Kormiltsev is most famous for working during the 1980s and the 1990s as a songwriter in Nautilus Pompilius, one of the most popular rock bands in the Soviet Union and, later, Russia.

Since 1997, he translated into Russian many important pieces of modern prose, such as Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, or Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting.

Ilya graduated from an English-focused public school and entered the SPSU, however, after one year he transferred to the Ural State University.

As recalled by Sakmarov, at some point ‘Ilya started dying his hair orange and went high to rave parties’, though before he only drank vodka and watched Italian cinema.

He translated into Russian such writers as J. R. R. Tolkien, J. G. Ballard, Roald Dahl, Irvine Welsh, Gilbert Adair, Frédéric Beigbeder, William S. Burroughs, Richard Brautigan, Chuck Palahniuk, and many others.

The publishing house specialized in controversial and radical texts, one its first books was a novel by a White power skinhead from Moscow Dmitry Nesterov.

[7][3][8] In 2006 the combined Ultra.Kultura edition of Adam Parfrey's Apocalypse Culture and Apocalypse Culture II, titled Культура времен Апокалипсиса, was banned by Kremlin decree as drug propaganda, owing to its inclusion of an essay by David Woodard purported to condone unauthorized ketamine experimentation.

As his publishing house was closed, Kormiltsev had no income and no medical insurance in England, for several months wasn’t able to go to hospital and refused his wife's pleas to ask for help.

The advanced stage of cancer required expensive therapy, Kormiltsev’s friends managed to contact Roman Abramovich, an old fan of Nautilus Pompilius, who gave 15000 pounds and helped to transfer him into Royal Marsden Hospital.

[14][15] A commemorative bench for Kormiltsev was installed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in London,[16] in 2018 the authorities of Ekaterinburg announced naming an alley after him.