After graduating from school in Kakhovka in 1920, he briefly worked for his local section of the Commissariat of Enlightenment before studying law in Odesa from 1922 to 1925.
Living in the garrulous, cosmopolitan city of Babel's tales, Khardzhiev befriended the poet Eduard Bagritsky, who was instrumental in his move to Moscow in the autumn of 1928.
Bagritskii was linked to the Constructivist artists, writers and critics of Novyi lef, and it was through him that Khardzhiev met Osip Brik, Viktor Shklovsky and Boris Eikhenbaum.
[4] When Kazimir Malevich returned from Europe to Stalinist Russia, his works were confiscated, and he was arrested and banned from making art in 1930.
Lidia Khardzhiev maintained that the paintings and books were sent to the Galerie Gmurzynska while the archive remained at a "Russian safe house", where it was divided up by persons unknown.
Both Gmurzynska and Rastorfer later denied any involvement in the smuggling of the archive, stating that they had advanced a sum of money to the Khardzhievs for the couple's move.
[8] On July 27, 1995, Khardzhiev made a will leaving everything to Lidia, with the instruction that she choose what part of his collection was given to the Khardzhiev-Chaga Art Foundation in Amsterdam.
[6] In Khardzhiev's last interview, in December 1995, he said that Nicolas Iljine had approached him on behalf of the Russian authorities, trying to negotiate the return of some of his paintings or part of his archive.