I was vaccinated as a baby for varicella yet i got it when i was in russia age 8 how is that possible?

Yes: This vaccine is a modified strain of the wild varicella virus & is thought to confer lifelong immunity in 85 -90 % of kids after 1 dose. A second dose was initially recommended only to teenagers at first, but now we generally want all kids to have at least two, to pick up the stragglers with poor initial response.Long term protection is a feature of other viral vaccines.