an only child, yelena abdulayevna khanga was born in moscow to abdullah kassim, the first vice-president of zanzibar (assassinated in 1967) and lily khanga (pronounced han-ga), a historian and educator (née golden), the daughter of an interracial couple from new york city. yelena's american maternal grandmother was of polish-jewish descent and worked as a russian-english translator for a soviet news agency. she also claimed to be distant relative to well-known violinist arnold steinhardt (her grandmother was the cousin of his father). her african-american maternal grandfather, oliver golden, had a college degree in agronomy from the tuskegee institute but was unable to find any work in his field in the usa, and moved to the ussr (uzbekistan) with his wife to develop the cotton industry there.