On May 16, 1896, the residents of St. Petersburg attended a film screening for the first time, featuring the famous film "The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat." Just ten years later, the first Russian animated films appeared on screens. They were quite simple but quickly gained popularity among thousands of Russian children.

The first to introduce audiences to animation was the choreographer of the Mariinsky Theatre, Alexander Shiryayev. He created a puppet animation film in which characters jumped, moved, and danced against a backdrop of toy scenery. The ballet sequences were depicted with astonishing accuracy. Shiryayev worked on this project for three months, constantly moving the figures frame by frame, and even wore a hole in the parquet floor with his feet. Thus began the history of domestic animation, followed by other works.

Later, Shiryayev's work was continued by another enthusiast, Vladislav Starevich. He approached his work creatively and with humor. In 1912, Starevich created a parody of popular knightly romances titled "The Beautiful Lucanida, or The War of the Beetles with the Horned Ones." The main characters were real beetles. The plot revolved around the drama of unrequited love between the queen of the horned beetles, Lucanida, and Count Geros from a rival clan. The insects fought each other, engaged in duels, and ultimately reached a sentimental conclusion. Creating the film required immense effort: the battlefield for the beetles was sculpted from plasticine, and their legs moved with the help of thin threads. Putting such a thread on a beetle's leg was almost like shoeing a flea.

The film generated enormous interest even abroad. The English newspaper Evening News marveled: "How is all this done? No one who has seen the film could explain. If the beetles are trained, the trainer must be a person of magical imagination and patience." The animated film "The Dragonfly and the Ant," based on the eponymous fable, also became equally popular. Thus began the era of domestic animation in Russia.