[1] She worked in the Kirov Ballet until 1930 when Joseph Stalin had her and her husband Viktor Semyonov (they were namesakes) transferred to the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

There she married Lev Karakhan (the civil marriage), an Old Bolshevik and Deputy Foreign Minister, best known as an advisor to Sun Yat-sen.

The Soviet choreographer Maya Plisetskaya wrote of her that "what she demonstrated in her time was unusual, brand new, breathtaking.

"[2] The writer Stefan Zweig wrote of her dancing that "when she steps onto the stage with her nature-given gait, which her training only polished, and suddenly soars up in a wild leap, the impression is that of a storm suddenly splitting the quiet of a humdrum existence.

"[2] Semyonova was guest with the Paris Opera Ballet in 1935 where she danced Giselle with Serge Lifar.