Alexei Navalny answers questions at Shtabikon

[music]

Thank you very much, friends. I applaud you.

You did a great job coming here to see us.

I want this meeting to be as open as possible.

Ask candid questions, tough ones, whatever you like.

Go ahead — I'm ready and happy to answer.

I want to answer them. I see the first question. Hello, everyone.

Hi, this is Cheboksary. My name is Yaroslav.

Hi. I have the following question about

what will happen to

car manufacturing and the import

of cars into Russia.

Right now, there are protective tariffs

on the import of foreign cars into Russia, and

they artificially inflate the price of our

cars. So what happens next? Well, first of all,

as I already said, the basic thing is that we

need to decide whether this will happen under this

government or under ours.

And under us, it will be better. That's not

the next question. We will do something very

simple: we will look at it, we will think it through.

These protective tariffs have not

been around since 1988. Since 1988, people

who wanted to buy a car have been overpaying

compared with prices anywhere in Europe,

and we were told that this was extremely important, that it

would boost the Russian auto industry. Did it boost

the Russian auto industry? We know perfectly well that

all trade barriers always harm what is

inside the country. Therefore,

of course, I oppose all these tariffs.

They are not needed. AvtoVAZ should not

be under state control.

KAMAZ should not be under

state control.

Anatoly Serdyukov should not be sitting

on KAMAZ's board of directors, nor should all these

wonderful people from Rostec and so on.

That is, we must remove

the state from the auto industry.

Direct ownership, while at the same time

of course providing general support

to the automotive industry, but without

protective tariffs, which, as we know very well,

always

do harm and nothing else.

I am absolutely convinced that in a country as large

as Russia, there can be and there will be

an excellent auto industry — but without

giant and useless interference

from the state. Another question — Sochi.

Konstantin: I have a question. What will happen to

the legacy of the Sochi Olympics,

which is now standing empty

and completely unused?

Konstantina: That's exactly what I wanted to ask — what is happening now,

what is happening to this Olympic legacy?

In fact, it is

falling apart. All the companies are bankrupt,

and nobody works there — everything is simply

empty. Some of you may remember

that I had a memorable argument with

Alexei Alexeyevich Venediktov (editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow),

when we

published our report on the Sochi

Olympics and showed with figures that

30 percent of all the money had been stolen. And we

said that VEB (Vnesheconombank) loans, first and foremost,

would never be repaid. We

ran the numbers and saw that it was impossible, and we were

of course told by both the government and even

liberal public figures like Venediktov

that we were wrong: 'Guys, all the

money will come back, all of this will work.' But

it turned out, of course, that it doesn't work

that way and never will, and

indeed, all those loans were written off.

The Fisht Stadium in Sochi,

which was built at enormous expense,

is being rebuilt. All the other

infrastructure facilities likewise are either

standing closed or being handed over,

as the media center was handed over to Roldugin,

who is supposedly there nurturing

young talent. I hope that at least

those notorious

billions in Panamanian accounts will at least

somehow serve some good for Russia

and benefit children. But I'm afraid,

unfortunately, that the future of the Olympic

facilities does not look bright. These are

huge sites that are very difficult

to maintain, and most likely, with them — well,

at least under this

government — exactly the same thing will happen as

has happened to Olympic facilities in

many other countries. The Olympics are not

profitable; they are loss-making, and so all of it

will slowly decay and fall apart.

We simply need to, as quickly as possible,

sell it off, take it off the books, and stop

keeping it on the City of Sochi's balance sheet,

because it cannot afford it. In other words,

sell it all so that some

businesspeople and entrepreneurs can at least

earn something there and at least

bring some money into the budget, instead of

burning through it.

This question is mostly about the campaign. Well, let's

take any questions.

Yes, please. Sergei Bespalov, Mercury.

Sergei.

If this is the speech you are going to give

as a presidential candidate, then we have

a good start. First of all, and

second, on the issue of pensioners: we need

to speak to pensioners, we need to tell them something,

because I often see among

older people who

come to us that they say roughly this:

'We already know there's some Navalny,

and after that it all becomes a muddle in our heads.' But

we still haven't directly addressed them. What

could you say to them that we could

pass on, because these people are already

coming to us?

We are doing quite a lot of work on this issue.

And as you know, Vladimir Milov writes a lot about this.

And several other economic

experts as well—we have something to say.

Specifically, here are the key points. First, we have run the numbers and can see

that there is no need to raise the retirement age.

In Russia, that is useless and senseless.

What Russia needs to raise is

labor productivity. When we

propose raising the retirement age

to effectively above the average life expectancy

for men,

well, that simply sounds idiotic.

That is why we are not raising the retirement

age—we are restoring

all those stolen pension savings

that have been taken away since 2014, and we

believe—we can see from the budget—that it is

possible to pay pensions at the level of

a real subsistence minimum, and

the source of the money for this is very clear:

proper dividends from state-owned

companies. When oil prices rise,

Gazprom and all the others who are allowed

to pay low dividends, or who are allowed

to pay lower taxes per

barrel of oil extracted, should pay

what they are supposed to pay. Then we

will have enough money

to finance the pension system.

But the main thing is overall economic

growth and, overall, higher

labor productivity. But specifically

for pensioners, these are exactly the

things we would say. What do you think—will this

work?

Well, of course, right now I am still, so to speak,

speaking as part of the campaign staff. Yes, we will try.

This is our eternal

well, not a problem—an eternal issue, and for us

your feedback is especially important,

as is the feedback from the people working on the ground,

so that they come and tell us: guys, make it simpler,

simpler. Because from this kind of

Facebook crowd, we constantly get the opposite

pressure: make it more complicated, more complicated.

They say: you're speaking too simply, that's populism.

We need to find a middle ground. So I am

trying to remember who is waving at me so that

I do not forget anyone. So, Ulyanovsk, then

Vladimir, good afternoon. Dmitry Shestakov.

Ulyanovsk. Hi, Alexei. A question about the boycott

of the election.

If we are considering such an option,

yes—if we succeed, what comes next?

I address this in the final part of my speech.

We will do it today, we will do it

tomorrow, we will keep doing it. We will not

get tired of it, and we will not give up. So let us

treat this as a process

of political struggle. All right,

let's take your case: you live in Ulyanovsk.

The election boycott either works or it does not,

and then tomorrow comes—what is it, March 7—and

you say: well, all right, basically

I am no longer interested in this

political activity. I agree with

everything that this is a struggle for the country.

Why did I say that we are engaged in

saving Russia? It is not just that I inserted

some catchy line into the speech

that we will post in a video and send somewhere. I

really do see this campaign exactly that way,

and I ask you to see it that way too.

They are dragging it into a pit, into catastrophe, while

we are pulling it back.

So we need to treat this as

a marathon distance. We are fighting in this

election. I am sure that in this election we

could have won if we had not even

equal access,

but simply if we had been allowed in and had at least

some access to the media, even if unfair. I

have absolutely no doubt about our victory,

not just in some historical

perspective,

but in the foreseeable future—in our

victory, not merely that of our children and grandchildren,

but our own victory. But we have to realize

that they are not fools either, right?

They will come up with something, they will

come up with something to save themselves. Right now

this boycott is happening in

Yekaterinburg,

and they have already come up with a lottery.

They are raffling off apartments. You understand, before

they would raffle off, I do not know, buns or

maybe washing machines,

but now six apartments have been bought in order

to raffle them off in a lottery at

polling stations.

They are raffling off cars. I do not know,

maybe they will clone Filipp Kirkorov (a Russian pop star) and he will

sing at every polling station. They

will keep inventing things. These are people

who are fighting, in their own way, for the country—they

want to take it away from us and

profit from it. So at any moment

when the question arises of what

to do next, we will sit down and think it through. I do not

know—you may come again if we have

the money for it. We will sit here and say:

what is the proper thing to do, according to conscience and

honesty? And I am sure that the road

will be fairly straight, and we will

keep walking along it. That is all. I do not see any

other path.

Vladimir from Tula.

Vladimir, I have

the following question.

You are very often asked about

whether you will bring up at the

federal level issues that matter

to the regions.

But you probably know that we have a large

group of territories

that are governed by outsider teams. That is,

if it matters to Putin's government,

then it means using Russia as

a cash cow and move the money there

then for these people it is important to use, well,

say, the Vladimir Region, and then

after retirement, get out either to another part

of Russia or somewhere else altogether

there was quite an exotic girl there, I

remember when we opened a штаб (campaign office) for you there, so

so my question is this: would you be able to

for us to hear from your own lips that

in the event of your victory, first of all

the current outsider governors will be

removed, and secondly, that this practice

will stop altogether here—do you really

have

the slightest doubt that if we

win this campaign, we would leave

these governors in place? Of course

they cannot remain in power; they are

enemies of Russia, enemies of the entire people

of course, we are doing this so that elections

for governor are real elections, without any

idiotic municipal filters, so that

it is easy for everyone to take part in these

elections, and of course there should be no appointments

at all—it is harmful. We have simply

seen that the quality of the governors

has sharply declined. After all, they told us

what? They said there was no need to

elect governors, that governors should not be elected, they should

be appointed instead, because criminals would

rush for power. Yes, but it turned out that

it is precisely the appointees who are, excuse me,

complete crooks. They are much worse than

any elected governor, even if

the elected governor was not all that great

so yes, of course—only elected

governors. And all these people should

be, if they did not commit crimes,

subject to lustration, and if they did commit

crimes, then they should end up—we will discuss with you

Alitsin. My name is Valeria Stul, and

my question concerns Tula specifically. In

Tula there is a huge number of defense

enterprises, and one way or another, in every

third family, someone works at one of them

checkpoint, but the rest

how will you address the issue of

military spending, because you

advocate cutting spending, and

does that threaten higher unemployment in

Tula? Because in talking to people, I

have heard that one of the arguments is

that under Putin, a huge amount of

funds go to the army, and

a large number of orders come in, so one way or another

people at these defense enterprises receive

fairly high salaries

Well, all right, I was there—I remember our

conversation in Tula very well, when we opened

the штаб (campaign office) there. Very high salaries? What are they?

They get 25,000 to 35,000 rubles, and those lucky enough

get 40,000. So yes, we really do

advocate reducing the military

and police budget, but that budget

is so enormous that we understand that

even if we cut it by a sufficient

percentage to increase spending on

education and healthcare,

within it

there will still be a sea of money

that will be enough both to

raise salaries for personnel

in the police and military, and to

maintain a normal defense procurement order

That is not just me saying it, nor is it a study by

the Anti-Corruption Foundation

the Accounts Chamber said that, believe it or not,

30 percent of the money allocated for

the defense order is cashed out in the first

two weeks—that is, 30 percent of it is simply

immediately turned

into wheeled suitcases stuffed with five-thousand-ruble notes

so of course

of course this is happening at half of

your Tula defense enterprises, by the way

Serdyukov sits on the board of directors of them

and such rules and practices

exist there. So of course we do not

believe that it is necessary

to cut defense procurement in any serious or significant way

so that people would

end up without jobs. Absolutely not.

What must be reduced there first and foremost is

corruption. The money freed up by that

is enormous potential for

development, including in the defense sector. Therefore

it is especially important for your штаб (campaign office) to

explain this and say that

of course no one will suffer; the country still has

more than enough money. As I said,

oil prices have fallen, but these people's appetites

have not shrunk. But even at $52

per barrel, even at $40 per barrel,

that is a sea of money—enough money

for the country

to go on living just fine. Guys, Viktor

next, from Oryol, will ask the question that I am

asked most often. Viktor Zaryadov, city of Oryol

The question I am asked most often

as a volunteer—probably not only me, but other

coordinators too—is: when will Navalny come to us?

When will the tour around the country continue?

Listen, I will come to you on the 11th

—September 11—after a visit with

your brother, who is being held there

near Oryol. We actually postponed

the start of my regional trips—they

were supposed to begin on the 8th, precisely

because they scheduled

my visit with him for the 11th. But I think from

September 13—I am afraid to say exactly right now

because I do not have the schedule at hand—we

will start traveling around the

regions quite actively, and we will come to Oryol

of course. We had just flown to

St. Petersburg. Hi, Polina

I have two questions. The first question is about

foreign policy—you touched on the scientific

people who come because of illness

Are you really going to ask about Crimea? No, no.

No, no, no, no, no — not about interaction with

other countries, but

people are very concerned, and the second question

actually concerns affordable housing for

people. As for interaction with other countries,

there is no need to invent anything — we will

be friends with everyone. Objectively, where is there

a country that is hostile toward

Russia? Where is it? Before and after Putin's

policies, of course, Ukraine has become

generally hostile toward us there.

Georgia is partly so, but essentially there are no

countries right now that are

hostile to us, and that is a wonderful

moment. It is also

one of the historic opportunities for our

country. Overall, everyone likes us — in the West

and in the East. This is a wonderful time

to develop foreign trade,

to make money from all

of this. We need to stop engaging in this

foreign-policy nonsense

that Putin is engaged in. It is clear why

he does not want to discuss domestic

problems.

He wants to discuss Damascus, Aleppo,

and all that, but we will talk about what

is happening inside the country. We do not need

these mechanisms of distraction. We will

be friends with everyone. Affordable housing

is something for which I am criticized, even

within our own team and even within

the policy group, but I truly

believe that we must include in the program

— and we will include — a provision that

we must have a special

separate affordable housing campaign

that includes, first and foremost,

reducing housing costs by

completely freeing all builders

in city centers from virtually all

permits for the construction of buildings under

four stories — just take the land and build.

The land is there — just build,

and no permits should be needed. Right now, to

build even, say,

a four-story building, it takes two years

to process permits, and you have to pay

an enormous number of bribes. That is why we

will drastically reduce regulation in this sector,

radically.

And by doing so,

we will increase supply and reduce housing

prices. And the second thing for which many

criticize me:

I believe the state should

subsidize

interest rates. It is absurd that right now we are

all being offered mortgage loans

at 11 or 12 percent. In

China, the lucky ones can get them at 10

percent. But the Central Bank says

inflation is 4 percent. If inflation is 4, why are we

telling this poor person, who has no

home, that he must pay 10? We could already,

starting tomorrow, issue

mortgage loans at 4 percent annually,

or 3 percent annually with a small

subsidy. Do you remember at what rate

Putin's associates got a loan to

buy Sibur? Half a percent in foreign currency.

It was around a trillion — or $3 billion.

I do not know — we rescue

banks, we rescue various state-owned enterprises,

we again pay off those same Sochi

loans, we make everything easier for everyone, but we are afraid

to give some citizen who has

two children a preferential mortgage loan.

Therefore, I absolutely believe that the problem

of housing in Russia will be solved when people can

take out a mortgage as in European

countries — 1.5 percent, 2 percent, 3

percent. We are ready to offer that right now.

I will stand firmly on this, because

the housing problem in Russia is not

economic, but political. People

have nowhere to live. Construction is an excellent

multiplier for the entire economy — let it

develop.

Alexei Vors, Alexei Vorsin, city of

Khabarovsk.

I have a question. Good afternoon. My question is about the development

of the Far East. I understand that for

the federal center,

the Far East is perhaps just one of

Russia's regions, yes, but for the people of the

Far East themselves, the question of their own

identity and the question of seeing themselves

as a distinct region is, in a sense,

quite politically important, and in connection

with this, my question is as follows:

Will your political program include

some separate section specifically

on the development of the Far East? I mean

that this is quite important, quite

important and significant from the point of view

of a political statement precisely for the

people of the Far East themselves, when they see

themselves in a separate line or

paragraph. I can honestly tell you that we

currently have several different versions

of the program; we are still debating

and choosing the best one. In some versions this is included,

in others it is not. We do not want

to write just general things like, 'We support

the development of the Far East,' because that

appears in absolutely every program of every

presidential candidate. Let us, together with you,

fill this with something real.

Absolutely. You know, we spend quite a lot of time

on this; our lawyers are engaged in

anti-corruption oversight of this

area, including the 'Far Eastern Hectare' program

that we can see has

completely failed. 50,000 people

have registered for this Far Eastern Hectare program.

although we could frame this in terms of millions

we really want to include in the program

something that will resonate with your

voters, something you’ll be able to speak well about

let’s work out these, uh,

these several points together, but I’m in favor of

including something like that, of course, but

otherwise, how are we going to campaign in

the Far East? I understand perfectly well that you

as soon as I arrive, the first question

I’ll be asked is: so, what are you going to

do about the Far East? There are

10 million people living across that vast territory

while in the neighboring Chinese territory

there are 50 to 100 million people, and

overall, it doesn’t look very promising

so of course we need to spell out

something very specific. Let’s, with your

help, get this done. Korall, then

Vologda

Good afternoon, my name is Vadim. Thank you

very much, Leonid, for counting me in, because

at the moment I’m taking the place of two

people, in a sense. First of all, unfortunately, we, uh,

ended up with two people from each city

that’s how it worked out. We really wanted to have

a third person as well, because we have

another wonderful volunteer whom

we would have liked to bring with us, but

unfortunately, the budget of our organization didn’t

allow it, so I’m passing along to you

his greetings. — Valentina Belyaeva sends her regards too, and

from me as well.

And here is his question. Right now, each of us who

is sitting in this hall and wants to ask a

question

is trying to choose a question that

would cover a large part of the population

that would address a large part of

the program, and so on. This question is

specific, but at the same time I think

I won’t have any other chance

to ask something this specific, and

with all the talk about weapons, gay parades, drugs, and whatever else

people bring up, I want to ask whether Navalny and his

team have any view on discrimination against

men in light of the labor code: there are no

benefits or concessions for having a child,

a longer workweek,

work in Russia’s Far North,

the absence of an additional day off

for work in rural areas, there is

a list of jobs prohibited for women, and so

on; military duty, one-year

conscription slavery only for men,

military reserve obligations only for men, leave

for childcare only for female military personnel,

pensions for men come five years

later, the criminal code, and so on, and so

forth. So, in other words, the question is

whether, alongside feminists, there are

people who in principle, right now,

as is developing strongly in the West,

are fighting for men’s rights there,

while in our country it’s not really accepted

to discuss it. It’s not that it is

the main issue right now, and at the same time

— I didn’t quite understand the question. — You know, there was even

a court case when a serviceman filed suit

because he was not granted leave

to care for a child, and he lost even

in the European Court

Let me answer: I am for equality, and of course

I believe, for example, that parental leave

can and should be taken

by a man on equal terms with a woman, and

but at the same time, let me say honestly, with

all that said, even though I support equality, right now

to focus especially on fighting for men’s rights

in Russia

would be a little

like legal casuistry. After all,

in Russia the biggest real

problem is the violation of women’s rights. They

consistently receive lower pay for the same

work, they are discriminated against in

Russia, and very often this is considered

normal. In general,

society’s attitude toward women is such

that if she is a single mother, then she is more

or less seen as a lost cause, and generally

as someone not worth paying attention to. Like,

my God, she’s thirty and she’s a single

mother — that’s it, she may as well lie down in a coffin

already. That absolutely should not happen

We must ensure that these people

can work normally and have the opportunity

to develop. In principle, unfortunately, our society

encourages things like

socially acceptable non-payment

of child support, and so on and so forth

So, in electoral terms, the significant

issue is the protection of women’s rights, and we

will talk about it — not because

some feminists say so, but because I

actually believe it. But we are for

equal rights from every point of view, from every

side. If there are factors that

discriminate against men, then setting aside

all the smiles and smirks, we should just as

firmly speak out against that too. That

happens less often in Russia, more in

the West, perhaps, but as society develops

in Russia, this will happen more often, and this kind of

topic will become more relevant. That’s my

honest answer

Vologda, then Tver, Samara. Alexei

Hi, Yevgeny Domozhirov here

So, it’s no secret that

a huge number of volunteers came to

us after the March 26 rallies and after the *He Is Not Dimon to You* investigation

and then after June 12 as well

A huge number of volunteers

are now asking, probably since

July or August, whether there will

be another big rally, because

many say that this is what

motivated them — they knew the date, they

They were preparing, and now they want to come out again.

This is one of the questions that needs an answer.

Including those who want to hear from you.

It can’t be decided right now, not this very second, but...

In our informal conversations there,

during the coffee breaks. But tell me, people...

want another rally, and we do have that demand.

It’s there. If people want it, we need to plan it.

It’s simple. But why did our rallies happen...

while most of the other rallies that...

are constantly being announced by some committee...

for protest actions, by PARNAS (a Russian opposition party), go much...

worse? There’s enormous preparation involved.

A lot of money. We’re raising that money,

and maybe by the Kremlin’s standards

it’s not much, but it’s still substantial money.

A lot of your work, arrests — where is Elvira,

the one who’s in detention? Hi, Elvira, hi.

Kazan headquarters — how many of you were there because of...

the authorized rally, people...

Five people were detained, right? I’m not afraid...

of ending up in a special detention center, and neither are Volkov

nor Rubanov. We’ve all been through it.

It’s completely normal. It’s a sign

of good work. But I’m definitely not saying this:

this nonsense that unauthorized rallies...

mean throwing people under the bus for...

Unauthorized rallies, for me,

are a hundred times better. Look at how

the last March for a Free Internet went.

It was authorized, damn it, in Moscow, and there

they detained 15 people.

They confiscated all the signs. Did you see it on

video, how the police were cutting the word “bastards” out of

a sign that said, “Come to your senses, don’t touch the internet, you bastards”?

So if that’s how things are, what

difference does it make to us anymore, authorized or

unauthorized? It’s all the same.

They detain people anyway, so...

I’m in favor. Today, I want to get from you

some kind of feedback so that

we can decide. Of course, absolutely, we will hold

another rally like this, and we’ll keep holding them.

After all, Medvedev is still there, the dachas are still there,

all the other guys are still in place, so we

have to do this, and we will.

A specific date hasn’t been set.

We’ll discuss it today. And one more

small provocative question, from

a supporter who keeps pestering me

literally every day — my son is worn out by it.

When is the merch store, Volkov? I keep getting asked about it constantly.

The merch store.

Not just your son — seven times a

day I ask Leonid about it.

I’m asking too, and meanwhile in my pocket

my phone is blowing up right now.

in the relevant chat. Our latest

update, after spending three weeks

overcoming problems with the banks, is that

the delivery service backed out.

For some reason, they really

latched onto this particular thing very hard.

Either they’re afraid that we’ll actually

sell a lot of it and make a lot of

money, or they’re very afraid

of the symbolism. But honestly, we haven’t faced this kind of

resistance even

when renting the Volgograd headquarters office.

This is real lawlessness. What are we

going to do? Even if we have to send it out by damn

carrier pigeons, in the next few...

It hasn’t launched yet, but we’ll find a solution.

I promised. Next: Samara, Belgorod...

then further in that direction. I...

Really, we understand that we’re

losing money. People want to buy these

T-shirts. It’s excellent campaign funding.

But we’d already made arrangements, already

delivered everything to the warehouse, to this distribution center.

Everything was already connected to

the computer system. Everything was supposed to start working.

Then the next day they call and say, “Sorry, we’ve

had something come up. Could you

pick it up from the warehouse?” Well, what can you do?

They really are very

for some reason afraid of this store.

We say: fine, just comply, let it sit

in your warehouse, and then it can be shipped from there.

“Please take it away.” Sorry, Alexei.

Hello.

Kostya called me over, so I came to the stream.

It’s time for questions.

I have a pointed question.

In your program, you talk about

what will happen to Vladimir Putin.

You promise security guarantees

to Vladimir Putin and to

members of his family. Does that mean that all of

us here — and you, Leonid, and I — will not

make any extra effort

to save our esteemed...

from The Hague tribunal? I’d say not exactly.

Not quite. What I’m saying about

guarantees for Putin is literally this: if

he agrees to a peaceful transfer of power,

if he stops clinging to power, and if he

agrees to hold normal

elections, then he and the members of his family

must be guaranteed safety by us,

because that is in the interests of the majority, it is

in the interests of the country.

Even though for you personally, and

for me personally, for a whole range of different

reasons, doing that would be fairly

unpleasant. But we need to set aside our own discomfort

for the sake of everyone’s interests. As for

The Hague tribunal,

that’s a completely different matter, and we cannot

settle it. All I’m saying is

a guarantee of safety for him from

the Russian state, if he

agrees to a peaceful transition and we come

to power. That’s all I mean. Samara?

Alexei, good evening. Ekaterina Gryaz...

Samara.

Just to clarify: does that mean Putin

will face no criminal liability, and...

Medvedev will stay in office.

To continue, I wanted to understand—well, where...

where Medvedev is supposed to fit into all this. But listen,

Putin is the founding father of this regime;

everything rests on him. This whole

propaganda machine has worked for

him.

Through family ties,

through his closest friends,

he controls the economy. So he is

the main load-bearing element of this system,

the one with whom this kind of dialogue can be conducted,

if any dialogue is possible at all. And who is Medvedev?

Should we give him security guarantees because he dances well?

Security guarantees?

Or because he nicely furnished his

dacha in Psekhako? No, I see no point

in discussing anything with Dmitry Medvedev

because he is entirely a derivative

of Putin. He is nobody. Tomorrow they could remove him,

replace him with anyone—Shoigu, Rogozin,

Lavrov—and no one would remember

this Medvedev at all, not even

that he ever existed. Except us—we will not forget

that he existed.

That is why I do not consider Dmitry

Medvedev an important element of this

political system, although yes,

he is one of Putin's closest loyalists, many times over.

But simply because of that, why should we tomorrow

be handing out security guarantees

to Timchenko and everyone else? Then why

are we even here? A follow-up question.

Originally I had two questions: one

regional, and one about the campaign.

The regional one is probably obvious.

I'm from Samara, and in both Samara and

Tolyatti, a very important question is what to do

about AvtoVAZ. Is it a case of 'what is dead cannot die,'

or are there still some other options?

Actually, I've watched many of your

interviews, and I haven't heard an answer to this

question. I'd be grateful for one. As for

the campaign: March 2018 passes,

this structure has been built up

very well by the federal team and by us.

Will it be preserved? How do you see it now—

in what form will it remain, and what

its tasks will be?

In other words, what will we be doing in April

2018? Thank you. Well, as for the auto industry,

I was just talking about it, but let me repeat

specifically for the residents of these

regions. First, the auto industry, into which

huge amounts of money are poured, needs

transparency.

Because, along with everything else, these

colossal, unimaginable sums of money

allocated by the Soviet government,

the Yeltsin government, and the Putin

government—it is unclear where, for the most part,

they have gone. These customs duties are not providing

help. Therefore, I believe that there, first of all,

basic order and

transparency must be established. Second, the duties are not

serving their purpose; they should be abolished. And third, we need

to develop the auto industry with the involvement of

foreign manufacturers. That is,

it's not simply that it is dead and can no longer

live. Well, in a certain sense it is,

but we understand that a

country with a market of 150 million people

can support a normal

auto industry. The task here is simply to cooperate properly

with those countries and

companies that are capable of producing

good cars. We just need to admit

that on our own, completely

independently, we cannot

produce them, so we need

to invite them here on favorable terms

and work together with them. Now, as for

the question of what we will be doing

in 2018:

after the election—after victory in the election,

or after the unlikely event of not winning

the election—well, as I already said, this

political struggle is a political

marathon. After 2018, you remain in

the country, you do not emigrate, you live here in 2018, 2019,

2020, 2025, just like everyone else. And so we will

do, from a political point of view, what

normal, honest people are supposed to do.

Because life is short—you hardly have time

to look back before it is already over.

So you have to live it in such a way that you know

that in this life you did some

right, decent things and fought for

the right things. That is what we will do every

day, regardless of who

we are,

whether we are president or volunteers, whether we won

the election or did not win. What we will do is

wake up and, each time, do the same

thing: improve something around us. That's

all. There is no other option.

[applause]

I've noticed that so far 95 percent of the questions

have been for Alexei. At the opening I was

there, so now I'm bringing some fairness to this:

Belgorod, Ulan-Ude, Murmansk.

And then we'll decide. Good afternoon. Actually,

I have a rather unusual

question. You yourselves basically know what the

state of prisons in our country is right now.

And when you become president,

will that change for the better, and

will people who were

illegally convicted be released? Guys, are you

seriously asking this? You work at Alexei

Navalny's campaign headquarters—does he support

the release of people who were illegally

convicted? Of course we do. My

brother is in prison on a completely

fabricated case, and I myself was jailed

over it. I spent eight and a half

months behind bars, a little less. The

election campaign has been going on for a month and a half.

spent some time under arrest during that period, so

of course all political prisoners

will be released — that would be decree number one.

Even before judicial reform,

even before everything else, before the adoption of

a law declaring his fight against

illicit enrichment unlawful — the release of

political prisoners, the repeal of

political criminal code articles 200 and 282,

and so on — in general, the repeal of all anti-

extremism legislation. As for

the prison system, in terms of the size of the

prison population, we are second only to

the United States, even though our overall population

our population is much, much

smaller than theirs.

We have terrible prisons, we have enormous

sentences, and most importantly, it does not work.

The cruelty of the punishment applied

in Russia does not lead to people

committing fewer crimes, so

of course we need a more humane

penal enforcement system. All these

widely practiced beatings, torture,

rape, and monstrous living conditions

in detention — besides the fact that they are

inhumane, they also do not work.

They are harmful.

Here, if a person goes to prison once,

they never really get out of that cycle for the rest of their life.

So of course this sector needs

fundamental reform, and in that sense the experience

of the Scandinavian countries

should be much closer to us than what

is happening now — this hellish

Gulag-style system (the Soviet forced labor camp system) is in fact one

of those things that cannot be reformed.

There, you really just need to

clear everyone out and build everything from scratch.

Ulan-Ude.

Then Murmansk, then Aleksin. Hello.

I’m very nervous. This is a very important question for

probably for us all, a very difficult and

very much a question about the future. During campaigning,

during canvassing walks and other

events, yes, our indigenous

population basically always says

that Alexei Navalny previously

attended the Russian Marches and supported

nationalists, so we cannot

support

Navalny. We try

to argue that it was a long time ago, maybe

his views have changed somehow since then.

We would like to hear from you what

can be said, what arguments

can be used. Then say this directly:

precisely because he went to the Russian Marches

he will, more than anyone, defend

the rights of all Russian citizens, including

the residents of Buryatia,

regardless of whether they are Buryat

or Russian. Because what is commonly called a

nationalist agenda — well, yes, I

really do support restricting

migration.

I really do support

the introduction of a visa regime.

But this is a problem that affects everyone,

right? In the Far East, in Eastern

Siberia, this is a problem that concerns

China as well, and in that sense

one of the bills I introduced,

for example, concerns the fact that we should

automatically grant Russian citizenship

to anyone who, according to any document, either

they themselves or their parents were either Russian

or representatives of any nationality

living on the territory

of the Russian Federation. In that sense, my

attendance at the Russian Marches, and anything

that someone might somehow

interpret as part of a nationalist

agenda, is about defending the citizens of Russia.

I support the formation of a political

Russian civic nation, not ethnic

nationalism. For me, all the people who

live in Russia need roughly

the same things, including

protection from illegal migration. So this

is what needs to be said, and said specifically.

You need to say: yes, Navalny went

to the Russian March.

But which politicians, for example, spoke out for

allowing Marha to be admitted to the elections?

Who there said they supported

those who went on hunger strike? Everyone else stays silent, while

who actually went there?

And I exposed all this —

your Buryat officials. Zayakin,

a member of our team, went there

a million times and many times

met with people there. In that sense, I do not see how

nationalism, or anything

I have said on the subject, contradicts even

a single interest of, say,

a Buryat,

a Yakut, a Russian, a Tatar, a Bashkir, and so

on and so forth. We are all one

civic nation here, and we must defend

ourselves against those occupiers who

rob all of us and funnel the money into offshore

accounts. It is against them that

our shared nationalism should be directed. That is exactly what I have always

stood for. All my speeches

at the Russian Marches, in videos, and so on

can be shown to anyone, and no one will ever

find any trace of ethnic

nationalism in them, or any advocacy of

the superiority of one nation over another.

I think that answers it on my end.

Murmansk, Orenburg, Kemerovo.

Hello, Alexei, and as a human rights

advocate first and foremost, I want to thank you for

your previous answer. For a long time it

troubled me, as a human rights defender, regarding your

nationalist views, and many people

reproached me for supporting you.

As a human rights advocate,

I have another question, no less sensitive.

about the state of LGBT rights in Russia.

As a human rights advocate, I have long been

troubled by this question, as have my colleagues.

Would you be prepared to adopt a program for

improving LGBT rights and to adopt

some laws to protect the rights and freedoms

of the LGBT community? Thank you for the question. So,

first, we stand for equality,

absolutely, and equality for everyone.

No one may be discriminated against, much less

beaten, punished, insulted, or otherwise harmed

on any grounds whatsoever, including

sexual orientation, gender,

nationality, or anything else. Second,

in the Beautiful Russia of the Future (a political slogan referring to a democratic future Russia), there may not even be a need for

special laws, because it is all already provided for.

These thugs who attack

and beat people can be imprisoned; they should be

imprisoned under Russia's current laws.

They are hooligans who attack people.

So of course there is a conservative

part of society, there are religious people, and everyone

has every right to hold pickets and protest against one

another. If I become president, then please, everyone

will be able to hold their public events on

equal terms. But as soon as anyone starts

infringing on someone else's rights, especially physically

or restricting them, then fine—against you

we will open a criminal case or

an administrative one, depending on the degree

of violence being used.

Only equality—and this is the most important point

for Russia in every respect, not

just when it comes to gender. This is

a matter of principle.

Absolutely. Long ago, somehow,

during the 2013 campaign, people very often

sent in these so-called provocateurs

who would ask me tricky questions:

"Now we're going to ask you about

gay pride parades, about gays," and so on. I

am not at all embarrassed to speak on this subject.

I do not believe that my statements that

there should be equality in Russia

would somehow damage me in the eyes of voters.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

For a long time now, without the slightest problem or

embarrassment, I have answered any questions

related to the gay community and its

interests. All right, the question you

were actually asking was whether,

if we prepare a report on

the state of LGBT rights, together with a program

for changing the situation, from human rights

organizations, would you be ready to consider adopting it

going forward? Well, that all

depends on what kind of report it is.

Human rights advocates write many different reports,

and they are different people; with many of them I

disagree, because

many of them criticize me for that very

proposal to introduce a visa regime. I

stand by that and will never give it up.

And at the same time, I believe that this is 100 times

more protective of human rights than what

they propose, because in that way

I am also standing up for migrants' rights. I want

them to be able to enter the country properly, so that

they have insurance, so that if, God forbid, someone

falls from the third floor at a construction site,

he does not die by the roadside, but is properly

treated in a hospital, paid for by the insurance

they purchased. So we need to look at

what kind of report it is and send it to our

policy group—to Volodya Ashurkov.

Write to him.

They will review everything. Well, of course, yes. Thank you.

That's all—Orenburg, Kemerovo,

and then Biysk, Kirov, Novosibirsk—we keep going, and

then we'll see what comes next.

Hello, my name is Natalia, I am

the coordinator for the city of Orenburg. I want

to say thank you very much for

giving us—me personally—the chance to fight

injustice. I gave you that chance? Thank you

very much for coming here, for fighting,

and for doing this—I applaud you.

Thank you very much for allowing me

to stand here on this stage before you,

because fighting alone

is very hard, practically impossible. And

when you united people not only in

Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in the regions,

that is wonderful, thank you very much. I

have the following question.

Ramzan Kadyrov is a threat

to national security and a problem

for Russia. What are you going to do about him?

Because I believe that by legal

means, it is impossible to fight him.

First, regarding your earlier

remark, it is important to understand that we

do not need to fight alone. Once again,

I just want to say that we have an enormous

number of people. And again, I am not saying this

to inspire you, but

in fact—just name for me

a political party that has 150,000

volunteers. All right, let's

discount our volunteers, let's say

only 10 percent of our volunteers

count as genuine,

real volunteers—that is 15,000 people. Who

has that many? Not even close—no

political force, no

public organization comes close. We

truly have the biggest, the most powerful

political network. No one has ever

built anything like it, no one has ever

mobilized one like it. So thank you for

taking part in this. It is important to understand that we

are many, and in fact we speak for the majority.

Second, as for Ramzan Kadyrov, your

assessment is absolutely correct: he is a threat

to national security. All the information

we have about him indicates that he

is committing a crime, so no—you

are very much mistaken when you say

that there is no way to fight him.

There are legal methods—so of course there is a way.

There is really nothing complicated here. First of all, he should have been

the subject

of an investigation into the murder

of Boris Nemtsov.

That is where we must begin. Legal methods

do exist.

But remember there was that mayor of Makhachkala, Said

Amirov.

People used to say about him, well, he is so entrenched there,

there is absolutely no way to remove him,

because if you remove him,

a civil war will start there.

He really was guarded by—whether it was

gangsters or the police, it was hard to tell anymore.

This was a man who actually wanted to shoot down

an airplane with an anti-aircraft missile system—so, in other words,

he really was a local king, and it seemed impossible

to remove him. But no—they arrested him and

took him to Moscow, and absolutely nothing

changed. Nobody even made a peep.

So this is a big—an enormous and very

harmful—myth, that supposedly in the

Caucasus everything depends on one

person—in Dagestan on one man,

and in Chechnya on another. It is just as much a myth

as when people used to say over and over that, supposedly,

it was impossible to change the government in Bashkortostan (a republic in Russia),

impossible to change the authorities—or now they say

that if Putin is gone, Russia will somehow collapse.

A proper, honest, objective

investigation into all the people

who were involved, as I repeat, at least

in Nemtsov’s murder,

and in other crimes, other crimes—

we will investigate everyone according to the law,

we will investigate everyone under the law and send them

to a fair trial, and a jury will hand down

the punishment they deserve.

And this applies to all officials, except—

Kemerovo. I’ll turn to Ksenia next.

Kemerovo. Our region, Kuzbass, lives off

coal, and we have several regions like this.

But

developed countries are moving toward

working with renewable energy sources

instead.

Is there a section in your program about this, and

when these sources are eventually

developed in our country, what

will happen to regions like Kuzbass?

Yes, we do have a section in our program about this. We

have Vladimir Milov working on it—the person

I mentioned earlier; he came here to visit you.

When it comes to coal

energy, we truly have some of the best

specialists, people who understand it very well.

We are certainly in favor of

green energy and new technologies,

renewable sources—but at the same time

we understand very well

that this cannot be done overnight, and that

coal power will continue to exist

for a long time, and nuclear power will

continue to exist as well, and

unfortunately, diesel fuel will also still be used

at power plants. As for Kuzbass,

we see clear examples of how people

mine coal,

sell it to their own company—their very own company

registered somewhere in the Bahamas and

the Cayman Islands—and then that company sells it on.

In practice, it all ends up going to

the neighboring power plant, but all of it

passes through intermediaries who

take a cut for themselves, while these same mine owners

keep everything in offshore accounts.

This is what the extractive sector needs most of all—

fighting this practice first and foremost.

That applies to the raw materials sector in general, and the coal industry in particular,

as well as oil and any other sector. We know exactly

how to do this; we know how to get it done.

We already have draft legislation on this subject.

So what we will do, as a kind of

first step, is make sure these

companies pay proper taxes,

pay proper wages, and do not move

their profits outside the Russian Federation.

That will free up fairly substantial resources

that will allow the region to develop,

including Kuzbass. And one more

additional question from a member of

our campaign staff, Serafima: will there

be some kind of investigation into Putin’s palace?

Serafima, every one of our

investigations concerning Putin—well, that is

the nature of it: any investigation that

concerns Roldugin, or Rotenberg, or

Timchenko, also concerns

Putin. I’m not going to talk about

any of our plans for

specific investigations, but listen—I

am running in an election

where my main opponent is

Vladimir Putin. As I’ve already said, and

I am not at all shy about repeating it,

I truly consider him the father of this

corrupt system, the chief

corrupt figure. So we will have a lot to say about

him.

We will show a great deal. So, Lilia,

then I’ll go from the front row somewhere over there

to that side.

Friends, obviously, so that everyone—

I’m not going anywhere, I’m here,

I’m staying here, I’ll be spending time with you,

so you will all have

a chance to talk. The only, the only

way to keep this fair

is to stick to the timing. We still have

been very precise so far. Putin is always

late; accordingly, we will

act by contrast. So here

we are: we started exactly on schedule,

we are moving according to schedule, and at 5:30 p.m. we have

A coffee break, so this is where we’ll pause.

We’ll stop there at 5:30 p.m. Alexei will stay here.

He will remain, and then, as part of some intensive

informal conversation, you’ll be able to do everything

very simply. Or: hello, everyone.

My name is not Alexei, my name is Lily, and I am our...

client of the headquarters and dry rations, Bashkortostan (a republic in Russia).

I have a simple question about the campaign: how are we

going to hold meetings with you this fall?

If even at the campaign office opening, all the volunteers

couldn’t fit into the office, and at the rally

thousands of people came—does that mean

it’s going to be stadiums now, or will these be rallies

with you? Then maybe, the question is, near the train station?

Maybe we need to organize a nationwide Russian rally?

Will there be rallies with you in different cities?

A stadium? Well, that’s flattering, of course.

I’m not Sergey Shnurov (frontman of the Russian band Leningrad), after all, to fill venues like that, and I’m not

I don’t know, not rapper Gnoyny (Russian battle rapper), either, to fill

stadiums.

Well, we’ll hold them. The thing is that

it will get cooler by then—the farther east

and the farther north you go, the cooler it gets.

So we’ll proceed based on the specifics of each region.

I don’t know—well, in Mordovia (a republic in Russia), I held

meetings on the edge of a forest because there simply

wasn’t any suitable community space. In Ufa,

if we can find a hall with 2,000 seats where we

can hold a meeting,

then we’ll do it there. If not, we’ll probably hold it

somewhere outdoors, with the obvious risk, of course,

of bad weather. In other words, we will hold

these meetings. At first, we had

meetings with volunteers.

Now, of course, the time has come for

open meetings.

We’ll invite everyone to them, and of course they

will be more difficult—you understand that yourself

from the standpoint of

all sorts of restrictions and everything else. But

there’s nothing to be done. As the saying goes, if you’ve taken it on,

you have to see it through. So we will

hold meetings. We have something to say. I’m

not afraid of meeting with voters.

There are people who support us and will come to

these meetings. We’re not afraid that they might

not be large. Well, if they turn out

to be small, that’s not a problem either.

I’m not afraid of small gatherings.

So we’ll hold them.

We’ll proceed based on the characteristics of each region. You

know yourselves that for each of you, everything is very

different. When we first started traveling, we

thought, my God, what’s going to happen in Ufa and in

Kazan?

But in Ufa and Kazan, everything went wonderfully.

In some regions that seemed

completely trouble-free, everything turned out to be more difficult.

What someone in the Kremlin

might suddenly come up with at any given moment—we never know.

But we will, we will hold meetings with

voters, and of course this is the most important

part of the campaign. And here, this is already

your huge and fairly difficult job.

I just come, speak, answer questions,

take photos, and leave. You are the ones who have to organize all of this.

We’ll soon send out plans there.

Tomorrow we’ll be discussing them in detail.

We’ll talk about this at the seminar—how we’re going to organize these

fall meetings. Compared with that,

everything that came before will seem like a walk in the park.

Everything that happened before that—well, probably somewhere...

Will we file official notifications? Of course we will.

We will. Kirov, then Biysk. Georgy, your

view on restrictions on freedom of speech?

That’s clear, but not through such absurd

articles as 354.1, “rehabilitation of Nazism.”

354.1—is that the article on rehabilitation of Nazism?

Alexei Volkov, please look into that.

You have someone here who is being prosecuted under that

article. Well, listen, these kinds of articles—

all the articles adopted at the initiative of

Irina Yarovaya (Russian politician)—they are all harmful and need

to be repealed. We have a project called the rehabilitation

of law, and

we can see that these articles really need

to be removed. They don’t work, and nobody

needs them.

We already have articles in the law that

regulate all this fascist symbolism.

What Yarovaya came up with is, of course,

complete nonsense. But the issue isn’t even

the stupidity of the law—it’s how it is enforced.

What is happening in Volgograd is

an obvious fabrication of a criminal case.

These criminal cases over likes—people

post documentary films,

war newsreels, someone likes them, and

criminal cases are opened against them

because, supposedly, in the documentary

there was a swastika, so that counts as Nazi

propaganda. That is, of course, absolute nonsense.

And the people who initiate these criminal

cases should themselves be the subject

of investigation. The main thing here is

the enforcement practice.

Law enforcement agencies must

stop engaging in this nonsense, that’s

all.

Biysk. Anatoly—hello.

Semyon, Biysk. My question is this: we all know that

in many regions

the environmental situation is extremely bad. What will you

do when you become president?

After all, you can’t just, for example, immediately switch everything to

electric vehicles all at once,

or shut down harmful factories that are the cause

of poor environmental conditions.

You can’t change everything in a single moment, but

we do have

the well-studied, decades-long experience of European

countries. There were rivers in Germany—like the Rhine—

that were effectively dead rivers.

Many rivers in Germany were essentially

completely dead, but now you can drink the water from them,

and fish live there—you can catch those fish and

fry them for dinner. So we will

move along the same path they followed.

European countries—we can't just, tomorrow,

ban all internal combustion

engines.

But Europe is already introducing restrictions,

rules setting dates in the 2020s after which

after that date

it will no longer be possible to use internal combustion

engines—only

electric cars. We will follow that

path.

There is no need to reinvent anything. European

countries, the United States,

Australia, New Zealand—they have made

a tremendous breakthrough in environmental policy over

the past 15–20 years. In other words, all of this

has been very well studied. We will do

what they did, and success will await us

just as it did for them. Novosibirsk.

Then Saransk, Arkhangelsk.

Sergei Boyko, Novosibirsk. After—what are you

doing here? The choice is obvious, of course.

You.

And nevertheless, first of all,

thank you very much for the event. It is clear

that the most interesting part is still ahead, but

the thoughtful, serious approach to organizing it

is already evident, including from our volunteers.

An equally serious question: as you

probably remember, we have only one

city in Russia where an opposition

presidential candidate was able to

speak in the central square

properly, fully, at a rally

in 2017—in

Chelyabinsk. Also, very importantly,

here they allow campaign pickets in the city center; here

no one is detained, arrested, or

charged with any criminal offenses

against people who, in a sense,

went too far in elections at Moscow's command—this

is important, and we understand that. So I

will continue after all: even if we are talking

about private property rights, it is not

just some insanely rich tycoons

—even law enforcement officers there, colonels in

uniform, spend the day hesitating in front of

the door, because private property

means they do not dare enter against the owner's will.

In that connection, a question: well, we can already

see clearly that Novosibirsk is

significantly, significantly more democratic

than Moscow, where everything is banned. So when

we win in 2018, shouldn't we

move the capital closer to the geographic center of Russia?

Move the capital closer?

And if the most democratic place turns out to be

the Far East,

Vladivostok, for example? Of course, the regions

are very different. It is not just that

it catches the eye—you can really feel it in

some regions that only yesterday were

fairly

normal, more or less democratic,

and now new governors are simply putting on some kind of show.

In some places—Novosibirsk,

Yekaterinburg—they are somehow holding on.

Everything varies greatly. But I understand that

this may not be a very popular

point of view: I do not think we should

move the capital.

It would take an enormous amount of money. We would have to

basically take money away from everyone, from

all the regions, in order to drag

the capital somewhere far away. I believe—I

wrote about this many years

ago, and this is a considered position of mine,

which can be verified—I believe that

the administrative center, the capital, should

be moved out of the Kremlin, and we

really do need a new capital:

a small, compact, modern city.

But it should not be far away; perhaps it

should be somewhere between St. Petersburg and

Moscow.

There was a famous general plan from the 1930s

that even won awards for

the construction of such a new city,

located somewhere around Bologoye

(a town between Moscow and St. Petersburg), stretching out quickly like a comet

in the direction of Moscow.

That is, the authorities should not sit in the Kremlin.

The Kremlin is a medieval fortress, and

tourists should be walking there. In principle,

government bodies should not occupy the entire

business center.

We should build a small city

with new technologies somewhere outside

Moscow, and give the whole center back to business, to people,

and to development in general.

What exists now—this madness

with traffic jams, this monstrous city

that has pulled in 10 percent

of the country's population, even more—

is absolute nonsense. But moving it

that far away

—with all due respect, here in the European

part there are 110 million people, and there 40 million, while

the Far East has only about 10

million. If right now we are forcing

millions of people, hundreds of thousands of

officials from Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg,

and Chelyabinsk to fly to Moscow every week,

then by moving the capital there we would force

tens of millions of officials already, every

day, to fly to Novosibirsk.

That might be good for Novosibirsk,

but overall it would not be so good for the country.

So a new, compact

administrative center—yes;

huge, enormous spending on relocating the

capital—I do not think that is necessary. And now, Saransk.

Saransk.

Hello, Alexei, my name is Eldar, I am

the coordinator of the campaign headquarters in Saransk,

and I have a question concerning

mentality. In Mordovia (a republic in Russia), many

people know that practically 99 percent

of the vote there goes to Mr. Putin, to the authorities.

Putin, and what’s frightening is that we...

conducted a survey like that.

It was a small one, and indeed both the older

generation and the younger one really, apart from

Putin and United Russia, can’t imagine anyone else.

And yes, as a campaign headquarters there,

we’ll certainly get votes,

definitely enough for the task

that has been set, of course, let’s say, probably.

We hope so. But what will happen to

these people when the government changes?

They sincerely believed in it. So will we

have to engage in some kind of propaganda,

have to do something to change this mentality,

this view of

the government? Will we work with the media and

make arrangements to air some of our

investigations on the federal TV channels? And

I also have an additional question.

There really is one, Olechka, that

came up—as far as I know, about secret voting

on

I just—no, that’s not what I meant. I even know the system, how

they count all of this and falsify it, yes.

And so this question came up: will we in the

future move to a system of,

say, online voting, digital

voting—will we work somehow in that direction?

First: well, I don’t believe in

mentality. I mean, of course, in some

things it shows itself—national

cuisine or something else—but this whole idea

that we have some kind of mentality that somehow

gets in the way—

well, that’s not true. You say people believe

Putin and the government, but yesterday they believed

the Soviet government and believed that

communism would arrive by the year 2000 and that

every citizen would have an apartment.

They voted at party meetings and

donated money to the Peace Fund (a Soviet public fund), and so on.

They believed all of that. Then they believed Yeltsin,

they believed Putin, they believed Merkushkin,

and now the new governor will also get

99 percent too. The point is that

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the ones responsible for all change are precisely

that one percent of the active population.

Not an elite in the sense of people in

expensive cars, or the richest people, or those

living in the center within the Boulevard Ring (central Moscow),

but an elite in the sense that, well, those of you who

are active—you are part of that one percent

of the active population, and it is that group that makes all

the changes. It’s just that right now the Putin-era elite

is literally turning people into slaves,

it is destroying them, it does not let them think.

But they haven’t seen anything else for 18 years,

they keep hearing the same thing over and over. So in the new

beautiful Russia of the future, we won’t need

any special programs with a “25th frame”

that teaches people freedom; we just need

to leave them alone. Don’t interfere with them.

Make sure there are real elections

in Mordovia, in all cities, in Saransk,

that there is real political competition,

that

the punishment for election

fraud is not just

strict, but stricter than for serious criminal

offenses. Then it will gradually begin

to work. We’ve seen this many times in all

countries—it works, and in Russia it

will work too. But I just want to say that

again, within these discussions about

mentality, we are told that it will be so

difficult in the national republics

to make it work. They said this about Buryatia,

they said it, naturally, about Tatarstan,

they said it about Bashkortostan. I don’t notice that in

the national republics it is somehow especially

hard for us. I mean, yes, you can

say that in rural areas the signal there already

gets through differently, the means of communication

Of course, Mordovia is one of the most

difficult regions, because there, well, there

everything is simply squeezed tight, hemmed in.

It was the only place where the police

checked my documents even when I entered

the hotel. They handed out all the keys

and said that at night it was forbidden

to leave the hotel.

So yes, of course, that is a local peculiarity, but

it is not a peculiarity connected with mentality, but with

specific crooks, excuse me, with

thugs.

who tormented these people for years

and set up the police, the mass media,

and everything else in such a way that this whole

society will function normally

once we simply stop tyrannizing

people. And the second question was about

digital voting. Well yes, you know,

I’m a big fan and supporter of this idea.

Volkov wrote in his book about electronic

democracy. I even remember that once we went

with Leonid and Vladimir

to Estonia, where they explained in quite

a lot of detail how

electronic voting works. It is one of the

few countries where you can vote

over the internet, and I truly believe

that this is, so to speak, advanced—the leading

edge. We need to introduce this in Russia, and

it is fairly inexpensive and would greatly

improve the quality of public

administration. As agreed in the schedule,

it is now exactly 5:30 p.m. The microphone goes to Dmitry from

Arkhangelsk for the final question.

After that, a coffee break and informal conversation.

Hello, Alexei, I’ve already been introduced.

Well, in general, I often come across the opinion

that people come up and say

something along the lines of:

“There goes your Navalny again, nothing but

promises.”

“He only wants power. He’ll promise

money, money, money—and then he’ll come in and...”

it will be the same Putin, or even Yeltsin

and nothing will change, and people firmly

believe that every politician

is only striving for power, and nothing more

and only cares about himself, not about anyone else

I partly agree, but only with the

part that anyone can make promises, that is,

saying something and making promises is one thing, but

keeping promises is another, and right now in our country

what happens is that the promises

politicians make are not regulated in any way

by law; legally, the failure to fulfill these

promises is not regulated, so we have

a question from our entire campaign office

in Arkhangelsk: are you ready to sign

some kind of document

a legal one, that would

provide for a certain

degree of responsibility for failing to keep promises

both yours and those of other politicians

deputies, people in politics? Well, look,

this is what I talked about at the opening of

every campaign office: this is the main problem

of our election campaign in general

and of any independent one,

because people do not believe politicians, and well,

why would they? They have never seen

normal politicians; they have always been

deceived in elections, everything has always

been rigged, always, sort of

like Mirovaya, whom I already mentioned here, right?

Good Lord, I remember at our party meetings

in Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party), how she stood at the podium shouting

about how much she loved democracy, how much she hated

Putin, and now what has she simply

turned into? Of course people

looking at that say that all politicians

will deceive us, so here there is one

main argument that we should

make: well, let’s look specifically at

Navalny—his activities over the last

years are fairly easy to trace

he said that his Anti-Corruption Foundation

would be financed only

by donations, and that it would be the most

transparent campaign—and he has followed through on that

for many years we have published reports, and

we are financed only

by the money of specific individuals. He said

he would conduct investigations, and he

does them

every political statement can be

traced there in the blog, in the mass

media, since the early

2000s

I stand by every word. In some places

I may have said some harsh things

sometimes I said some foolish things, but I

say so openly and admit when they were foolish

but on every

substantive political statement, I

have not changed my position a single time

even at moments when it was quite

an unpopular thing. So specifically

for me, for our team, there is one

way to persuade people: we need to say, let’s

look, guys, he wasn’t born yesterday

you can trace at least ten years of his

political activity, and

we will see that this activity

is unquestionably connected with keeping

promises, and it is a consistent

political position throughout. And the

bills that we introduce, they

will address the failure to fulfill

promises. I simply think that a law under which

I don’t know, you would put a politician in

prison for failing to keep promises—that

is utopian, it is simply impossible to do

then there will be promises, but they will be

very vague, and there must be

accountability

of another kind, and it works in all

countries: when a person does not keep

a promise

what happens to him? He is not reelected, he

simply loses the election. If he is a bad

politician, said one thing and then does

another, he simply will never again be

elected to anything. That is the main

form of accountability that should exist, and

it will work in the Russia of the future

when we free up elections and the Kremlin does not

impose candidates, and there are

free media that will call out

that candidate for failing to keep

campaign promises. That is the only way. And

that’s it

let’s move on, strictly according to the plan that

you have—I remind you—on the back of your badge

we have a coffee break, and don’t

be late. If the guys want to say more about

the townspeople—thank you very much, Leonid. Very

briefly: just once again, how many people are here?

About 80 people. We are the tip of the pyramid, which

includes hundreds of thousands of people, and in

the active stage of the campaign there will be far

more people. Guys, let’s not think of ourselves as

dissidents. It is very important not to think

that we are some small, marginal group, that we

have locked ourselves in the office—look, Putin’s

grandmas will break down our doors and run in here

as if we are living on a besieged ship

everyone everywhere has this mentality, and we are like that, and

people do not accept us, voters do not understand us

something is wrong. That is not true, that

factually does not correspond

to reality. There is no structure

larger than ours; there simply is none

You are running

an organization that is bigger than any

other—bigger than the Communists, who

have sat in the Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) for years and receive hundreds

of millions of rubles from the budget—bigger than

the LDPR, bigger than United Russia in

practice. And this organization is qualitatively

better, because the people in it are ready

to work for free. All we have to do

to do

to learn how to manage it properly, and we

will defeat everyone, because all the others, by

comparison with us, are just little ones, while we are huge

and wonderful. Thank you very much for

listening to me at night. We’re not saying goodbye; we’ll

stay in touch

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