Rurik Petrovich Lonin was born in the village of Kaskesruchay in a family of Veps. His father chose the name Rurik, believing in the Veps roots of Prince Rurik from Novgorod.

In the late 1930s, Rurik began his studies at the Kaskes school. In 1941, when he was 11 years old, the Finnish army entered his homeland. He continued his education in a Finnish school organized by the occupying authorities. Lonin recalled that only two people from his village evacuated deep into the USSR before the Finns arrived: the kolkhoz chairman and teacher Maria Ivanovna Pepshina, who were members of the VKP(b). In 1944, Pepshina returned, and Lonin continued his studies with her. Half a century later, he described this time in his book "Childhood, Scorched by War."

In 1946, he graduated from school and entered Petrozavodsk Technical School No. 2, where he trained as a toolmaker. After graduating in 1948, he was sent to work at the Onega Machine-Building Plant in Petrozavodsk. During this time, he began writing poetry in the Veps language. He served in the army in 1952 and 1955, then worked at the Petrozavodsk Auto Repair Plant. In 1956, he met scientist N. I. Bogdanov, who studied the Veps and Karelian languages.

In 1957, Lonin returned to Sheltosero and worked as a locksmith in the Sheltosero state farm. From 1956 to 1993, on Bogdanov's advice, he collected Veps folklore in Karelia, Leningrad, and Vologda regions in his free time. The collected materials were published in republican collections on folklore and history. In 1967, Lonin founded the Veps Ethnographic Museum, the only one in Russia dedicated to Veps culture.

In 1977 and 1979, he directed the memorial Museum of the Sheltosero partisans' underground. In 1980 and 2001, he worked as a researcher in the ethnographic museum created at his initiative.

From 1957 to 2001, Lonin participated in the Veps folk choir. Since the late 1980s, he actively participated in the revival of the Veps language and culture. From 1987 to 1989, he taught the Veps language at the Sheltosero Secondary School.

In 1999, director A. I. Surikova filmed the documentary "Rurik and His Sheltosero," which became the first in the series "Provincial Museums of Russia" and was dedicated to Rurik Lonin's local history activities.