The grandfather, Nikolai Samsonovich Svanidze, was a distant relative of Joseph Stalin's first wife Kato Svanidze — who took an active part in the October Revolution and served as a high-ranking official in the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic under the protection of Sergo Ordzhonikidze.

The grandfather was married to Zilya Isaakovna Luskina, also a Bolshevik revolutionary of Jewish origin who worked at the Zhenotdel structure.

[3] The mother of Nikolay Karlovich was Adelaida (Ada) Anatolievna Svanidze (born Kryzanowskaya), a Soviet and Russian historian, professor and doctor of sciences.

In an interview Svanidze himself confessed that as a TV host on the side of the government he was heavily involved in the 1999 parliamentary election campaign, attacking the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Fatherland – All Russia block.

[5] In 2003 Svanidze started to make the TV documentary series Historical Chronicles, highly critical of the Bolsheviks and Joseph Stalin in particular, in each part telling about a personality from a single year of the 20th century history of Russia.