Wladimir Kaminer
Vladimir Kaminer was born in Moscow in 1967 as son of a teacher and a business economist. After training as a sound engineer, he studied dramaturgy at the Moscow Theater Institute. In 1990 Kaminer came to the GDR, where he was granted humanitarian asylum and finally, shortly before German unification, citizenship of the GDR. In Berlin, Kaminer was for a long time a member of the reform stage Heim und Welt; in addition, he regularly published articles in various newspapers and had his own program on Radio Multikulti. He also organized events at Kaffee Burger, including the Russian Disco, later made famous by his widely received book of the same name. He achieved greater fame as a writer with, among others, his story collection Militärmusik. Today he lives with his family in Berlin.