With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, his father was drafted into the army as a medical worker and received the Order of the Red Star in 1942.

He began his literary activity by writing plays and monologues for the Odessa amateur theater “Parnas-2”, which he founded together with his friend Victor Ilchenko.

[4] From 2002 to 2019, he hosted the monthly humorous program “Guardian of the Country” on the TV channel “Russia 1”.

His monologues and sketches were performed by Arkady Raikin, Roman Kartsev and Viktor Ilchenko.

A minor planet, 5931 Zhvanetskij, discovered on April 1, 1976, is named after him (using different transliteration of the surname).