 At the age of 10 – 12 years their father sent them to a boarding school at the Academy of Commerce in Moscow where they perfected their drawing skills in the class of M. V. Mamistov.Leonid, the older brother, enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in 1900.The father hoped that at least one of his sons would continue the family business, or at least obtain a business-like profession, and insisted that Victor and Alexander chose a different college, the Institute of Civil Engineers (also in Saint Petersburg).