Daily Telegraph on Ksenia Sobchak
Очень хорошая статья про Собчак

The Kremlin's covergirl
(Filed: 23/07/2006)

She's the consummate celebutante: young, rich and desperate for attention. So far so Paris Hilton. But with President Putin as a friend, the Russian television presenter Ksenia Sobchak has political clout, too - and, boy, does she intend to use it. John Preston meets her in Moscow</b></p>

There are, Ksenia Sobchak readily acknowledges, a lot of reasons why her fellow Russians can't stand her. She's young, glamorous, rich, extraordinarily well connected - she is a close family friend of President Vladimir Putin - and frequently referred to both as the Russian Paris Hilton and as the face of modern Russia.
Like Hilton, Sobchak also has a showbiz side: she is the presenter of Dom-2 (which translates as House-2), Russia's most successful reality TV show, which manages to make Big Brother look like a model of taste and humanity. Under the circumstances, it's hardly surprising that the door of her Moscow apartment is made of plate steel, nor that the chauffeur of her Porsche Cayenne always packs a pistol.

And that's not all. As befits the country's premier socialite and most compulsive shopper, she has a reputation for being somewhat difficult - it's possible that her friend Naomi Campbell has passed on a few hints here.

On several occasions she threatened to cancel our interview, and when I arrive at her flat there is no sign of her. Instead, I am told to remove my shoes and wait. Apparently, Sobchak is 'resting'.

I wait for some time as various glum-faced people pad about in their stockinged feet and a maid chops up tomatoes with grim ferocity. Eventually Sobchak appears: a small blonde whose carefully sculpted appearance makes her look much older than 24. After proffering a limp hand, she turns round and brusquely tells everyone to shut up and make themselves scarce.

As soon as we start talking a number of things become clear. The first is that, while Sobchak is quite capable of doing a convincing impression of a label-obsessed airhead, she's actually very bright and has few illusions about herself, or the world she lives in.

'Yes, it is true that I love shopping and I care about my manicure,' she says in fluent and only lightly accented English. 'But then I also love books and theatre and talking about politics. For me, there's no contradiction here; they're just different sides of my character. Whatever people may think of me, I don't live like some princess in an ivory tower.

'I mean, I'm not like Marie Antoinette. I know that the vast majority of people in this country live in extreme poverty. But as far as I'm concerned, it's possible to enjoy your wealth and also use it to do good.'

Opening her pale blue eyes very wide and fixing me with a lengthy stare, she adds, 'I'm also aware that I live in a very…' she clicks her fingers irritatedly, summoning the right word, 'a very vacuous world. For instance, 99 per cent of people who smile at me and pretend to be my friend are probably being insincere. But that's just human nature. You can't change people. All you can do is try to love them the way they are.'

What also becomes plain is that behind Sobchak's outward assurance lies an intricate pattern of childhood scars. In 1991, when she was ten, her father, Anatoly Sobchak, a lawyer and early advocate of free-market reform in the former Soviet Union, was voted mayor of St Petersburg; Putin was his loyal and devoted deputy. For five years he was one of the most powerful men in Russia; then, in 1996, he was voted out.

A year later, as criminal investigations into allegations of bribery and abuse of power were launched against him, he had a heart attack and was taken to France for medical treatment. In 1999 he returned home, and when Putin came to power all charges were dropped; Sobchak died soon after.

For Ksenia, the glare of publicity that accompanied her father's political career came as a terrible shock. 'I hated everything about it,' she says. 'First of all I didn't see my parents any more. And then I had these security guards looking after me 24 hours a day. As far as I was concerned, being in the public eye had no advantages at all. It's strange, though, because now I realise that I lived through some of the most extraordinary events in my country's recent history.

They were happening right there in our living-room, because of my father and his friendship with Mr Putin. Yet at the time all I was concerned about was trying to get away from my security guards and have a cigarette. Now, of course, I regret I didn't pay more attention to what was going on.'

Given this background, it seems odd that Sobchak should have sought the spotlight so eagerly. She shrugs and admits disarmingly, 'As a child I was starving for attention; it was the goal of my life. Maybe because I didn't get it at home, I tried to find it elsewhere. And maybe that's what I'm still doing.'

Despite this neediness, she has, she says, always been a strong character. 'I know it sounds immodest, but whenever I walked into a room everything seemed to get a little… well, brighter. And I was always ambitious as well. I hated being "the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak". I was determined to be someone on my own. A lot of children of very successful people drink or take drugs and don't do anything with their lives. With me, though, it had the opposite effect.'

But however ambitious she may have been, she'd given no thought to becoming a television presenter. That just dropped into her lap. After studying international relations at university, she was wondering what to do next when the telephone rang and she was asked if she'd like to audition for a new show, Dom-2.

'I'm sure they only called me because of my background - it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise. To begin with I was very nervous on television and not very good, either. But I was always natural. I've never pretended to be someone that I'm not.'

Dom-2 quickly became a sensation. Russia had never seen anything like it, but then nor had anyone else. The show took the sadism inherent in reality TV and cranked it up to undreamt-of heights.

To begin with, eight women and seven men were dumped in a field outside Moscow. Denied newspapers, television or any contact with the outside world, they had to build their own house and were lightly prodded into having affairs with each other. Every week viewers voted on who would be thrown off the show and who would be allowed to join it.

Two and a half years later Dom-2 is still going strong. Not only that, but some of the original contestants are still living in the house. 'They don't want to leave,' Sobchak says matter-of-factly. 'In fact, some of them have psychological problems when they have to go. The guards had to keep one man away. He kept hanging around outside the compound saying, "But this is my home."'

The next day Sobchak takes me to the Dom-2 location. With nothing to do all day except carry on building, the contestants have turned the house into a sprawling mansion that now boasts those two essential adjuncts to any reality TV show: an open-air hot tub and a 'play area'.

As I'm gazing into the murky waters of the hot tub, an unshaven man rushes up, cackling dementedly and shouting, 'Who is Elvis?' This, it transpires, is Stefan, one of the house's original occupants. Presumably, in the time he's been shut away, Stefan hasn't seen the pictures of Sobchak that adorn the Russian equivalents of Hello! and OK!

Indeed, you can scarcely open any Russian publication without seeing her, wearing some fashionable new thong, or standing demurely beside a social bigwig. She's become hugely well known as a result of Dom-2, and fame has brought plenty of resentment. 'Sometimes people are very aggressive to me. They shout insults, and fanatics even come to my house and try to get in. That's why my driver is armed.'

'You mean he shoots them?' 'No, but I am… prepared. Put it that way.'

I wonder if she found this aggression upsetting. Sobchak gives her head an emphatic shake. 'No. What I really dislike is when anyone is indifferent. As long as I'm getting a reaction, it's OK. When people are nasty I don't feel anything.'

But there's also been a personal price to pay. Last summer Sobchak was due to marry a Russian-American businessman, Alexander Shustorovich, in what was billed as Russia's society wedding of the year. At the last moment, though, the wedding was called off.

'While I very much wanted to get married, unfortunately things didn't work out,' she says. 'Now I am single again, but I'm too busy even to think about dating anyone.'

A month ago Sobchak launched her own youth movement, All Free. It's a kind of giant Scout troop for deprived teenagers, which she hopes will encourage other wealthy Russians into sponsoring good works. Critics have claimed that it's all a Kremlin ploy to attract young voters and annex the kind of subversive youth movements that contributed to the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, but Sobchak denies that her old friend Putin is behind the scheme.

'No, no, no,' she says, her eyes hardening instantly. 'The whole thing is my idea and I've actually put up my own money to fund it. What I'm trying to do is to give people a chance to take better care of themselves and of their environment.'

Although Sobchak has no plans to leave Dom-2 in the foreseeable future, she's always on the lookout for big new challenges. Two years ago she made her film debut as an American psychologist who has sex with a monk on board the Russian space station. 'Basically, she played herself,' the director said.

Her ambitions, however, are not confined to showbusiness. Already there's been a lot of speculation that one day she will follow her father into politics. If so, her single-mindedness and ability to connect with a remarkably broad swath of Russian society should carry her far.

'It's possible,' she says. 'Maybe… I haven't decided yet. I also fantasise about settling down and having children. I think maybe I would like that, too. But then six years ago I could never have imagined I would be a television star. Sometimes, you know, my life feels like quite enough of a fantasy already.'

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