Lydia BONDARENKO (married ERSHOV) was a French, Russian born, seamstress and dressmaker. She was born in Kamchatka from Eskimo mother and Ukrainian father. From her Nanai ancestors, she inherited a national gift of needlework, embroidery, fantasy in sewing and painting on silk. Lydia BONDARENKO moved in 1927 to Harbin, where she performed in the dramatic theater, studied embroidery and fashion. In 1935 she ended up in Nice, France, where she met Russian emigration, and one aristocratic lady invited her to live in her house in Paris. She was amazed by the young girl's talents. In 1936 in Paris, she was introduced into the circle of rich people, where she carried out orders for creating garments for particular clients and fashion houses, using real haute couture techniques. As she was half Eskimo, from childhood she saw all the amazing work of embroideries of national clothes, which inspired her own style. She stayed in Paris until the middle of 1939, and yet decided to return to the USSR with the desire to play on the Russian stage. In 1940, she ended up in Leningrad and took stage classes. Then the director Aleksandr BRYANTSEV took her to the Leningrad Young People's Theatre (theater for children). She was very beautiful, but she did not refuse any roles, she even played Baba Yaga. During the war, she traveled to the fronts with artistic brigades. In 1944 she met Igor Ivanovich ERSHOV, son of the great singer of the Marinsky Theater Ivan ERSHOV. So she entered this legendary family and gave birth in 1945 to her daughter Xenia. Then she gave birth to two more children who unfortunately died. After these sad events, she could no longer stay in the theater and decided to finally devote herself to her beloved work: sewing, embroidery, knitting and painting on fabrics which she learned in Paris. In the 1960s, Lydia created a lot of dresses and costumes for the theatrical elite of Leningrad, after which the famous choreographer Leonid YAKOBSON took her to his Yacobson Ballet company theatre. Lydia began to work directly with theater artists for ballets. She moved back to Paris in 1981 to live with her daughter. Despite her age she continued her craft. She knitted a lot of unique models of clothes.