塔玛拉·卡萨维纳，Tamara Platonovna Karsavina was born on March 10, 1885, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her father, named Platon Karsavin, was the ballet dancer with the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. She graduated from the Imperial Ballet School, where her classmate was Anna Pavlova. The two ballerinas became rivals.