[1] Lydia Alekseyevna Strakhova was born in the Klekotki estate, Tula Governorate, Russian Empire, into the family of a local gentry.

A frequent guest at the house of the editor and publisher Sergey Khudekov (her sister Nadezhda's husband), she was introduced to many well-known authors of the time.

Since then her work started to appear regularly in the periodicals like Sever (North), Detskoye Chteniye (Children's Reading), Niva, Russkiye Vedomosti, Syn Otechestva, Novoye Slovo.

In 1922 she visited her ailing daughter in Czechoslovakia and became close to the local circle of Russian emigres, but decided to return to the Soviet Union in 1924.

"[3] Avilova claimed that Chekhov's "About Love" (1898) was a thinly veiled comment on their secret relationships and that the two discussed this fact in their correspondence, one of his letters (which was among the ones she had destroyed) having been even signed "Alyuokhin", which was the name of this story's protagonist.

"These memoirs are lively and exciting, and many of the things she states in them are undoubtedly true... Lydia Alexeyevna seems to be totally sincere when describing her own feelings to Anton Pavlovich...

I knew well Lydia Alexeyevna, a gifted woman with a rare sense of humour, who was also a very honest and shy person... Never did I suspect though, that they had this sort of relationship.