He was born in Tashkent in the family of the chief artist of Opera and ballet theatre Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Afanasiev and Moscow ballerina Zoe Alekseevny.
Since 1947 he lived in Moscow, where in 1948 he enrolled in art school at Surikov Institute. Afanasyev condemned three times for petty theft. The most fruitful period of his creativity - 1972-1976 (second release). Works of this period are small and written in not quite the right material - bonded paper, postcards... Svyatoslav Afanasyev died in Moscow in 1993. Now about three hundred works are stored Afanasyev and his friends.