Kseniya Sobchak

Profile Overview

Ksenia Anatolyevna Sobchak (Russian: Ксения Анатольевна Собчак, IPA: ['ksʲenʲɪjə ɐnɐ'tolʲjɪvnə sɐpˈt͜ɕak]; born 5 November 1981) is a Russian journalist, media manager, television personality, and former politician. She is the younger daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg and one of Vladimir Putin's mentors, and Senator Lyudmila Narusova.
Sobchak became known to the wider public as the host of the TNT reality show Dom-2. She later became an anchor at the independent television channel TV Rain and served as editor-in-chief of L'Officiel Russia. Sobchak was the Civic Initiative's candidate for the 2018 Russian presidential election. From 2020 to 2021, she co-hosted the television talk show Dok-Tok with Alexander Gordon on Channel One. Currently, Sobchak leads her own independent media holding, Ostorozhno Media, which includes a network of popular Telegram channels and her YouTube journalism project "Ostorozhno: Sobchak".
Sobchak is the second daughter of the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, and Lyudmila Narusova, a Russian politician. Sobchak has described herself as being of part‑Jewish heritage. Sobchak also revealed that she and her family had experienced antisemitism.
As a child, Sobchak attended the ballet school attached to the Mariinsky Theatre. She also attended the Hermitage Museum art school. In 1998, Sobchak left the school attached to Herzen University and enrolled at Saint Petersburg State University (Department of International Relations). In 2001, Sobchak moved to Moscow and enrolled in the International Relations programme at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.