Katya Sambuca

Biography

Katya was born in St Petersburg, the daughter of a construction worker and a former gymnast. She has Estonian heritage from her maternal grandmother. She went to the No 216 school, where she studied the Polish language, and then completed a year in a culinary college. While working in the "Liverpool" restaurant in St Petersburg she met Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, who told her to take up modelling instead of cooking and invited her to come to America with him. When Katya was 15 she became the model for a girls' doll, "Bobby", manufactured in London.

Katya was given her nickname "Sambuca" by Bob Jack (real name Sergei Mikhailov), whom she married at the age of 16. The couple have a daughter Zvana, named after the hotel in Volkhov where Mikhailov "became a man".

In 2011 Katya and her husband left for a massive tour, during which she performed an erotic show accompanied by her own house and trap songs in more than 70 cities in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Poland, and Cyprus. She became one of the most searched entertainers on Russia's search engine Yandex, and appeared on the covers of XXL (Ukraine) and Qoqo (Estonia, the successor to the Estonian edition of Playboy).

In 2013, she became the presenter of the program Fashionable Device on the 2×2 channel.

In August 2014, Sambuca opened a charitable family psychology center in the Estonian town of Haapsalu, where she owns a 17th century townhouse. She offered the President and his wife free marriage counseling after footage emerged of the First Lady in an intimate situation with another man.

Katya is a flautist and has performed as part of a professional orchestra.

Trial with Philipp Plein

In autumn 2014, the German designer Philipp Plein released shirts depicting Sambuca in the nude without her permission. In response, Katya threatened litigation.

Haapsalu statue

In December 2014, the Moscow sculptor Alexander Wroblewski created a bronze statue of the little mermaid using Katya as inspiration. 125 cm tall and weighing 175 kg, Katya donated it to the town of Haapsalu, suggesting that it could attract Russian tourists. The mayor ruled out the proposed location, on the promenade near to Tchaikovsky's memorial, as inappropriate, but added that another place could be found. Katya also wishes to build hotels, shops, and a water park to boost the town's reputation as a resort.

Awards