Farit Azizov was born in Grozny, Chechnya, in 1958. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Volgograd. As a child, he spent his free time kicking ball in the yard. In 1976, he enrolled in a physical education institute, and two years later, he was kicked out of it. To avoid being drafted, he played soccer in Central Asia; it paid well and got him a deferment from the army. He learned of Brezhnev’s death on a Moscow-Andijan train, and wrote his first poem at the age of 28.