Honored Artist of the RSFSR (5.05.1980). After finishing secondary school he searched for himself. And he tried a bunch of professions: he was a high-voltage fitter, a postman. And he sailed as a motorman on coasting vessels in the Barents Sea – because he grew up in Murmansk, and what boy in Murmansk doesn't dream of becoming a sailor?! Only in 1962 he entered the Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography (LGITMiK).

The first to notice him was director Yulian Panich, who in 1965 invited the young actor to the leading role in the film "Seeing Off the White Nights". After graduating from the institute in 1967, he joined the troupe of the Leningrad Theater for Young Spectators named after Bryantsev, which was headed by his LGITMiK teacher Zinovy Korogodsky.