Galina Briskin was born in Russia before World War II. She graduated from the Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow and worked as an Intourist guide from 1956 to 1964. For 14 years after that, she was an editor first at APN Publishing, and then later at Meditsina. Her work as an interpreter piqued her fascination with freedom and life in America. She immigrated to the United States with her husband, a medical doctor, and their two daughters. In a few years she became a successful real estate broker. After her husband's death, she remarried and lives happily in La Jolla, southern California. She has five grandchildren, none of whom speak Russian.