Viktor Sarianidi was born on September 23, 1929, in Tashkent in a family of Pontic Greek descent. His parents, Ioannis and Athena Sarianidi had immigrated there from Yalta in the 1920s.
Sarianidi graduated from the Central Asian State University in 1952. He then obtained a master's degree in 1961 from the Institute of Archaeology of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. His doctoral dissertation, titled Afghanistan in the Bronze and Iron Ages, came out in 1975.
Sarianidi joined the staff of the Institute of Archaeological, where he remained throughout his career.

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