He became orphaned in his youth, with his father Viktor Stepanovich Zhivoglyadov being killed in action in 1944 on the Eastern Front of World War II; his mother Aleksandra Ivanovna Aksyonova worked as an accountant before she died in 1949.

That year, he became a member of the Komsomol and graduated from a rural seven-year school where he received good grades before being admitted to the Asimov Industrial College.

The next year he began working for OKB-1, and in 1963 he graduated from the All-Union Correspondence Polytechnic Institute with a degree in mechanical engineering.

A government decree on 15 June 1966 permitted civilians and former military personnel to be crew members on Soyuz flights.

On 15 September 1976, he was launched into space for the first time, serving as a flight engineer on Soyuz 22, with Valery Bykovsky in command.

Before docking with the station on 6 June, they oriented the Soyuz capsule towards the sun to do a test of new solar cells.

The flight was a success, and they returned to Earth on 9 June, spending 3 days 22 hours and 19 minutes in space.