He was born in 1955 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. He grew up in a family of painters and was involved in art from a young age. He studied at the V. I. Surikov Institute in Moscow and has been a member of the Moscow Artists' Union since 1986. In 1989, he moved to France, where he continued his artistic career and was even allowed to copy the works of the painter Daubigny in the Louvre, making him the first Russian painter with such permission.