Born in Leningrad, as St Petersburg was called in Communist times, Vladimir Ilyich Zhelvis managed to survive the terror of Stalin's purges as well as the carnage of the Second World War (he was in Leningrad during the German siege and famine). After all that it was quite easy to live through the times of post-war havoc, when he made ample use of the general confusion and got a university education. He then went to the Far East, where he met his future wife with whom he had two daughters. Family life did not prevent him from writing two dissertations, philological and psycholinguistic, and a book on the psychological and social aspects of swearing. He can swear in approximately 80 languages, which helps him a lot in his teaching career, as he now lives in the ancient Russian city of Yaroslavl with Stella, his wife, and his Doberman, Cliff, and lectures to students at the local Pedagogical University.