Golubev was born into a peasant family on 9 February 1936, in the village of Pakhomlevichi, Lepiel District, in Vitebsk Region, then part of the Byelorussian SFSR, in the Soviet Union. He grew up during the Axis invasion and occupation of parts of the Soviet Union's western regions, and after graduating from high school, went to serve in the Baltic Fleet from 1955. He then worked as a milling machine operator at a tractor factory in Ordzhonikidze, North Ossetia, and was elected to the city's Komsomol committee.