Born in Imperial Russia during the reign of his paternal second cousin and maternal uncle Nicholas II, he was on vacation in Crimea at the fall of the Russian monarchy.

[3] Prince Vasili spent his early years in Imperial Russia during the reign of his maternal uncle Tsar Nicholas II.

At the fall of Russian monarchy in February 1917 Vasili, aged ten, was on vacation in Ai-Todor, his father's estate in Crimea.

"[6] After the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917, Prince Vasili along with his parents, siblings and grandmother the Dowager Empress were placed under house arrest at Ai-Todor.

[7] On 11 March 1918 they were transferred with other Romanovs relatives to Dulber, the estate of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich in Crimea.

King George V of the United Kingdom sent the British warship HMS Marlborough which brought Vasili's family and other Romanovs from the Crimea over the Black Sea to Malta and then to England.

Vasili earned a living by finding work as a cabin boy, shipyard worker, stockbroker, winemaker and a chicken farmer in northern California.

[11] Prince Vasili married in New York City on 31 July 1931, Princess Natalia Golitsyna (Moscow 26 October 1907 – Woodside 28 March 1989), a fellow Russian exile – they met in the United States.

However, Romanov biographer Pieter Broek holds that it was as acceptable dynastically as the Bagrationi marriage of Vasili's cousin, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia.

Since the extinction of the Korecki family in the 17th century, the Golitsyns have claimed dynastic seniority in the House of Gediminas.