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
On 15 May 1916, Faina was born near Orsha, then part of the Mogilev Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus). Faina was orphaned at a young age and raised by her older sister Anna.
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, Russian SFSR, 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.