Khassan Baiev was born as a fraternal twin in Alkhan-Kala, a suburb of Grozny, in April 1963. His father, an herbalist by profession, served in the Soviet Red Army and was wounded during World War II, but was deported to Kazakhstan as a result of the forced deportations of most Chechens to Central Asia in February 1944. Baiev's parents would return in 1959 after Nikita Khrushchev allowed for the Chechens to return home during the de-Stalinization campaign.