Aleksey Vasilievich Koltsov was born in Voronezh on October 3 (15), 1809 into the family of a cattle trader. At the age of nine he started to study reading and writing and in 1820 entered a two-year district school. In 1825 Koltsov started writing poems.

By the beginning of the 1830s Koltsov became a well-known poet in Voronezh. In 1830 with the support of Nikolai Stankevich his poems were published for the first time. In 1831 Koltsov arrived in Moscow and got acquainted with Mikhail Glinka and Vissarion Belinsky, and in Petersburg he met Vasily Zhukovsky, Vladimir Odoevsky, Ivan Krylov and Alexander Pushkin. In 1835 his first collection of poetry came out.

In September 1840 Koltsov for the last time went to Moscow by order of his father. Having made a few unprofitable deals he decided to stay in Moscow, but as soon as money was finished Koltsov returned to his angered father. After a while Aleksey Koltsov fell ill with consumption and died at the age of 33.

The grave of Aleksey Koltsov is in the Literary Necropolis in Voronezh.