In childhood, he was often caught for painting walls at the entrance of the house. In his elementary school, Nikita had a friend named Artur Lysenko, who helped him adapt among his peers. "He treated him like a thing. Nikita could not refuse, did not know how to say no. He had no opinion. I taught him to be able to say this very no. And when he learned that he became friends with Artur" - Nikita's mother said later. Prior to the 5th grade, Nikita was a good student, had exemplary behavior, often participated in creative contests and received commendable letters, his hobby being video games. In 2004, Lytkin was enrolled in the math class according to test results, although he did not apply to mathematical sciences; he was unable to join the new team. He met Anoufriev, who was a year older, at Lysenko's birthday party. By that time, Nikita was in a state of deep depression, and only decided to entrust all of his problems to Anoufriev, since he received support from him in return. According to Lytkin's mother, since the other guys did not like Anoufriev, Nikita gradually began to lose previous friends, because Artyom's unfriendly attitude began to spread to him, but the teenager did not worry about it, as he considered relationships with previous friends as "a child's fake friendship." Meanwhile, Artur Lysenko said in court that Lytkin lost friends due to his quick metamorphosis, which was expressed once when Lytkin came to school, he did not greet anyone, and then completely closed himself. According to Lysenko, this was due to the fact that Lytkin was very jealous of classmates from richer families. The lack of socialization of the teenager resulted in his classmates bullying him; Lysenko said at the trial that there would be no conflict if Lytkin had learned to fight back, but instead he answered "die for nothing", because of which for 5 years Lytkin's school name was "Jimbo" (referring to the character Jimbo Jones from the American animated series "The Simpsons", a grim and cruel teenager). Together with Anoufriev, Nikita formed a punk rock band called Злые Гномы (English: Evil Dwarfs). This group didn't last long, but managed to release one full-length album in 2008 entitled "Чёрные полосы крови" (English: "Black Streaks of Blood").