Kurchatov was born in Simsky Zavod, Ufa Governorate (now the town of Sim, Chelyabinsk Oblast), the elder son and second of three children of Vasili Alekseevich Kurchatov, a surveyor and former forester's assistant, and Mariya Vasilevna Ostroumova, daughter of the parish priest at Sim. He was of Russian ethnicity. After completing Simferopol gymnasium №1, he enrolled at the Physics department of the Crimea State University, earning his doctorate degree in Physics there, under the supervision of Abram Ioffe. Kurchatov also studied at the Polytechnical Institute in Petrograd where he earned his degrees in naval engineering.