Sergei Vasiliev was born in 1936 in the Chuvash region of Russia. He was a staff photographer for the newspaper Vecherny Chelyabinsk for over thirty years. He has received many honours including International Master of Press Photography from the International Organization of Photo Journalists (Prague, 1985), Honoured Worker of Arts of Russia, and the Golden Eye Prize. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in numerous museum collections. He is author of more than twenty books, including Russian Beauty (1996) and Zonen (1994). Sergei Vasiliev died in 2021.

His work has been exhibited internationally as part of the Russian Criminal Tattoo Exhibition. Thirteen large format Russian Criminal Tattoo prints were shown at the Saatchi Gallery in the exhibition Gaiety Is The Most Outstanding Feature Of The Soviet Union, 21 Nov 2012 – 9 June 2013.

Interview with Sergei Vasiliev.