 Fen is of Korean descent; his grandparents were Korean immigrants to the Soviet Union, and settled in Vladivostok before being deported in 1937 to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, where Fen himself was born in the capital Tashkent.He is married to Lyudmila, who is also of Korean descent.He began studying the Korean language in 1988, and made his first trip to South Korea in 1989 to attend the World Ethnic Korean Festival.