[4] Viktor Starukhin (also known as Victor Starffin) was born in 1916 in Nizhny Tagil, in the Urals region of what was then the Russian Empire, but after the Russian Revolution he moved with his family initially to Harbin, Manchuria, then eventually settling in Asahikawa, Hokkaidō, where he attended Asahikawa Higashi High School.

[5] Initially bullied due to him not being Japanese, Starukhin eventually studied the language well, and was also very athletic, so much so that he would still win a 100-meter dash, even if his classmates got a 20 meter head start.

Starukhin wanted to get into Waseda University, but he was scouted by Matsutaro Shoriki in the autumn of 1934 as a member of the national baseball team for an exhibition game against the United States.

However, he and his family had entered Japan on transit visas, and his father, Konstantin Starukhin, was in jail awaiting trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, as he had murdered a co-worker of his wife due to political indifferences between both parties, and because of that, he was able to claim he killed her due to him thinking she was a spy sent by the Soviet government to monitor Russian refugees in Hokkaido.

Later, during World War II, wartime paranoia resulted in Starukhin being placed in a detention camp[6] at Karuizawa with diplomats and other foreign residents.

However, this decision ultimately resulted in Starukhin's old team the Giants losing the first Japanese championship after World War II, as one of Pacific's forfeited games had been a loss to Great Ring (now the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks): the change from a loss to a win gave Great Ring the title over the Giants.

He never got to do so, due to him being forced to retire as after a 7-21 record in 1955, he was cut from the Unions and no other team wanted to sign him, despite him stating he was willing to also pitch for free.

In 1957, Starukhin was killed in a traffic accident when the car he was driving was hit by a tram[6] on the Tōkyū Tamagawa Line (now replaced by the Tōkyū Den-en-toshi Line) in Setagaya, Tokyo on his way to a high school reunion with his classmates from Asahikawa Higashi High School.

[10] After staying in the Karuizawa camp, Elena filed for divorce and left with Bolovyov for the United States, leaving her seven-year-old son Starukhina.

[clarification needed] The second wife was a Japanese woman Kunie[10] in 1950, whom they met on Christmas at the Russian Club in Tokyo in 1948.