Alexei Navalny on air on Yekaterinburg’s Channel 4

Good evening. Today in the studio is Alexei

Navalny, a lawyer, blogger, and the creator

of the RosPil project, a legend of, you could say,

the Runet (the Russian-language internet). Good evening, Alexei.

>> What is RosPil for those who aren’t on

the internet and don’t know what it is?

>> The biggest buyer of everything in our

country is the state. The state

buys everything, from fuel oil

to watermelons, elephants for zoos, and

so on. In theory—and in practice, too—

the state is supposed to

do all of this through the public procurement

system. And we all know perfectly well how

public procurement works here,

right? If the country’s president says that

officially—or unofficially, rather—we

understand the figure to be 1 trillion rubles a year

stolen through public procurement. So,

RosPil is a civic initiative to monitor

public procurement. In other words, we

monitor these procurements and identify

tenders that, in our view, involve

violations, and pass them on to experts. If

it’s a tender to buy elephants, then the experts

will be people who work with elephants;

they’ll analyze whether the elephants are

>> the average price of elephants in Russia, right,

>> Exactly—whether, under the guise of an

African elephant, they’re actually supplying

an Indian elephant, which costs less.

So in this case, they’d steal 1 million

rubles. Then another group—lawyers,

whom we actually hire and pay—

write a complaint, go to the prosecutor’s office,

and try to hold accountable the person who

is profiting off elephants.

What case has struck you personally, perhaps, when

something like this was bought, or bought for

that kind of money?

>> The best-known examples are things like

tomography scanners, which across the country

are purchased at prices of $4 million even though

they actually cost $1–2 million. And that’s

something that has again been stated at the

federal level. We also have quite a lot

of cases where we examine

the procurement of websites. Right now, every

government organization seems to be getting

very expensive ones.

>> They’re suspiciously expensive.

You see, we have thousands of people who

are ready to build these fairly simple websites

for government agencies for no more than

200,000 rubles. But if we

look at the prices the state is paying,

it’s at least 5 million rubles,

6 million, up to 15 million rubles. And we

try to expose the people behind this. Sometimes

it works. So now you’ve basically got

some kind of organization, then. The RosPil site—

you’re raising money, and you’ve collected 3

million rubles, which was the minimum threshold you

said you needed for all this

to get up and running, to hire lawyers. So

what happens now?

>> Exactly. Well, it’s more of a movement,

really—more informal than anything else. There’s a website where

volunteers simply register, and there are already

about 2,000 of them. There are also

subject-matter experts signing up.

>> They do the monitoring. There are experts who

understand tomography scanners, elephants, or

fuel oil. There are about 300 of them. And there are

lawyers. But lawyers have to work

full-time, and they need to be paid

for it, because it’s routine,

ongoing work. Those lawyers are exactly what

we’re raising money for. And right now the fundraising

has been going on for 6 days. And we’ve raised 3

million rubles, with a total of 7,000 transactions.

That’s a lot. And the most important thing is those 7,000

transactions. That means thousands of people are ready

to give their own money simply

to fight corruption. Because

corruption has become so unbearable for everyone

that, on top of already paying for

the police, the FSB (Russia’s security service), and the prosecutor’s office, we’re

ready to give money directly

to volunteers so that volunteers can fight

it.

>> And what made you decide to fight

corruption?

>> For me, the real question is:

why didn’t you decide to do it? Or

someone else? I live in a country that is

one of the richest in the world. We

receive enormous amounts of money

from selling oil, but in practice I

see poverty. Every day I see poverty,

poor people, and very rich officials

who fly around in private

jets and live wonderfully comfortable

lives, with mansions in Spain and so

on. I can’t just look at that. I understand

that I’m among those being robbed

by this too. These guys rob me

every day. So, if you like,

I’m fighting to make sure they don’t steal

my money.

>> How much time does working on

this website take for you?

>> We’ve only just launched the project. Right now

these days it’s taking all my time, but

I think I’ll

>> So that means you’re basically a

full-time professional

anti-corruption campaigner.

>> At the moment,

>> is this a hobby, or what?

>> This is my main occupation. Right now I’m devoting

100% of my time to it. I plan

to devote 70% of my time to it, because

as a lawyer I need to spend 30% of my time

on my regular work,

seeing clients, well, in order to

support myself, my family, and maintain my

office, and so on. Naturally, when

when someone pulls something like this,

questions come up: "So what’s really underneath it all?

What’s the hidden agenda? Besides the fact that, yes,

maybe whoever commissioned it is sharing

some kickbacks with you, or something like that?"

>> We have a very long tradition of

conspiratorial thinking. People don’t

believe that anyone can do anything

for free. That’s exactly why the

RosPil project is absolutely transparent. That is,

everything is visible here: who contributed money, where

the money went, which tenders we’re

working on. And again, we can’t choose what

to work on and what not to work on,

because the monitoring group itself—

if, theoretically speaking, I were

some cunning villain who wanted to

take a bribe from the official who

buys elephants at outrageously inflated prices.

>> Right, exactly. I’m Navalny from

RosPil. So, are we going to post this document

online now or not?

That’s precisely why I don’t control

the process; hundreds and thousands of

people are involved, and in many ways the system will

operate independently of me. It was designed

so that if tomorrow,

say, something happened to me

or someone else took my place,

the system would not depend on a single

person. It will keep working on its

own; it will keep identifying these tenders.

>> It’s basically some kind of WikiLeaks.

>> WikiLeaks is a great project. But WikiLeaks

was engaged in searching for secret

information from governments, banks, and so

on, and publishing it. We use

completely open information,

procurement data. Any of your viewers right now

can go online and

look at all these procurements.

if they wanted to, and

>> and by law, all of this is posted online

>> in our country.

>> and with a high degree of probability, they

would fairly quickly find

corruption there—you just have to make the effort and

file a complaint.

>> The criminal case against you that had been buried

has now been revived again, literally today—

do you think this is an attempt to pressure you?

>> It’s not quite a criminal case yet. After

I launched one of the

anti-corruption initiatives, the Ministry of

Internal Affairs said, "We are investigating

his suspicious activities." They are

conducting some endless

pre-investigation inquiry. And the grounds for it

are what they call "causing damage without

evidence of theft." In other words, they’re not even

accusing me of stealing anything.

But it is in fact completely

obvious that this is a politically motivated case,

initiated by large

state corporations that I am also

investigating. Transneft

>> Transneft, VTB—I connect it precisely with that.

The case was closed, and now it has been

taken to a higher level and reopened

again. And I think this is an endless

process whose purpose, of course, is simply

to obstruct my work, but

it won’t succeed.

>> It won’t? It won’t work with this case?

What could be used against you

to obstruct your

activity, to make you say, "That’s it, I’m

out, I’m shutting RosPil down"? I mean,

if tomorrow they were, I don’t know,

cutting off my legs and pulling out my nails,

it would obviously be rather difficult for me

to continue my fight online and

offline in every form. But I don’t

see anything they can

do, whether within legal bounds or

outside them, that would stop

me. And most importantly, I understand that I am

just an ordinary person. They’ll say to you,

people will come and say, "Do you want to be a second

Khodorkovsky (Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian oligarch jailed after falling out with the Kremlin)? You will be.

You’ll be very, very famous. You’ll be

giving interviews to journalists only from behind

bars."

>> They’ve launched this case. So what? I don’t care.

There have to be people who will keep pursuing

investigations. There have to be people who

will tell the truth. You have to understand

that the system, of course,

can crush anyone. Are you, for example, ready to go

to prison and still not give up fighting

corruption?

>> I’m interested in how far you’ll go—where is

your limit?

>> I’m a rational person. I’m not going to

show off here and say, "I’m ready to go to

prison and I want to be there." But it won’t

stop me. If they start doing this,

it won’t stop my fight. If they

do it—if they try

to fabricate a case and put me in

prison—well, then that’s my fate.

>> If you go to prison, you won’t give this up

or leave the country?

>> Without any doubt. Otherwise

I wouldn’t be doing this, because

I understand what kind of country I live in. I

understand that the people who steal

billions of dollars

>> All right then, tell us, as something of an expert on

corruption by now—is this a national

>> Uh, there are no cultural

roots to it. It is absolutely surmountable. That

is, we really do now have

such a deep-rooted tradition: if you’re

a government official, then you’re supposed to

steal. But there are examples of countries, even in

the near abroad (former Soviet neighboring states)—Georgia is the most overused

example—and Hong Kong, for instance, and many others.

Other countries show that, despite

the fact that it may seem as though everyone is mired in

corruption, absolutely everyone, there

the level of corruption in the state apparatus in

Hong Kong in the 1970s was 97%.

If there is political will, everything can

be changed in three years. Corruption cannot

be eradicated completely. But it is possible to make things

so that we live in a normal country,

because normal people live in

Europe, and our former compatriots in

the Baltics, and there is no such corruption there.

So I absolutely do not believe that

Russians are somehow so bad,

so hopeless, that they will never overcome

their corruption.

>> A question for you from my blog, well,

quite logically. And the first one, I think,

was whether you are planning

to run for president; let me broaden it. Are you not

planning in some way

to use your popularity and influence

in the blogosphere to move into

real politics?

>> And what counts as real politics? These

pocket parties—I do not believe that

what we currently call elections,

some strange kind of circus under

the supervision of the Sberkom center, is

politics. Fighting corruption is.

Corruption is the most important political

issue on the agenda. When we fight

it, we are truly engaging in

politics. But those clowns who have been

driven into these confines, and who sit there

obediently voting, that is precisely

not politics at all. Therefore

>> There are other clones who have not yet been

forced into those confines. For example,

PARNAS, which you know about—suppose they

offer you, Alexei, a place on their list,

in the top three for

>> I do not see any prospects right now

connected with formally operating

parties, because they have to

operate according to rules that have been

set for them.

>> So whoever invites you, you will not

go?

>> I will not.

>> You will not. Is something like Tunisia or Egypt possible here?

similar.

>> Absolutely. I mean, in December

in Tunisia, even the boldest opposition figures

did not think everything would collapse like that. And

the regime was far more brutal.

Censorship on the internet, censorship in the mass

media, and so on. And

compared with neighboring countries, Tunisia lived

quite well, so it seemed to everyone

that it would last forever, just as it now seems

to many figures in United Russia that

they are there forever. But that is not so. And all of this

can collapse at any moment. And we understand

that it must collapse, because what

has been built now is a thieving

corrupt regime. We understand that it is

wrong, and we all understand that

sooner or later it will come to an end, and we

will do everything to make sure it

ends.

>> How do you make your money, given that you are

a shareholder in several not exactly

cheap companies? Bloggers ask

bloggers.

>> As I said, I am a lawyer, and in order

to become a shareholder in a company, you,

for example, a VTB share costs 10 kopecks. You

pay 10 kopecks and become a shareholder

in VTB Bank. Gazprom shares also cost

a few rubles. In order to become

a formal shareholder and gain the right

to file complaints against them, write about them, and so on,

you need to spend, quite literally,

a couple of thousand rubles.

>> Have you ever been offered a share of the kickback you wrote about?

that you wrote about?

>> No, I have not. That is the whole point of my

work: that I destroy—though perhaps that is too strong a word—

perhaps that is too strong a word—I

oppose those people and try

to eliminate the phenomenon as a whole.

>> Do you believe that fighting

corrupt officials will help?

>> Absolutely. Otherwise I would not be doing this.

Let me repeat: we have seen recent examples

of when this works.

>> One last thing I want to ask you. Russia

in blogs and on the internet, and Russia outside blogs

and outside the internet—are they different countries?

>> I think that this division into

Russia on the internet and Russia off the internet is

no longer relevant. It is one and

the same thing. Of course, some people do not

have access, but our internet penetration is

high. Forty million people already

use the internet from time to time.

Twenty million use it regularly. Therefore

internet penetration is increasing.

Everyone has a mobile phone.

The capabilities of mobile phones

are growing, and soon we will be able to access the internet from any

phone. So

I think that within the next

so many people are online,

smart, decent people, writing such wonderful

posts, but when it comes to things like

elections, those same people are there online.

7,000 people sent me money

—small amounts, but in six days we raised 3 million

rubles. So when a person takes money out of

their pocket and gives it to someone, you cannot say

that these are just some dreamers from

the internet. These are people who act,

who donate their hard-earned money.

>> Thank you very much. Alexei Navalny was

with us today at the studio. Goodbye.