[2] He was born in Chelyabinsk, but had lived in Sverdlovsk (renamed Yekaterinburg after the dissolution of the Soviet Union) since 1980.

At the time of his death, Ryzhy's reputation had burgeoned and he was starting to receive recognition as one of the premier poets of his generation.

[2] Shortly afterwards, he was posthumously awarded the Northern Palmyra,[1] one of the most highly sought-after prizes in Russian poetry, for his collection Opravdaniye zhizni ("A Reason to Live").

[4] His only son, Artem (born 19 January 1993) died of a cardiac arrest in September 2020, at the age of 27.

[2] He was from the intelligentsia class, and had an impressive education in geology and nuclear geophysics and published many scientific papers.