Kseniya Sobchak

This name uses Eastern/Southern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Anatolyevna and the family name is Sobchak.

Kseniya Sobchak imitating Yulia Tymoshenko's trademark hairdo.

Kseniya Anatolyevna Sobchak (Russian: Ксе́ния Анато́льевна Собча́к), born November 5, 1981 in Leningrad, Soviet Union (present day Saint Petersburg, Russia), is the second daughter of the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg Anatoly Sobchak and Lyudmila Narusova, a Russian politician. A celebrity widely known nationally as a presenter on the reality show "Dom-2" on the Russian channel TNT, she is sometimes described to international audiences as, by way of analogy, Russia's "It girl" and "Russia's Paris Hilton". Sobchak is also a prominent political activist, who has been protesting alleged electoral fraud by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.

Biography

As a child she attended the ballet school attached to the Mariinsky Theatre and the Hermitage Museum art school. In 1998, Ksenia left the school attached to Herzen University, and enrolled at the Saint Petersburg State University (Department of International Relations). In 2001 she moved to Moscow and enrolled in the International Relations program at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. In 2002 she enrolled in a masters program at the department of politics at the same university.

Sobchak acted in the 2004 film Thieves and Prostitutes.

She is also known as a clothes designer and promoter of rubber boots. In June 2006 she created her first collection of such boots.

In 2004, Sobchak was identified as a candidate to become Russia's first national Space Tourist, flying to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz rocket. She may have undertaken some initial tests and cosmonaut training, but the project came to nothing.

She also acted against the newly produced law that prohibits sharing of private lives of Russian celebrities without their permission.^{[citation needed]}

On 28 December 2008, Sobchak was on an Aeroflot flight from Moscow to New York when she and other passengers determined that the pilot was drunk prior to take-off. Sobchak used her socialite status to call Aeroflot representatives and remove the pilot from the cockpit.

Russia's Tatler magazine made the list of most desirable single women in the country. The list is based on women's fortune and their celebrity status. She is known across Russia as a socialite, TV host and presenter. Ksenia is Russia's No.1 'it girl', an analogue to Paris Hilton.

Political background and activities

Sobchak's father, Anatoly, helped Vladimir Putin launch his career in politics when he was the mayor of St. Petersburg. Putin then helped Anatoly flee Russia when he was wanted on corruption charges. According to the Moscow News, "Putin's reported affection for the Sobchak family is widely believed to give Ksenia Sobchak a protected status, which may also explain her boldness", such as her encounter in October 2011 with Vasily Yakemenko, the controversial leader of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement, when she reprimanded him for eating at an expensive restaurant in Moscow and published a video of the encounter on the internet. However, less than two months later her further actions have caused her relationship with Putin to look more questionable. After the parliament elections held on December 4, 2011, which are known for the large number of alleged fraud reports, Sobchak joined the protest rallies held in Russia as a response to the alleged electoral frauds. She also took part in the campaign against Putin's re-election, working as an observer during the president elections held on March 4, 2012. She was one of the Russian protest leaders targeted by the Investigative Committee of Russia on June 12, 2012 when her apartment in Moscow was entered and searched.

Videos

• 2007: Dance (Потанцуй) (With Timati)

External links

• The Guardian: She has a TV show and a Porsche. Now Moscow's Paris Hilton wants a party too
• Candidates for Space Tourists
• Ksenia Sobchak, the Stiletto in Putin’s Side July 3, 2012 New York Times