[3] Lepeshinskaya was born to an old Polish[4] noble family in Kyiv, Russian Empire (now the capital of Ukraine).

Her grandfather, Vasily Pavlovich Lepeshinsky, was arrested as a member of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Volya.

[3] From the early years Lepeshinskaya showed her talents in dancing and in the 1925 she was admitted to the Bolshoi Choreographic School.

She appeared for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre at the age of ten as one of the little birds in the ballet The Daughter of the Snows.

Lepeshinskaya married a Soviet intelligence MGB general Leonid Raykhman (known as the handler of Nikolai Kuznetsov).

[8][9] In March 1953, after Stalin's death, Raykhman was freed, rehabilitated and appointed the head of MVD Control Commission.

In August 1953, he was arrested again that time for his own fabrications of criminal cases, tortures of prison inmates and other violations of the "Socialist Law".

[3] With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Lepeshinskaya became a member of the Front brigade of the Bolshoi Theater.

Fortunately, she found a place at the Komische Oper Berlin where she worked as a ballet mistress for ten years.

[3] She helped painter Ilya Glazunov during his early career (she was reprimanded for organizing his first exhibition), so he declared Lepeshinskaya to be his godmother in the art.