Rand was born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum () on February 2, 1905, to a Russian-Jewish bourgeois family living in Saint Petersburg. She was the eldest of three daughters of Zinovy Zakharovich Rosenbaum and Anna Borisovna (née Kaplan). Her father was an upwardly mobile pharmacist and her mother was socially ambitious and religiously observant. Rand later said she found school unchallenging and began writing screenplays at the age of eight and novels at the age of ten. At the prestigious , her closest friend was Vladimir Nabokov's younger sister, Olga. The two girls shared an intense interest in politics and would engage in debates at the Nabokov mansion: while Olga defended constitutional monarchy, Alisa supported republican ideals.