Nina Ruslanova never knew her parents, and therefore spent most of her childhood in an orphanage. For this reason, it is difficult to establish the real date of her birth. The official date is December 5, 1945 that an actress chose herself. But the name "Nina" and surname "Ruslanova" actress received from orphanage's workers in which she was brought up. In this place the girl was hit by a two-month-old baby: in the cold winter of 1945/46, the children were found in the small Ukrainian town of Bogodukhov, which today is often mentioned as her birthplace. Subsequently, Nina herself several times told that her surname owes much to the well-known and beloved in those years singer Lidiya Ruslanova.