“Sport has always been a big part of my life and I was honoured to be elected as President of the All-Russia Tennis Association in 1990. It's the best way to keep fit and relax, especially when I've been working hard on a film. Hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014 will inspire so many people to take up winter sports and it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase the 'new Russia' to the rest of the world.“

Nikita Mikhalkov is a world-famous Oscar-winning film director, actor, People's Artist of Russia, chairman of the management board of Cinematographers' Union of Russia, President of the Russian Fund of Culture, member of the Commission of the Russian Federation for UNESCO and Co-Chair of the Russian Zemstvo Movement Council.

Mikhalkov began his acting career at the age of 14 in the film industry. In 1963, at the age of 18, he played a starring role in Georgy Danelia's film Walking the Streets of Moscow and also sang the film's theme tune. The following year, he joined the Schukin Theatre School and later left to join the VGIK Directors Faculty, where he graduated in 1971.

Mikhalkov directed his first film in 1974, called At Home Among Strangers, Stranger at Home and released films almost every year for the next decade: Slave of Love (1976), Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano (1977), Five Evenings (1979), A Few Days in the Life of I.I. Oblomov (1980), Kinfolk (1982), In Private (1983).

In 1994, Mikhalkov released the film Burnt by the Sun which earned him the film industry's highest prizes, an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and a tie for the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1995. He released the likewise acclaimed The Barber of Siberia in 1999. His work became internationally recognized and was a favorite at international and local film festivals. At the same time, he continued to act in several successful films, including Siberiade (1979), Railway Station for Two (1983) and A Cruel Romance (1984).

In 1984, Mikhalkov was awarded the title of People's Artist of Russia. At the end of the 1980s he established a producers' association, Tri Te, which still operates successfully today. In 1990, he was elected President of the All-Russia Tennis Association, which he served for five years. In 1993, Mikhalkov was elected President of the management board of the Russian Fund of Culture and Chairman of the management board of Cinematographers' Union of Russia in 1999.

Mikhalkov was born in 1945 in Moscow, Russia.

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