Early in his life he was present during the Siege of Leningrad and subsequently worked at various Soviet state-sponsored institutions.

He challenged the established Soviet positions on the origins of the Rus' and trade through the Baltic, and was instrumental in the wider dissemination of primary source material.

In 1941–42 he was present during the siege of Leningrad by the Germans during the Second World War and helped to build defensive structures.

[1] In 1965 he defended his doctoral thesis before the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg on the subject of the 1617 Treaty of Stolbovo and trade relations between Russia and the Swedish state in the first half of the 17th century.

[4] His book, Normanskaia teoriia v sovremennoi burzhuaznoi nauke (Norman theory in modern bourgeois science) was published in 1965 and also dealt with the history of the Varangian controversy.