He completed his secondary education in Moscow, then USSR, and went on to read philosophy at Sofia University.

In 1989 he obtained a PhD within the Programme for Research of the Human Brain (the title of his thesis is "An integrated approach to man as a bio-psycho-social creature : dialectics of the biological, psychological and social") and became an assistant lecturer.

He became a founding member of the Club in Support of Glasnost and Perestroika[1] and a founder and chairman of the Green Party of Bulgaria,[1][5] two of the dissident civil organisations which were active before Nov 10, 1989.

[1] After the 1989 changes, Karakachanov and the Green Party became a founding member of the Union of Democratic Forces,[1][5] Bulgaria's opposition organisation.

Participated in the Round table negotiations between the ruling Communist party and the opposition, whose goal was to prepare the country for the first post-Communist elections.