Vladimir Vysotsky was born in Moscow at the 3rd Meshchanskaya St. (61/2) maternity hospital. His father, Semyon Vladimirovich (1916–1997), a colonel in the army, was Jewish, originally from Kiev. His mother, Nina Maksimovna, (née Seryogina, 1912–2003) was Russian, and worked as a German language translator. Vysotsky's family lived in a Moscow communal flat in harsh conditions, and had serious financial difficulties. When Vladimir was 10 months old, Nina had to return to her office in the Transcript bureau of the Ministry of Geodesy and Cartography of the USSR (engaged in making German maps available for the Soviet military) so as to help her husband earn their family's living.
Vladimir's extraordinary theatrical inclinations became obvious at a very early age, his mother Nina, a theater fan, being an obvious influence. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet", often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry requests, he, according to his monther, sat himself under the New-year tree with a frustrated air about him and sighed: "You silly tossers! Give a child some respite!" His sense of humor was extraordinary, but often baffling for people around him. A three-year-old could jeer his father in a bathroom with unexpected poetic improvisation ("Now look what's here before us / Our goat's to shave himself!") or appal unwanted guests with some street folk song, promptly steering them away. Vysotsky remembered those first three years of his life in the autobiographical Ballad of Childhood (Баллада о детстве, 1975), one of his best-known songs.
Vladimir's extraordinary theatrical inclinations became obvious at a very early age, his mother Nina, a theater fan, being an obvious influence. The boy used to recite poems, standing on a chair and "flinging hair backwards, like a real poet", often using in his public speeches expressions he could hardly have heard at home. Once, at the age of two, when he had tired of the family's guests' poetry requests, he, according to his monther, sat himself under the New-year tree with a frustrated air about him and sighed: "You silly tossers! Give a child some respite!" His sense of humor was extraordinary, but often baffling for people around him. A three-year-old could jeer his father in a bathroom with unexpected poetic improvisation ("Now look what's here before us / Our goat's to shave himself!") or appal unwanted guests with some street folk song, promptly steering them away. Vysotsky remembered those first three years of his life in the autobiographical Ballad of Childhood (Баллада о детстве, 1975), one of his best-known songs.
