Bakov was born on 29 December 1965 in Sverdlovsk, (now
Yekaterinburg) in a family of engineers who worked at the
Uralmash machine building plant. He tells there are seven generations of
Russian Orthodox priests in his ancestry. He graduated from the Ural Polytechnic Institute (now the
Ural State Technical University) in 1988. He was a Lenin grant-aided student and graduated with honours. While a student he became an activist in the anti-communist movement. He organized several political activities including the public
boycott of uncontested elections to the
Supreme Soviet of the
Soviet Union in 1984, the founding of a public movement aimed at re-opening churches closed down by the communists and the saving of the memorials of national history in
Verkhoturye in 1987.
1980s–90s Bakov is one of the first legal businessmen in the USSR. In 1987, four months after the permission to set up first independent cooperative societies in the Soviet Union and while still at university, Bakov established the private tourist agency "Cedar", the first such agency in the country. In 1991 on the basis of this agency, he established the company "
East Line" which involved in air cargo transfers between Europe and Asia and became the operating agent for
Moscow Domodedovo Airport. Bakov invited
Dmitry Kamenshchik to co-operate the company, and they managed the airport to receive international status in 1992. Bakov left the business in 1994, the airport grew up to become Russia's largest since then. In 1994, Anton Bakov was elected a Serov county deputy of
Sverdlovsk Oblast Parliament — Sverdlovsk Oblast Duma and the Chairman of the Duma Legislative Committee. His first actions as a deputy were aimed against the federal appointments of city mayors and regional governors. He and his like-minded team succeeded in holding the executive government elections in 1995–1996. At the same time Bakov created and supported the so-called Social Ambulance – a system of social control. In 1994 he became an active member of Duma's Chairman
Eduard Rossel's team. In 1996 he was elected the vice-chairman of Sverdlovsk Regional Duma, and then was nominated for the post of the Governor of Kurgan region, but his candidature was not registered. In 1997–2000 Bakov became the General Director (CEO) of the city-forming enterprise — (9,000 employees). This experience became very important for his future career. Anton Bakov is the author of the project of
Ural franc—a
scrip printed in 1991 for usage in early post-Soviet economical regional projects. It never was used in this way; but in 1997–2000 the banknotes were used as money substitute at Serov Metallurgical Plant to help to overcome the
1998 Russian financial crisis. Nowadays they have
numismatic value and are exhibited at museums. Bakov is also one of the creators of law base for the
Ural Republic—a 1993 project to transform Sverdlovsk Oblast into republic which involved top Oblast officials and was stopped shortly after creation. As a chairman of Oblast Duma Law Committee, Bakov was working on Charter of the Oblast since 1992, in 1993 it was presented as a Constitution of the Ural Republic, and in 1994 the base of that text became the official Oblast Charter with recommendations to use it in other regions. Ural Republic is unrelated to Ural franc, as some suppose, because the Republic did not plan to establish its own currency. However, Bakov authored the
Flag of the Republic.
2000s In 2000 Anton Bakov was elected to the House of Representatives (the upper chamber) of the Legislative Assembly of Sverdlovsk Oblast (from Serov single-mandate electoral district). As a developer, Bakov actively started building country houses for sale. In addition, he is actively involved in political consulting. In recent years he specialized in the development of Internet, media and political social networks, including those which are aimed at mobilizing people to fight corruption. In 2002 there was a scandal at
2002 Winter Olympics where Russian figure skater
Irina Slutskaya was denied 1st place despite widespread professional opinions that she would win; particularly,
Figure Skating Federation of Russia demanded a second gold medal for her. Anton Bakov at the time had ordered a custom copy of
olympic gold medal completely made of gold (700 grams, while the genuine one contained only 6 grams) and personally awarded it to Slutskaya. In 2003, Bakov participated in the elections of the Governor of Sverdlovsk region. He accused
Eduard Rossel of having links with the criminal organization "Uralmash gang". In the second round Anton Bakov lost, gaining 330,000 votes against the more than 600,000 obtained by Eduard Rossel. In 2003 he was elected to the
State Duma from single-mandate Serovskiy electoral district No. 167. After the election, he joined the party "the
Union of Right Forces". He supervised all the successful election campaigns of the party in all the regions, except for
Chechnya, in 2004–2007. In December 2006, Bakov was elected the Secretary of the electoral work of the "Union of Right Forces". He is considered to be the one who proposed abandoning traditional right-wing party liberal rhetoric and populist slogans such as raising pensions and supporting the poor. Because of the defeat of the Union of Right Forces in the
2007 Russian legislative election and the abolition of single-mandate electoral districts, Anton Bakov did not get into the State Duma for the next term. signing founding documents for the
Sovereign State Imperial See 2010s In 2010s Bakov concentrated on making business and authoring of books dedicated to politics and society. Nevertheless, he is episodically involved in political actions, sometimes involving his children. In 2017 he attempted to run for
President of Russia at
2018 Russian presidential election (see below). ==Current projects==