— Novaya Gazeta is wrongly and automatically lumped in with supporters of the opposition; our task is to find the truth. Are there any “uncomfortable” questions you would rather not answer? — Since I’ve held 74 meetings with voters, each lasting an hour and a half, and at most of them some representatives of the authorities showed up specifically to ask unpleasant questions, I think I’ve answered every uncomfortable question about ten times already. — Then let’s start with the criminal cases. Are they all fabricated, or do they have some basis? The Kirovles case, for example. Could you clarify Oficerov’s role? — I’ve known Oficerov forever. I met him back in the Yabloko party. — Could people reproach you, for example, by saying that Oficerov is to you what Timchenko is to Putin? A specially favored businessman? — You remember that whole Kirov story. Belykh’s task was to attract businesspeople. — Still, he was a businessman you knew personally? — You’re also a businessman I know personally; you also came to Kirov, and as you remember, Belykh asked me to work through your ideas too. We brought in all kinds of businesspeople. This was when Belykh had just been appointed and there was that period of romanticism: at last, we have a liberal governor, now he’ll create business-friendly conditions. A lot of people came, and Oficerov was one of them. From the start it was clear he wasn’t a very big businessman, so he didn’t get any special attention. He said he wanted to trade in timber. And since Kirovles was this enormous problem—the region’s biggest loss-making enterprise—he was told: go ahead and buy. I think the authorities made a major mistake when they allowed this criminal trial to be broadcast. Now there are video recordings of every court hearing, video recordings of every witness. And if you look at the testimony of all 35 prosecution witnesses, there are no questions left at all. It’s like the old joke: “the spoons were found, but the aftertaste remained.” But if you look at the case materials and the correspondence, read the transcripts of those audio recordings, even the aftertaste disappears. This is indirectly confirmed by Levada Center polling, which shows that yes, 23 percent of people think I really stole all the timber—but that’s after three years of nonstop propaganda on television. Most citizens across Russia are convinced the purpose of this trial was to “shut Navalny up.” — As I understand it, you honored the authorities with slogans like “the party of crooks and thieves” and “Putin is a thief.” In the first case, you presented a sufficient amount of evidence. But in the second? No evidence was ever presented that Putin personally took part in corruption. And the main argument is that he brought his own people into the Kremlin, just as you brought Oficerov with you to Kirov—people close to him from his earlier life—and they amassed enormous fortunes. Doesn’t that parallel with you and Oficerov fit at all? — It doesn’t fit at all precisely because it doesn’t fit at all. When we look at all these personal friends of Putin’s, at the Ozero dacha cooperative (a group of Putin associates from the 1990s), we see that these people, who built up a successful layer around Gazprom, are now building roads under the Moscow city government. The Rotenbergs and Timchenko are building the Moscow metro at double the real price and making billions from it. We know the Rotenbergs supplied large-diameter pipes to Gazprom, and Gazprom didn’t buy those pipes directly from the manufacturer—it bought them from the Rotenbergs, who became billionaires off that. That is evidence of corruption organized by Putin. This “business” exists outside any market logic and outside common sense altogether. Putin’s friend Timchenko: it’s an objective fact that he sold most of Rosneft’s oil and enriched himself through it. Was Timchenko actually needed from the standpoint of oil companies? No. Just as he isn’t needed by Moscow now as a metro builder. There’s your evidence. Not to mention the old St. Petersburg stories about the sale of precious metals and so on. As for Oficerov, it’s clear that he bought 2 percent of Kirovles’s sales volume, and at prices no lower than anyone else’s. That is exactly why the investigators, and later the court, refused to conduct an economic expert review. — As I understand it, the second criminal case under investigation is the one involving Russian Post. — It’s called the “Russian Post case” only because my brother worked at Russian Post. In reality, Russian Post wasn’t involved at all, and it even stated that it had nothing to do with it. The only company left is Yves Rocher, which may or may not have filed a complaint—at this point no one even understands that—or may or may not have recognized damages. Everyone was perfectly satisfied with the contract my brother handled for three years. Then, after the FSB visited Yves Rocher, the company filed a statement saying it had supposedly been pressured into the contract. (According to our information, Yves Rocher’s representative in Russia refused to file a statement claiming damages to the company. — Ed.) — The third case? — The third is the SPS case, and it exists purely in a media, PR sense. In other words, in the form of Markin saying things on television. — You mean the investigative bodies aren’t actually doing anything there? — I was questioned once as a witness. I know that a huge number of SPS people were questioned as witnesses. We don’t even know who the injured party is supposed to be. — So it’s a PR-media case? — Yes, just like the distillery case. In the distillery case, I don’t think I was even questioned once, because it’s completely obvious that the distillery was sold a year after I left Kirov Region. And my recorded position a year before that was that I opposed its sale. So all of this exists only so they can say something on television… — What else… the Kobyakovo wickerwork factory. — Since they’re dragging my brother and my parents into it, they’re saying our whole family is a criminal organization: I organized everything, my brother also stole things, and my parents laundered it all through that wickerwork factory—which anyone can go to, walk into, and see that it is in fact a wickerwork factory. — How are your relatives reacting? — They support me in what I do and understand how things work now. But of course it’s been a huge blow to my parents, because they built that factory. It really is a small enterprise employing about a dozen people, and it has effectively been smashed. Computers were seized, there were several searches, things were taken away, documents confiscated. If you can even call my parents’ factory a business, it’s a very particular kind of business: it’s based entirely on a few people preserving a craft, people who know how to weave with willow. Mostly elderly people now. And I know my mother and father were looking for younger people to pass the skill on to, because if the person who knows how to weave a rocking chair leaves or dies, no one will be able to make one anymore, and we’ll have to keep buying them from Indonesia. My parents’ factory is practically the only enterprise of its kind left in Russia. If you see a wicker chair on a theater stage or in a film, chances are it was made at that factory. And it all survived for so long even though, by and large, it never brought in much money, because it was more of a passion project than a way to feed a family. And then some incomprehensible people came in and simply destroyed and wrecked everything. That’s hard for anyone, of course. — What was the highest annual revenue it ever had? — The factory’s? — Yes, the factory’s. — When things were going well, it was about 25 million rubles a year. After all these criminal cases began, revenue fell to 5 million. Now, after the destruction, it’s 1.4 million for the first half of the year. This really is a small business. Literally a former village club building that was renovated, with a total area of about 500 square meters… — Was it a private sole proprietorship? — No, it’s an LLC. — So you weren’t even looking for tax breaks? — As a folk crafts enterprise, it has, I think, a VAT benefit—they pay 10 percent VAT. But that required a whole registration procedure. The Kobyakovo factory always took part in all the official exhibitions; everyone would say, look, here in Moscow Region, in Odintsovo District, we have a folk crafts enterprise—look at the baskets and all these things it weaves. And when this circus started… Before, my parents were being persuaded: please take part in our official exhibitions, we have nothing else to display, folk crafts are gone. And then suddenly everyone started hiding and distancing themselves. — Have I listed all the criminal cases? — There’s the Bolotnaya case (the prosecution over the 2012 protest on Bolotnaya Square), but I’m only a witness in that one. — Is anything actually happening there? What’s your sense of the other cases? — I only see real activity in the Yves Rocher case. There’s no activity left in Kirovles. In the others, I know some 20-person groups were formed; in the SPS case, some FSB officers were questioning everyone for a while; in the distillery case, several people were even arrested. But no one is bothering me… — What could they even allege in the SPS case (this refers to the placement of party advertising. — Ed.)? — It’s an astonishing story, because in the SPS case there were just two or three very simple transactions: money came into the account of a company that kept a 5 percent commission and distributed the funds to regional contractors whom I had never even seen in my life. The contractors sent photo reports showing the placement of 3x6 meter billboards. The local party branch checked all of it. How can they say someone stole all that money when every kopeck is traceable and SPS itself repeatedly stated there were no violations? It’s purely a PR story so they can make a statement on television. Who gave the order to “set him free” — How do you think all these investigations will develop from here? — It all depends on the political situation. They had this idea that they would jail me in the Kirovles case. In fact, they let me out. — Who do you think personally had to intervene for that to happen? — Putin, of course. — Personally? — Naturally… He himself built a system in which all the most important political decisions are made personally by him. So he makes them. That’s why they move so slowly, awkwardly, and stupidly—because a huge number of people are standing in line… — But this time it happened phenomenally fast. — Remember the unrest on Manezhnaya Square? The next day Putin went to the grave of the dead football fan. They react quickly to things like that. When people pour into the streets, everything else stops and they start dealing manually with the hottest issue. That’s what happened in Pikalyovo, when he went there himself. That’s what happened in Kondopoga, when the proverbial roasted rooster pecked them—they all started dealing only with that. That’s how they’re built. — What were your personal impressions of that night in jail? — Nothing especially remarkable. People are people everywhere—generally fairly sympathetic, because they understand what’s happening. And they’re more afraid for their own future. They want to protect themselves, follow all instructions. And what happened afterward proved that view correct. Who’s the fall guy in all this now? Judge Blinov, who was first told: give him five years, and the next day: oh, we know nothing, you did everything wrong, let’s redo it. So the people in the detention facility were the same: we understand everything, of course, let’s just do everything by the book, quickly escort you to your cell so no one has any problems or headaches. — Were you frightened when they took you into custody in the courtroom? — I was prepared for it. It was unpleasant enough, but I had absolutely no doubts… — Still, until the last moment you hope maybe you’ll get lucky? — Of course. Especially since most people thought I’d get a suspended sentence. I remember when we were on the train, everyone was saying: come on, it’ll be suspended. But I knew for certain that a cell had been prepared for me in Kirov. It’s a small city—you can’t hide the fact that a special Federal Penitentiary Service unit had been brought into the remand prison. So I knew for sure. Though of course I didn’t expect it would be five years. But that whole first day gets “eaten up” by everyday practicalities. They search you, dump out all the food you brought, you pour everything into little bags. Then they bring you to the cell and you sort those little bags again. Daily routine takes over, and there’s no time to reflect. — And how did your children react? — We warned our daughter that something like this could happen. Our son is five, so no one really discussed it with him. — There’s a theory that a suspended sentence is being discussed now, and then they’ll intensify work and bring the other cases to court. — Those are obvious things. They always act so they have some backup option, a “Plan B.” In one case they can make it suspended, in another they can acquit, in a third they can imprison. That’s exactly why they opened several cases—obviously as an element of intimidation, especially where my brother and parents are concerned. What matters to Putin is simply to show: “If you think we won’t resort to lawlessness in response to your calls for unauthorized rallies, we will. And just so you don’t doubt it, here you go.” All these cases except Kirovles were opened within a single week. Every morning I’d wake up and see 30 missed calls—journalists calling me to ask about the latest statement from the Investigative Committee, about what I had supposedly stolen this time. — Do you have a preferred idea of yourself as a public figure? Traditionally there was that rather odd label—blogger. Meaning someone who writes blogs, though in my view it never really captured what you did, since your specialization in blogs was anti-corruption work. So who do you see yourself as now? — I never liked this “blogger” label either. What is a blogger? A person who writes and keeps a blog. — What would you prefer? — I’m a politician. My activity is obviously political. — Since when have you considered yourself a politician? — From the very beginning, I think. If you look even at my earliest interviews, when I started pursuing these cases against Gazprom, Rosneft, Transneft, and the rest, I said from the start that I wasn’t going to be hypocritical. These investigations are also a form of political struggle. — Would you agree that they’ve weakened somewhat over the last year and a half? The last thing I remember is Pekhtin, maybe some senators. — They simply moved onto a routine level a long time ago. Investigations started appearing more often, and people got used to them. Before, when I worked alone or with two other people, we would dig for six months and then release some bombshell. Now these investigations come out constantly, but no one treats them as sensations anymore, even though in substantive terms the progress—for example, what we did on Yakunin—was major work. We may have uncovered only a small part of that scheme, but we did uncover it, and we continue to dig into it successfully. — How would you estimate the total amount of money embezzled from the state sector over the last six or seven years? — It’s impossible to estimate. If, by general consensus, a trillion rubles a year is stolen just through public procurement… — The figure Medvedev mentioned? — The figure Medvedev mentioned, yes, and together with RosPil I believe that number is definitely not exaggerated. In the state-company sector, the level of corruption is much higher. If we look at the biggest construction projects, Gazprom’s or Rosneft’s investment programs—what goes on there is unbelievable. Recently Vedomosti published a terrific investigation into Gazprom bridges. They simply use steel supports instead of concrete ones and don’t even hide it. I think the sums stolen annually are measured in trillions; it’s just hard to say whether it’s three trillion or more. — We’ve gone through all the criminal cases. What’s the story with Montenegro? — The Montenegro story is very simple. In 2007 I had the idea of investing money. It was 2007, the development business was growing by 20 percent a year, Russia was already very expensive, and an acquaintance of mine said: let’s see what’s happening in Montenegro. I went there, spent two separate two-day trips looking at plots of land; we found nothing, everything was too expensive, and we left. At the time foreigners couldn’t buy land, so there really was an idea of registering a company, but since we didn’t find a suitable option, I left and haven’t been back to Montenegro since 2007—which I’m very glad about, because everything collapsed in 2008. If I had invested my money, I’d have been left with nothing. Now we’ve sent a lawyer there to figure out what this company actually is. Either some local amateur initiative, or they drew up some preliminary documents for registering a company. — So you admit that you were looking at land as an investment? — Why deny the truth? I never hid it. The most curious readers saw it in my hacked correspondence three years ago. I haven’t been to Montenegro since 2007, and now I’m surprised to learn there’s some company… And mysteriously it was registered in 2007, conducted no activity. It has neither a bank account nor tax registration. By that logic it should have been closed in 2008. Why it still exists is not very clear. We’ll find out. The situation is complicated by the fact that in August all their officials are on official vacation, and in general everything in Montenegro moves rather slowly. In any case, I have no assets there and nothing I could be hiding. (According to Novaya, the accounts of the company attributed to A. Navalny contain no funds; no activity is being conducted. — Ed.) — What other complaints exist about you in public opinion besides what we’ve discussed? — What is “public opinion”? On television they shout that I work for the Americans. Is that public opinion? No. — But state media shape the views of a certain part of the population, and quite a large one. And unfortunately that has to be acknowledged as public opinion, even if it’s wrong. — Fine. — I’ll speak now on behalf of the people who watch television. My mother, who used to watch Karaulov, says to me: “Why did you steal all that money?” I say: “Mom, I didn’t steal it.” — “They can’t lie on television.” Unfortunately, she has two university degrees, but she still says they can’t lie on television. — I can say that at my meetings, at least, those people who come through the district administrations regularly ask: you studied in the U.S., so that means you’re a traitor. That kind of thing. For me—and fortunately for most of the audience—that’s simply absurd, because I value education. I think people in Moscow, and Russian citizens generally, value education too. If someone managed to get into a decent educational institution abroad, that’s wonderful. — Prokhorov recently said your relations with the authorities are far too cozy, apparently hinting at the idea floating around—helped along by some deliberate encouragement—that you are a Kremlin project. — It sounds doubly comical when Prokhorov says it. What is there to say? He’s making that accusation against someone who was being sentenced to five years in prison just a month ago? — Fair enough. How do you assess him? — I see him as a person engaged in an interesting activity. His appearance on the political scene is positive in any case, because it complicates the political system. We can see that the Kremlin created him in the hope that he would be a useful lever for them. But now they’ve removed him from virtually all elections in almost every region. — Why do they need a lever? To siphon off a certain number of votes? — Of course. He was invented to absorb the votes of protest-minded urban residents in Moscow. So as a phenomenon, it’s all perfectly normal—let him work. If he were more politically independent, I’d be glad. — Besides you, are there any political figures in the country who should be recognized as opposition figures? — A huge number, of course. To be honest, I consider you a political figure. Though you’ll probably start waving your hands and denying it now… — I’m a columnist for Novaya Gazeta. — Fine. Is Novaya Gazeta a political actor? Yes. But Novaya Gazeta will never admit it and will say: we’re journalists here, all that is nonsense. Of course Novaya Gazeta is a political actor. — We represent a free space. — In our country, any representatives of free space are engaged in politics, because the state fights free space. — All right. What other media outlets should be counted, at least partly, as part of that space? — Without a doubt: The New Times, Forbes, Vedomosti, Lenta.ru, TV Rain, Slon. There are various websites too. — Kommersant? — No, of course not. — Kommersant FM radio? — There’s something to discuss there, but the trend is negative. — Echo of Moscow? — I consider Echo of Moscow a free media outlet. It’s under heavy pressure, but at least they try to maintain some kind of balance. You can criticize how they maintain that balance, but I appear on Echo of Moscow, and no one has ever asked me to say something or not say something. During this election, I was present on Echo of Moscow. It’s the outlet that gave me equal opportunities with the other candidates. — Do you remember when the city decided to give candidates extra signatures so they could pass the municipal filter? — Uh-huh. — I couldn’t believe my ears. How did you react to your opponents wanting to help you get through the municipal filter? — We reacted absolutely normally, because our strategy was to force them to do it. What had they assumed? That they would appoint their own opponents, then Navalny would show up, his whole campaign would consist of writing three LiveJournal posts, collecting signatures from 15 municipal deputies, and everyone would laugh at him. — And he wouldn’t go out and work the streets. — Exactly. But we launched an offline campaign at full speed from the very start. Right away we started setting up those campaign cubes, hundreds of volunteers got to work immediately, we started distributing leaflets, and we published our program right away. — Besides the cubes, do you have any advertising? — They banned it, despite the fact that contracts had already been signed. — Strange. They throw you extra votes, but won’t let you into outdoor advertising. — They’re not throwing me extra votes. We simply said and demonstrated that we are not an “internet structure,” and that there would be major difficulties if I were not registered. In the end, how many signatures did we collect? 84 or 83. I personally spoke by phone with 1,500 municipal deputies. Our headquarters worked around the clock. We mobilized thousands of people to pressure those deputies. So city hall saw that we had really formed a large headquarters that would turn into a boycott headquarters if they didn’t register me. Yes, Sobyanin would beat his handpicked candidates—but with turnout at 15 percent. That frightened them, so they took that step. They decided to register me, as well as the other candidates, but of course they did not expect that we would be able to run a major campaign and raise money for it. They think they control television, and they control finances. And without their television and without their money, no one can do anything. At most, you can shout a lot but remain stuck in some marginal 3 percent niche. — How do you answer the question: how many votes will you get? — I’ll get as many as I get. But for several weeks now, Sobyanin and I have had two opposite trends: mine is rising, his is falling. And 30 percent are undecided. Based on those trends, we see that a second round is practically inevitable. We’ll work toward a second round, and in the second round I will win, because everything will be completely different then. I will win. On the city budget — About the city. Obviously the budget is the main instrument. How well have you studied it, and what would you fundamentally change there? The revenue side, the spending side? — Naturally, I’m studying the budget very closely, and not just the main areas. Broadly speaking, the proportions between the main areas are chosen correctly; it’s just that within those areas, everything looks wrong. Look: we see a lot of money allocated to roads and transport. We’re told transport is a colossal problem, so let’s allocate a lot of money to transport. But what does most of that money go to? Giant construction projects. The very same Rotenbergs and Timchenko are the recipients of most of the transport money. Take any project. They’re building the Northwestern Chord for 70 billion rubles. Yes, absolutely everyone criticizes it, and the city is unable to defend itself against that criticism because there are no calculations. If two years ago a kilometer of the Moscow metro cost 6 billion rubles, now it costs 9 billion rubles, after Putin’s favorites Timchenko and Rotenberg started building it. So there’s no need to “shift” money between budget lines; we need to figure out what’s happening inside those lines. Sobyanin, for example, likes to say that in terms of the number of scanners per capita, we surpass any European city. But has cancer prevention improved? Has detection improved? Has recovery improved? Is it easy to get an MRI? Nothing of the sort. There’s no one to operate the equipment. We need to invest in human capital. In doctors’ qualifications. To the point of sending hundreds and thousands of them abroad to study, so that in five years they come back and can at least treat our children. The money exists. A 1.6 trillion-ruble budget, and in 2015 almost 2 trillion—a colossal budget, second only to New York and Shanghai. — The construction sector. I mean residential construction in the central districts of the city, business centers. As I understand it, over two years Sobyanin canceled permits for something like 1.5 million square meters. Yet they still built 2 or 2.5 million. Under Luzhkov, if memory serves, they reported 6 million. — They were building 5 million. — In general, are you in favor of building housing in the city center? — I’m in favor of having a proper urban planning concept. Right now it’s very simple: there is no real concept for the city’s development. New Moscow was added not long ago; before that, the plans were completely different. Then someone got it into their head—Medvedev or someone else—that there should be a New Moscow. They said: that’s it, we’re moving the federal bodies. Then they decided not to move the federal bodies. Then they decided: we’re moving city hall. A month later: no, we’re not. So are we moving anything or not? Who is calculating this? What is New Moscow for? Why did they pass a land seizure law under which the state can very easily take land from anyone in New Moscow? In other words, there is no concept for the city’s development that is properly understood by either citizens or business. — Have any businesspeople benefited from New Moscow being built? — Of course. First of all, the landowners in New Moscow. Well, they haven’t benefited yet, but if money starts being invested… For example, it’s been calculated that transport and infrastructure for New Moscow will require at least $82 billion. For whom? Only 250,000 people live there. And they don’t need it. I came to meet voters in Troitsk, and they said: excuse us, please leave us alone, your arrival has only made things worse for us. So what’s needed here is a concept. All urbanists said that if Moscow was to develop, it could develop toward Zelenograd. It could expand by absorbing those districts that are effectively already Moscow. Khimki is Moscow. Reutov is Moscow. Krasnogorsk is Moscow. In reality. So let’s expand into those cities. Instead, we’ve expanded all the way to Kaluga Region—and what exactly are we going to do there, in Kaluga Region? — Is some kind of unification of healthy opposition forces around you even being considered? — Naturally, I support any kind of unification. — But of all those possibilities, over the last year and a half there was only the Coordination Council. — The Coordination Council was an attempt to create an executive committee. But in practice, what emerged was a political organization with nothing to manage, because there was no executive structure beneath it. Organizationally, it failed to come together, unfortunately, for a number of reasons. Everyone is ready to issue statements about what is wrong or what should be done, but no one is ready to actually do anything. Maybe it sounds immodest, but it has to be stated that the only political structure ready for action, for real action, for organizational steps, is the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF)—that’s us, what our headquarters is doing now. Everyone else—they’re all very nice, pleasant, likable people, but they do nothing. — Don’t you feel isolated? — Of course not. There are huge numbers of people around me, and that’s an important feature of our campaign, something I genuinely enjoy about it: people have missed a real political process, a direct, primitive political process. When you raise money by appealing to citizens, and with that money you buy leaflets, and those same citizens who paid for the leaflets stand in the street and hand them out. Right now, I think the time has come for exactly that kind of politics—completely direct politics. All these negotiations, “let’s talk it over with Volodin,” none of that interests anyone anymore, it doesn’t work, it makes no sense for anyone. So the time has come, let’s say, for more sincere political strategies and practices. — You would probably agree that if Putin and Sobyanin had not agreed to allow elections—which the city had not had for ten years—there would be much less room for the self-realization of the people you’re talking about. — We need to remember that Putin and Sobyanin would never even have started discussing it if they had not felt pressure from outside. But what you said is important. That is exactly what makes the current election unique. The Kremlin adopted the strategy: let’s allow people onto the ballot after all. — And what happened to the Kremlin? — I can’t say what’s in Putin’s head; I don’t know what happened to him. These are people who make new decisions every day; they just keep their nose to the wind, they look at opinion polls, at what’s being written. They’re ordinary people, they don’t do a damn thing; they sit on Twitter and LiveJournal all day reading comments about themselves, googling their own names, seeing what’s been written about them. Officials, idlers, who simply got lucky enough to land in certain positions, that’s all. I don’t think they have any grand designs; every day they just decide for themselves what’s better and what’s worse. So they thought: let’s let Navalny run, let him get his 3 percent, and the famous internet bubble will burst. So they let me run. — Why did Putin impose restrictions on officials’ bank accounts and real estate? — Public demand, of course. Same thing—keeping his nose to the wind. — Since when has public demand mattered in the Kremlin? — The Kremlin always watches what public demand exists. They always react to it very vividly and nervously; they just try to turn it to their own advantage. When there was public demand for political reform, they announced political reform, which they later rewrote and rolled back. In fact, every time Putin or his team encounter direct resistance from society, they retreat. — So there is public demand for officials not to own real estate abroad? — Let’s say we helped shape that demand, in a certain sense. There were the Pekhtins and everyone else, a huge scandal began, enormous attention. And they decided to act preemptively, to say that they would introduce such restrictions. They even introduced restrictions on real estate, but then realized they had gone too far and would have to get rid of their own property—which was problematic. So they backtracked. As usual, Putin decided to be clever: taking advantage of this public demand, he once again put all his officials on the hook, because they were allowed to keep their real estate, but not their bank accounts. Obviously, anyone who owns real estate must have bank accounts. How else do you manage that property, how do you pay the utility bills? — Abroad, do you see any politicians raising the issue of all this dirty offshore money, in which, according to some serious organizations, Russian money accounts for about 5 percent? The total amount is estimated at $20 to $25 trillion, roughly half of global GDP. — Unfortunately, no. — Why does all that money get stuck there so easily, and why is it practically impossible to get it back? — I’ve devoted a lot of time to this, but I have to acknowledge that such a political agenda simply does not exist right now. European and American politicians are busy with their domestic agendas. In those domestic agendas, Russia occupies very little time or attention. Both the political establishment and the public there have this view of us as some wild country with wild tribal chiefs who openly rob their own people and carry billions off to the West. Well, if the people allow themselves to be robbed, why bother with them? It’s like, for us, the problem of Tajik officials bringing hundreds of millions of dollars here that they stole from Tajiks. That issue simply isn’t on our society’s agenda, unfortunately. — So if you were president, you would put that issue on the agenda of the G8 or G20? — Of course. In a sense, this hyper-corrupt Russian elite is useful to the West, because it is easier to control, easier to manipulate—everything is very straightforward there. The president and members of his government are absolutely corrupt. It’s known where each of them flies on private jets, whose jets they fly on, and which Swiss banks they go to in order to open accounts. — Are unifying efforts by the Russian opposition possible? Do you see any new faces, new figures? — We need, in general, to choose personnel mechanisms that are understandable both to citizens and to ourselves—a proper leadership system. It could be primaries, it could be something other than primaries, discussions, whatever—but at the very least it must be clear why certain people hold leadership positions. That is very important. We will get no support until citizens can influence all these processes. That’s the first point. Second: what we need is not so much renewal as transparency and a transition to, as I said, more primitive but more understandable ways of working. What we’re doing now in the campaign is going into courtyards and talking to pensioners. Roizman started doing this in Yekaterinburg. He goes into courtyards and campaigns. That is the best kind of politics, and in fact the most effective. In this system, there’s no need to negotiate, no need to bargain, no need to look for clever fundraising schemes. Money should be raised from citizens. You just have to show those citizens what their money was spent on. We are now on the threshold of realizing that we have millions of supporters. Not 3 percent, 5 percent, 7 percent—but millions. Don’t let turnout collapse — What turnout do you predict? Will your electorate get up from their chairs? — That is the most important task. — Too many Moscow residents were saying something like: yes, these are good people, we support them, but they won’t win anyway. — Of course, the main thing is to get those people to the polling stations. Because to win in the first round, you need 1.5 million votes. Those 1.5 million definitely exist in Moscow. How many Novaya Gazeta readers are there among Muscovites? 250,000. If they each worked for just two hours, they could bring 1.5 million people to the polls. Because all it takes is making ten calls, bringing five people with you—and that’s it, we win the election immediately. There are more of us in Moscow than there are people whose brains have been washed by television. And now, it seems to me, even pensioners are different already… I can see at meetings that television has less influence on them too. — Regardless of the result, will you continue all this work with an eye toward the Moscow City Duma? — Of course. From the very beginning we said this campaign starts with the mayoral election and continues into the Moscow City Duma campaign, because United Russia must lose the influence in Moscow that, by any reckoning, it should not have. Maybe 25 percent of the population here supports United Russia. And yet it holds 95 percent of the seats in the Moscow City Duma. — Your first three steps if you win? First: suspend Sobyanin’s order raising housing and utilities tariffs from August 1. It is completely unjustified, there are no calculations behind it, and it only leads to monopoly enrichment. Second: what we promised and what there is money for—138 billion rubles—is to double the Moscow pension supplement so that, by minimum social standards, the pension would be 16,000 rubles. And third: review the biggest contractor agreements concluded with violations, which have turned the Moscow budget into a piggy bank for all these federal swindlers who have descended on Moscow’s construction projects.
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