 Born to a peasant family in Glinkovsky District, Smolensk Oblast, Russia, Sidorenko attended ten grades of school, and later studied at the Penza Art College at Penza, south-east of Moscow.In 1939, he dropped out of college, and was conscripted into the Red Army for training at the Simferopol Military Infantry School, in the Crimean Peninsula.In 1941, he fought in the Battle of Moscow, as a Junior Lieutenant of a mortar company.