Nikolai Nikolaevich Yeremenko was born on June 17, 1926 in Novosibirsk.

After finishing a vocational school he worked as a turner. Later he took courses for second lieutenants in Novosibirsk (1942).

Nikolai Yeremenko had to participate in the Great Patriotic War: at the age of 18 years he went to the front, was wounded and encircled and thus was captured prisoner. He managed to survive in a fascist concentration camp, from which he tried to escape several times. Then he was at war as a part of an underground Resistance group.

In 1948 he graduated from Drama School at Jakub Kolas Theater and till 1959 was an actor of that very theater in Vitebsk. He made his film debut in 1960. From 1959 he was an actor of the Belarusian Janka Kupala Academic Theater in Minsk. He was the People’s Artiste of Belarussian SSR (1967) and the People’s Artiste of the USSR (1989).

He was married to the Galina Aleksandrovna Orlova and they gave birth to the son Nikolai Yeremenko (1949-2001) who was also destined to be an actor. Nikolai Yeremenko died of a heart attack on June 30, 2000 in Minsk. The actor was laid down to rest on July 4 at the East (Moscow) Cemetery of the Belarusian capital. Next to Nikolai Yeremenko Sr. his son Nikolai Yeremenko Jr., who died 11 months after the death of his father, was buried.