Born in Prehistoye, Yaroslavl, USSR (now Russia). He completed his art studies at Jaroslawl Art Institute, where, as a young student, he realized his first animated film. In 1976 he entered Vsesoyouzny Gosoudarstvenni Institut Kinematographiy (VGIK) in Moscow and, after obtaining a diploma, he started working at Sverdlovsk film studio. In 1989 he made THE COW, a ten-minute long ecological and satiric film that used oil painting on a cell. It gained many international festival awards, including an Oscar® nomination. For THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1999), Petrov took four years to hand-paint more than 29,000 images on sheets of glass directly under the IMAX® camera on an animation stand. OLD MAN... became the first large format film to receive an Award for Animated Short. Other credits include as production designer: POTERYALSYA SION (1984) and I VOZVRASHCHAETSYA VETER... / AND THE WIND RETURNETH (1991); as set designer: TSAREUBIYTSA / THE ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR (1991); as art director: DOBRO POSHALOVAT / WELCOME (1986); as writer: "Khalif-aist" (1981, TV); as animator: FUYU NO HI / WINTER DAYS (2003); as director: SON SMESHNOGO CHELOVEKA / THE DREAM OF A RIDICULOUS MAN (1992, also writer & art director) and MOYA LYUBOV / MY LOVE (2006). His son, Dmitri Petrov (b. 1979), worked as an animator on THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.  Nominated for Achievement in Animated Short Films 1989: KOROVA (THE COW) - Producer  Nominated for Achievement in Animated Short Films 1997: RUSALKA (THE MERMAID) - Producer  Best Achievement in Animated Short Films 1999: THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Producer  Nominated for Achievement in Animated Short Films 2007: MOYA LYUBOV (MY LOVE) - Director 4 nominations, 1 Award