My name is Mikhail Kelner. I was born in Bryansk, USSR (Russia) in 1988.
My father, Alexander Kelner, worked with computers in those days (he is still doing that), so we’ve got a
personal computer at home in 1992. It was very uncommon for post-USSR countries, but I would be a liar if I
say that I was doing on it anything except playing games, but I definitely was raising up in the
computer-healthy environment (I even remember platypus as Linux mascot).
In 2002 I became a devoted fan of series of games “FIFA Soccer” by EA and participated in development of
non-official non-commercial patch “Russian league” which, obviously, was adding Russian soccer championship
into the game. It was my first “create something” experience.
In middle / high school I used to be a rebel and protested against violation of students' (to be specific,
mostly mine) rights, such as right to wear casual cloth in public school, to have long hair for boys and not
to do janitors’ job for free (as it used to be in a post-soviet schools). It was a lot of fun.
After graduation from high school I've realized that I need to find a way to make some money for buying
cigarettes. So, thanks to smoking, I’ve started to work as a self-employed web-designer. I quit smoking in a
few years, but I still like to do designer's job time to time.
I was studying in Bryansk State Technical University, where I’ve met girl named Kristina and we’ve married in
2006 (believe it or not, but we are still married). At the end of the year I got my first full-time job as a
software developer.
I graduated from the university in 2010. At the same year I started company “Wide-Media” with my friend
Hermann Anufrikov. We had a bunch of our own internet projects and also we were creating websites for our
clients. This business gave me experience in journalism, internet marketing and doing business in
general.
In 2013 I immigrated from Russia to Israel with my wife and kid. Can’t say it was very easy to settle up in a
new country, but we did it. It was a very interesting period of my life. If you have never been to Israel I
strongly recommend to visit this country.
In 2017 we immigrated to the United States of America. I was very lucky to find the job even before my actual
presence in the US, so I didn’t have a difficult choice about place of destination. So we settled up in New
Jersey. In summer 2019 we moved to Texas.
I have some hobbies, such as programming (which is also my work), my video blog, photography (I make stock
photos and publish them under copyleft license), shooting, playing chess, Counter Strike and FIFA
Soccer.
