Viktor Burenin was born in Moscow, the twelfth child in the family of architect Pyotr Petrovich Burenin. As a student of the Moscow College of Architecture (1852-1859), he became friends with some amnestied Decembrists (Ivan Pushchin, Ivan Yakushkin, Gavriil Batenkov among others) who introduced the young man to the Russian literary circles. A strong influence proved to be petrashevets Sergey Durov who advised him to translate Barbier's "Iambes et poemes" for the Geneva-based "The Word of the Underground" magazine. In 1861 Burenin spent several months in Germany, Switzerland and France; since then his visits to the Western Europe became yearly.