Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak
Анатолий Александрович Собчак
Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg
"Volodya, just don't turn to bronze" — last words to Putin, February 2000
Anatoly Sobchak was a legal scholar and democratic reformer who became the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg (1991–1996) and co-authored the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly. A popular Leningrad State University law professor whose students included Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 and co-chaired the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin. During the August 1991 coup he organized resistance in Leningrad, negotiating with the military commander to keep troops off the streets and rallying 200,000 citizens on Palace Square. Corruption allegations forced him into exile in Paris from 1997 until Putin, then prime minister, secured his return in 1999.
Career timeline
- 1989–1990USSR People's Deputy
- 1989–1990Co-chair, Inter-Regional Deputies Group (with Sakharov & Yeltsin)
- 1990–1991Chairman, Leningrad City Council
- 1991–1996Mayor of Saint Petersburg
- 1993Chairman, Constitutional Assembly (co-drafted Russian Constitution)
- 1997–1999Exile in Paris