Her mother Nadezhda had been told about the condition after giving birth. With three sons already at home to care for, and being a single mother, she simply left the child in hospital.
She said: ‘I live in a small village, and I have to think about what the neighbours will say. I am a single mother who raised other children on my own, and I can’t afford plastic surgery.
‘If they manage to make her look better, I will be happy to take her to live with me. But I couldn’t bear to have her here and hear people talking about and calling her “ugly face”.’
When Katya was first abandoned, medics handed the case over to social workers. But when she did not die, she was placed in an orphanage.
Nadezhda claimed she assumed her baby girl had died as medics had warned, and the first that she knew of the fact that Katya had survived was when she got a letter from the orphanage.
By then the child was already a teenager, and she was told that unless she would agree to take care of her, Katya faced being placed into an asylum when she turned 18.
When she visited the teenager, the mother said she was shocked at how ugly she was, but felt that she wanted to care for her rather than leave her to rot in an asylum.
But bizarrely, she has come up with a condition for the re-adoption, she wants the girl to have plastic surgery to make a better-looking.
Social workers say the teenage girl was born with a deformed nose and ear, and also has mental difficulties which makes it difficult for her to speak.
But they described her as a happy child, and very loving.
Kristina Isaeva, from the charity Me Without A Mother, who is working together with the social workers, confirmed they were trying to find money to pay for an operation and were also hoping that maybe a plastic surgeon, possibly in Moscow, might agree to take on the case for a low price or even for free.
She said: ‘We have contacted local plastic surgeons but nobody was prepared to take on the case for free.’