FACTBOX-Key facts on Russia's Dmitry Medvedev

(Reuters) - Dmitry Medvedev will be sworn in as Russian president in a Kremlin ceremony on Wednesday, taking over the job from his mentor Vladimir Putin and becoming the youngest ruler since Tsar Nicholas II.

Following are key sections of Medvedev's life and career:

EARLY LIFE

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev was born Sept, 14, 1965. His parents were teachers and he grew up in a 40 square metre (430 square ft) flat in a suburb of Leningrad, as St Petersburg was then called.

He says his favourite childhood books were the Soviet Encyclopaedia -- similar to the Encyclopaedia Britannica -- and Jules Verne's "Children of Captain Grant".

"He was a leader, people listened to him. He is calm, disciplined and confident," said Irina Grigorovskaya, his mathematics teacher at school No. 305, where he met his future wife. "He was well read from a young age and he read a lot."

Medvedev says the family never starved and holidayed on the Black Sea, a typical Soviet middle-class destination, but money was sometimes too short to buy the records he dreamed of.

A fan of British rock bands Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Deep Purple, Medvedev said he became disillusioned with Soviet propaganda.

Medvedev was christened into the Russian Orthodox church aged 23 in St Petersburg.