Bhakti Vijnana Goswami was born in Tashkent, in the former Soviet Union.
He took to spiritual life in 1980, during the difficult time of the communist era, when the Committee for State Security (KGB) was harassing all spiritual practitioners.
Despite the obstacles, as a scientist, a Moscow State University graduate and postgraduate student at Institute of Molecular Biology, he decided to experiment with the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, which moved him profoundly.