Mikhail Yakovlevich Zaitsev and Maria Ivanovna Zaitseva welcomed Zaitsev into the world at Ivanovo on March 2, 1938. His father was a prisoner in one of Joseph Stalin’s labor camps and a victim of his purges, while his mother worked as a cleaner and laundress.
He attended Ivanovo Secondary School No. 22 from 1945 to 1952.[4] Zaitsev was refused admission to an industrial academy, a theater school, and a school for aspiring pilots because his father was listed as a state-designated enemy of the people.
He started his studies at the Faculty of Applied Arts of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Ivanovo in 1952, where he became interested in manufacturing and earned the credentials required to operate as a textile artist.
In 1956, Vyacheslav Zaitsev graduated from the university with honors. He relocated to Moscow in 1956 after determining that he wanted to work with textiles.
He enrolled in the Moscow Textile Institute’s courses, where he graduated in 1962 with a bachelor’s degree in painting and design.
