The 38-year-old, originally from the city of Vladivostok, discussed the common gun crime, which saw friend Oksanna gunned down by accident.
Writing in her autobiography Dancing out of Darkness, the Strictly professional told how Oksanna was with her boyfriend at the time, who was the intended target.
She said: “Apparently she was just sitting in the car with him and someone shot them.
“They died from multiple gunshot wounds. Oksanna wasn’t a target, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time but nobody cared – they killed her anyway.”
Sadly this wasn’t an isolated incident. In the honest book, Kristina confessed that nine of her friends were widowed after their husbands were murdered.
But it was Oksanna’s death that hit Kristina the hardest. She continued: “It was after that when I realised I didn’t want to live my life in Russia anymore. I cried for a long time over Oksanna’s death.”
Kristina’s passion for dancing is what saved her from being sucked into the gang culture, while her friends weren’t as lucky.
“It was easy to see how they became lost, turned to drugs and fell into world of desperation to somehow fit in,” she said.
“Our country was a bleak place to be in the nineties. There was an endless circle of gang crime and violence and people getting shot on a daily basis.”
After managing to escape to America, Kristina later relocated to the UK and shot to fame on Strictly Come Dancing.