Sergey Chilikov was born in 1953 and graduated from the Mari Pedagogical Institute with a degree in philosophy in 1983, lecturing at Yoshkar-Ola University from 1976 to 1991.

His career began in 1976 in the FACT group, and he soon became a leader of non-conformist work in his region. Together with like-minded people he managed to organise exhibitions and festivals and to deal quite peacefully with the official unions; between 1980 and 1989 he organised the Analytical Photo Exhibitions, a biennale at Yoshkar-Ola, and an annual open-air festival on the Kundysh river. Since 1989 he has worked on a travel series about cities of the Soviet Union, and his series — Photo Provocations, The Countryside Glam, The Beach, The Gambling, The Philosophy of a Journey and others — depict the hidden eroticism of country people.