Ilshat Kuzikov was born in 1960 in Leninabad, Tajikistan. His father, Zakirya Kuzikov, abused alcohol and, according to the article, frequently beat his wife and children, Ilshat and his brother.
The turning point came in 1971, when the 11-year-old boy witnessed his father killing his mother. The article says this was the moment after which irreversible changes occurred in his psyche. His father was imprisoned, and Ilshat and his brother were sent to Leningrad to live with an aunt who became their legal guardian.
After his mother’s death, Kuzikov was found to show signs of a mental disorder. He was registered with a neuropsychiatric clinic. As he later claimed, after what he had lived through he no longer feared the sight of blood, and human life came to seem to him something devoid of value.
According to his own account, after his mother’s murder he stopped fearing the sight of blood, and human life became for him an ephemeral notion without meaning.
Kuzikov’s own explanations, cited in the article, connect that period both to the emergence of sexual attraction to men and to arousal at the sight of blood. He also said that as a teenager he had homosexual relations with his brother and was obsessed with the sight of surgical operations being performed on the human body.
He had planned to enter medical school, but because of mental health problems he barely completed eight grades and was deemed unfit for further education. In 1975, after finishing school, he was admitted to a vocational school and trained as a reinforced-concrete fitter and electric welder.
In 1980, Kuzikov was drafted into the army. He served in a military unit located in the Vyborg district of the Leningrad region.