Galina Tajoschnaja was the daughter of the sculptor Pyotr Tajoschny-Tscheschuin . She and her sister Olga Tajoschnaja both became sculptors as well . She was also an active skier and in 1940 became the first Soviet female champion in alpine descent . At the first women's alpine skiing championships a year earlier, only one slalom had been carried out. Also in 1940 she was the first woman to ski down from the eastern summit of Elbrus , together with her teacher Wadim Gippenreiter and just one year after his first descent from this summit. She was honored as a master of sports . Tajoschnaja died in 1982 and was buried in the grave of her parents in the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.