Porechenkov was born on March 2, 1969, in Leningrad, Russian SSR, to parents Evgeny Mikhailovich Porechenkov, a Soviet Navy officer, and Galina Nikolayevna Porechenkova, a building engineer.
He spent his early childhood, until the age of five, being raised by his grandmother in a village of Pskov Oblast, as his parents were busy with their careers.
After that, he returned to Leningrad and began attending school, but his life took a dramatic turn when his father was appointed as an inspector of the Polish Gdansk Shipyard in the late 1970s.
As a result, Porechenkov had to leave Leningrad and move to the Polish People's Republic with his family, where he began studying in a Soviet embassy boarding school in Warsaw.
During his time in Poland, he developed a passion for sports, particularly boxing, and went on to earn the rank of Candidate for Master of Sport in Boxing after a successful performance at the college championship and municipal tournament in Tallinn.
However, his sporting achievements were not enough to save him from being dismissed from the Tallinn Higher Military-Political Construction College in 1990, just 10 days before his graduation.
After his dismissal, Porechenkov returned home and worked in a picture framing studio, while also attending Armen Dzhigarkhanyan's class at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (VGIK),although he did not graduate from the institution.
Undeterred, he went on to enroll in the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Cinematography (LGITMiK) in 1991, under the guidance of Veniamin Filshtinsky, and graduated in 1996.
