Anatoly Sobchak
Anatoly Sobchak | |
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Анатолий Собчак | |
Vladimir Yakovlev | |
Personal details | |
Born | Chita, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | 10 August 1937
Died | 19 February 2000 Svetlogorsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia | (aged 62)
Resting place | Nikolskoe Cemetery, Saint Petersburg, Russia |
Political party |
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Spouses | |
Children | Maria, educator |
Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak (Russian: Анатолий Александрович Собчак, IPA:
Biography
Soviet legal scholar
Anatoly Sobchak was born in
After graduating from Leningrad State University, he worked for three years as a lawyer in
After obtaining his
Legislator
In 1989, after election laws changed during
He was a member of the President's Consultative Council during Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure and contributed to legislation that originated from the presidential administration.
After the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, Sobchak was not a member of the central Parliament but was a member of Yeltsin's Presidential Council and the chairman of the
Mayor of Saint Petersburg
In April 1990, Sobchak was elected a deputy of the Leningrad City Council, and in May he became the chairman of the Council. From the beginning, his leadership was marked by a strongly authoritarian bent.
During his tenure, a Kissinger-Sobchak commission was formed in order to attract western investment into St. Petersburg. According to Putin who had met with Kissinger a couple of times, when Kissinger stated that the Soviet Union had pulled out of Eastern Europe too quickly under Gorbachev and that Kissinger was being blamed but Kissinger had thought it was impossible, Putin had agreed with Kissinger because so many problems would have been avoided if the pullout had not been so hasty.[5]
A deputy of the
Sobchak was Mayor of Saint Petersburg from 1991 to 1996. During his tenure, the city became a place of glamorous cultural and sporting events. Most of the everyday control of the city structure was handled by two Mayor's deputies –
Emigration and return
In 1997, a criminal investigation started against Sobchak. He was accused of irregularities in the privatization of his own apartment, his elder daughter's apartment, and his wife's art studio. By the standards of the 1990s in Russia, the allegations were relatively minor (although the alleged losses for city finances were still in the tens of thousands of dollars). Thus, Sobchak's supporters saw the criminal proceedings as a political repression. According to Ksenia Sobchak, this campaign was started in 1995 from Moscow to prevent her father from running in future presidential elections.[9]
On 7 November 1997, Sobchak flew to Paris on a private plane without passport processing on the Russian side. The formal reason for his departure was medical treatment in a Paris hospital for his heart condition, but Sobchak never checked in at the hospital. Between 1997 and 1999, he lived the typical life of a political émigré in Paris.
In June 1999, his friend Vladimir Putin became much stronger politically (in a few weeks he became the Prime Minister of Russia), and he was able to make the prosecutors drop the charges against Sobchak. On 12 June 1999, Sobchak returned to Russia. After his return, Sobchak became a very active supporter of Putin in his quest for the Russian presidency.
Death
On 17 February 2000, Putin met with Sobchak and urged him to travel to
According to an independent investigation by Arkady Vaksberg, both bodyguards of Sobchak were treated for symptoms of poisoning after Sobchak's death, indicating a probable contract killing by poisoning.[10][18] Sobchak's widow Lyudmila had her own autopsy done on her husband's body, but never made the results public; she told the BBC that she keeps the findings in a secure location outside Russia.[19]
He was interred in
Honours and awards
- Jubilee Medal "300 Years of the Russian Navy" (1996)
- Order of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, 1st class
- Silver medal of the International Olympic Committee (1995)
- Honorary citizen of St. Petersburg (2010, posthumous), Tbilisi (Georgia, 1991), Indianapolis (USA, 1992), Maryland (USA, 1993), Oklahoma (USA, 1994), Georgia (1995)
- Honorary Doctor of Law at the Russian Interior Ministry
- Honorary Doctor of Political Science, University of Genoa (Italy, 1992)
- Honorary Doctor of the University of Arts in Oklahoma City (1993)
- Honorary Doctor of Humanities, Towson University (Baltimore, USA, 1993)
- Professor Emeritus of the University of Bordeaux (France), East European Institute of Psychoanalysis (St. Petersburg, Russia)
- Mitterrand awarded the Foundation "Memoria" (France, 1991)
- Prize winner of the National Democratic Institute of the A. Garrimana (USA, Washington, 1992)
- Prize winner J. Fulbright National Law Center at George Washington University (Washington, USA, 1992)
- International Leonardo Prize (1996)
- Prize winners Starovoitova (2000, posthumously)
- Tsarskoye Selo Art Prize (2001, posthumously)
- Winner of the International Prize for the development and strengthening of cultural ties in the Baltic Sea Region "Baltic Star" (2005, posthumously)
- Gold Medal of the city of Dubrovnik (Croatia, 1991)
- Gold Medal of the city of Florence (Italy, 1991)
- Full member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Engineering (Department of economic and legal sciences) (1992)
- Member of the International Informatization Academy (Moscow, 1995)
- Honorary member of the St. Petersburg Union of Engineering Societies (1992)
- Gagarin Medal (1996)
- Medal Admiral MP Lazarev (1996)
- "Gratitude" medal of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic(2002, posthumously)
- Imperial Order of St. Alexander Nevsky(2002, posthumously)
See also
Notes
- ^ Baltic-Escort (Russian: «Балтик-Экскорт»), a company headed by Roman Tsepov, provided bodyguards for St Petersburg officials including Sobchak and Vladimir Putin. Baltic-Escort provided bodyguards for not only Anatoly but also his wife Lyudmila Narusova and daughter Ksenia Sobchak. Viktor Zolotov had been Sobchak's bodyguard while he was mayor of St. Petersburg.[11]
References
- ^ "Детство". Александр Собчак. Официальный сайт. Archived from the original on 14 November 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2020.
- ^ "sobchak.org", accessed 12 October 2012.
- ^ "granitim.ru", accessed 12 October 2012.
- ^ Inside Putin's Russia, Andrew Jack, pp. 69–70.
- Kremlin) (in Russian). Archived from the originalon 11 November 2010. Retrieved 19 November 2020.
Chapter 5: разведчик (scout)
- ISBN 1-906142-07-6, pages 273-277.
- ^ Шутов, Юрий Титович (Shutov, Yuri Titovich) [in Russian] (1991). Собчачье сердце, или Записки помощника ходившего во власть [Heart of a Dog, or Notes of an Assistant Who Went to Power] (in Russian). Retrieved 22 December 2020.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - NEWSru.com. 21 March 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Polupanov, Vladimir (17 February 2010). "Собчак о Собчаке: Папа воспитал Путина и Медведева!". Argumenty i Fakty (in Russian).
- ^ a b c The best theory for explaining the mysterious death of Putin's mentor by Masha Gessen, Business Insider, 2015
- ^ "СВЯЗНОЙ С ПРОШЛЫМ" [Connected with the Past]. Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). 28 March 2005. Archived from the original on 19 August 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
- ISBN 978-1-84708-149-0.
- ^ a b "Караулов". Archived from the original on 30 August 2022. Retrieved 8 April 2007.
- ^ Farewell (Russia) Archived 31 January 2023 at the Wayback Machine, Website dedicated to A. Sobchak
- ^ "Загадка смерти Анатолия Собчака" [The riddle of the death of Anatoly Sobchak]. ds.ru (in Russian). 12 April 2000. Archived from the original on 27 March 2022. Retrieved 1 December 2006.
- ^ "Vestnik.com". www.vestnik.com. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Анатолий Собчак был убит // СМИ.ru
- Arkadi Vaksbergand Paul McGregor Toxic Politics: The Secret History of the Kremlin's Poison Laboratory from the Special Cabinet to the Death of Litvinenko, pages 175-186, 2011, 978-0-313-38746-3
- ^ Gatehouse, Gabriel (5 March 2018). "The day Putin cried". BBC News. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
- ^ Pipia, Besik (20 September 2004). "Загадка смерти Анатолия Собчака" [Before death everyone is equal, but not after death]. Nezavisimaya Gazeta (in Russian).
External links
- Media related to Anatoly Sobchak at Wikimedia Commons
- Official site of Anatoly Sobchak (Russian)
- Boris Vishnevsky Anatoly Sobchak: Triumph and Tragedy (Russian)