 Suckachev attended Imperial Forestry Institute in Saint Petersburg, where he studied under Gavriil Ivanovich Tanfilyev and Vasily Dokuchaev.He graduated in 1902 and remained several years with the institute as an assistant and instructor.In 1919 Sukachev founded the Department of Dendrology and Systematics of Plants at the Imperial Forestry Institute, which he chaired until 1941.