Академия русского балета имени А. Я. Вагановой
Born in Leningrad, she trained under Marina A. Vasilieva at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet, graduating in 1985. Her father, Viktor Makhalin, is an engineer and her mother Anna is an accountant. Makhalina's teachers at the academy reportedly told her she would be only a corps de ballet dancer and after graduation she had signed on with a company in Lvov, but she was accepted into the Kirov after attracting the notice of then artistic director Oleg Vinogradov.