The daughter of a miner and a schoolteacher, Vera Voloshina was born in the Siberian city of Kemerovo on 30 September 1919.[3] After doing well in sports at school there, she moved to Moscow after the tenth grade. From 1936, she studied at the State Institute of Physical Education. While in Moscow, she attended the Aero Club where she practised parachute jumping and piloted a Polikarpov I-153 fighter plane. She attempted unsuccessfully to go to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War.[2][4]
According to several accounts, the Soviet sculptor Ivan Shadr persuaded Voloshina to pose as a model for his 12-meter nude statue of the Girl with an Oar which was unveiled in Gorky Park in 1935.[2][4]
Voloshina began to train at a sports institute but had to leave after experiencing serious health problems. Instead, she joined the Institute of Cooperation, completing her third year in 1941 before the outbreak of World War II. In the summer of 1941, she helped to dig trenches and anti-tank ditches around Moscow.[4]
On joining the Red Army, she was assigned to Unit 9903 of the intelligence division, operating behind the German lines. After participating in several successful raids, she was involved in sabotage work on the front when she was seriously injured near Naro-Fominsk and taken by the enemy on 21 November 1941.[4] On 29 November, she was hanged by the Germans at Golovkovo Farm. Local residents later reported that she had acted defiantly before her hanging, singing The Internationale and shouting "Farewell, comrades" before she died.[2] Her body was retrieved by the Soviets a week later, after the Germans had retreated. She was finally buried in a mass grave in Kryukovo.[4]