The Shelepina family was from Gatchina, an imperial town about 25 miles south-west of Petrograd, Russia where Evegina was born. The Shelepina family of Pyotr Ivanovich and his third wife Maria Alexeevna had six children, daughters Evgenia (the eldest), Iroida, and Serafina; and sons Viktor, Roman and Gleb; plus a half-sister Elena (TLE p186). Irioda went to Tashkent and Afghanistan as a diplomatic representative. They adjusted to the ascendance of Stalin and Trotsky's exile. Irioda became deputy director of the Moscow Region Forced Labour Camp (Gulag)(TLE pp301,341).