Born in Tbilisi, the capital of then-Soviet Georgia, Orjonikidze graduated from the Moscow State University with a degree in philology in 1965. In 1976, she was appointed the director of Leonidze Museum of Georgian Literature, a position she held until 1982 and again from 1989 to 1990 and from 1991 to 2010. In 1989, Orjonikidze was a member of the special commission investigating the actions of the Soviet military against the pro-independence demonstrations in Georgia on April 9, 1989. After Georgia’s independence from the Soviet Union, she was elected to the parliament for Tbilisi's Saburtalo district from 1992 to 1995.