Vladivostok in the 1870s and established a successful import/export company.Brynner's paternal grandmother, Natalya Yosifovna Kurkutova, was a native of Irkutsk and a Eurasian of partial Buryat ancestry.

Brynner's mother, Maria (Marousia) Dimitrievna (née Blagovidova, ????? ?????????? ???????????), hailed from the Russian intelligentsia and had studied to be an actress and singer. According to her son, she was of Russian Roma ancestry,