0:00:00 > 0:00:03Sarah Campbell, BBC News.
0:00:03 > 0:00:05It just warms the heart.
0:00:05 > 0:00:24Now on BBC News, Our World.
0:00:54 > 0:01:00In Moscow nightclub, the opposition candidate makes her pitch to the
0:01:00 > 0:01:08country. Russian democracy is a strange and sometimes dangerous
0:01:08 > 0:01:16beast.It is a fake election.It is a fake election?Yes, I am always
0:01:16 > 0:01:24telling that.How do you mean?I mean like any casino. The win is
0:01:24 > 0:01:33always on the house. In Russia it is always on that it didn't side. -- it
0:01:33 > 0:01:38is or is on Vladimir Putin's side. So I'm not trained to win, I just
0:01:38 > 0:01:46want to be heard. -- it is always on.Once upon a time, in the former
0:01:46 > 0:01:55capital of the czars, eight girl was born with a silver spoon in the MoU.
0:01:55 > 0:02:01-- a. When the Soviet empire collapsed, so it was turned into
0:02:01 > 0:02:08gold for some. Ksenia Sobchak's family was among those view. Her
0:02:08 > 0:02:12father, one of the founders of Russia's new democracy, became the
0:02:12 > 0:02:16Mayor of St Petersburg. He would later die in uncertain
0:02:16 > 0:02:20circumstances, while his former deputy, a once unknown KGB officer,
0:02:20 > 0:02:28would become the most powerful man in Russia.It was a person who gave
0:02:28 > 0:02:35but admitted his first job. -- Vladimir Putin his first job.But by
0:02:35 > 0:02:43a strange twist of fate, nearly two decades later, the girl with the
0:02:43 > 0:02:47silver spoon would challenge the new star for the highest office in the
0:02:47 > 0:02:55land. -- czar.
0:03:04 > 0:03:12350 miles south of Moscow, the city of cause. Ksenia Sobchak is on the
0:03:12 > 0:03:19campaign trail. -- Anatoly Sobchak. Her purpose here is to talk to would
0:03:19 > 0:03:25know Russians.The biggest problem in Russia is not freedom of speech.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30Unfortunately, for many people, it is the poverty.Out in the suburbs,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33residents have been complaining they cannot get their children into a
0:03:33 > 0:03:35local nursery.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Ksenia Sobchak herself is the mother of a young child, and she is hoping
0:03:48 > 0:03:58that will help connect with these voters. And now she is haranguing
0:03:58 > 0:04:04some local officials. This is pretty much what but it did and does when
0:04:04 > 0:04:27he goes around. -- Vladimir Putin. Had fillet people react to Europe,
0:04:27 > 0:04:35coming as you do, from a privileged background?You know, I don't try to
0:04:35 > 0:04:41be like, I am late one of you, because it is not true. -- how do
0:04:41 > 0:04:46you feel people. If I wear red lipstick in my ordinary time, why
0:04:46 > 0:04:51should I take an offer them. So I am not a populist. I come in a good car
0:04:51 > 0:04:54and in good clothes, but they are is money, I did not steal it.
0:04:54 > 0:05:03Corruption is a big issue in this election for all candidates. After a
0:05:03 > 0:05:08slightly optimistic welcome at local campaign headquarters, Ksenia
0:05:08 > 0:05:12Sobchak take things one step further.
0:05:29 > 0:05:35In Russian politics, there are certain red lines. Among them,
0:05:35 > 0:05:49People, and his inner circle. -- Putin and his inner circle. Direct
0:05:49 > 0:05:52criticism of Vladimir Putin seems dangerous, and many people do not
0:05:52 > 0:06:06want to know. But Anatoly Ksenia Sobchak's Jenny Shin dissidents has
0:06:06 > 0:06:12been an unusual one.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22-- Ksenia Sobchak's rise to dissidents. In the first decade of
0:06:22 > 0:06:30this century, as many Russians struggled, Ksenia Sobchak
0:06:30 > 0:06:37transformed herself from society rich kid to television celebrity.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41Leading the masses a diet of reality television and branding herself
0:06:41 > 0:06:45simply Ksenia
0:06:45 > 0:06:47television and branding herself simply Ksenia. But then the girl
0:06:47 > 0:06:52with the silver spoon had a valid transformation. In 2011, she joined
0:06:52 > 0:07:07opposition protests and was properly carted off to a police cell. Alexei
0:07:07 > 0:07:13Navalny, the movement's leader, has long been a thorn in the
0:07:13 > 0:07:17government's side.I was close with him for many years. We shared many
0:07:17 > 0:07:21values and we still share many of those values, I hope.But when a
0:07:21 > 0:07:24Alexei Navalny was banned from standing in this year's collections,
0:07:24 > 0:07:33Ksenia Sobchak announced that she was running instead. Proponents said
0:07:33 > 0:07:42that she was a Kremlin agent, just more reality television. -- her
0:07:42 > 0:07:46opponents. Could that be true? Could it be that Ksenia Sobchak is doing
0:07:46 > 0:07:52the Kremlin's bidding? I paid a visit to her campaign headquarters
0:07:52 > 0:07:57to meet one of her top advisers, a woman well versed in the darker arts
0:07:57 > 0:08:02of Russian politics. She should be. She used to work for Vladimir Putin
0:08:02 > 0:08:04himself.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30Just to be clear, this is Ksenia Sobchak's own campaign advisers
0:08:30 > 0:08:34saying yes, we are plainly Kremlin's game. But in Russia, there is always
0:08:34 > 0:08:39more than one game going on.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05And that is exactly what Ksenia Sobchak says she is trying to do. If
0:09:05 > 0:09:10there is one thing that Ksenia Sobchak understands, it is the power
0:09:10 > 0:09:13of television. She is using her candidacy to talk about the blue
0:09:13 > 0:09:26issues. -- issues that are taboo. To see this on state television is
0:09:26 > 0:09:33heresy. Genuinely subversive. Shocked presenters have resorted to
0:09:33 > 0:09:38surreal measures to try and run her out. But here is the conundrum: The
0:09:38 > 0:09:41Kremlin controls everything. Who gets to stand in elections, and who
0:09:41 > 0:09:56gets to go on television. So what is going on? Ksenia Sobchak treads a
0:09:56 > 0:10:00delicate path. Before she set out on her journey, the girl with the
0:10:00 > 0:10:07silver spoon needed to get the approval of the czar in the Kremlin.
0:10:07 > 0:10:11She needed wise counsel.
0:10:24 > 0:10:32Alexei Navalny's is one of Russia's most famous and well respected
0:10:32 > 0:10:47journalist. -- Alexei is. As it happens, Ksenia Sobchak is in the
0:10:47 > 0:10:50process of making a film about her father, the former mayor. But it
0:10:50 > 0:10:55didn't agree to an interview. In September, she went to see him in
0:10:55 > 0:11:02the Kremlin. -- Ksenia Sobchak agreed to an interview. I said I was
0:11:02 > 0:11:06there to challenge.And he was silent for a second, then said,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10well, that is your decision. But it is your responsibility.What you
0:11:10 > 0:11:15think you by that?I don't even want to think about that. I don't think
0:11:15 > 0:11:26anything nice.And so the czar decided to accept this challenge.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30But not everybody was happy. Behind the facade of monolithic power,
0:11:30 > 0:11:35different factions struggled for power.
0:12:06 > 0:12:13How indeed? Had had the girl who spoke out against the czar get
0:12:13 > 0:12:16permission to run against an? The answer to this riddle lies buried in
0:12:16 > 0:12:24the past, when Vladimir Putin worked for me to one's father in St
0:12:24 > 0:12:35Petersburg. -- Ksenia Sobchak's father.
0:12:35 > 0:12:40Perhaps it should more accurately be titled the Museum of how Russian
0:12:40 > 0:12:45Democracy was poisoned at Source. The name Anatoly Sobchak stands
0:12:45 > 0:12:49alongside the likes of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
0:13:05 > 0:13:10The story of how the anti-Soviet reformer chosen and skewer KGB
0:13:10 > 0:13:16officer as his deputy is also the story of how factions from the old
0:13:16 > 0:13:21Soviet security establishment have come to be running Russia today. --
0:13:21 > 0:13:22obscure KGB officer.
0:13:39 > 0:13:44Anatoly Sobchak was voted out of office in 1996 amid allegations of
0:13:44 > 0:13:49corruption. While his political fortunes declined, he is deputies
0:13:49 > 0:13:55were on the rise. Putin moved to Moscow and got a job in the Kremlin.
0:13:55 > 0:14:00When anticorruption investigators called Sobchak in for questioning,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03Putin personally helped spirit him out of the country.
0:14:33 > 0:14:42With Sobchak Don, the investigation ground to a halt. -- gone. A few
0:14:42 > 0:14:44years later an independent journalist in Saint Petersburg had
0:14:44 > 0:14:50an unexpected visitor. A man by the name of Yuri claims to have the
0:14:50 > 0:14:52details of the Sobchak investigation.
0:14:57 > 0:15:05He had aid dossier, I didn't take it into my room is, I didn't open it.
0:15:05 > 0:15:12-- a dossier.Why would a journalist not want to read the dossier? The
0:15:12 > 0:15:16answer is self reservation. Not long after this, Yuri was charged with
0:15:16 > 0:15:20murder. When a judge dismissed the case due to lack of evidence, armed
0:15:20 > 0:15:24officers burst into the courtroom and rearrested him. He ended his
0:15:24 > 0:15:29days in a remote prison colony.He knew too much. He used to work for
0:15:29 > 0:15:38Sobchak. And because... He was dangerous, when he was three.But
0:15:38 > 0:15:48Sobchak was already out of the picture. Why was he still dangerous?
0:15:48 > 0:15:56He was dangerous to someone around Sobchak, someone who was very close
0:15:56 > 0:16:06to Sobchak. I suspect that he was dangerous to fit in as well.--
0:16:06 > 0:16:11dangerous to Putin. In the course of making a film about her father,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14Ksenia Sobchak got hold of classified investigation files. She
0:16:14 > 0:16:19says the case was cooked up I hardliners to discredit her father.
0:16:19 > 0:16:22But she does confirm for the first time that Vladimir Putin was
0:16:22 > 0:16:26questioned as part of the investigation.All those interviews
0:16:26 > 0:16:30and investigations with him, with Putin, they look very professional.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35It is a fact that they found nothing, they were very
0:16:35 > 0:16:41disappointed. They didn't succeed. In Moscow, factions were
0:16:41 > 0:16:47manoeuvring. Putin was being groomed as the successor to Boris Yeltsin.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51The battle was over who would have sway over the new leader. In
0:16:51 > 0:16:59February 2000, Anatoly Sobchak died suddenly at the age of 62. At the
0:16:59 > 0:17:04funeral, Russia's new president was distraught.That was the first and
0:17:04 > 0:17:09last time everybody saw him crying in Russia. I still remember it. One
0:17:09 > 0:17:12of the shocks I had was his reaction. He was totally killed
0:17:12 > 0:17:16this.
0:17:18 > 0:17:26But what killed Savchuk? To this day, that remains a mystery. The
0:17:26 > 0:17:31original autopsy was inconclusive, and many were suspicious, including
0:17:31 > 0:17:33Sobchak's widow, Ksenia's mother.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22She had her own autopsy performed but instead of making the results
0:18:22 > 0:18:27public, she keeps them locked in a safe in a secret location.
0:18:55 > 0:19:01Today, the Kremlin is still a place of rival factions. To threaten their
0:19:01 > 0:19:06power is to take a terrible risk. The girl with the silver spoon is
0:19:06 > 0:19:10not a girl any more. Her family history may protect her, but only up
0:19:10 > 0:19:12to a point.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42Meanwhile, are, Sobchak campaign trail.
0:19:51 > 0:19:56From public transport to pensions to childcare, Ksenia listens to
0:19:56 > 0:19:59people's everyday problems as if she were a real candidate in a real
0:19:59 > 0:20:00election.
0:20:03 > 0:20:09And the passengers on this trolley bus know all about her family ties.
0:20:09 > 0:20:11And yet...
0:20:33 > 0:20:42What, then, is the purpose of all this elaborately it? If Ksenia is a
0:20:42 > 0:20:47threat to the regime, why let her run at all? I have spoken to a
0:20:47 > 0:20:50senior government official on the condition I could not quote them by
0:20:50 > 0:20:54name. I said, what is the point of having an election when everybody
0:20:54 > 0:20:58acknowledges only one person can win? They said, look, this is a
0:20:58 > 0:21:01western invention that you have. We do have a classical democracy in
0:21:01 > 0:21:08Russia. We have what is called a developing democracy. The truth is,
0:21:08 > 0:21:11Russian democracy has stopped developing. It is frozen. Paralysed
0:21:11 > 0:21:18by two certain facts: just as surely as Putin will win the next election,
0:21:18 > 0:21:21he will also not be around forever.
0:21:50 > 0:21:55Behind the walls of the Kremlin, powerful people are playing games.
0:21:55 > 0:22:01Ksenia Sobchak is a pawn. Some factions are pushing forward. Others
0:22:01 > 0:22:07want to hold her back. The girl with the silver spoon knows all this. But
0:22:07 > 0:22:17she thinks the pawn just might become Queen.That is my chess game.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22I'd play this option of going to elections, because I was thinking
0:22:22 > 0:22:26that I had the chance of going through, because of my name, because
0:22:26 > 0:22:31they underestimate me, because I have a past which they can always
0:22:31 > 0:22:35put on me, because they are not afraid of me as much as a Alexei
0:22:35 > 0:22:39Navalny.Who is the better chessplayer, you were President
0:22:39 > 0:22:44Putin?I don't know. We will see in the end. But the end is not me. I am
0:22:44 > 0:22:48only starting. -- the end is not near.