At the age of 19 she married then Captain (and future Admiral) Sergey Nikolayevich Timiryov with whom she soon had a son, but whom she divorced in 1918 to join Alexander Kolchak.

Anna Vasilyevna Safonova was born in Kislovodsk into the family of a musician and later the manager of the Moscow Music Conservatory, Vasily Ilyich Safonov.

Although Kolchak was her husband's closest friend and commanding officer, and had a family of his own, they began a clandestine affair.

In years 1918–1919, Timiryova worked as a translator for the Department of Business Service at the Council of Ministers - an agency within Kolchak's anti-communist government in Siberia.

This, however, was only the beginning of a long string of her arrests, prison and labour camp sentences, and years of internal exile.

She was still not allowed to live in Moscow, and she moved to Scherbakov (present Rybinsk) in Yaroslavskaya Oblast, where she was offered the position of a property manager at a local drama theatre.

Timiryova was said to have been denounced by her coworkers (the actors at the drama theatre), who allegedly accused her of spreading anti-Soviet propaganda.

She was a woman of considerable talent; when she was young, she drew and painted in private studio, and while in exile, she worked as toy-painting instructor and graphic designer.

She made beautifully carved gilded frames from paste impregnated papers covered with painter's gold.

"[citation needed] She was a neat, well-mannered old lady with short grey hair and bright lively eyes.

But to the surprise of others, every time when the director, a respectable man of noble birth, saw Timiryova, he kissed her hand.

I ask you to put an end to it, do away with it and let me breathe and live that time which is left for me," she wrote to Premier Georgy Malenkov in 1954.

After long efforts, Shostakovich and Oistrakh obtained a small pension for her (45 rubles) thanks to her father's services as a composer.

Timiryova was depicted onscreen by Veronica Izotova in the 1993 miniseries The White Horse and by Elizaveta Boyarskaya in the 2008 film The Admiral.

It was my epoch, my attitude regarding love.After being asked about Doctor Zhivago, she said, The only thing that these two films share consists in the love which the Russian women can carry; it is a topic approached by many novels.

The music of the song was composed by Igor Matvienko and the words were written by Timiryova in memory of her lover, Admiral Kolchak.