Among the family friends were renowned Soviet actors Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Mikhail Zharov, Vsevolod Pudovkin, a star circus comic Rumyantsev.
"Caran d'Ache" comes from the Russian word karandash (карандаш), meaning pencil (of Turkic origin; "karadash" meaning black stone — used for writing on a "karatash" meaning black slate).
Born the only child of an artist and a geologist in Moscow, Russia, Ted Vasin often attended the Moscow Circus on Tsvetnoy Boulevard where his grandfather Alexander Falkovsky was a costume and stage designer who created costumes for Oleg Popov, Yuri Nikulin and Karandash.