Chikov was born on May 19, 1978, in Kazan to a family of biologists.[2] His mother is of Tatar origin, and his father is Russian.[3]
In 2000, Chikov graduated with honors from the Faculty of Law of Kazan State University with a degree in International Law.[4] During his university years, Chikov worked as an assistant investigator at the prosecutor's office. Then he got a position at the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in the Republic of Tatarstan.[3]
In 2001, Chikov launched the Kazan Human Rights Center.[5][6] The same year, he temporarily moved to the United States to obtain a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of North Dakota.[7]
In 2003, Chikov received Ph.D. in law at the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan with a dissertation on Military Sanctions in International Law.[8]
In 2003, he headed the legal department of the Public Verdict Foundation in Moscow.[9] He held this position until 2005. In 2003, Chikov also worked for Mikhail Khodorkovsky'sOpen Russia political party, where he set up a human rights department.[10][11]
It was reported in May 2004 that a live grenade was thrown at the door of Chikov's apartment. The grenade failed to explode for technical reasons.[12] Chikov connected the assassination attempt to his activities at the Kazan Human Rights Center. The police opened a criminal case regarding the grenade use, but the case remained unsolved.[13]
In April 2005, Chikov headed the Interregional Office of the Agora Human Rights Organization.[14] In 2015, he became the Head of the Agora International Human Rights Group and held this position until 2016, when Agora was closed by a court order.[15]
Chikov is also known as a human rights trainer for the Moscow Helsinki Group, an expert of the Human Rights Institute on human rights violations by law enforcement agencies and social control, and a member of the Russian Association of International Law.[21]
Since 2001, he has taught at the Faculty of Law of the University of Management in Kazan. In addition, he was an assistant professor at the Department of Constitutional and International Law.[22]
Chikov is a co-author of reforming the Russian Interior Ministry, which was proposed for implementation in 2010 by the working group on Interior Ministry reform and voiced by the Russian Public Chamber.[23][24][25][26]
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