Chiang Fang-liang

Faina Chiang Fang-liang, born Faina Ipatyevna Vakhreva (15 May 1916 – 15 December 2004), was the First Lady of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1978 to 1988 as the wife of President Chiang Ching-kuo.

Early life 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".

Career At age 16, as a member of the Soviet Union's Communist Youth League, Faina worked at the Ural Heavy Machinery Plant in Sverdlovsk, Russia, where she met Chiang Ching-kuo, her supervisor. On 15 March 1935, aged 18, Faina married him. She largely stayed out of the public spotlight,

Children On 14 December 1935, their first son Chiang Hsiao-wen was born in the Soviet Union.

Death and funeral Chiang died of respiratory and cardiac failure stemming from lung cancer at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital on 15 December 2004, at the age of 88 (or 89 according to East Asian age reckoning).

Chiang's funeral was held on 27 December 2004, with President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu in attendance. Kuomintang politicians Wang Jin-pyng, Lin Cheng-chih, P. K. Chiang, and Ma Ying-jeou draped her casket with the Kuomintang party flag, and Kuomintang party elders Lee Huan, Hau Pei-tsun, Chiu Chuang-huan, and Shih Chi-yang draped her casket with the ROC national flag. Chiang was cremated and her ashes taken to her husband's temporary mausoleum in Touliao, Taoyuan County (now Taoyuan City). They were buried together in the Wuchih Mountain Military Cemetery.