Maria Vinogradova is an interesting Russian celebrity of the modern day, not in the least because of her interesting personal and professional chronicle. Born in Yaroslava, a region of Ukraine that is not very far from Russia, Maria was a very young child during the Communist revolution, and during this time period she was almost constantly looked to as a future President of Ukraine. Her nom de plume, Vasili Oschepkovsky, translates into “Vanity with a High Face”. Ironically, as one would expect, since she grew up in a country where women’s dignity was not particularly revered, and where beauty was not held in high regard either, Maria did not have a very good first impression of her chosen career path in terms of what it entailed.
From childhood on she was fascinated with dolls, and it was this passion that led to a very unusual career in the beginning. After school, Maria attended what was then known as an “undeserved” school, given to girls who were married or already had husbands, as a sort of preparation for what was to come in the future. There she met and fell in love with a boy called Alexi Yashin. Although Alexi was quite a bit older than Maria, she thought nothing of the fact that he was already married, and even tried to pursue a sort of rebellious youth movement against the Tsar in order to try and get closer to him. Unfortunately, when the revolution happened, Maria left school and entered the Petrograd University as an undergraduate, studying economics. Although not particularly qualified, this did not stop her from getting a degree in economics and from going on to do a master’s degree in that discipline and even a PhD, while working as a teacher before she even got married.
Then, at the age of thirty, Maria entered the Institute of Economic Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation, which is where her real academic career began. Initially a translator and interpreter of documents, she later concentrated on studying law, having had some success there. At this point she became interested in reading Western books in order to better understand Russian law and became a particularly devoted admirer of Leo Tolstoy’s novels. From here her career has taken off ever since, and she has produced numerous biographies of important figures both in Russia and in the Western world. In particular, she has managed to produce a series of five volumes entitled ‘The Girls: A True Story of a Woman’s Life’, which is highly recommended by many people both in the country and abroad.