Honored art worker of the Uzbek SSR. Was born in Yakutsk in the family of the Director of the Yakutsk regional Museum. In 1952, at the end of the Yakut theatre and art school he entered the Kharkov art Institute, from which he graduated in 1958 at the workshop of the rector of the Institute Professor Mikhail Aleksandrovich Shaposhnikov and his assistant Yevhen Pavlovich Egorov.
In the fall of 1958. was accepted as a member of the Union of artists of the USSR.
At the same time Kalinin V. M. moved to Tashkent, where he teaches painting and drawing at the Tashkent theatre and art Institute named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
In 1970. he was awarded the title of Professor of drawing. Creative teaching in Tashkent V. M. Kalinin gave his entire life.
Works of the artist are in museums of Kiev, Ufa, Krasnoyarsk and Yakutsk. In Tashkent state Museum of arts of Uzbekistan, the work of V. M. Kalinina dedicated separate room.
In private collections of V. M. Kalinina are located in Russia and in Italy, the UK, Germany, USA and Turkey. In Moscow, apart from the collection of Alexander Gremitskikh, the work of V. M. Kalinina VLV old Kuznetsov" is also in the collection of the founder of the company "may tea" Igor Litvinenko.