Kondratyeva was born on 1 February 1934 in Leningrad,[2] the daughter of Viktor Kondratiev [ru], an academic, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, and winner of the Stalin Prize of the 1st class in 1946.

[2][5] Her partners on stage were Māris Liepa, Nikolai Fadeyechev, Mikhail Lavrovsky, Boris Khokhlov, V. Tikhonov and Yaroslav Sekh, among others.

[2] Allen Hughes from The New York Times wrote in 1962 that she excelled in the role in a delightful performance by the Bolshoi Ballet on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

[7] She appeared in a contrasting double role in Prokofiev's The Tale of the Stone Flower as "the sacrificial tender Katerina and the seductive treacherous Mistress of Copper Mountain".

[1][4] She rehearsed with such ballerinas as Margarita Perkoun-Bebezitchi of the Classical Ballet Theater and with artists from the Bolshoi studio of Yury Grigorovich.

[2][7] She directed the women's classes at the Bolshoi and was a master tutor,[1] saying in a 2006 interview that the goal was not an imitation of a teacher but to fill a role with individual character.

[8] In 2013, Kondratyeva was appointed a member of the artistic council of the Bolshoi Ballet troupe, along with Stepanenko, Svetlana Adyrkhaeva, Nina Semizorova, and Alexander Vetrov.