The host of Dom 2, Russia’s hit reality TV program, she plays cupid to the show’s contestants, bolstering her sex-kitten image as the media darling of the country’s implausibly rich elite.

But now Sobchak is trying to use her image to political advantage: She has formed a youth movement aimed at encouraging young people to assert their rights.

She announced the creation of "All Free" last Thursday, an attempt to turn her feisty image into people power.

It’s a curious remake for Sobchak who last courted political intrigue by stirring the ire of a group of conservative deputies for running a "brothel" in Dom 2.

Sobchak is the daughter of a very well connected man, Anatoly Sobchak, an academic who was one of the earliest advocates of free market reforms as the Soviet Union crumbled. He became mayor of St Petersburg and was Vladimir Putin’ s mentor, giving the future president his first job in government.

Ksenia Sobchak is sensitive to the charge that her fame and TV career are the result of the Russian elite looking after its own. "My job did not come without difficulty and everything I have done, I did myself," she says.

Sobchak is relentlessly cheerful — the kind of person ordinary Russians love to hate. When her father lost the mayoral elections in 1996, his successor offered Sobchak’s staff new jobs. All accepted bar Mr Putin.

What Sobchak’s movement, All Free, stands for is not completely clear. Sobchak only announced its creation nine days ago and will not or cannot say how many members she has before her first congress in a fortnight’s time.

But her rhetoric chimes nicely with the managed democracy of Putin’s Russia. She advocates freedom of the press and of association, and respect for minorities, all hot topics in a country where state control and xenophobia are on the rise.

Yet "freedom should always be restricted," she says, adding that otherwise you have anarchy. "If we stay within the law (young people) can decide what’s right for themselves."

"We try to get young people to stand up for their rights. A fight for your rights can be a party. We want to do it in a free and funky way," she says. (GUARDIAN)