Anna Sobyanina was born on October 2, 1986. She graduated from school in Khanty-Mansiysk (her father at that time headed this region). After graduation, she entered the Stieglitz Artistic and Industrial Academy in St. Petersburg.

The educational institution is engaged in the training of designers and specialists in the field of arts, crafts and fine arts. In high school, Anna studied at the department of interior and equipment, from which she graduated with honors in 2009. Her thesis topic was “Interior of restaurants in the shopping and entertainment complex Grand Canyon.” In the future, the skills she obtained during her studies at the university, as well as the place of her birth played an “important” role in her entrepreneurial career.

THE FURNITURE QUEEN

In 2010, Anna Sobyanina became one of the founders of Forum-group LLC. She got a share of 33%. The company is also engaged in the repair of buildings, as well as the production and supply of luxury furniture. Sobyanin's daughter got out of business in 2015, after which Vladimir Kudryavtsev became the only stakeholder of Forum-group.

The company achieved success precisely under the guidance of Anna Sobyanina, this was noticed by Alexey Navalny. Now, the website of Forus-group is not functional, but a couple of years ago high-ranking customers were listed there: the company of Sobyanin's daughter was preparing the Russian President’s meeting room for the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the house of receptions and the meeting room of the Ministry of Defense. Also, among her clients, the bank Russia and the insurance group Sogaz are metnioned.

The company received these and other contracts without competition. On the website of state purchases, only seven state contracts signed by the Forus-group are shown. The most expensive of these is the construction of a kindergarten commissioned by the Tyumen Regional Department of Capital Construction. The contract is worth 246 million rubles. To the Sobyanin family, Tyumen area is not a stranger region: Anna Sobyanina was born in Tyumen, and Sergey Sobyanin himself was the governor of the Tyumen Region even before Moscow.

The company was successful yet in another region – the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District. It was there that Sergey Sobyanin began his political career. In the 1990s, he was elected a deputy of the Khanty-Mansiysk District Duma, a month later, he becomes its chairman. Thanks to this in 1996, Sobyanin joined the Federation Council.

When Sergey Sobyanin was already the mayor of the capital, his daughter's company was receiving orders in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District one after another: a recreation area at the airport of Khanty-Mansiysk, construction of administrative facilities, as well as the apartments for the Governor of Yugra in the building of the District Government. Expensive furniture, which was produced by the daughter's company of Sobyanin, was purchased for the flat.

Sobyanina managed to blossom forth due to her father’s coonections. Anna Sobyanina's business partner was Vyacheslav Kalashnikov, the second founder of Forus-group, as well as the son of Sergey Sobyanin’s former adviser Vladimir Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov Sr. is originally from Khanty-Mansiysk, that is where Sobyanin and him initially got acquainted.

Sobyanin also had another influential “friend” in Khanty-Mansiysk: Vitaly Yermoshin. In those years, he was deputy governor and head of the apparatus of the head of the region, and in the past –Sobyanin's driver. The media reported that he owed Sobyanin, who recommended him to the government.

Since Anna Sobyanina left the list of the Forum-group’s founders, the company is going through difficulties. Over the past three years, the Arbitration Court has granted several claims against the company to collect a total of 41.7 million rubles of debts.

THE FLAT SCANDAL

In 2013, the opposition candidate for mayor of Moscow, Alexey Navalny published a material in his LJ blog compromising Sergey Sobyanin’s daughter, apparently, was another candidate for this post. In 2011, Anna became the owner of an apartment of 204.9 sq. m. in the centre of St. Petersburg, on Malaya Konyushennaya Street, 14. The purchase took place two weeks after the Sobyanina’s birthday. Navalny hinted that this is an expensive gift for her daughter for her 25th anniversary. The approximate cost of the apartment in 2013 is 116.6 million rubles. At the same time, the total income of the Sobyanin family for the last ten years amounted to only 27 million rubles.

The Moscow City Hall immediately shed all responsibility: they said that Sobyanin had nothing to do with the apartment. Forus-group said that the real estate and incomes of its founders is their private life and business. Sobyanina's husband Alexander Yershov stood up for his father-in-law: he said that he bought the apartment himself and used his personal money, which he saved during business activity.

The next time Anna Sobyanina's apartment came into the spotlight, ironically, exactly six years and two days after the purchase, on October 20, 2017. It turned out that the huge apartment of Sobyanin's daughter in St. Petersburg was seized in the summer of 2017. Then, however, the seizure was cancelled, referring to part 1, paragraph 3 of Art. 46 of the federal law “On Enforcement Proceedings.” The law allows for the cancellation of seizure in several cases: if it is impossible to locate the debtor, his property, or to obtain information about his financial assets. However, for which of the above reasons, the seizure was cancelled is unknown.