E. ALBATS: Good evening. It’s 19:08, and I welcome everyone listening to Echo of Moscow radio. This is Yevgenia Albats at the microphone, and we’re beginning our traditional Sunday program. I congratulate all Echo of Moscow listeners on this wonderful holiday, the Independence Day of our country, our Russia. Fifteen years ago, at the First Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Russia was adopted. That was the day we became a new country. We became a country that declared itself free. Free, above all, from the totalitarian state and from everything that had kept us in unbelievable constraints and shackles for the previous 70 years. Let me introduce today’s guests, who are already here in the studio. They are Ilya Yashin, leader of Youth Yabloko, and a member of the youth movement Oborona. By the way, when I wrote a note for Moskovskiye Novosti, for some reason I still can’t explain, I wrote “Opora,” but he is in fact a member of the youth movement Oborona. Ilya, hello. I. YASHIN: Good evening, and happy holiday to everyone. E. ALBATS: Maria Gaidar, a member of the youth movement Da, hello. M. GAIDAR: Hello, happy holiday. E. ALBATS: Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, hello, Alexei. A. NAVALNY: Good evening. E. ALBATS: And Natalya Morar, a member of the Independent Student Association “I Think” and an activist with the human rights group Conscience. Natasha, hello. N. MORAR: Good evening, happy holiday. E. ALBATS: So that’s the wonderful company we have here today. I’m very glad they’re with me in the studio, and I want to ask you the first question: tell me, please, what were you doing on this day 15 years ago, on June 12, 1990? Masha Gaidar, please. M. GAIDAR: Naturally, it’s hard for me to remember it very well. E. ALBATS: So you mean to say you were still walking under the table? M. GAIDAR: Well, yes, I practically was. E. ALBATS: How old were you then? M. GAIDAR: That’s a difficult one. Well, it was 15 years ago, so I was… E. ALBATS: Six years old. M. GAIDAR: Six, yes. E. ALBATS: I see. Natasha? N. MORAR: I was under the table too, waiting for my very first September 1 in life. E. ALBATS: Alexei Navalny? A. NAVALNY: I wasn’t under the table. I was in the 8th grade then—probably out гуляing. It was a Sunday, so I was somewhere out walking around, having fun. I’m quite sure that at the time I wasn’t thinking about Russia’s independence or any other lofty matters. E. ALBATS: Ilya Yashin? I. YASHIN: Probably getting ready to start school, since I was seven. E. ALBATS: So you were under the table too. And that actually makes me very happy—that today in this studio we’ll be discussing this wonderful holiday with people who, on the day Russia’s Independence Day, Russia’s state sovereignty, was proclaimed, were still literally walking under the table. And so they don’t remember what the Soviet Union was, what all those district party committees were, how we were listened to and followed by KGB “stompers” (surveillance agents)—they don’t remember any of that. And that is their wonderful advantage over, say, me. Because they are much freer. You know, guys, we’ve gotten all sorts of messages and questions on the pager about this day. For example, Boris Sergeyevich, a listener from Moscow, says: “June 12 is a great holiday for Russia. Russia freed itself from the yoke of the CPSU, from the fraternal republics that sucked everything out of Russia. Times are coming when no one will be obliged to support 700 people with a spoon. I’m happy for our children and grandchildren, that they will be free. Happy holiday, Happy Russia Day,” he writes. And somewhere else I had another message where someone says that in fact this was a catastrophe, a great tragedy: the country fell apart, and with it Russian statehood ended—meaning the statehood of the Soviet Union. Tell me, please, what is this day for you? Masha Gaidar? M. GAIDAR: You know, for me it’s the day the new Russia was proclaimed. A Russia free of the Soviet past. Yes, it really was the day when the USSR republics broke away and the Soviet state ceased to exist. It was a date when that was effectively confirmed. It was confirmed in practice, and later many of the former Soviet republics confirmed it not de jure but de facto, when they had their own “orange” revolutions—well, orange revolutions, revolutions for their own identity. In other words, it was an inevitable process. But for me it’s a new page, a real confirmation that we moved away from the Soviet past, when we forcibly held together different peoples who did not want to remain with us. And this really is a new Russia, one that is indeed independent. E. ALBATS: You know, Masha, for me it was an inner rupture, because I had friends in Ukraine and Georgia. I thought: my God, how can this be? Every autumn I used to go to Georgia for the “young wine” festival, and I had my wedding in Georgia. My husband and I registered our marriage here in Moscow, and then flew to Tbilisi. And it seemed to me—how could they be other countries? And I’ll tell you honestly: to this day I still think of myself as a Soviet person. Because my country is still, in some sense, the USSR. But for you that question doesn’t exist. For you the USSR is purely history. M. GAIDAR: For me the USSR really is history. I simply see what is happening in those countries, and I see that they are truly independent, truly existing separately from Russia. However much one might want to be some vast empire and keep all those peoples together—that’s not the reality, and it has to be acknowledged. For me, Russia is the territory of our country. And I would very much like our actual country to be whole, prosperous, and free—that matters a great deal to me. E. ALBATS: Ilya Yashin? I. YASHIN: In fact, for me it’s a rather difficult and contradictory day. Because, frankly, I’m sorry that Belarusians, Georgians, Ukrainians, and we ourselves ceased to be citizens of one country. For some reason it seems to me that there was a historical chance to find a compromise and perhaps preserve the country. E. ALBATS: Preserve the prison of nations? I. YASHIN: No, not a prison at all. I’m saying there was a chance to reach an agreement and find a compromise. I think there was such a chance. But there’s no point talking about that now—it’s long in the past. The key point here is this: it was a day of independence. A day of independence from everything Masha was talking about. A day of independence from Bolshevism, from totalitarianism, from the KGB, as you rightly noted. But the problem is that it was a declaration of independence. Because, by and large, we never fully achieved independence from all those things we’re talking about, and that is the central problem. Declaring your independence is very little. You have to fight for your freedom. Unfortunately, we have very serious problems with that here. E. ALBATS: Maxim Kotov, a student from Moscow who wrote to us, agrees with you… I. YASHIN: Probably one of my classmates? E. ALBATS: How curious. He wrote: “If the Declaration of Independence can be seen as the legal umbrella for liberal reforms in the RSFSR, then the step against Article 8—Maxim, not Article 8 but Article 6 of the USSR Constitution—doesn’t that make this declaration an echo of the old order? Therefore, independence still has to be defended, fought for.” I. YASHIN: Exactly. E. ALBATS: Do you agree? Yes, interesting. Natasha, a question for you, since you’re from Conscience. Alexander Shevelev, a pensioner from the Leningrad region, writes: “Today is a day of mourning. Russia ceased to be a normal state and turned into a gathering of profiteers, limitlessly greedy crooks, and confused people who until recently had jobs that are now gone, had social protections that are being dismantled, and Zurabov will finish the job. There used to be protection under the Labor Code, and now it’s gone…” and so on. “So where is the cause for celebration? Your names are ‘Conscience’ and ‘I Think’—what do you think about, and where is your conscience? What can you say to the Russian people, by whose hands everything in our country is done, and whose labor is traded on by people who in essence despise those who feed them?” So, Natasha, what can you say to the Russian people? N. MORAR: I would say to the Russian people that, surprisingly enough, it really does happen that I think—and think often, and a lot. Sometimes I even think about how life in this country is not quite as it should be. And my conscience is always with me, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be doing what I do. Because to people like that I want to say: yes, things are bad, yes, we all suffer. But do something to make things better. Because sitting at home and talking about how bad everything is—that everyone can do. But going outside, standing at a picket, working on some projects—that far fewer people do. I know a lot of young people, and I assume this listener is probably of quite respectable age, but even among young people I very often meet those who say, “So what? What’s the point of all this? We live badly, and that’s that.” I believe everything depends on us. If we do nothing, we won’t get far. So yes, we need to think, conscience must always be with us, and above all we need to do something, not just sit and talk. E. ALBATS: So you don’t need a “Big Daddy,” or a “Big Brother,” as George Orwell wrote? N. MORAR: God forbid. E. ALBATS: Now a question for A. Navalny from Novgorod the Great, from Arseny Fyodorov, a translator: “According to information on the internet, your rallies are bought. That is, people are invited to them for money. This has been confirmed by a large number of eyewitnesses. What’s your view of this?” Alexei, today more than 2,000 people came to the Solovetsky Stone on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. Were they all bought? A. NAVALNY: I think it would be big news to those people if someone told them they had been bought. But there’s really only one way to check whether our rallies are bought or not: come to the rally and look at the people there. Try telling them they’re all there for money, and then probably try to run away from the outraged crowd if they hear you. In fact, unlike the rallies organized by the authorities, our rallies are not bought. The rallies organized by the presidential administration, by all sorts of puppet movements—that’s completely obvious. The participants see it, the journalists who come see it, every city resident watching sees it—those rallies really are bought. And yet for some reason we’re the ones accused of it. Come and see. E. ALBATS: Wait a second. So are they bought or not? Come on, confess here, sitting in front of me, looking me in the eye. A. NAVALNY: Of course. I’m looking you in the eye, and telling you… E. ALBATS: And how much did you pay? A. NAVALNY: We paid with our work organizing the rally. Muscovites came to us, they supported us, and we’re very glad. And I think we are a force that, thankfully, is supported for free. And again, to our satisfaction—and I think to the authorities’ disappointment—people do not go to their rallies for free. E. ALBATS: You know, it’s an interesting thing—you often read this on the internet: “You’re all bought,” “You’ve all been paid.” I often think: do people really not understand that there are citizens who believe one must fight for one’s country? That we bear responsibility for it? That in fact not nearly so many people can be bought? Masha Gaidar? M. GAIDAR: I wanted to say that it’s simply obvious—as A. Navalny says—if you come to one of these rallies and look at the faces, it’s obvious these people are not bought. If you look at the posters people made—posters done in chalk, painted by hand—that’s not something done for money, it’s something people can only do themselves. It’s so obvious that there’s really no arguing with it. You just need to come to these rallies and see it—that’s all. E. ALBATS: Natasha? N. MORAR: What I’d like to say is that money can buy absolutely everything except enthusiasm, and except belief that something can be changed. If this person had been at the rally today, I’m sure all his doubts would simply have vanished. It would be interesting. Today we collected contact information from many of the people who came, and they gladly left us their contacts. If he wanted to speak with someone from that list, I’d be ready to provide phone numbers—I think those grandmothers, young men, girls, and grandfathers would have a lot of interesting things to tell him. I think they’d have plenty to talk about. E. ALBATS: By the way, Natasha, you were standing at the table where signatures were being collected for the letter to the Kremlin, “I am free, I have forgotten what fear means.” N. MORAR: It wasn’t a letter, just a slogan. E. ALBATS: Roughly how many people do you think signed it? N. MORAR: I think practically everyone who was at the rally. I assume there were more than 2,000 people there, so more than 2,000 signatures. E. ALBATS: But you gave people the option—they could leave a fingerprint or sign. I’m curious: were they signing, or leaving fingerprints? N. MORAR: Signing. Simply because leaving fingerprints was technically rather difficult; people would have gotten messy. But I want to say one thing: at the start we had prepared only one sheet—I think about 5 meters long. Literally in the first half hour, before the rally had even begun, it turned into something dark, with no white space left—people were signing with such enthusiasm… E. ALBATS: And what were people saying? N. MORAR: They asked what we were going to do with it afterward, and when we said we would officially send this letter to the presidential administration, they were pleased and said, “Can we add a couple more wishes?” We thanked them and asked just for signatures. So everyone supported it. E. ALBATS: Alexei, an economist from Moscow wrote: “In my view, the lie is the claim that Yabloko, Oborona, and similar rallies are paid for. I’ve just come from the rally by the FSB headquarters on Lubyanka, against Putin’s criminality and for freedom. A lot of people, a lot of young people, a friendly atmosphere. Russian flags above the crowd. There were also posters supporting Khodorkovsky. It’s obvious people came on their own to express protest—people are sick of Putin’s lawlessness, the total decay of power, the cynicism. To help bring decent people to power, I’ll go anywhere—rallies, election monitoring, whatever.” Alexei, please leave your phone number at 202-30-60. I’ll call you, thank you for your message. What else—there are lots of questions for Masha Gaidar. I won’t read them all, but roughly: “Ms. Gaidar, is ‘Da’ a version of ‘Pora!’? There will be no color revolutions in Russia, Moscow is not all of Russia, don’t rock the boat for 30 pieces of silver. When will your protégé Khodorkovsky…” and so on. And then several more messages—are you really related to Yegor Gaidar, the first deputy prime minister of the reform government and one of the best-known figures in Russian politics, and someone else wrote: why do you need this, can’t your father provide you with a bright future somewhere abroad? So come on, Masha, report in—starting with the 30 pieces of silver. I want to know. M. GAIDAR: You know, what we do, we do entirely on our own initiative. Maybe that reflects a certain inefficiency on our part, but we have absolutely no money. We print our leaflets on printers, make our own posters in chalk on the pavement, so there can be no talk of 30 pieces of silver. E. ALBATS: And what is your “Da”—is it a version of Pora, people ask? M. GAIDAR: How could it be a version of Pora? This is a movement that exists in Russia, created on the initiative of Russian citizens, young Russian citizens—how could it be a version of Pora? Pora is a Ukrainian organization that operated within its own realities. We operate within ours. We see the problems that really exist in our society—our Russian problems. Problems of censorship. Problems of police arbitrariness, the problem of the army. Yes, we carry out civic projects in response to the problems that exist in Russian society. How that could be a version of Pora is completely unclear. E. ALBATS: And what is “Democratic Alternative”? An alternative to what democracy, Masha? M. GAIDAR: “Democratic Alternative” is not an alternative to democracy; it is an alternative to all the negative processes now taking place in our society. It is an alternative to the rollback of freedoms, an alternative to the rollback of democracy. It is an alternative to a kind of communist and brown protest. We want to show that a democratic civil society is possible—and it really is possible. That is the alternative. That the existing regime does not have to be opposed only by a brown or red alternative; there is also a democratic alternative. There are people who are truly ready to go out into the streets, who are truly ready to do something, and who genuinely adhere to democratic principles. E. ALBATS: Now please tell us all about Y. Gaidar. Who is he to you, to begin with? M. GAIDAR: He is my father. And I want to say that it’s not about his being able to provide me with a comfortable life abroad… E. ALBATS: Then why do you need this? M. GAIDAR: I’ll tell you. With my education and my knowledge, I myself could arrange to leave for somewhere far away and live there quite peacefully. But I can’t do that. I want to live in Russia, I want to work here. This is my homeland, and my friends and relatives are here—everything I have is here. I do not want to hand this country over to the people who are now in power. I believe this is my country, and I want to fight for it. So I will never leave. And perhaps not because my father could make that possible, but because I could do it myself—I still will never abandon it. E. ALBATS: And how does Yegor Timurovich feel about your getting involved in politics? M. GAIDAR: You know, that’s a very difficult question. First of all, I want to say that I am not engaged in politics—I’m not going to run for office anywhere. I’ve simply reached my limit. I would never have joined any political party or political movement if I hadn’t been pushed to the wall. I felt that I couldn’t—I couldn’t live calmly and calmly watch what is happening. E. ALBATS: So the fact that you led the rally on Lubyanka today… M. GAIDAR: I consider that my civic position. E. ALBATS: That’s not politics? M. GAIDAR: It doesn’t mean I’m going to run for office somewhere or that I want to score political points. I truly do not want to go into politics. I want to do academic work, live my family life, and have children. But it is impossible, impossible to be a citizen of this country and tolerate everything that is happening. As for how my father feels about it—probably you’d have to ask him. I think that… E. ALBATS: Yegor Timurovich doesn’t answer personal questions. So tell us—do we have any way of knowing how Y. Gaidar feels about this? M. GAIDAR: He views all civic and democratic processes positively. As for the fact that his daughter is engaged in something that… well, to some extent could be considered risky—of course he worries, as a father. But I hope he feels positively about it. E. ALBATS: All right. Ilya Yashin—you wanted to say something about whether this is a version of Pora… I. YASHIN: Yes. Just look at what’s happening to our society. It’s as if everyone has gone mad over the Ukrainian “Orange Revolution.” Whatever you do, people immediately start making associations with Ukraine. I don’t really understand that. I can say quite responsibly that the topic of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine is not especially interesting to me. If only because it’s probably not very appropriate to transfer technologies and schemes from Ukraine to Russia, or from Georgia to Russia—it’s simply wrong. If only because it takes seven days to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok, while from Kharkiv to Kyiv it’s seven hours. And in general, by and large, we have very deep democratic traditions. Returning to the theme of our program, to our country’s Independence Day, I just want to say that we are not rootless, and our democracy did not appear only 15 years ago. When I say that Russia needs to be revived, people often ask me: all right, what exact year do you want to revive? It’s a standard question. And I know the answer very clearly. My Russia existed from February to October 1917. E. ALBATS: And in June 1917 there were hunger protests. I. YASHIN: Democracy is absolutely natural for Russia. Back in February 1917, the first nonviolent overthrow of an autocratic regime in history took place. The situation then, in February 1917, and our present situation are very similar—historically and politically. Look at the two main problems society faced… E. ALBATS: Ilyusha, I’m going to ask you to hold that thought, because we’ve already gone 30 seconds over, we’re heading to the news, and we’ll be back in just a minute and a half. E. ALBATS: So, once again, good evening. It’s 19:33 and 51 seconds, you’re listening to Echo of Moscow radio, Y. Albats at the microphone. We’re talking about Russia’s Independence Day, about today’s holiday. And once again I congratulate all Echo of Moscow listeners on this wonderful national state holiday of ours, and remind you that in the studio with us are Ilya Yashin, leader of Youth Yabloko and a member of the youth movement Oborona; Maria Gaidar, a member of the youth movement Da; Alexei Navalny, executive secretary of the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites; and Natalya Morar, a member of the Independent Student Association “I Think” and an activist with the human rights group Conscience. All of them were organizers of today’s rally on Lubyanka Square by the Solovetsky Stone, at the monument to our grief, our bitterness, and our shame for the fact that tens of thousands, millions of our fellow citizens died during the Stalinist regime because the rest remained silent, because the rest were afraid. And today they came and said there: “I am free, I have forgotten what fear means.” We’re getting a flood of questions on the pager. Yana writes: “Pushy Aunt Zhenya”—that’s me—“was even trying to persuade N. Svanidze, a Russian TV journalist, to come to this rally. With all that energy, she ought to do something useful instead of gathering young hooligans and loafers in the studio and turning them against the authorities. Especially if it isn’t selfless.” Yana, my dear, don’t judge others by yourself. That’s always dangerous. You see, not everyone is engaged in prostitution. There are people who love selflessly. You can love your country selflessly, Yana. I’m very curious—N. Svanidze and I really did talk about this on Friday, and as I understand it, you were sitting somewhere nearby and eavesdropping. Yana, my dear, don’t—that’s a shameful occupation too. “Ms. Albats, there must have been something about you if ‘stompers’ were following you—none of us non-party people had them following us,” writes Ada. Ada, I have never belonged, do not belong, and will never belong to any party. And yes, there was indeed “something” about me, why the “stompers” followed me—I can tell you frankly: I very much did not want Soviet power. That’s why they followed me. “Why did you decide to discuss the problem of Russia’s independence with people who on that day were still walking under the table and therefore can hardly assess the significance of that day, since they still have their whole lives ahead of them”—I don’t remember who sent that question. “Yevgenia, thank you for organizing this rally,” writes Dmitry. Dmitry, thank you. To Yashin: “Don’t you remember who said, about our Russia and the republics that were part of the USSR, that we were feeding them?” Dmitry. We won’t answer that, Dmitry, it’s a silly question. “For Albats they all became independent, but they still hang around Moscow and Russia and take money out of here,” writes Vladimir. Vladimir, don’t count money in other people’s pockets—count what’s in your own. Once you start having something substantial in your own pocket, you won’t have time to count other people’s money. “Madame Albats, you are confusing Russia with some other country. People celebrate not Independence Day but Russia Day.” Maria, it’s always useful to learn something—go to the Kremlin websites and you’ll see that June 12 is called both “Russia Day” and “Russia’s Independence Day,” and then come back and teach us. “Yevgenia, what do these young people—Yashin, Gaidar, and the others—do? What do they live on? Are they living off their parents? Or do they have sponsors supporting them? Awaiting an answer. Lyudmila.” Ilya, go ahead. So: what do you do, what do you live on, and do you have a sponsor? Tell us everything. And whom you love too, if possible. I. YASHIN: I’m finishing university. E. ALBATS: Which one? I. YASHIN: The Ecological University. I’ll be defending my diploma soon, and I work for the Yabloko party—that’s what I live on. E. ALBATS: I see. Alexei Navalny? A. NAVALNY: I’m a grown man already, I’m 29, so naturally I’m not living off my parents. I’m the head of the staff of Yabloko’s Moscow branch. Yabloko pays me a salary, and I live on that salary. E. ALBATS: Understood. Natasha, who pays you? N. MORAR: No one pays me. For now I’m still hanging on my parents’ necks. I’m in my third year at Moscow State University, in the sociology department. At the moment there’s simply no opportunity—I don’t have the time to work. There’s too much to do. E. ALBATS: I see. Masha Gaidar, tell us about money… someone here writes that Gaidar once robbed pensioners. So let me say the following: when Gaidar headed the Russian government, the accounts of the State Bank of Russia were already empty. By that time there were CPSU Central Committee documents, from the economics department, saying that by 1991 the USSR was incapable of servicing its foreign debt. The USSR was bankrupt. When Y. Gaidar came in and headed the government, there was nothing in the banks, nothing in the safes. The USSR’s gold reserves had disappeared to who knows where. So now, Masha, please tell us what you live on and what you do. M. GAIDAR: I’m finishing my fifth year at the Academy of National Economy, and next week I’ll be defending my diploma. Since my third year—since the beginning of my third year—I’ve been working. I have a husband who also works, and we support ourselves. E. ALBATS: I’ve seen the husband. I can report to you, dear listeners, that he is a very attractive young man. “The pathetic little bunch that gathered at today’s rally wants freedom so that no one will stop them from destroying Russia,” writes Nikolai. Nikolai, I understand—it’s hard, painful, and insulting when 2,500 people gather and you’re not there, but sitting under your bed trembling with fear. “A question for those in the studio: what exactly is happening in our country? I still don’t understand,” writes Olga. Olga, go outside and you’ll immediately understand what’s happening. Turn on Channel One and Channel Two as well—you’ll quickly figure out what’s happening in our country. What is happening in our country is the establishment of a bureaucratic authoritarian regime, as happened in many Latin American countries. “Did I understand correctly that the only form of our struggle against the authorities is going out to rallies?” Olga asks. Ilya Yashin, please answer. I. YASHIN: No, not at all. Going out into the street is one of the most vivid, and perhaps one of the most effective, ways of struggling against the authorities. But civil society is the goal. And a goal can be reached by many different methods. One simply has to be a citizen. E. ALBATS: What does it mean to simply be a citizen? I’m asking for specifics. A. Navalny? A. NAVALNY: Good Lord, every person has a million ways to fight the authorities. I, for example, am an opponent of all revolutions. I’m against handing people rifles or cobblestones and suggesting they shoot at Putin. First of all, you all vote. Several times a year, in fact—you vote for the president, for the Duma, for local authorities. And if you believe fraud is taking place—work as an election observer. People are constantly collecting signatures? Give your signature. The authorities are obliged to answer every request from every citizen, and quite often criminal cases are opened as a result. You see injustice—write a letter. There are a huge number of ways a person can engage in some kind of struggle for justice. But if we just lie on the couch, watch Channel One, and say, “Those bastards, look how they lie,” and then don’t lift a finger—of course we’ll get exactly what we have. E. ALBATS: You can also go into the shower, close the door, turn on the water, and shout there, “Putin’s gang—resign!” I. YASHIN: Or build civil society there. E. ALBATS: Yes, very nice, very Soviet. Natasha, what exactly should people do? N. MORAR: This may not sound very specific, though I can get to specifics later. The first and most important thing is to stop treating our authorities as something sacred, divine, something that cannot be questioned. People must learn that in a normal democratic country—I repeat, in a normal democratic country—we have the right to demand answers from this government. Because we hire them, they work with our money, they receive salaries from our taxes. That’s the first thing. In other words, you can go to some government body, to the State Duma, and ask: what exactly are you doing? May I see how you work—are you drinking tea, or are you working? And if we speak concretely, then yes, a rally is not the only way to do something to build civil society. At the very least, try to find out what is happening around you in the country. At the very least, take an interest, get your information not from Channel One and Channel Two. And yes, as Alyosha rightly said, there are many different projects one can do, but that could be a whole separate program. E. ALBATS: “Did you obtain permission from the authors to use the song ‘I Am Free’ for your political purposes?” asks Andrei. Andrei, a rally is not a commercial enterprise, we’re not making money from it… am I right, Alexei? A. NAVALNY: Naturally. We’re not reproducing those recordings or selling them to anyone. Besides, it should be said that the song was specifically written—as the person on the pager put it—for political purposes. So I think the authors are quite pleased that we used it. E. ALBATS: Masha, a question for you: “I was at Lubyanka today,” writes Nikolai, “tell me please, why do you think there were young people and the older generation, but no middle-aged people?” Do you have an answer? N. MORAR: That really is what’s happening with us. Traditionally, the more active people are older people—they really are active. And potentially… I can’t say there were huge numbers of young people, that the youth were massively active, but potentially active youth were there. Middle-aged people—they are afraid, they are busy with their own affairs, they have children, they have businesses. It seems to them that if things are going well for them, and they stay in their apartments and keep their heads down, then everything will be fine. Nothing terrible will happen to them—they’re successful, wonderful people, or at least they need to preserve what they have. That’s what they think… The usual answer when you ask someone, “Will you come to the rally?” is no, they won’t—they have other things to do. People think that if they have other things to do, that gives them some right not to go to a rally. And they think they don’t need to go because they’re already doing something important. That’s not true. In fact, when we involve middle-aged people, successful people, people who have something to lose, people with families, with small children who have to grow up in this country—then we will really have a much more active civil society. But right now they don’t have that habit. At the rally I saw middle-aged people I approached, for example, trying to hand them a placard. They said, “No, we can’t. We support you, but we’re afraid. They’ll photograph us—we’re afraid.” They work somewhere, in some company, and they’re afraid their bosses will see them—I don’t know. They’re afraid. They have something to lose. E. ALBATS: We got a question for Ilya from Roman Belousov, a third-year student at Moscow State University. I. YASHIN: One of ours too. E. ALBATS: “Ilya, what should be done to get young people moving? Will they really not resist until it hits them personally?” So what should be done? I. YASHIN: There is a hard truth in that—maybe they won’t, until it hits them. But all the same, we simply need to show how the instruments of civil society work. We had a good precedent, for example, at the Linguistic University, where the rector, a member of United Russia, tried to introduce fees for a second language—completely illegally. So the students went out into the street, staged a small student revolt, and the rector understood that she had to reckon with her students. In the end, a compromise was reached. That is how the institutions of civil society work—one of the few examples. So there is no point in simply preaching the ideas of democracy. You have to show how it works. Democracy is a grassroots thing, it comes from below. We need to show how it works and persuade people that way. E. ALBATS: Valeriya Ivanovna writes: “My husband and I are over 70, we took part in the rallies of the 1980s, and today we went to the rally. We felt the revival of old traditions.” Valeriya Ivanovna, thank you very much for coming. Thank you for caring about what is happening to our country. Now I’m going to ask my guests in the studio to put on their headphones—we’re opening the phone lines. 203-19-22, Moscow code 095, please ask your questions to the guests in the studio. I’m listening. MARIA: Hello. My name is Maria Sergeyevna, and I am a very old person. I have great respect for you, and I hope you will manage to do something in our country, a country of unfrightened idiots. E. ALBATS: And what is your question? MARIA: I have no questions. I have a wish for you—that in your lifetime you might manage to do something with this country. E. ALBATS: We certainly will. I solemnly promise you: in your lifetime, in ours, and in the lifetime of my guests, who are exactly half my age, our country will be a free country. I. YASHIN: Let’s just agree not to call Russia “this country.” It is, after all, our country. E. ALBATS: All right. 203-19-22, I’m listening, you’re on the air. VLADIMIR: Hello. My name is Vladimir, I’m from Moscow. Just one question—I can’t understand what exactly the authorities… well, what was so bad, or I don’t know, what worried the authorities, and what would have happened if Khodorkovsky had fulfilled his political ambitions? E. ALBATS: Thank you. Who would like to answer that? I. YASHIN: What would have happened—what? E. ALBATS: If Khodorkovsky, as I understand it, had not been in prison but had gone into politics. N. MORAR: No, if Khodorkovsky had been able to realize his political views. It’s just interesting what the listener meant by political views. E. ALBATS: Presumably that Khodorkovsky financed liberal parties in Russia, that there was talk he was prepared to enter politics—not power exactly, but to engage seriously in political activity. Though he always denied it. So, Natasha? N. MORAR: What I’d like to say is this. In all Western countries there is a practice of financing various parties, including opposition ones. I don’t understand why in our country people think that if someone decides to finance Yabloko or the Union of Right Forces, it’s some kind of horror, that he’s planning to seize power, overthrow the regime, and so on. United Russia also exists on some kind of money. Why are the structures or people who finance other parties, centrist ones, not accused of anything? As far as I know, the fact that a person financed Yabloko is nothing terrible—it’s normal. I didn’t vote for Yabloko in the elections, but let’s imagine I liked that party. At my age, all I could do to help it would be to come and vote for it. That person simply had different possibilities—he could help in another way. What is wrong with that? It’s normal. Everyone contributes to building civil society according to their abilities. And parties like Yabloko and SPS are part of civil society—they are trying to do something. E. ALBATS: Masha Gaidar? M. GAIDAR: I just wanted to say that hardly anything would have changed. It’s obvious that Khodorkovsky could not have become president—because no one in our country likes oligarchs. But there would have been charitable programs, educational programs, and opposition democratic parties really would have been financed. In fact, that would only have been beneficial. Khodorkovsky still would never have been president, and there would have been no transfer of power toward an oligarchic regime. That’s all. N. MORAR: I’d just like to add one thing: if Khodorkovsky were not in prison now, the more than one hundred thousand YUKOS employees would not now be under threat of losing their jobs or facing uncertainty about what to do next in life, how to support their families. I’m sure hundreds, thousands of schools across Russia would still have gotten internet access—that was something Khodorkovsky worked on. A huge number of orphanages would have received funding—all of that is gone now. I’m not saying he was the only one doing such things. But at least he was doing them. Now none of that exists, because the opportunity is gone. E. ALBATS: All right. 203-19-22, let’s take another call. NATALYA: My name is Natalya Nikolaevna, and I have a question for Masha Gaidar. Please explain this to me—I’m not very well versed in politics. Khodorkovsky financed completely different and opposing parties—from the Communists to SPS and Yabloko, that is, three hostile parties. Do you consider that moral or not? And why did he do it? M. GAIDAR: You know, I think he was trying to support opposition parties. He could support different opposition parties. It’s also possible to assume that Khodorkovsky did this in part to lobby the interests of his own oligarchic structures—that is indeed possible, and in Russia that really was a common practice. Possibly, yes, he financed them—he was a representative of big business. He had his own personal ambitions, his own lobbying interests. But that absolutely does not mean he should have been fought with by the methods the authorities used against him. Yes, if there are many different oligarchs financing many different parties, absolutely opposed to one another, some of which I may not like and others someone else may not like, that still does not mean it is wrong, or that it should be fought by throwing someone in prison. That’s all. E. ALBATS: Ilya Yashin? I. YASHIN: I’ll give my opinion on this. In fact, I don’t see anything good in Khodorkovsky financing different parties. More than that, in my opinion it is very bad and very harmful for Russian politics. Because, by and large, if Mikhail Borisovich wanted to engage in real politics, he should have chosen one party, presumably joined it, and done politics within that party rather than playing puppet master. But the problem is that this display of political ambition—very serious political ambition on Khodorkovsky’s part—caused such irritation on the part of the authorities that it all ended in an open, public, political act of retribution. And that is absolutely unacceptable. Whatever Khodorkovsky may have been, such things are absolutely unacceptable. The political subtext of the attack on Khodorkovsky is perfectly clear. But it has nothing to do with democracy, with freedom, with the ideas of liberalism and civil society, or with the law, for that matter. E. ALBATS: Natasha? N. MORAR: Just a small addition. I’d like to say that financing political parties is not the same as engaging in politics. Financing parties does not mean doing politics, running for office, or holding some post. And I’d also like to joke a little—this kind of financing stopped, and what do we have today? More than 300 people from United Russia in the State Duma, and the Duma has turned into… well, certainly not a democratic instrument. E. ALBATS: A farce. A. Navalny? A. NAVALNY: I want to say that in our country the concept of an “oligarch” is absolutely inseparable from politics. All oligarchs engage in politics, they all finance political parties. If you don’t engage in politics, you’ll be thrown out in two seconds. But the problem is that everyone agreed to play by the rules, and Khodorkovsky did not. Naturally, people were unhappy—he took too much on himself, started some incomprehensible projects, wanted to create some kind of parliamentary republic, didn’t consult with us, was doing something on his own, and in general was financing not the people we wrote down for him on a piece of paper, but giving money to others as well. So Khodorkovsky will sit for nine years—I hope less—while Abramovich, as governor of Chukotka, is now quite comfortably sitting at a Chelsea match. E. ALBATS: You know, what always amuses me is that we all watched that farce called the Nashi rally on Leninsky Prospekt, when people were locked in their apartments, the whole area was cordoned off by police, people were bused into Moscow and paid for it, and so on. All of that, in one way or another, comes out of the state budget. Even when it is financed by commercial organizations, the source is still the same. Those organizations are simply told that in exchange for some tax leniency they won’t be bothered too much. But when a person invests his own money in what he believes in, everyone immediately starts counting how much he put where. And that’s amusing. It’s a great Russian tradition—to count… Why should anyone care what Khodorkovsky invested his money in? He wanted to invest his money in different political parties? Yes, I also think one shouldn’t invest money in Zyuganov. But that’s his decision. Khodorkovsky’s money, not mine. 203-19-22. We’re listening, you’re on the air. LISTENER: Hello? May I make a comment? E. ALBATS: Just introduce yourself, please. LYUDMILA: Novikova Lyudmila Vladimirovna. E. ALBATS: Where are you calling from? LYUDMILA: St. Petersburg. I want to say this—that most likely, in my opinion, Khodorkovsky had absolutely no intention of going into politics. I myself did a little business once, and I know it’s very interesting. There’s absolutely no need to get into politics. Most likely Putin was simply settling personal scores with him—just as he went after NTV. That too was an act of revenge—because as soon as he became prime minister, they compared him on the satirical puppet show Kukly to Little Zaches (a grotesque character from E. T. A. Hoffmann)—it was a devastating comparison. E. ALBATS: You mean they compared Putin to Little Zaches on the program Kukly? LYUDMILA: Exactly. It was devastating. And he got what he wanted—he caught up with them and finished them off. It was the same with Khodorkovsky—I’m sure Khodorkovsky said something to him, and he took revenge. And at the same time he grabbed Yuganskneftegaz. E. ALBATS: Thank you very much. Galina writes: “Traffic on Leninsky Prospekt was not blocked, Nashi didn’t bother anyone, and no one had beer.” Galina, apparently you are poorly informed. Because my friends who live right on Leninsky Prospekt could not get out of their building. So don’t send nonsense to the Echo of Moscow pager. 203-19-22, go ahead, you’re on the air. MIKHAIL: Hello. My name is Mikhail, I’m from Saratov. Happy holiday to you. My question is this—first of all, I’m very glad you’ve gathered such wonderful young people, such progressive thinkers. My question for them is the following: there are two paths of development—evolutionary and revolutionary. What is happening now—rallies and so on—seems more like a revolutionary path. If you remove the revolutionary component and leave only the evolutionary one, how quickly will Russia come to democracy? E. ALBATS: Mikhail, thank you. I. Yashin will answer your question. I. YASHIN: Russia has been moving toward democracy throughout the whole history of its development. In February 1917—and I return to this thought again—it came very close. And for several months, until October, Russia developed along a democratic path. Then bandits came and seized power by force for 70 years. Just as there was the Mongol yoke, so too the Bolsheviks seized power for 70 years. Then Russia freed itself from the Bolshevik yoke and again tried to get onto the path of democratic development. Some believe it is moving along that path. In my opinion, it is marking time. But the chance still exists. As for the evolutionary and revolutionary paths, without question the people sitting in this studio represent the evolutionary path. And rallies have nothing in common with revolutions. Because a revolution is a change of power… the kind of revolution ideologized by V. Lenin is when people take up weapons and go kill. We are not going to kill anyone. The ideologue of our methods of struggle is rather Mahatma Gandhi, who said that if a million unarmed people—let me stress, unarmed people—come out into the streets, then not even the bloodiest regime can do anything about it. Because no dictator, however bloody, will want to use weapons against his own people. E. ALBATS: A. Navalny, revolution or evolution? A. NAVALNY: Evolution, without question. And I agree with Ilya—rallies have nothing to do with revolutions. In old Europe, where there haven’t been revolutions for a long time, rallies happen a hundred times more often and are a hundred times larger. A rally is a way of demonstrating to the population, to society, a particular view of things. Depending on how large or small they are, and how they are conducted, the authorities should look at them and somehow adjust their behavior. That is evolution. But when 15 people take rifles and run off somewhere shooting, that is already revolution. E. ALBATS: Natasha? N. MORAR: I too am unquestionably a supporter of the evolutionary path, but at the same time I think it would be good if we had a revolution in consciousness, if we restructured ourselves and stopped… well, I think you understand what I mean. Of course ours is an evolutionary path—I think we have an excellent chance by 2007. E. ALBATS: Masha Gaidar, you have exactly two seconds. M. GAIDAR: I wanted to say that rallies are, of course, not revolutionary but evolutionary development. They create a kind of civic and institutional platform for avoiding violence. Because when that institutional platform does not exist—then yes, there will be small outbreaks of violence that later turn into mass outbreaks of violence, into bloodshed. But if it does exist, if there is a civic community, then that is the best way to avoid that violence and that bloodshed. So all of us absolutely must be active and go out into the streets. E. ALBATS: I completely agree. Only civil society will save us from violence, both from the authorities and from the crowd, the mob. And with that, I congratulate everyone on Russia’s Independence Day, on our holiday—“I am free, I have forgotten what fear means”—and we will be free. Goodbye, see you in a week.
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