Viktor Lvovich Kirpichov belonged to Russian nobility from St. Petersburg. He graduated from the Polotsk military school (1862) and St.Michael artillery school in Saint Petersburg (1863). In 1863–1870 he was in the faculty of Kronstadt military academy where he taught material science and mechanics. In 1873 he was a postdoc student of Gustav Kirchhoff in Germany. After that, until his move to Ukraine in 1885, he was a professor at Saint Petersburg Technological Institute. In 1882, he was responsible for investigation of the Borki train disaster.