[6] His maternal grandfather Danilo Fomich Trapeznikov, a peasant from the Tobolsk Governorate, served at the Far East during the Russo-Japanese War and enjoyed the area so much that he chose to stay there; during the Russian Civil War he was mobilized by the White Army, and during the 1930s he was arrested and executed "for collaboration with Alexander Kolchak".

His mother was told that her husband had been sentenced to 10 years in prison and suggested to leave the Far East, so she moved in with her relatives in Omsk, and later to a village near Khanty-Mansiysk in Western Siberia, where Vitaly finished secondary school.

[9][10] Together they produced four movies in total, including another popular comedy The Head of Chukotka (1966) and a TV adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's story Another Man’s Wife and a Husband Under the Bed (1984).

His social drama Mother Got Married (1969) based on Yuri Klepikov's screenplay had been postponed for a long time and was finally released during the 1970s as a TV movie, while the psychological drama September Vacation (1979) adapted from Alexander Vampilov's play Duck Hunting was banned for 8 years and released only in 1987.

[8] Prior to that he directed an adaptation of another Vampilov's play The Elder Son (1976) which turned into one of his most popular movies since.

The XVIII Century) trilogy: The Royal Hunt dedicated to the times of Catherine the Great, Tsarevich Alexei about Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia and Poor Poor Paul about Paul I of Russia, both based on Dmitry Merezhkovsky's writings.