Sergey Mironovich Kostrikov was born on March 15, 1886, in the city of Urzhum, Vyatka province. His parents moved there from Perm province shortly before his birth. The family had four children who died in infancy before Anna, Sergey, and Elizabeth were born. In 1894, the children became orphans: their father went missing, and their mother died. Their grandmother took the girls in, while Sergey ended up in the "Home for the Care of Minor Orphans."

Sergey graduated from the parish and city school in Urzhum, where he was awarded certificates and books multiple times. In the fall of 1901, he moved to Kazan and enrolled in the Kazan Lower Mechanical Technical School with funds from the zemstvo and the Guardianship Fund of the Urzhum city school. In 1904, he graduated with first-degree honors and began working as a draftsman in Tomsk while simultaneously studying at preparatory courses at the Tomsk Technological Institute.

In November 1904, Sergey joined the RSDRP under the pseudonym Serge. In 1905, he participated in a demonstration and was arrested. After his release, he led combat squads, and in July 1905, he was elected a member of the Tomsk committee of the RSDRP. In October 1905, he organized a strike at the Taiga station. In 1906, he was arrested for an illegal printing house and imprisoned for a year and a half. From 1908, Sergey became a professional revolutionary, working in Irkutsk and Novonikolaevsk.

In 1909, he moved to Vladikavkaz, where he worked for the newspaper "Terek" under the pseudonym Sergey Miron. He was passionate about theater and mountaineering, having ascended Kazbek and Elbrus. In 1911, he was arrested in connection with the Tomsk printing case but was acquitted in 1912 due to lack of evidence.

The pseudonym "Kirov" appeared in 1912 when an article under this name was published in the newspaper "Terek." Until 1917, his political views were unstable: he sympathized with the Mensheviks and supported the Provisional Government, but after the October Revolution, he joined the Bolsheviks.

In 1918, Kirov became a member of the Terek Regional Council, and in 1919, he headed the temporary revolutionary committee in Astrakhan, suppressing counter-revolutionary uprisings. In 1920, he became a member of the Caucasian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP and was appointed plenipotentiary in Georgia.

In 1921, he was elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the RCP, and in 1923, a full member. In 1926, he became the first secretary of the Leningrad Provincial Committee and the city party committee. In 1930, he joined the Politburo of the Central Committee of the VKP.

Kirov actively worked on the development of Leningrad's industry and strengthening its defense. In 1934, he received the Order of Lenin for his contributions to the restoration of the oil industry. On December 1, 1934, Kirov was assassinated in Smolny by Leonid Nikolaev. Following his death, there were repressions and changes in the criminal procedure codes.