Transbaikal Military District
Kurkotkin was born on 13 February 1917 to a peasant family in the village of Zaprudnaya, Sofinskoy volost, Bronnitsky uyezd, Moscow Governorate. He graduated from the Moscow Industrial-Pedagogical Technical College in 1936. Kurkotkin joined the Red Army in 1937, becoming a cadet at the Oryol Tank School in September of that year. Upon his graduation in 1939, he served at the school as a company political officer, and in July 1940 was sent to serve in the same position with the 50th Light Tank Brigade in the Transbaikal Military District. In 1941, he graduated from the Military-Political School in Chita.