 Later, his father who was an engineer received a new work in Arkhangelsk so he and his family moved, and there Alexander Dobrunov started to take judo classes.At that time he was a student of Chemistry at the Arkhangelsk Technical Institute (named after Valerian Kuybyshev).Aged 22, Dobrunov received the first Dan and he became a Master of Sports of the USSR and he became a member of the Russian national Judo team.