He later stated that, as early as his childhood years, he had felt a special admiration towards Russia, and that he had been impressed by witnessing, at age 5, the Russo-Turkish War and Russian presence (he claimed to have met General Eduard Totleben during the conflict). Although his parents moved to the Kingdom of Romania in 1880, settling in Gherengic (Northern Dobruja), he completed his education in newly emancipated Bulgaria. Rakovsky was expelled from the gymnasium in Gabrovo for his political activities (in 1887 and then again, after organizing a riot, in 1890). It was around that time that he became a Marxist, and began collaborating with the socialist journalist Evtim Dabev, whom he aided in printing works by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (at the time, Rakovsky and Sava Balabanov also published their own newspaper, the clandestine "Zerkalo").