Khodyrev was born on 23 September 1942 in the village of Temigorevskaya [ru], Krasnodar Krai, into the family of a collective farmer.

From October 1998 to May 1999 Khodyrev was Minister of the Russian Federation for Antimonopoly Policy and Support of Entrepreneurship in Yevgeny Primakov's Cabinet, and resigned after the dissolution of the government.

In August 2001, he also became chairman of the government of the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (according to press reports for a "transitional period" of one year).

In April and June 2005, deputies of the regional Legislative Assembly called on him to resign ahead of schedule and said that they would not approve him for a second term if he was nominated, even under threat of dissolution.

On 8 August 2005, the former deputy mayor of Moscow Valery Shantsev was unanimously confirmed as the new governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region by the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin.

His wife, Gulya Khodyreva, was suspected of organizing an illegal additional issue of shares in Novomirsky GOK.