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I was planning to go into law or politics. I was well known for my public speaking. I went to an all-girl boarding school with uniforms. It was very posh for someone like me who came from a world where my parents showed beagles and sold dog products out of a yellow caravan.

My education was paid for by the RAF Benevolent Fund, so a charity school, run like an orphanage, with uniforms and beatings. It was tough, but it got me to Cambridge - like being a chrysalis suddenly becoming a butterfly.

I'm an only child. Mostly raised by my father outside of Saratoga, doing martial arts and snowmobiling. I wore sweaters, jeans and sneakers. I was more interested in four-wheeling in the Catskills than doing my hair and makeup at 7 A.M. before school.

Well, the thing about my high school, which I loved, is that we had uniforms. But whenever we had a free dress day, it was prep-ville, with sweater vests and polo shirts and khakis and Dockers.

Most of the memorable events I have myself been exercised in; and, for the satisfaction of the public, will briefly relate the circumstances of my adventures, and scenes of life, from my first movement to this country until this day.

I was proud of my Soviet country, of wearing Young Pioneer uniform, bombarded by my mother's Communist propaganda.

I'm so proud to be an Army brat, but it was not an easy life. Moving around so much, skating was that one constant thing I had to hold on to.

My mother never learned English, but in Russia, the greatest thing was to give a child to the arts. And so they gave me to the ballet.