Born in 1941 in Moscow.
For the first time took a camera in his hands in 1959.
1963 – took his first exhibition photo ‘In the Verkhovye Mountains’
1964 – graduated from the Moscow Institute of Engineers of Geodesy, Aerial Photography and Cartography, specialising in geodesy engineering.
1966 – member of the Novator photo club.
With expeditions travelled almost the whole territory of the Soviet Union.
As a freelance photo correspondent co-operated with many newspapers and magazines.
He shot in all genres, but his favourite was and still is landscape; it was in landscape that he developed his individual photographic style.
His photographs of the Pamir, Tien Shan, Caucasus, Kamchatka mountains, as well as images from Svaneti, Ingushetia, the Arctic and the Russian North have become textbook images.
1989 – member of the USSR Union of Photographers, since 1992 – of the Russian Union of Photographers.
1994 – from amateur photographers to professionals and at the same time from black-and-white to colour photography.
Vasiliev is a pioneer in many areas of creative photography. He was one of the first (or maybe the first, back in the 1970s) to use aerial photography to create creative works. In the field of colour photography he was the first to shoot night landscapes using light brush. In the laboratory, he was the first to use wet printing, a technology that cannot be reproduced by computers.

Author of more than twenty articles on photography and the textbook ‘Artistic Photography: from conception to realisation’.
He is the recipient of many diplomas and medals, including the first degree diploma for the series ‘North Pole!’ at the International Exhibition ‘Man and the World’, the Silver Medal ‘Inter Pressphoto-83’, three Gold Medals of the All-Union Amateur Photo Contests, a diploma of the International Photo Salon in Rochester (USA), diplomas of ‘Oveskon’, ‘Ilford’, ‘Epson’, diplomas at the annual exhibitions ‘Master’ of the Guild of Advertising Photographers and many others. His works are kept in museums and private collections in Russia and the USA.
Passed away in 2021.