Irkutsk State University
The young Alexander taught himself guitar and mandolin, and his first comic short stories appeared in magazines in 1958, later collected as "A Confluence of Circumstances" under the name "A. Sanin". After studying literature and history at the Department of Philology at Irkutsk State University, graduating in 1960, he turned to theatre. He was executive secretary of an Irkutsk newspaper from 1962 to 1964, and later formed an acquaintance with popular dramatist Aleksei Arbuzov.