This deployment separated him permanently from his father and his only, older sister Maria (both were killed in Smolensk during the Holocaust).
[2] After attending flying school in Krasnoyarsk, Kachanov flew fighter planes as a tail gunner.
From 1947 to 1957 he worked as animator, assistant director and production designer for film directors and animators of the older generation: Dmitry Babichenko, Valentina and Zinaida Brumberg, Lev Atamanov, Ivan Ivanov-Vano and Vladimir Polkovnikov (whom Kachanov regarded as his directing mentor).
In 1959 he directed Nazim Hikmet's screenplay in Love Cloud, which received awards at festivals in Annecy, Oberhausen and Bucharest.
[3] The animated cult SF film is based on a story by Kir Bulychov, "Alice's Journey".