Karinska learned Ukrainian embroidery was an art form filled with detailed shades and colors of varying texture of stitches – some tiny and fine and others broad and rough - as a child. She studied law at the University of Kharkov and, in 1908, married Alexander Moïssenko, the son of another wealthy Kharkov industrialist.[12] Moïssenko died in 1909 several months before the birth of their daughter Irina.[12] In 1910, Varvara's older brother Anatoly, owner of the moderately Socialist Kharkiv newspaper UTRO (Morning), went through divorce proceedings that resulted in Varvara winning custody of his two-year-old son, her nephew, Vladimir Anatolevich Jmoudsky. Vladimir and Irina were raised as brother and sister.[citation needed]