Professor Sheynin was born on November 29, 1925, in Moscow. In 1932−1942 he attended the high school, typical “ten-year” high Soviet school. In 1951 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Geodesy. He also worked as a geodesist in the field, and taught geodesy at a geodetic technical college, was subeditor of the journal of abstracts, Astronomy and Geodesy, and a teacher of mathematics in a school. For six years he worked as a lecturer at the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, in Moscow. In 1959 he graduated from Moscow State University, the Faculty of Mechanics. where he defended a dissertation about the error theory. In May 1991 O. Sheynin moved with his family (wife and the son) to Germany (Cologne, then to Berlin). Now he lives in Berlin. He has been a German citizen since 2005.