Yury Alexandrovich Bychkov is an art critic (member of the Union of Artists), a playwright (member of the Union of Theatre Workers), an Honored Cultural Worker of the Russian Federation, a full member of the International Academy of Sciences of Ecology, Human Safety and Nature (MANEB), a member of the International Academy of Sciences on Nature and Society (the branch “Art Criticism, Museum Studies and Collecting”), a member of the Central Board of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. Honorary member of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture. In 1994–2004 he was the director of the State Literary and Memorial Museum-Reserve of A. P. Chekhov in Melikhovo. Author of the idea, organizer, founder, and executive director of the International Theatre Festival “Melikhovo Spring.” Author of more than forty books, including about twenty publications on Chekhov studies.