Alexei Navalny on the program “Topical Issues” on Finam FM

It is 9 p.m. in Moscow. Yury is at the microphone.

Yury Pronko. This is Dry Residue on Finam FM.

Today we were supposed to have a debate, or

rather a nice little tea gathering. With

three people? Yes, three. So, well,

certain changes have taken place. Uh—

the counterpart to my guest today, who

has arrived—I already told you about it on

Twitter, yes, he is here. Those watching

the live web broadcast can see him. Alexei

Navalny. Good evening.

>> Good evening. They probably thought

it was going to be an angry tea party.

>> An angry tea party, yes. So, the point is this.

Well, I wrote about it in

my blog. Uh, you could also see

Alexei Navalny's reaction there, but for those who

haven't read it, we'll hear it now,

that reaction, yes. United Russia's lawyers,

to my great regret,

effectively forbade a deputy of the

Russian State Duma, a member of

the party faction and the General Council of this

political force, from taking part today

in a debate with Alexei

Navalny, explaining it as a direct

ban. Yevgeny

Fyodorov wrote to me about this in a letter he sent,

citing, as it were, the election

campaign in the country. Unofficially,

from what we discussed on the phone,

the answer was as follows: of course,

the conversation would be about Putin.

And accordingly, I can't do it. This is outside

the current legal grounds, outside

the legal framework. When I suggested,

let me make an arrangement with Alexei so that

we don't mention that surname on air. Yes,

I was told: "No, well, how could we not

how could we not mention him?" Yes, that was

what Yevgeny Fyodorov told me. I regret it.

And let me say right away to everyone ready

to tear apart the United Russia deputy now:

he himself was ready to come. Alexei? Ah,

and, by the way, to speak specifically about

Putin with you, but it didn't work out. Now

a brief comment to wrap up this topic.

Alexei Navalny.

>> Ah, well, first of all, I would like to thank

Yevgeny Fyodorov very much. I have no doubt

that he had enough courage to come, and he

would have come this time too. As for

any legal explanations, that's

simply ridiculous, especially given that

today United Russia challenged the

League of Voters to some kind of debate. So

there's apparently no problem there. Evidently, these are

debates where the word "Putin" is forbidden

to be mentioned. So there is absolutely no

legal explanation. That is

perfectly obvious. And it is clear to me that

this fits within an election

strategy that consists in the fact that

all events must be

completely controlled. Notice

that Putin is holding

campaign rallies that are closed off; entry

is by passport, yes, at a factory, in a workshop,

and so on. We are rapidly moving toward

a system described in

wonderful Soviet political jokes about

the bosses coming to a factory.

Yes, there's one where a worker is eating a sandwich with black

caviar, and then admits that all night long he

was gouging the eyes out of sprats. That's

what completely controlled events look like,

completely controlled questions. People stand there

with stiff, frozen faces, holding

placards, and then some person

comes out and says, "We'll go for you

to Moscow and beat up the protesters." This is Alexei

Navalny, founder not only of

RosPil, but also RosVybory. This is what

we're going to talk about right now, because,

as it seems to me, this is a very important

and fundamental point. But let me remind you of

the ways to get in touch. So, uh,

there are a huge number of questions. I

will try today to minimize my own

presence on air and give you as much opportunity as possible

to speak with Alexei.

So, the finam.fm portal is carrying

a live web broadcast, and that is also the address for

your messages. And 65-10-996, Moscow area code 495,

is our multi-line phone number. For now,

please don't call yet, for now just write. Yes,

when, uh, the time comes for calls, I will

announce it separately. Alexei,

RosVybory. What is it?

>> RosVybory is a system in which we recruit people, so to speak.

We campaign so that they

become election observers. We register them,

and assign them

to the polling stations where, in our view,

fraud was committed.

The last election showed

a monstrous level of rigging, and in

the most unexpected places. By the way,

when Putin addresses

the working people of the Urals, he should

remember that, for example, in the city of

Yekaterinburg, where the working people of the

Urals are, United Russia got 25%, while in

the city of Moscow it got 56%. This shows that

in the city of Moscow, well, obviously, by about a factor of two

was roughly added to United

Russia. We will not allow this, or

we will try not to allow it on March 4.

To do this, at every polling station where

the results were anomalous—for example, at one

station it was 25%, and across the street 60%. At

all of these stations we will place two

or three observers each. Well, at the very

least, we will try. Yesterday we launched

this project. Today I can say,

I brought a bit of statistics, uh, around

4,600 people from 500 cities

have registered. The top five

cities are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yaroslavl,

Tula, and Yekaterinburg.

>> So that's in 24 hours, right, after

the launch?

>> Yes, in the 24 hours after launch. Overall,

we are satisfied. Our

technical benchmark, the target

we have set for ourselves, is

20,000 people: 10,000 in Moscow, where

there were, in absolute terms, yes, by

the number of voters and the number of

polling stations, significant falsifications, and

10,000 across the rest of the country.

Of course, we will try to focus on

cities where, again, there were

anomalies. Ufa, Saransk—yes, the only

city, if you do not count the cities of the Caucasus,

where United Russia got nearly

99%, which is obviously impossible when

in neighboring regions it was getting

25%. The same thing.

>> Are you planning to cover Saratov Region,

>> if people can be found. I mean, we cannot

do it otherwise—we do not have anyone there, and we are not

putting people on buses and shipping in protest-minded

results.

>> If in Saratov Region, I hope,

there is some group of people who

can cover some of the most

high-risk polling stations, we will gladly

help those people coordinate,

we will coordinate them. This project in no

way contradicts other projects.

We have Golos (an independent election-monitoring group), Citizen Observer,

and, naturally, there are party projects,

the Communists, A Just Russia. The Yabloko

project remains, although Yavlinsky has been removed from

the election. And here the issue is

to eliminate duplication, eliminate

any overlap in work, and distribute everything

properly. We will work

on this.

>> Alexei Navalny has a complicated relationship with him.

As I understand it, that is with Grigory

Yavlinsky. Nevertheless, his removal,

how do you see it? Well, this is,

you understand, in this system of rigging and

deception, simply an additional

insult. I have a normal attitude toward

Grigory Yavlinsky. Uh, I do have

some things we could

argue about, but for me it is absolutely

obvious that Grigory Yavlinsky has

the right to run for president, if only

because his party, two months ago,

received 2.5 million votes. But

what else does he have to prove? With that

vote count,

>> with that vote count, what else, and to whom, does

Yavlinsky have to prove anything? It is obvious that he

has the right to run.

>> Mm-hmm. Well then, I suggest we quickly

run through the most frequently

asked questions. Prokhorov.

>> Well, Prokhorov? Uh,

I am not going to speak against Prokhorov.

Whether he is controlled, whether he is a Kremlin man, and

so on—let Prokhorov prove everything

himself. And I welcome the appearance of some

new person on this political

stage, in this political game. Some

of his behavior, well, looks

quite questionable to me, but everything

depends on him. That is, he must

state completely directly, clearly, and unambiguously

his position on the main issues

of the political agenda—personally on

Putin, on the major corruption cases,

on all the Timchenkos and Rotenbergs, and so

on, on Magnitsky, on

Khodorkovsky, on court cases, on

abuse in the judicial system,

and law enforcement agencies. When he

forms his position, when he

says it directly in debates, in his

public appearances, then we will

judge him in real live broadcasts, of course.

And tell me, please,

still, once again, if I may generalize

the questions,

the majority of radio listeners

are asking what to do. That is, in the

previous election—I mean the

parliamentary one—here in this studio you

voiced

a specific

>> vote for any party except United Russia. And

>> what is the specific proposal now?

>> And here too I have a very clear

specific understanding of what needs to be done.

But let me say right away that, of course, the idea

of "Vote for anyone against Putin"

looks weaker and less

convincing than voting for any party

against United Russia. However, I

I urge everyone to treat these elections

as nothing more than a mere formality.

In other words, there is a chief crook, and he

has created a system for himself

of succession to the throne, which he has labeled

"elections." We must achieve real,

genuine, fair elections. So,

the most effective strategy

is to vote against this chief

crook who is taking elections away from us. So,

we have no choice but to embrace

the idea: come to the polls and vote for

anyone but Putin. That will not be a vote

in support of Zyuganov,

Zhirinovsky, Prokhorov, or anyone else. It

will be a vote specifically against Putin. We

must campaign against him,

and that campaign should consist of

simply telling the truth about

him. We must come and vote

against him, and we must serve as

election observers so as not to let them

steal our votes, as happened in

the previous elections.

>> Alexei Navalny, Dry Residue on Finam

FM. Send your questions to finam.fm.

Another topic that concerns everyone.

Some listeners write that what troubles them is

Alexei Navalny's nationalism.

>> Yuri, I've said this on your program a hundred thousand times already.

If something troubles someone, no problem. I'll answer

all the questions.

>> Briefly, just briefly. What is the point, then,

of Alexei Navalny going to

the Russian March, joining its organizing committee, and at the same time

prompting people to ask: "So, are you

a liberal or a nationalist?" And the most

common question, Alexei, is: who exactly is

Mr. Navalny?"

>> Ah, well, that's like the old joke about

the monkey: are you liberals or

nationalists? Do you remember how that

joke ends? Right. "What am I supposed to do,

tear myself in two?" It's the same thing

here. It's a stupid way to frame

the question, because why should a person—any

person, not just me—who simply has

a certain system of views about life,

necessarily have to squeeze himself into

some kind of rigid framework? I'm a liberal, but a right-wing

liberal, or a left-wing liberal, or a

libertarian, or something else. As for

nationalism, there are

specific issues, specific

tensions. Are there problems with migrants?

Yes. We have the world's second-largest

number of illegal migrants

in the world. Is there a problem of ethnically based crime?

Yes. Is there a problem with the Caucasus as a black hole

and an offshore zone, both in the economic and

political sense? Yes. There is. Let's

discuss these issues. Discussing them

does not mean that I must

necessarily label myself a nationalist,

a liberal, a democrat, a right-wing

conservative, or anything else at all. I

simply want to look for answers to these

questions. You're avoiding the answer. So do

you think these "-isms"

only get in the way?

>> They are, well, completely irrelevant; they are not

needed. What for? If we want to discuss

the issue of migration, let's discuss it.

Do we really have to start calling each other

nationalists in order to do that?

>> Mm-hmm.

>> No, not necessarily. I'm discussing it. And as for

the Russian Marches and so on,

people take to the streets—different kinds of people,

some normal, some

crazy, some simply good

people, some actual fascists—

they come out because the problems exist.

There are problems. But Putin tells us

that everything is

wonderful in the Caucasus, while we know that

there is a civil war going on there.

>> I read it, of course.

>> Uh-huh. And?

>> Well, it's a collection of clichés,

bits and pieces from Wikipedia. Just

a set of banalities. First we're told about the crisis of

multiculturalism,

multiculturalism,

and then we're essentially offered the very same thing

all over again, just under some other

vague name. It's this kind of

mishmash, an absolute mishmash, which was

apparently written for him by some, I don't

know, slick journalist or

speechwriter. And honestly, I don't even

understand why he wrote it. Because

as far as I can see, all

commentators, from liberals

to the far right, criticized

this article. And rightly so, basically,

because what exactly did he write

there? It's completely unclear what it's even about. And,

by the way, I'd like to point out

that the remarkable thing is

that with these articles of his,

Putin is dispelling the myth that

the opposition has nothing to offer, while we

do. Because if you read

his articles, they're absolute emptiness.

The man has been in power for 13 years, and his

programmatic articles are simply...

it's just mush and water, basically. And

the platform of any candidate, from Zyuganov

to Prokhorov, Yavlinsky, Zhirinovsky,

is ten times more clear,

more specific. At least there it's clear,

what the person wants. But

Putin is just blah blah blah,

empty chatter. He's not even a promise-maker anymore,

it's just completely about nothing.

>> Alexei Navalny on Finam FM.

The day before, yes. Or a day earlier,

Mr. Kadyrov called you

a chatterbox, though admittedly a very

professionally trained

operative of certain special services.

>> Yes, he called me a chatterbox and even

a coward, because I don't publish

specific names in my investigations and

so on. Well, I explain that by saying

that most likely Mr. Kadyrov doesn't know how

to read, or reads syllable by syllable, judging

by his biography and behavior. That's a fair

assumption, because in absolutely

all the investigations we do,

I always name specific people

whom I believe should be brought

to justice, charged, and put

in the dock. What's more, in the

next couple of days we will publish

an excellent investigation into graft in

Chechnya, because

it shows exactly how state procurement works in Chechnya.

For several months, one of our

staff members worked on a special project where

specific crooks will also be named

who are sitting in Chechnya and who

are skimming off the state budget there. Those

names we will publish. And after that,

it will be up to Mr. Kadyrov. That is,

he's said A, so now let him

say B. We'll give him the names and see

what he does with them.

>> And the new U.S. ambassador to Russia, in an interview

with our colleagues, distanced himself from you. Mr.

McFaul said that

>> Oh my God, it's all over, the client's leaving,

he's pulling out. Yes, somehow he

was a disappointment.

>> Thank God. It would have been much more unpleasant

if he had said that I was their project.

Well, what was he supposed to say? In your view, why

do these

absurd claims keep coming up that you're some kind of

State Department project, or I don't know,

something else? By the way, your counterpart a year

ago accused you of exactly that. Unfortunately,

Yevgeny Fyodorov isn't here,

though a year ago he basically anticipated

everything. He was actually the first person who

shaped this whole pattern of responding

to the opposition, which boils down to very

simple things. I say, "You've stolen everything."

They reply, "You're an American

spy." I say, "Bring

this or that crook to justice. Here's the

document." And they tell me, "Well, I guess

you're a CIA influence agent," and so on. That's their

answer. But what else can they say

in their own defense? I ask them:

"Guys, why does a gas pipeline in Russia

cost three times more than the same one in

Germany? Could it be because it's being built by

crooks, the Rotenbergs, Putin's friends?"

They say, "Navalny came out

against the pipeline, probably on orders from

the Chinese, who don't want Russia to

do whatever blah blah blah," and so

on. There is no actual answer to any of these questions.

Look, on every painful

issue they do one very simple thing.

They do not answer the specific question.

There is a universal explanation: you

are asking these questions because you have been

bought off by anti-Russian forces. What

anti-Russian forces are these, and why are officials

who have already bought up all the elite

real estate in London? According to official

data, Russian officials are the main

buyers of property in London's most exclusive

districts; they have Spanish

passports

and live there, yet somehow they are not

considered influence agents or CIA operatives

who have been recruited. But the opposition is.

Take the fugitive deputy prosecutor of the Moscow

Region, who was caught in Poland with a Lithuanian

passport. The question is: when this man

was obtaining a Lithuanian passport, did he not

perhaps come to the attention of

foreign intelligence services, given that

by virtue of his position as first deputy prosecutor

of the Moscow Region, the country's second most

populous federal subject, he 100%

certainly had access to state secrets.

>> Uh-huh. And what were our FSB and foreign intelligence

services and so on doing when an official

was obtaining citizenship of a foreign

state? For some reason, these questions

do not interest Putin and his brave intelligence officers.

>> You don't have dual citizenship?

>> I do not have dual citizenship.

>> Alexei Navalny, to sum up: do you have

dual citizenship? No. There you have it,

don't doubt it, don't doubt it.

So, uh, there is a live web broadcast going on.

on the website 65199.6.

We’ll connect in 7 minutes, and in the meantime send

your messages to our portal, finam.fm. Alexei,

so, look,

this is a very important point.

So,

there was Bolotnaya (Bolotnaya Square in Moscow).

>> Uh-huh.

>> there was Sakharov Avenue (Prospekt Akademika Sakharova in Moscow).

A rally for February 4 has been announced, but not approved.

The authorities refused today. And at 7 o’clock I

was discussing with people from the organizing committee, which you

are also part of, yes. Mm, there are, generally speaking, different

positions, including ones that could lead to an escalation

of the situation, to a crackdown, if, well,

it is not authorized, and yet

people are still determined to come out

on February 4. And then again on March 4.

Again, I don’t want to turn this now

into political-science chatter. There is a party

of the first round, and there is a party of the second round.

This looks like some kind of setup to me,

dressed up nicely.

But, well, only just—

>> I don’t even understand what’s so nice about this

setup. Let the first round or the second round

produce whatever result he actually

gets, and let there be the round that

really ought to take place. But this kind of

party line, I don’t buy it at all. That is,

it’s a party for rigging things more

or rigging them less.

>> Well, to give a couple of people a chance to come out,

so they can say, look, we have democracy. He didn’t win in the first

round, so it goes to a second round,

but in the second round, of course,

he will win convincingly. They’re even

naming his opponent already, and so on.

No, that’s not the point. I want to understand,

on the one hand there is RosVybory (a civic election-monitoring initiative), yes, you

are trying to put up a barrier with your

colleagues, yes, like-minded people

in this segment, right.

>> On the other hand, there is the magical central

election commission.

>> Uh-huh.

>> They may still be learning, but generally speaking,

they are masters of their craft. So what can

neutralize the situation so that the country does not

slide into legal nihilism, on the one hand,

and, on the other hand, into

repression? Because if

you analyze it again, our

listeners can look at these questions.

There are a great many, uh, questions connected

precisely with this topic: what comes next, right,

people are asking the question, this eternal

Russian question, but most importantly, there are

two extreme positions: chaos and

repression. I don’t know who has such

two extreme positions. So, in order

for the country not to slide anywhere, not in

some direction we do not

like, we need two things: law and

order. And in elections, those who

win should be the ones who actually win the elections.

They should get the seats.

>> So if it’s Putin, then it’s Putin.

>> If it is—if Putin wins, well, then

Putin wins, naturally. And what is so

wrong with that in a fair election, if he

wins? It’s just that fair elections are the kind of thing

where everyone who wants to should,

everyone who wants to and has the right to

run should be able to take part. There’s

Yavlinsky, I don’t know, Nemtsov,

Kasparov, whoever. Everyone who wants to and

can gather some reasonable number of

signatures and has support—they

should take part in these elections.

So, in order for things not to

slide off anywhere, new

parliamentary elections must be announced after a political

reform that gives everyone

who wants to take part in elections

the opportunity to do so. Who will carry out this

reform?

>> And this political reform should,

naturally, be carried out by the existing

officials, the current State Duma,

such as it is, the president,

the prime minister, and so on. But they are

already trying to carry it out. Medvedev

said today that everyone will get

the opportunity to create their own party.

Wonderful. Only now let’s have

political reform, real

political reform without all this

cheating and, in any case, without any

arrangements that would, uh, nullify

the achievements of this political reform. And

in December of this year let’s hold elections to the

State Duma, after which we will announce

presidential elections and hold fair

presidential elections, in which, once again,

I repeat, and maybe people will throw

tomatoes at me, it is entirely possible that

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin or, say,

Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev will win. They do have some

support. Just now, while I was driving,

I was listening on the radio: Levada (the Levada Center, an independent pollster) says Putin has

37% support, which is substantial support. And even

if there is free access to the media, he will

still have, I think, fairly

significant support, and he will be able

to claim a significant role in

politics and possibly even victory.

>> So, in other words, you are counting on

the authorities being reasonable?

>> And I’m counting on the good sense

of the Russian people. I have complete confidence in them

absolutely. Why should those in power matter here? What is

power? It’s just a handful of crooks

who simply seized it,

usurped that power, declared themselves

to be somebody, hung the state emblem above themselves,

and say: "We are the power here."

The source of power is the people. Those

people who gathered, uh, at

Sakharovo (likely referring to Sakharov Avenue in Moscow), who gathered in Nizhny

Tagil at the factory — they are the power,

and they should, uh, turn their different

points of view into votes.

That is what must happen. And I absolutely believe

that we will not let, uh,

these people push us around like this for

however many more years they want. Well,

I don’t know, this lifetime term for

Putin will not become reality. I

don’t think that will happen. I hope it

won’t happen. I will do everything I can

to make sure it does not happen, together with

my colleagues, friends, and everyone

who shares these views. I

hope you are with us. Yury,

just look at the respectable insinuations

that are simply pouring out today from

my guest today. He

has no counterpart here today. So,

as someone wrote today in Live

Journal, Frank will have to speak on behalf of

United Russia. On behalf of all of United Russia.

Nothing of the sort. I will not speak for

that party, Alexei. Many people are waiting for a leader.

It seems to me that this is a dead-end,

really, path. Yes, I want to hear

your opinion specifically because

many people see you precisely as that kind of

leader, let’s say, for a new Russia.

>> Well, listen, first of all,

we do not need any leader. What we need is lawfully

elected government. If the person who

is elected is truly elected

with, I don’t know, 80 percent, 90, seventy-

something, as Putin once was, right? Then

that would be fine — that person would have received

a stronger mandate to govern. But

no leader is needed. As for

my own ambitions and

prospects, I view them rather

critically. Polls, the polls that

are conducted, show that my

name recognition across Russia is 6 percent, and in Moscow

15 percent. So all this talk that I

have some kind of core base of supporters —

well, there are supporters, people who

hold the same beliefs as

I do. They clearly exist. Uh, probably if

I had greater access to the media,

free access, if there were no censorship,

there would probably be more of them. But I have no

such illusions. And I

understand perfectly well that in free

elections everyone will reappear,

show themselves, crawl out, and so on. Again,

there will be plenty of people from the current Putin-era

and United Russia camp who want in.

>> They’re not all going to fly off to the Moon,

>> all of them. And there will be old politicians from

the 1990s, politicians from the 2000s, and

some new politicians who have

appeared completely from scratch.

Prokhorov, for example — they will all be there, they

will run in the elections. They all have

supporters, just as I do, I think. And then

after that it becomes a matter of competition. Whoever

is chosen is chosen. I don’t have this attitude of

“give me everything or

nothing.” Like, “elect me

president or I’ll jump off a cliff.” Well,

whoever gets elected, gets elected.

>> Alexei, nevertheless, in your

intensity one can sense, forgive me, hatred

toward the so-called national leader.

No. Well, it would be strange if it

couldn’t be sensed, because toward the

system created by the national

leader I feel very real

hatred, because this system robs

me, robs my children, and deprives

my people of a future. And of course I

hate this system. It is a

feudal system. It is a system of new

estate-based social order in which

these crooks — some 300 families and their children —

have grabbed everything for themselves. They have latched onto

the country and are sucking out oil, gas,

metals, the nation’s wealth. They invest all of it

abroad. They do not tie

their future to our country. Their children

live there, study there, and so on. And here they feed us

some nonsense

about us being American spies. Though

if anyone are American spies, it is this entire

Putin gang, who were

recruited long ago, at the very moment

they were buying their luxury

real estate in London.

>> Alexei Navalny, in the studio of Finam FM.

Tell me, today Mr. President

said that he is ready to meet, uh,

well, with people like you. Yes, actually, he

said that he would deliberately not go to

such a meeting, but is prepared to consider it.

Will you go to meet Medvedev?

>> I don't understand what it means to be ready

to meet. They keep saying some kind of

strange things. 'Ready to meet.'

The president, then, is a formal

position.

>> So he is supposed to do certain formal

things. People are demanding free

elections from him, Churov's resignation, and so on. I

was—unfortunately, I didn't have the chance

to be at Bolotnaya (the Bolotnaya Square protest in Moscow); I was at Sakharova (Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow), and

the resolution was read out there.

Uh, and I support that resolution. It contains

very simple things, very appropriate and

the entirely lawful removal of that Churov

and an investigation into the falsifications, new

elections, the release of political prisoners, and

so on. We have every right to demand

this. And there is no need for any negotiations

or any kind of chatter in order for

Medvedev to fulfill these lawful demands.

He is obliged to do it. As for

some other kind of negotiating

process, Leonid Parfyonov said it

perfectly today.

I have nothing to add. What is being proposed is

a round table between thieves and

those they robbed, on the subject of legitimizing

the theft that has already taken place and discussing

how to improve public perceptions of future

theft. We do not need round tables like that.

I don't understand this format

of these vague, 'let's sit down,'

'talk about something,' where someone will somehow

outmaneuver someone else, bribe someone somewhere, and

once again end up who knows where. And now

Medvedev is already shouting that he's a lawyer and even,

as he calls himself, a scholar in the field of

law. Well then, let him take

the Constitution, look at the legislation,

see what powers he has under that

Constitution, and do what he is obliged

to do under the Constitution and current

law. Nothing else should be demanded of him

and he should not be doing anything

else.

>> And Alexei Navalny is with us today on Finam FM.

What kind of relationship do you have with Belkovsky?

How so?

We have a good relationship. He's surely been

on your show, so you could

judge for yourself—he's a very witty, sparkling person.

Oh, a regular guest. Well then,

>> by the way, he always sits in your seat. Where

you're sitting now.

>> Well, there must be some kind of conspiracy

behind that. Please start calling this

spot 'Navalny-Belkovsky territory'

Out of the majority, out of the huge number

of all our political analysts and so on, I

believe that Belkovsky is

truly a person who has

a sharp political instinct.

That's why I always read him with pleasure. And he is

someone with a wonderful

sense of humor. I always gladly

read him, uh, I'm friends with him. We even

periodically go to each other's birthday

parties.

>> I don't know. Uh-huh.

>> So, you see, Navalny today

you understand, in our world there are limits to

>> hiding things—it's impossible. That's why I

always try to say things exactly as they are.

Because if I say, for example, that I don't know

Belkovsky, there are

a million people who have seen me

cheerfully celebrating his birthday with him.

What's more, in the future it's entirely

possible that if he doesn't invite me,

I'll gladly go to his birthday

party anyway—we go there with my wife and so

on. So what exactly would I be hiding?

There's nothing here to be ashamed of, nothing

to fear. It's great.

>> So honesty is the best policy.

>> But whose project are you? Answer this

question. It's a question I've long

wanted to ask you, right?

Yury, I'm your project. I am a project—I want

to confess, if I may. I want to make

a statement. I am Yury Pronko's project, because

this is not a joke at all, and people should

note that after each of your

broadcasts, where you conduct the conversation in a rather

provocative way,

things like this are born—like 'United

Russia is the party of crooks and thieves.' That was your

doing, by the way. You simply asked how I

felt about the broadcast with Fyodorov, which

was watched by almost

a million people online alone. That was your

invention too. So it must be said that you

are in fact the Professor Moriarty

standing behind the Navalny project. That's

how it is.

>> Thank you, Alexei. There is even applause

from our colleagues behind the glass.

Alexei Navalny today on Finam FM.

From this moment on, ladies and gentlemen, I will fall silent. I

will only greet you and ask you

to introduce yourselves. Then the only

request is: very clearly, briefly,

ask a specific question to Alexei Navalny. And

we'll keep that pace until 10:00 p.m. 65

1099.6 and finam.fm

those are our means of communication. On the portal

there is a live web broadcast. By the way, you wrote,

saying it isn't there. No, it is there. I

have everything here. I open it and see

myself and Alexei. One call, one

message. Good evening.

>> One call, one message. Good evening.

>> Good evening.

>> Please turn off your radio.

Please introduce yourself briefly.

>> One second.

>> No, no, forgive me, but I asked

all of you, we have little time. Yes, let's keep

up the pace of a Viennese waltz. Good evening. What

is your name? Hello.

Hello.

What on earth is going on? Ah, good evening.

>> Good evening, Roman, Moscow.

>> Briefly.

>> Uh, the attitude toward the concept

of Mikhail Khazin and, well, Neakonov—I would like

to hear Navalny's view.

>> The question is clear. I'm afraid I may greatly

disappoint everyone. I'm not familiar with it.

>> Let's move on. Because, once again

I'll stress: time, time, time, time.

So, and for Navalny: can you, and are you prepared to

say what assets the current prime minister

owns, stakes in

companies, shares in businesses, his protégés

and the like, rather than according to the official declaration,

and roughly how much are they worth?

>> Well, everything, everything that we

say about the prime minister must

be based on certain documents. Now,

as for the prime minister specifically,

there are documents connected with the so-

called Putin palace, right? There is

a living, real, actual

witness, Sergei Kolesnikov, who

is now forced to remain abroad. He

has published a large number of

documents, so, uh, there is no need

to make up anything about some kind of

Putin's gigantic fortune. Here

we have a fact, uh, that is fairly

easy to prove: that Putin

and his friends created an offshore

slush fund from which he paid for his

personal projects. Into this

fund, people like Abramovich and all the

others chipped in. These materials are enough

to bring criminal charges against Putin.

criminal liability.

>> Moving on. A call. Good evening.

>> Hello. My name is Nikolai, and I have a

question for Alexei Anatolyevich.

>> Hello.

Alexei Anatolyevich, what do you think:

does such a legislative

initiative make sense as a ban on a parliamentary

majority, that is, limiting any party's representation

in parliament to

50%, and then distributing the remaining

votes according to some proportional

principle?

>> Thank you.

>> Well, Nikolai, I think that this

initiative makes no sense. More than that, it

again contradicts the basic idea that

power belongs to the people. If

someone really gets 60 or

70% of the vote, if people actually voted for them, then they

should get that. It's just that right now, uh,

forgive the idiotic word, but 70

or 60 percent are fake. If someone

gets them for real, why not?

>> Ivan, a student at Gubkin University.

Alexei, why didn't you want

to run for president? Well, first of all,

I didn't even have, to begin with, the

technical ability, because

I was being held in Special Detention Center No. 1,

which does not have sufficient

infrastructure for nominating people for

the presidency. And secondly, Ivan, I want

to remind you of what I said at the beginning of the

program. What is happening is not

a presidential election in the Russian

Federation. Yavlinsky

additionally

demonstrated that what is

happening is this: he had votes in the

election, he has support, and

he collected signatures, and is he participating?

No, because he was not allowed to. In

the election, only those people take part

whom Vladimir Putin put on the list

of people he would like

to compete against.

>> Of course, the very idea of saying someone was

"allowed" is idiotic. Well, that's my brief remark.

Sergei, St. Petersburg. Alexei, do you agree with

the constitutional reform project

of Ryzhkov: a parliamentary-presidential

republic? And, uh,

>> I'm also afraid of disappointing everyone. I can't

say. Which Ryzhkov are we talking about? Which

Ryzhkov do you mean? Vladimir or

Nikolai? Or rather, I'm not ready to comment,

because I'm not familiar with the details. And,

Maxim, a question for the host. Doesn't it disgust you

to listen to this demagoguery? Navalny, like a

broken record, keeps repeating his

clichés. So, if he's my project, then what

is he really droning on about, actually?

>> Me? No, I enjoy it.

>> Listen, here's an interesting thing.

Sometimes journalists come to my

office, uh, well, asking me about things, and

then my employees, who sit at

In the next room, they laugh, they say:

"We can do it instead of you," because

you keep saying the same thing all the time. And

indeed, by now all these phrases

are known by heart. So what is there to talk about?

I talk about what I know. When I

talk about corruption, I talk about

completely specific cases, about

investigations. I have several of them.

Whenever people say to me:

"Why do you call United Russia

the party of crooks and thieves?" I say:

"Because I demand that Mr.

Kostin, a member of the Supreme Council of the

United Russia party and head of VTB, return

the money stolen, including from me."

I have a specific case,

an investigation. I prove that they stole it all.

That is exactly what I talk about. What else?

I'm not going to make things up and talk

about things I know nothing about. I sing about what I know.

A huge number of letters come in.

Alexei Navalny, Finam FM, Summary

65199.6, and FINAM.fm is our means of

communication. I won't find those

letters right now, but I remember the wording.

Alexei, the people of Dagestan are with you.

>> Thank you very much, that's nice to hear. And I absolutely believe

that a large number of

people in Dagestan, in Chechnya, and, I am not afraid

to say it, in Ingushetia, are capable of

distinguishing this husk of nonsense about how

people say Navalny means fascism and that he's a fascist, and

understanding that the root of the problems

happening there is corruption too.

Because this "stop feeding

the Caucasus" means: stop feeding

the brazen, insolent Caucasian elite,

this parasitic gang as well,

which receives federal money and

drives around in SUVs with smirks on their faces past the impoverished

population.

>> Good evening, you're on the air.

>> Hello, Yuri Alexeyevich, good evening.

My name is Dmitry, from the town of Ramenskoye.

>> Hello. Yes, go ahead.

>> I have a question for Alexei. Alexei, uh,

do you understand that now,

the time has come for new candidates,

those very new candidates, unlike,

the Putins, the Mironovs, and

so on, and from you as another

new candidate. And right now, right now,

what is needed is your

program, a clearly structured

program, in order

to present yourself. I'm just very concerned

about you. I believe you are exactly the

candidate who truly deserves

to become our president. And I'm afraid that

this moment may pass if you do not

take advantage of it. In other words, you need to

simply create a clearly

structured program of your own and

make it as

public as possible so that

the maximum number of people in our

country can

>> Yes, I understand. Excuse me, please. Yes,

we're short on time. So, point by point.

As for new candidates and new

politicians, I completely agree with that.

I think the time really has come for

new politicians, new

political approaches, and new people.

Uh, as for the program, well, I

work on certain issues

professionally, and practically every

day. So I already have a published

program in articles, on my blog, and so on,

a fairly clear and understandable one on

corruption, corporate governance,

fighting corruption, especially corruption in

state-owned companies. So

I already have all that. I also have

very clear ideas on

judicial reform and various other issues.

As for some broader

more developed political program,

of course there will be one, but first of all

we must achieve the conditions in which

there is a reason to present a program, namely

free elections. If I

roll out a program now and start taking it

from one radio station to another,

that does not mean I am actually waging

a struggle for power. What we need are elections,

competition in those elections, and then,

of course, a program will be presented and

there will be a substantive discussion. Alexei,

there are lots of questions. Let me summarize now. So,

about Yale, yes, and why the opposition goes into

the U.S. Embassy.

>> So, about Yale—what's the deal with Yale?

Look, Yale is one of the very best

universities in the world. Yale Law

School, I believe,

is the best in the world, and I am very glad that

I got in. By the way, there's one thing

that actually makes it easy for me now

to argue with the authorities about Yale. The

presidential envoy

of the Russian Federation to the

Ural Federal District, I don't remember

his last name, graduated from Yale, uh, School

of Management for two years. I was at Yale for half a year,

while he was there for two years, so he is four times more

of a Yale man than I am. Nevertheless,

no one has any complaints against him.

And I believe it would be wonderful

if people from Russia

had the opportunity to go study at places

like Yale, Harvard, and other top

institutions. And this is simply

an excellent law school. I

am very glad I got there. I learned a lot there.

And, well, this is really a question of

whether it is good to receive a good

education, or whether we should rather get

a bad one. I am trying to get

a good education and am very pleased

that I was at Yale. Those people who,

who think that studying abroad

automatically means that something is

wrong, are crazy.

>> It automatically means recruitment.

>> It automatically means recruitment. They

are crazy. I will give as an example,

a country where there is also a fairly high

level of paranoia—China—which has simply

flooded all the

prestigious higher education institutions

in America with its students. They send 100,000 people a year

and pay for them themselves. That is,

the Chinese state pays for

students to go study at Yale,

Harvard, Stanford, and all the other

places. We alone just sit here doing nothing.

>> That is true. I have another example.

There is the Juilliard School in New York. It is one of the

best music schools. And about 90%

of the student body are Chinese. These are Chinese students,

>> right? Chinese students come there and

absorb that knowledge, then go

back to China and apply that knowledge

in practice. But with us, unfortunately,

the country’s best university, Moscow State University (MSU), is

ranked in the second—well, in the second

hundred. And we still keep somehow

trying manically to prove something to someone,

instead of actually improving

our own higher education institutions, and until

we are finally able to reach

that level, sending our best

students abroad. This is normal

practice. Peter I (Peter the Great) did this, and any

normal country does this now. Unfortunately,

this is not happening in our country.

>> Good evening. You are on the air.

>> Hello.

>> My name is Konstantin.

>> Uh-huh.

>> I’m from Vladimir. Alexei, let us imagine for

a moment that you received unlimited power in the

country. And please tell us,

what would your first decree be?

>> Thank you.

>> Well, first of all, let us not

go there,

>> please note, unlimited power.

>> Right. Yes. And I am thinking, already reflecting

on what I would do. As is well known,

the project destroys its father and master,

so, Yuri, watch out. Let us not

do that.

>> Just look at what is happening today. Yes,

>> I had only just started dreaming about the dividends

I could receive under absolute

power. Absolute power, no less. But we should not

imagine that someone, including

me, has absolute power in the

country, because let us imagine instead

that there will be no such system in which

someone has absolute or some kind of

autocratic, as now, power in the

country. Recently I published—or rather,

Grigory Chkhartishvili, also known as Boris

Akunin, published

our conversation, and we spoke there

about the problems that, I believe,

are more important and less important. I believe

that the main reform that must

take place is judicial reform, because

that is the foundation of everything. There must be a place

where justice is achieved. That is,

there are a huge number of conflicts—

political, economic, whatever kind you

like. A dispute between the opposition and

the authorities, between those wishing to hold

a march and those refusing permission, between

Khodorkovsky and the Federal Penitentiary Service, between Magnitsky

or Magnitsky’s relatives and the police,

all of this must be resolved in an

honest, fair court. Until there is such a court,

we will not be able to carry out either

normal reform, or political reform, or

economic reform. That is the priority.

>> And Andrei, a student, asks: "Will there be

repressions?"

>> What is meant by repressions? Against whom?

Against whom? Alexei, speaking more generally,

again, I asked a short question

deliberately, yes, there have been many such questions

since March 4.

>> I do not think the authorities are capable of

mass repressions. Not because they

do not want to, but because they

are not really even capable of it,

when all is said and done. This system of manual

control cannot do

absolutely anything. That is, one specific

person, or maybe five people—they can

they can jail, crush, kill, whatever,

but they are not capable of any kind of mass repression

because that would actually have to be

organized. They can't—even when they themselves

initiate some kind of anti-corruption

case, they can't put anyone in jail. Take

the beginning of that case again, the one against

the prosecutors who were protecting the mining

business, and where

>> and, and nothing happened. The Prosecutor's Office, before

the eyes of the entire country, before the eyes of

the president, the FSB (Federal Security Service), the international community,

is simply covering for its own prosecutors,

who are implicated in criminal

offenses, in full view of the whole country.

They can't do anything about it. They are not

capable of organizing anything that

requires any kind of complex system of

administration, because this is

a system of manual decision-making.

In order to get anything done at all,

they have to keep calling one another.

Medvedev calls Putin, Putin calls some

Naryshkin, Naryshkin calls some

Ryshkin, and so on. And by the tenth

phone call, nothing works out. And

>> Have you ever gotten a call from the apparatus or from

the presidential administration, even once?

>> Never in my life have I spoken with them. I've never even

seen, face to face, well,

anyone from the presidential administration

and so on.

>> So the line of thinking that the pendulum will swing

the other way—that Navalny is not

a State Department project, but a Kremlin project. So you're

going to disappoint the public there too.

>> Quite a lot—about a year ago

there was a great deal of discussion,

uh, all these Kremlin

propagandists were talking about the evidence

that I was first a project of

Medvedev, then they said I was a project of

Putin, and now apparently

their PR concept has changed, and they

are trying to prove that I am a project of some

Americans.

>> I see. Let's move on. Good evening, you're on

the air. Hello,

>> Hello,

Marina. Please tell us, what do you

think of Mikhail Veller? I think very

highly of Mikhail Veller. He

writes wonderful books, and as

a publicist, and even, I would call him,

a politician. He speaks very convincingly

about important things. I think very highly of him.

>> Short question, short answer. Alexei

Navalny. Bottom line, Finam FM 65

1099.6 and FINAM.fm communication channels.

A great question from Madim. How has

your political activity affected

your family members? Recently on Twitter

you posted a photo of your daughter. Doesn't

your fame get in the way of your family? I

always like questions like that, they're,

you know, warm questions, really.

Not about this disgusting state of affairs

surrounding us, but about the fact that

there is a person, Navalny, yes—a family man, a husband,

a father. How would you answer?

>> I wouldn't say it has

affected them in any special way. It's been fine. My

family supports me. They were

prepared for it.

>> So they really do support you.

>> Absolutely, they really do. I think

it's unlikely I could do what I do

without my family's support. There are

some negative things—there have been more

crazy phone calls in the

middle of the night and so on. That is, of course,

unpleasant. But otherwise

well, when they locked me up—well, "locked up" is

too strong a word—they detained me for those

15 days, some people came up to my

daughter at school and shook her hand. Well, that was

very nice.

>> Then why did you go ahead and

hold that unauthorized march?

Maybe you shouldn't have done it?

>> Yura, how could we not go? You've been

robbed

and these brazen election commission mugs stare at you from

the screen and say everything is fine. And

the president meets with these brazen

faces, and in front of everyone they say, "You are

a real wizard." And they snicker nastily,

knowing that everyone is watching them right now,

and they stole from everyone, and these

millions of people who were robbed sit there unable to do

anything. So yes, we

said that we were protesting against this,

that we would march to the center of the city in order

to, well, at least in this, generally speaking,

not very aggressive way,

express our civic position and

show that we are people and that we

exist. And if you think that we're

invisible here, no, that's not true. So

that's why we went.

>> Did those 15 days make you rethink

any of your values?

Actually, it's an interesting

experience, and really every person

would benefit from serving

15 days in detention in order to start appreciating again

some very simple things, like

socks, for example, yes, the ability

to wash once a day, some kind of boiling water,

yes, it’s an important thing that in

ordinary life you don’t think about, but there

you really need it, and you can’t get it.

can’t.

>> But this isn’t prison. And here, when I was

recognized there as a political prisoner, of course,

it’s a little funny compared with those

people who are actually sitting in prison.

This is not exactly prison. It’s a

special detention center with a fairly lenient

attitude there. And especially when out of

100 places, about 80 of us were

political detainees, and the administration, in

general, well, you can’t say that they

were really picking on us much. Well, it was

an interesting time.

>> But my values didn’t change. Well, well, it seems to me

that, after all, a person

who lays claim to some kind of

political struggle, or in general

claims to be a normal

person with normal, well-established

views on life, something as trivial as 15

days in detention is unlikely to shake his

basic beliefs and

reference points. Good evening.

>> Hello. Good evening. First of all, I wanted

to thank Alexei for what he does.

It’s very necessary, it’s very important.

Second, what do you think,

has the election campaign begun?

for the presidency from the moment

when, so to speak, the reshuffling

of regional administration heads began, in fact

after the well-known party was actually rejected. And

uh, so that it was clear that

those administrations that oversaw the

polling stations where the party, so to speak, failed,

had their heads simply removed,

and now they will be, well, how to put it,

less loyal, I guess.

>> Yes, absolutely right. We see a

situation in which governors are also

being removed if they delivered low results.

There are

we see precedents where commissions

that produced poor results, specifically

precinct-level ones, are being disbanded, merged

and so on. It’s clear that the authorities are now

operating, perhaps, in their usual

rather stupid, inefficient manual-control

mode, but they are still steering things toward

ensuring that the election result is

guaranteed, so that there is no

unpredictability. Putin’s ratings

are falling.

In any case, they are not rising. They already

can’t do anything

to significantly raise

Putin’s rating. Simply because he has been in power for 13

years. And by now it is obvious to everyone

that he puffed himself up,

played the tough guy. He has done

absolutely nothing. Therefore their only

way is to help themselves through some kind of

political technology methods,

by replacing a more loyal or less

loyal governor, throwing out a more decent one

and bringing in someone more hardline. Well

and so on. Pronko, don’t go easy on

Navalny. He didn’t answer the question about

the opposition going to the U.S. Embassy. I

won’t go easy on him, especially since I was told today

that when absolute power comes,

then those who

helped it along, yes, they’ll somehow be dealt with,

>> Yes, so, very briefly:

I don’t understand it; this is all absolutely hysterical

in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament), something unbelievable. So,

all these United Russia people go to the embassy

ten times more often. You’ve all simply forgotten,

dear radio listeners, about the time when

Clinton replaced Bush. United Russia had

an entire program about how

United Russia and the Republican Party

were quite close, and so on. Just

go online and look at the news

archives on the internet. They

went in droves to Congress, to the State Department,

made friends there, hugged, kissed. And

there was such friendship with the Americans that, compared with it,

Nemtsov’s visit, or

Chirikova’s, and all the others going to the

American embassy to meet

the ambassador, was just a ridiculous

little event. I don’t see any issue at all.

It’s all completely made up.

>> Good evening, you’re on the air.

Hello.

>> Hello. Good evening.

>> Yes, hello. Please introduce yourself

briefly.

>> Yes,

>> No, there’s no time. Good evening. Hello.

>> I can’t talk right now.

>> Hello.

>> Hello. Yes,

>> Hello, Sergey Moskal speaking. I have

a question. Alexei, there was a case when

your email was hacked. You said that

some of the emails were fake, but

the blogger Politresh, after checking the electronic

digital signature, proved that they were

authentic. How would you comment on

this situation?

>> Thank you. I have a feeling that this

was a journalist calling. That’s my, my, perhaps

mistaken impression. You see, there are these

somehow a large number of

anonymous bloggers who, on a daily

mode, they publish things about me there

sensational investigations there, about all sorts of things,

about how I supposedly committed some enormous

number of various misdeeds

and so on. In other words, my email was hacked,

and some of the messages in that email account were

forged. People who know how

to hack email obviously have

sufficient skills to

forge other things as well. So

I urge everyone to look critically

at what I do, but it seems to me

that my work is fairly transparent. And everything

that happens in modern society,

especially given that here everyone is already

being followed around by a camera from LifeNews (a Russian tabloid TV outlet) or

the NTV channel, can be critically

assessed in terms of any person's real

activity, including corrupt kickback schemes.

Many people, by the way, do criticize us, and we

respond to that criticism, including criticism of

my work on specific

investigations and so on. So

if someone wants to criticize me,

criticize me for something real,

there's no need to make things up.

>> How do you call those aliens who

give money to Navalny? Let me add to

that. So,

>> Is that connection through some prankster or what?

I don't have the phone number

>> Contact with aliens is only through Yuri,

please. No, it's pointless.

Pointless. But the paid smear campaign is underway now,

yes, those well-known pictures,

that were shown by the well-known

smear machine. And it's completely obvious

that, again, these knee-jerk

responses from all those Kremlin

crooks are very standard. That is,

this is what they do when once again they are

accused of being crooks:

they hire a bunch of

dubious paid bloggers who

spend all day churning out posts about me,

spreading various bits of information on

the internet. In doing so, from my point

of view, they only make it worse for themselves. We

remember how for a whole year they actively

fought against the phrase 'United Russia'

'the party of crooks,' and in fact greatly helped

to popularize it.

>> Do you believe Kudrin?

>> What do you mean, do I believe Kudrin? Kudrin exists

for me in different

forms. There's Kudrin the new politician,

who makes various statements. Some

things he says are right. He came to the

rally—good for him. Kudrin, who was

the head at VTB Bank, on the other hand—

that word came up again—for me, I

really don't like that version of him at all. He was

the head of the supervisory board, and he did not

answer my letters, did not attend the

shareholders' meeting, did not investigate, and did not

do what he was supposed to do by virtue of

his position as head of the

supervisory board. He should have

investigated the facts of theft/corruption that

I investigated. I have all the

evidence, and he stayed silent and did nothing.

did nothing.

>> Let's take one more call and then

wrap up. Good evening.

>> No. Good evening. Hello.

>> Hello.

>> Hello. Good evening.

>> Yes, you're on the air. What's your name?

Albert, from Shchyolkovo.

>> Mm-hmm. A question for Alexei,

>> yes,

>> briefly: is there any point in fighting at all, or

not?

>> Albert, I'm honestly upset and disappointed that

you're asking that question. Of course there is.

Uh, we must fight, we must

fight for our rights. We must

fight for what I would even call our

natural rights. How can we possibly

allow these people, who are in fact only a

small bunch, and many of whom

ended up in power more or less by accident,

because Yeltsin (Russia's first president after the Soviet Union) happened to be in that kind of mood,

and so were Voloshin and Tanya

Dyachenko and the rest of them—it's a gang

of crooks. They appointed this Putin, and he

then usurped power there with a small group of friends.

And now we're wondering whether

it's worth fighting? Of course it is. Who are these

people compared to us? There are millions of us

people.

>> Alexei, Nemtsov, Kasparov, and so on.

The more often I hear the name Navalny next to

theirs, the less support I have for Navalny.

Alexei, exercise strict face control

over the people around you. Never place

yourself next to these people. Don't say

'we' about them.

>> This is not the time when we should

—you see, I do have certain

political disagreements or whatever else

with Nemtsov, with Kasparov, and with

anyone else at all, with Yavlinsky and so

on, but what unites me with them is that

together we demand fair, free

elections. So I am not going to

introduce some kind of face control now and

think about whom I should be standing on

stage with. I think about why I am on

that stage and why people have gathered here. I

think about what I want to say to these

people. So I can only speak for myself and

I certainly will not hesitate

to join forces with any people who

are demanding fair, free elections, just as

I am.

>> A huge number of letters have come in with

support and wishes of good luck. Thank you

very much

to everyone listening to our station.

>> Alexei, as we wrap up our latest

conversation,

in your view,

will 2012 be a year of hopes

lost, or a year when we will truly

be able to change something?

>> 2011 was the year of hope, and

2012 is the year in which we

must make every effort

to ensure that these changes happen. That means

we now have the support of the masses,

broad sections of the population support us, and there are

more and more of us. We have already shown our strength. And

most importantly, we are absolutely

right now, and everyone understands that. They

are completely wrong, and everyone understands

that too. Truth and

common sense are on our side.

>> Olga, strength and perseverance to you; Alexei,

you are a hero of our time.

>> Thank you very much.

>> Thank you very much. Alexei Navalny was

with us today on "In the Bottom Line" on Finam FM.

Many thanks to everyone who listened, who

watched, who wrote in, who called. Uh,

so, and finally, some of you

asked me when, after all,

the Navalny debates would take place. No, not

debates, not debates — we had planned a tea-time chat

for today. Navalny and, uh,

that is, Alexei Navalny and Yevgeny

Fyodorov. So,

Mr. Fyodorov wrote to me in a letter

that after March 4 he is ready to come.

I don't know how interested

Alexei will be in meeting after March 4.

>> We'll see what happens after March 4

.

>> Well, in short, if you insist,

we'll hold that kind of tea-time chat, and

maybe we'll find someone else as an

opponent for our guest today.

Thanks again to everyone. News is next.