Since his days as an anarchist youth Gan had a habit of hiding personal details of his life even from close friends, thus relatively little is known of his biography. Even his date of birth is uncertain—some claim 1893, others 1895, while most researchers have agreed on 1897. However, it is known that he was born to a family of Russian gentry of French origin, Mikhail Imberkh, and had five siblings.
According to Kristin Romberg, author of an influential thesis on Gan, in the early 1910’s he received an artistic education and later joined an underground anarchist movement, acting and singing in theaters as a cover.
