Yekaterina Kirillovna was born on 25 April 1934 in a family of a hunter and a fisherman Moldanov Kirill Petrovich (people called him "Pєtər Kўtәp Iki" ‒ the Second Son of Peter) in the Khanty village on the Ekht Yugan River, at the tributary Kuryekh. All his life he lived on ancestral lands. His name as a storyteller and performer of Khanty songs, and a person with supernatural shamanic abilities was known to the inhabitants of many villages. Often people turned to him for help, as a soothsayer and healer. His mother, Moldanova (Tupoleva) Evdokia Ivanovna, came from the village of Polnovat in Beryozovsky (now Beloyarsky) District. People called her "Poԓnavәt imi" – "the Woman from the village Polnovat". Evdokia Ivanovna was raised by stepfather in the camp on the Vosh Yugan River, the tributary of the Kazym River. Her father died early, and it was hard for her mother to raise two small children alone, that’s why she married Semyon Petrovich Moldanov. Later she and her daughter moved to the sacred lands of Yuilsk, where the Kazym Goddess "sits". She left her son, Roman, with her mother-in-law for upbringing in the village of Polnovat.