In summer 1878 he left it with a silver medal and was admitted to the Imperial Military Medical Academy in Saint Petersburg, where he studied from 1878 to 1883.

By the decree of the Academic Conference of 11 February 1891 Collegiate Assessor Kravkov, a senior physician of the 11th "Fanagoriysky" Grenadiers Regiment, was awarded with the degree of Doctor of Medicine.

From 1899 to 1900 he was a senior physician of the Compounded Field Hospital of the 1st Brigade of the 35th Infantry Division of the XVII Army Corps in Ryazan.

In October 1918 under his guidance an ambulatory care clinic of the Administration of Affairs of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (Revvoyensoviet) was set up.

In 1910 in Yaroslavl his book Zaraznye faktory ludskogo zlopoluchiya (Infectious factors of human affliction) dedicated to the problems of health work and environment was issued.

In 1919 Kravkov donated his manuscripts to the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow, now they are kept in the Department of personal funds of the Russian State Library.

An important fragment of his diary of the Russo-Japanese War dealing with the Battle of Liaoyang (1904) was published in the Vremya i sudby almanac (1991).

In 1892 Vasily Kravkov married Elena Alexeyevna Lukina (1870 – c. 1922), from the family of hereditary gentry of Ryazan Governorate.

His another brother was Sergey Pavlovich Kravkov (1873-1938), Professor of Saint Petersburg University, one of the first Russian soil scientists.