His father, Gamzat Tsadasa, was a well-known bard, heir to the ancient tradition of minstrelsy still thriving in the mountains.

[2] He was eleven when he wrote his first verse about a group of local boys who ran down to the clearing where an airplane had landed for the first time.

He had various jobs serving as a school teacher, an assistant director in the theater, a journalist in newspapers and a radio host.

Gamzatov died on 3 November 2003 at the age of 80 in the Moscow Central Clinical Hospital.

A monument to Gamzatov was unveiled on 5 July 2013 on Yauzsky Boulevard in central Moscow.