She also grew up in East Germany (before the fall of the Berlin Wall). That's not too astonishing in today's Germany but would have raised a few eyebrows a mere generation ago.
Part of the reason she apparently speaks Russian pretty well. And Russia's president, mr. Putin, is fluent in German because he was stationed there when younger. Quite the antagonising characters in politics these days, but at least they speak each other's language. :)
I'm sure that this fact has already prevented fucks up and smoothed relations between EU and Russia. Despite the Putin's dogs incident...