In June 1940, Yuri was called up for military service. As a chemical instructor of anti-aircraft artillery regiment participated in the defense of Moscow, was wounded. His mother died in besieged Leningrad.
In 1952 he graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute. Engaged in journalism, published under the pseudonym Yakovlev.
Cooperating in newspapers and magazines, traveled around the country. He was at the construction of the Volga-Don Canal and the Stalingrad hydroelectric power station, in collective farms of the Vinnitsa region and at the oil workers of Baku, participated in the exercises of the PrekVO and went on a torpedo boat on the way of the daring landing of C. L. Kunikov. Kunikov; stood night shift in the shops of Uralmash and made his way through the Danube with fishermen, returned to the ruins of the Brest Fortress and studied the lives of teachers in the Ryazan region, met at sea flotilla "Slava" and was on the border posts of Belarus.
Author of several books of poetry, many stories and novels about modern children and youth. Yuri Yakovlev is the author of "Mystery. Passion for Four Girls" (Tanya Savicheva, Anne Frank, Samantha Smith, Sadako Sasaki), published in his last lifetime collection "Selected" (1992).
Died December 29, 1995. He is buried in Moscow at the Danilovsky cemetery (plot No. 35). Yakovlev's grave at the Danilovsky cemetery
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