Gnessin State Musical College
Zakharov was born May 1, 1950 in Mykolaiv in the Ukrainian SSR (then part of the Soviet Union, now Ukraine) in a military family. In 1971 he entered the operetta department of the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow in the class of Margarita Landa, and while still a student became the soloist of the State Variety Orchestra conducted by Leonid Utyosov.