Graduated from Moscow State University (Philological Faculty, English Department) in 1973.
Passed the post-graduate course at the Institute of History of the USSR in 1973–1976.
Defended the candidate thesis (“Icelandic Kings' sagas as a source for the history of Old Russia and the neighboring lands in the tenth to thirteenth centuries”) in 1978.
Defended the doctorate thesis (“Old Russia in Old Norse written sources of the ninth through the fourteenth centuries”) in 1995.
Since 1996 – doctor of history.