After retiring from competition, Vasiliev became a coach, leading the pair of Tatiana Totmianina / Maxim Marinin to the 2006 Olympic title.

[1] He later married a Saint Petersburg resident named Valentina (divorced in 2000), with whom he has a daughter, Katia.

[5] Vasiliev's parents decided to introduce him to skating when he was five because he had had pneumonia several times as a child and his doctor recommended an outdoor activity.

Coach Tamara Moskvina invited Vasiliev to switch to pair skating several times before he agreed, at age 18.

They won bronze at the Prize of Moscow News, gold at the 1982 Skate America, and then silver at the 1983 European Championships.

After performing for a year in Igor Bobrin's ice theatre, they signed a U.S. contract – the first Soviets to do so without losing their citizenship.

[2] During his time in the United States, he worked at the Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge, Illinois.