Gleb
Petropavlovskii
Pushing
to the
absolute
A race car driver, a piano player and technician, a scuba diver, a synthesizer guru, a speleologist, an advertisement enthusiast, a "weird socks" guy, a sword wielder, a metal welder, a professional badminton player, a snowboarder, a rock climber, an associate of culturology, an art lover, a jester :D
Emmy-nominated foley artist, an award-winning sound designer and a commercial music composer
limit
I was born in Moscow, in 1995, short after the USSR collapsed. I was born underdeveloped, with a massive list of diagnoses. Doctors said I wouldn't make it In short, my skin was flaking off, which produced an unimaginable itch. I was always bandaged, and at any opportune moment, I would scratch, which resulted in some messy gory scenes I must have had a strong spirit in me, since I didn't seem to mind that much, and was still a happy kid, excited to try out new things
I developed a keen interest in music, I started playing piano before I had learned a word. Nothing spectacular, like Mozart playing actual pieces, I was just improvising and jamming out I do remember having an opinion on music at that age, which must have been 3, at most. I hated everything my parents would play, except for The Beatles. I also focused my playtime around sounds. By imitating jetpack, missle, shot bursts and other sci-fi elements, I formed a set and concrete vision for each category of SFX. It was not documented in any way, but stayed with me throughout my professional career.
My family and I returned to my mom's homecountry, Ukraine, where we stayed on and off, for the next 5 years. I was enjoying the breeze of the Black Sea, great food, and was cured of the illness completely. Became a great swimmer, learned and forgot a language, hiked many mountains: basically experienced a lifetime before I was 7.
After I healed, my family decided to bring me back, since Ukrainian education was inferior to Russian. It turned out to be the worst possible decision, made at the worst possible time ever. But later on that I have also started piano classes with famous Elena Tairova, a prominent musician and a teacher of such pianists as Kisin, Borzenko, Petroff and more. I seriously loved it!
At the age of 12 I have won a few Moscow piano competitions, performed with orchestras and solo, representing my school. Meanwhile my middle school grades showed a stable D-F, while I was spending at least 3-4 hours at the music school, and at least 2 hours doing sports every day. I also have been absent in school due to various traumas, including broken legs and arms. I was great at sports, attended an Olympic Reserve School, so the injuries were, per se, a toll.
I hated school. I didn't seem to fit in with other kids, since I had no TV, and grew up watching movies, starting with Pulp Fiction. I wasn't smarter or better in any way, but had a totally different upbringing. In the Russian school, typically, every time you do something original, or disobey very concrete instructions, you'd get punished. I streamlined the first ever task given to me at school, and I got an instant F on the first lesson. Safe to say, it formed a certain level of hatred in me toward post-soviet institutions and its people, obeying the rigid, cold and uninspiring bureaucracy. I'll later realize that the grass is equally withered everywhere, but until my early 20s I'll keep hating everything Soviet, and, consequentially, Russian and Ukrainan.
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Not scoring very high on my graduation exams, I enrolled in every program that would take me. That ended up being the faculty of Art Sciences of HSE, the best university in Russia at that time I did not enjoy the subjects that were taught, except for the basic education, such as philosophy, ancient greek and some pre-medieval art and architecture Lessons exploring times past that era started to bore me incredibly, and I started working as an assistant in a synthesizer shop, eventually dropping out of the university Fedor Vetkalov, famous Russian guru of synthesis, owned that synth shop. He supplied systems to such bands as Depeche Mode, Race to Space, Leningrad and more. Not only he picked the synthesizers for the clients, he would essentially shape their sonic branding. Slight nuances of sound were his absolute bread and butter, and I've learned a lot from him. At that time I'm building my own modular synthesizer and tackle my first commercial projects for scoring and sound design
Despite having a nice time at the studio, playing around with synthesizers, I wanted to obtain concrete knowledge of the inner workings of the sound At the time, Russia had no such education, so I looked elsewhere. I remembered taking a trip to the USA, while I was in high school. I visited Stanford, Pepperdine, UCLA and other colleges, which left a positive impression on me I eventually ended up at Full Sail, pursuing a Recording Arts bachelors, surrounded by quite possibly, the most talented individuals, most of which ended up with major businesses or with major jobs in the industry
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Eventually I scored an internship at one of the best audio post-production studios in the world, "Eleven Sound" I interned for only about 6 months, but in that time I achieved way more than many of the interns at that studio. I did full foley work for Emmy-nominated series, created content for massive companies, such as Ford, Experian, Uber and others Interning there not only elevated my overall engineering skills, but also taught me a valuable lesson of what makes things captivating. I have also set a goal to have a post-production studio of my own, since I saw many imperfections in Eleven's workflows An image of luxury, and high-profile clientele that cared about quality was burned into my retinas And then COVID happened
Back in Russia, I quickly found out that having a US degree means nothing, when the whole world is on fire Email after email, studio owners told me the same story: we're losing business and laying off half of our staff If I'd get a negative reply, it was a decent outcome; some studio owners tried to make me sign a contract which would make me pay them, for my own services Maneuvering the pitfalls of Russian business, I decided to do an internship at one of Russia's biggest audio post-production studios, "Chemodanov Production"
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At Chemodanov, I quickly moved up from an intern's position to an audio engineer's, then became a creative director I started small, with implementations of engineering and client servicing regulations. My boss enjoyed my approach to things and let me loose creatively, aiming to modernize his brand at low cost My main duties were marketing, design and control over website's development. Said website was heavily optimized with SEO agencies, so it consisted of 400+ pages I recreated a logic map for it, rolled out a working version, reworked all of the design elements, fonts and texts. Additionally, I reworked the entirety of Google Ads and Yandex Direct accounts, with a total of 150 different ad companies optimized by hand, each week. I was also managing a few post-production projects at all times, as a producer. Phones rang all day! Oh did I mention the turnover increased by 28% that year? During COVID?! Unfortunately, as I was nearing the completion of the project, my boss lost his mind, it seems, and made weird esoteric coaching sessions of his, mandatory for all staff. On top of that, my list of duties was longer than the deciphered human DNA, and I could no longer keep up I left, and so did half of the studio's team, right with me
Out of job, but not out of grit and ambition, I reached out to my clients, launched a successful marketing campaign, and in the first month I've made $5000 after taxes. In comparison with an average Moscow salary of $500 per month, that was unbelievably high I've worked with the biggest companies and advertisement agencies, film and animation studios, TV stars and musicians The name that I've made for myself was pretty good, and I started receiving contracts from the top studios in the country And then Russia attacked Ukraine, stripping entire generations of people off their future
After having series of meetings, my mom packed her things and left Russia. Me and my brother followed suit, thus, starting a 2-year refugee trip We fled to Belarus during the night, crossing a land border. Military personnel stopped us and made us go through an additional checkpoint, to see if we are supposed to be on the frontlines We managed to pass it, and after a few days, had to come back to Russia to fly out of the region altogether We landed in Turkey short-wile after, with hand-carry luggage and rented a hotel, overlooking a Bosporus. Funny, since our ancestors did exactly the same, fleeing from the communists We spent about 5 months in Istanbul, then moved to Fethiye. Few months after, we parted ways From that point starts an incredible chain of events, several countries and two years of freelancing, living below minimum wage and feeling depressed, while I had my visas rejected and had half of the world's population wishing my kind would seise to exist It was odd, but refreshing to see the engines of the cold war military gargantuans to fire up, bringing up clouds of panic-filled articles, hateful social media posts and worldwide tensions We hoped for peace, public prosecution of Putin; it did not come. Peace talks were canceled, death toll for Ukraine and Russia combined was closing in on a solid million, rocket strikes on my mother's hometown increased in quantity and frequency No one cared if you're half-Ukrainian, or spoke the language. Every interaction with a European turned into a boorish attack, ot at least a few hateful comments. "Good Russian is a dead one" is something I've heard addressed to me a couple of times, at least
As my options dwindled and time grew short, I decided to pursue another degree, ideally an MBA. I recalled that a classmate of mine had pursued an Entertainment Business degree at Full Sail right after Recording Arts. After reaching out to him, we discussed it, and later that day, I applied for the EMBS program. Then, life took a turn: my wife suffered a micro-stroke, her visa was initially rejected, and mine was approved. Strangely, after visiting the hospital to confirm the stroke, her visa status was unexpectedly approved as well. It felt like, Uncle Sam, no less, reached out his palm and granted me a second chance, an alternative to being shelled in Moscow. Of all embassies, I did not expect to get a visa at the US embassy, given the political climate and tens of thousands of Russian refugees crossing the Mexico border. Thank you, Uncle Sam, very cool! Looking back, I can certainly say, that whatever the future holds: I'll deal with it with ease Also, while exploring my own biography, I discovered that I don't have any photos or any content with me in it, that I can showcase. I've been rigorously collecting all of my work for portfolio, but never thought to collect the image of myself To address that, I plan to roll out a YouTube channel, where I'm going to speak my truths about synthesis, sound, music, and art in general Additionally, I plan to create a digital alter-ego, which I eventually will use as my legal name. Having a slavic surname is quite a challenge these days, so I'll take a similar-sounding Glenn, and take my great-grandfather's german surname, Baabst. He was a prominent individual and a famous economist. I hope to possibly reach his heights of mastery overall, and definitely not to tarnish the family name in the process So yeah, nice to meet you, thanks for reading all that, if you did -- Glenn Baabst
Feel free to reach out!
321-333-8786
I will post a YT link as soon as the first video is live
