Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva was born on 15 May 1916 in Gavrilov-Yam, situated near Yaroslavl in Russia. Her father, Ipaty, was an ethnic Belarusian who had moved to central Russia from Orsha in present-day Belarus, according to several sources. After moving, he changed his surname to make it sound Russian. Faina's father and mother worked in a linen spinning mill.
Faina was orphaned at a young age and raised by her older sister, Anna. As Faina's sister was 17 years older than her, Anna became known as her "sister-mother".
In December 1936, Joseph Stalin granted Chiang's return to China. After the couple was received by Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling in Hangzhou, they traveled to the Chiang home in Xikou, Zhejiang, where they held a second marriage ceremony. Fang-liang stayed behind to live with Chiang Ching-kuo's mother, Mao Fumei. She was assigned a tutor to learn Mandarin Chinese, but she learned the local Ningbo dialect of Wu Chinese instead. She reportedly got along well with Mao Fumei and did her own housework.
As first lady
When Chiang Ching-kuo became president, Fang-liang rarely performed the traditional roles of first lady, partly due to her lack of formal education; her husband also encouraged her not to get into politics. She occasionally taught Russian to Kuomintang cadets. She largely stayed out of the public spotlight, and little was ever known of her in an anti-communist atmosphere in the government. She never returned to Russia and travelled abroad only three times in the last 50 years of her life, all to visit her children and their families. In 1992, she received a visit from a Belarusian delegation.
Children
On 14 December 1935, their first son Chiang Hsiao-wen was born in the Soviet Union. Each of her three younger children was born in different parts of China, reflecting turbulent years as an official of the country. Faina had four children:
All her children were sent to study in foreign universities – Hsiao-wu to West Germany and the remaining children to the United States. All three sons died shortly after Ching-kuo's death in 1988: Hsiao-wen in 1989, Hsiao-wu in 1991, and Hsiao-yung in 1996. Fang-liang then lived in the suburbs of Taipei. She received occasional visitors, such as some prominent politicians who went to pay their respects every few years. In the Taiwanese media, if she ever received coverage, she was depicted as a virtuous wife who never complained and endured her loneliness with dignity.
