According to the Velvet Book of Russian genealogy, the Aksakovs trace their male line to Šimon, a Varangian nephew of Haakon the Old, who settled in Novgorod in 1027.
He was educated at the Kazan Gymnasium and then, in 1805 (in the first year after its founding), at Kazan University, though he himself said he was ill-prepared for a university education (and some of the professors, brought from abroad, taught in foreign languages) [REF].