His father, Sabit Temel Kağırman, of Turkish origin, left Turkey and emigrated to Crimea.

[2] After World War II, his father, due to his non-Russian background, was exiled to Kemerovo and never came back.

[2] In 1958 Karamanov graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied with Semyon Bogatyrev (composition), Vladimir A. Natanson [ru] (piano).

In graduate school (1958–1963), he was listed with D. B. Kabalevsky, but actually studied with Tikhon Khrennikov, who highly appreciated Karamanov's talent.

However, he did not find any success in Russia for a long time, his compositions were rarely performed and never mentioned in the media due to its unconventional style being found unpopular.