Zoya Ivanovna Zhdanov nee ? was born in 1880, probably in Omsk, the youngest daughter in a family of girls. Her parents died in an epidemic when she was still young and she was raised by her maiden aunt. At the age of 17 she married Sergei Dmitrievich Zhdanov, a noble from the house of Galitzine. Sergei had already been expelled from Moscow for sympathising with the democrats, and after his marriage to the bourgeois Zoya, his parents disowned him altogether. His sister, however, came to live with them. Their first child, a daughter, Lydia, was born to them little more than a year later.
Sergei had trained as a lawyer and was already serving as a judge. He was asked to take up a post in Petropavlovsk, in what is now northern Kazakhstan, and the family left for Turkestan in 1901. In Petropavlovsk 3 more children were born - Boris, the eldest son, Dmitri and Valia.
Around 1906 Sergei began to show signs of being afflicted with Polio and the family moved back to Omsk where he could take up an easier post in the local court. In 1908 Zoya fell in love with their photographer, the Jew A.A. Antonov, and walked out on her young family and her husband in order to live with him. She swept through Antonov's life like a storm, learning photography from him and then in 3 short years transforming his home-based business into 3 successful studios in downtown Omsk, with another studio of her own. She quickly bored of family portraits and began to focus on her first love - stage photography. She was also an avid taker of streetscapes, even in winter, and you can find these scenes of hers in postcards and Omsk museums even today.
In 1911 the All Siberian Exhibition was held in Omsk and the aviator Vasiliev arrived for the air show. A.A. Antonov was commissioned to photograph the affair, and Zoya met and fell in love with the aviator. Though the affair didn't last, her relationship with Antonov was finished.
Zoya now focused on her photography. In 1920, when the red army captured Omsk, despite the nationalisation of photographic work she stayed in Omsk, waiting for the return of her daughter Lydia, who had been imprisoned. Her eldest and adored son, Boris, also died in this year.
In 1922 she left for Harbin, where she opened another successful studio. It was here that she photographed some of Russia's most famous artists - Chaliapin the opera singer & Pavlova the ballerina. Her studio was also popular with the Japanese "rulers" of Manchuria and she established connections in Tokyo, where much of her photography was published. The studio also served as a small cafe which was frequented by performers and a variety of hangers-on.
In 1927 she shifted her life & studio to Shanghai, where she would remain for the next 20 years. She began to photograph not just Russian artists, but also visiting foreign celebrities, including Douglas Fairbanks Snr & his wife Mary Pickford. Her home was a hub for travellers & itinerants from Russia, Paris & other parts of Europe. She remarried, to Petr Ivanovich Danilov, a former Tsarist naval officer, now a night watchman in a neighbourhood go-down. In 1937 she lost her studio in mysterious circumstances to her son Dmitri, who then died of a drug overdose. Left close to destitution in a nation torn apart by violence, she had to turn to other skills, knitting, crochet-work and the like, to support herself.
In 1947 she left for Australia, arriving 2 weeks late for the wedding of her eldest grand-daughter. For the last 22 years of her life she became something of a hermit, living in her garden, refusing to learn English, listening to her beloved Russian opera on the ABC radio, and cooking for her great grandchildren. She survived her daughter Lydia by 1 year and died in 1969 of unknown causes.
