He was born on January 24, 1930, in the city of
Pervomaisk,
Mykolaiv Oblast, in the family of a doctor. During the war, his father fought, and S. Y. Appatov and his mother were evacuated in the city of
Irbit, Sverdlovsk Oblast. After the liberation of
Odesa from the invaders, he returned to the city. He graduated from
Odesa Secondary School No. 121 with a gold medal in 1947 and entered
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv at the Faculty of International Relations. In 1952, he graduated from the university, having received a diploma with honors and the specialty of historian-internationalist,
referent-translator. After that he returned to Odesa. He worked as a lecturer at the "Knowledge" society (1952–1954). He studied at the Odesa Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages (1956–1960). At the same time, he worked in the Odesa Regional Committee of the Trade Union of Education Workers (1954–1958). He taught history and economic geography in English at the Odesa special boarding school No. 2 and was a teacher and director of the Odesa three-year foreign language courses (1958–1966), taught the history of international relations and foreign policy of the USSR at the Evening University of Marxism–Leninism (1961–1966). == Research activities ==