Her paternal grandparents had moved to China from Georgia with their children, but retained Russian citizenship.

Her father, Vladimir Konstantinovich Tsirgvava, was a Soviet official who served on the Chinese Eastern Railway; he died when Vertinskaya was nine years old.

Her mother, Lydia Pavlovna Tsirgvava, (née Fomina), originally from a Siberian family of Old Believers, was a housewife.

In 1955, Lidiya Vladimirovna Vertinskaya was graduated from the V. I. Surikov Art Institute and started working as an artist.

[1] Lidiya Vertinskaya died on 31 December 2013 and was buried near her husband's grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.