Inkijinoff was born in Irkutsk gubernia to a Christian Buryat father and an ethnic Russian mother. He studied at the Polytechnical Institute of Saint Petersburg, and for a time one of the resident actors of an imperial theater of the city. He studied acting under Vsevolod Meyerhold, where he helped develop the rehearsal technique of biomechanics. He joined Meyerhold's troupe in Moscow, where he also studied with Lev Kuleshov.
