Dyatlov was born in 1931 in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. His parents were peasants who lived near the Yenisei River and the penal settlements of Krasnoyarsk.[1] He ran away from home at the age of 14.[2] He first studied in a vocational school and worked as an electrician before he was admitted at the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute where he graduated in 1959.[1]