of Russian-speaking furry art "ARFI" (*) This fenzine contains art, literature and music from different furry artists. There is certain difficulties for artists who does not know English to participate in International furry events and present their art to European public. Mostly because of language barrier, but also financially. Some of artists are not even present on International furry web sites like Furaffinity, but gladly this is beginning to change. That is why we thought it may be interesting to tell our story, highlight artists who were participating in our publications and talk about possible future projects and developments. If it will be interesting to the audience we may answer some questions about history of Russian-speaking furry community, to the extent of our knowledge of course. Also there is presentation of our new project "Furry Stuff" at the end of the panel. Furry Stuff is all about different types of anthropomorphic art: from small sculptures and plushies to everyday items representing characters and symbols that is dear to Furry community. It's about hand-made craft and creating collectable items for furries and by furries. And also it's about surprises and furry-themed design.

• ARFI in English stands for Artistic Russian Furry Initiative. (Or literally translating Russian variant of acronym: Russian Furry Arts Association)