Valeria Sinyavskaya

Valeria Sinyavskaya, 88, passed away into God’s care on July 1, 2026, after a short illness, with her beloved son by her side. She was born on May 8, 1938, in Odessa, Ukraine, the only daughter of a highly educated Ukrainian Jewish engineer, who became an artillery officer during the Second World War and died defending Stalingrad from German attacks, and a White Russian theatre actress, originally from St. Petersburg, who evacuated her family to Central Asia when Odessa was taken over by German and Romanian forces.

After returning to Odessa with her widowed mother toward the end of the war, Valeria learned fluent Ukrainian in addition to her native Russian and went on to study classical ballet in Kiyv, Ukraine as a star pupil of Galina Berezova, herself a favored student of Agripinna Vaganova, the founder of the renowned Vaganova Method of ballet training. After graduating with distinction from Kiyv State Choreographic College, she embarked on a twenty-year career as a professional ballerina, becoming a prima ballerina with Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre in Novosibirsk, Russia, performing as a principal dancer and guest soloist with major Soviet ballet companies, including the Bolshoi Ballet, and touring throughout the world, while particularly treasuring her trips to Egypt, Australia, and New Zealand.

Despite being an entirely non-political and non-sectarian artist devoted to beauty, she refused to join the ruling Communist Party or to support the aggressively totalitarian and Godless nature of the Soviet regime. She married another artist, lost him to a fatal illness, later married a scientist, had a son, obtained a further degree from the Lunacharsky State Institute for Theatre Arts (GITIS), now known as the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS), and had her later work curtailed by the local government for participating in the dissident refuznik movement alongside her second husband. After escaping to the United States with her young son and elderly mother on February 28, 1991, over thirty-five years ago, she continued her ballet career as a teacher, choreographer, and artistic director. She worked at many companies and schools in the Southern and Eastern United States and eventually travelled to Japan, where she served at the artistic helm of the International Ballet School in Tokyo for a number of years.

Upon her return to the United States, she spent the last twenty years of her professional career in Northeast Tennessee, serving as the Artistic Director and Ballet Mistress of Kingsport Ballet, where she staged numerous full-length productions of major Tchaikovsky classical ballets, including Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, as well as full-length productions of Gizelle, adaptations of Don Quixote and Les Sylphides and others, and where she received several awards.

After retirement, she continued to be involved with Kingsport Ballet as Artistic Director Emeritus, while devoting herself to her family, her garden, prayer, and the study and enjoyment of the natural world of Northeast Tennessee and the Florida seacoast, along with the literature and culture of the Old World, particularly classic Russian-language poetry.

Her parents, Isaac A. Synyavsky and Natalia A. Muravyova-Gorohova, predeceased her, as did her first husband, and her marriage to her second husband and the father of her son ended in divorce many years ago, although they remained friendly.

She is survived by her only son, John Appelbaum, her son’s long-term companion, Elizabeth Gibson, and many grateful students, dear colleagues, loyal friends, and kind neighbors.