Sister Nadejda was born in Moscow, where she studied textiles and decorative arts. She taught in the Faculty of Textile at the Stroganoff Art Institute and worked at the State Conservation and Restoration Workshop. Marrying and coming to Britain in 1976 she worked in the Textile Conservation Laboratories at Hampton Court Palace, and joined Cecil Collins's master class in drawing and colour at the Central School of Art and Design. Since 1981 she has been a member of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral parish at Ennismore Gardens, where she trained in iconography under Mariamna Fotounatto, former pupil of Ouspensky. In 2002 she took a monastic vocation and went to Russia to undertake an intensive course in Icon painting. She now lives as an anchorite and paints icons for churches and individual commissions.