Oleg Grigoriev was born during the evacuation of the Vologda region in World War II.

Soon after, he was charged with parasitism and sentenced to public works building an industrial plant.

[4] As a result, two editors of the book were fired and Grigoriev was denied membership in the USSR Union of Writers, which would have made it possible for him to write full-time.

The sentence could have been harsher, but several Russian writers, including Andrey Bitov and Bella Akhmadulina, asked court to pardon the poet.

Since then his poems, both for kids and adults, are republished several times every year and some his works have been translated into German and French.