At the age of 15, he began to work as a shoemaker, worker at a cement factory and delivery man in the administration of the Transcaucasian Railways.

After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to the village of Kapustin Yar in Astrakhan province, where he began to work as a clerk of a volost government.

In February 1919, he voluntarily joined the Red Army Naval Forces and participated in the Russian Civil War on the ships of the Astrakhan-Caspian and Volga-Caspian military flotillas.

During the Kronstadt Uprising in March 1921, he was arrested by the rebels and was in prison until the end of the storming of the fortress by the Red Army.

In 1924 he took part in the first long-distance cruise of the Soviet fleet, which involved the passage of the Vorovskiy messenger ship from Arkhangelsk to Vladivostok.

He made a great contribution to the development and strengthening of the fleet, by constructing naval bases, airfields and coastal defense in the Soviet Far East.

Under his command, the Pacific Fleet successfully assisted the troops of the 1st and 2nd Far Eastern Fronts in defeating the Kwantung Army, participated in the liberation of South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.

For commanding the fleet in the battles with Japanese troops, on September 14, 1945, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin.