Averchenko completed only two courses at the Gymnasia because of his poor eyesight, which rendered him unable to work on his studies for extended periods.

In 1903, at the age of 22, he moved to Kharkiv where his first story appeared in the newspaper "South Territory" on 31 October.

For many years Averchenko worked successfully as a member of the magazine's staff together with many other notable people, including Nadezhda Teffi, Sasha Chorny, and Aleksey Remizov.

From 1910 to 1912 Averchenko more than once travelled to Europe with his friends and colleagues at the Satyricon (including Aleksey Remizov).

These travels served Averchenko as a rich source for his creative work, and inspired his book Expedition of Satyriconers in Western Europe which was published in 1912.

Averchenko struggled greatly in attempting to return to his own Sevastopol; in particular, he had to travel through Ukraine, which was being occupied by Germans.

In 1921 in Paris he published a satirical anthology, A Dozen Knives in the Back of Revolution which Lenin described as "a book of great talent by the embittered to distraction White Guard."

Averchenko spent a brief time in both cities before moving again and taking up permanent residence in Prague on 17 June 1922.

Working for the famous newspaper Prager Presse, Averchenko wrote many effervescent and witty stories, which nevertheless expressed great yearning for his homeland.

On 28 January he was moved to the Prague Municipal Hospital with the diagnosis of "weakness of the heart muscle, distension of the aorta and sclerosis of the kidneys."