Kharuzin was born in Reval (present-day Tallinn, Estonia) to a Russian merchant family.

The Imperial Natural Science Lovers Society (INSLS) sent him on numerous missions to the South Caucasus, Crimea and the Aegean Sea, and Central Asia.

[1] Between 1904 and 1906, Kharuzin served as a governor of Bessarabia and later as the director of the Department for Religious Affairs of Foreign Faiths.

[1] Unlike many high-ranking Russian statesmen, Kharuzin did not choose to immigrate after the October Revolution of 1917.

On April 3, 1932, the Special Council of the NKVD found him guilty of the charge and sentenced him to three years in exile.