Alexei Navalny on the program *Full Albats* on January 8, 2018

>> Absolute Albats.

>> Good evening. This is Echo of Moscow. This is

Yevgenia Albats. I am beginning our

program, the first one this year.

A program devoted to key politics,

the week's political events, the

events that will influence

politics in the coming weeks and months. I

apologize for the tautology. I

congratulate you all on the New Year, on

the holidays just passed, and I wish that you

may be happy. And I wish the same

to my guest, Alexei Anatolyevich

Navalny. Ah, Alexei, hello.

>> Hi. Hello, Zhenya. Thank you

very much. And the same to you.

>> Thank you. And 2017 was your year.

Of course, your presidential campaign was

both your personal success and a success

for the country, in which, thanks to you,

public politics returned. I congratulate you

on that.

>> You see how interesting that is right away. You

say: "It was my year, a great

success." And here I am sitting

as an unregistered candidate, and still

I keep hearing everyone say it's a success.

That shows just how corrupted politics in

our country has become, but nevertheless

it also says that you must not give up and

you have to keep doing what you're doing. That's all.

Did you really think,

did you really expect that you would be registered,

Alexei? Now, when

>> That was an explicitly stated goal. We

understood very well that they did not want

to let me into the election. And that became clear

in 2012, when they opened criminal cases against

me, and then passed

a law right away. And everyone wrote that it was

the "Navalny law," under which

convicted persons cannot run for office. But we

openly stated that we would try

to build political pressure of such a level

that they would be forced

to let me into the election, as happened in

the Moscow election in 2013.

Perhaps we built up too much

pressure. They saw it, and they were horrified by

the scale of our campaign, the number of

volunteers, the fact that this campaign was real,

not virtual. That worked against

us. They finally decided that

it was too scary to let us into the election.

>> What will happen to the headquarters now? They are in

eighty-four cities, I think,

or in eighty-four cities across Russia

including the so-called people's

headquarters, which we do not finance,

which people open themselves, they

will continue to operate in the mode of a voters'

strike. The most important thing that we

have created over this year, more than a year, is

this kind of real political

structure of influence. It's, well, not exactly

a party, but a proto-party movement.

It is in fact a genuinely large

opposition movement, the largest and

the only one created in recent

years, so of course we do not want

to lose it, and we will continue engaging in all

forms of politics. But right now our

main task is organizing

a voters' strike, that is,

an active boycott and a call for people not

to go to this election, while at the same time deploying such

a number of observers

that no one has ever

deployed before. And the Supreme Court, the presidium of the

Supreme Court, rejected your lawyers' appeal

against the Central Election Commission's refusal to register

you as a candidate for president of the Russian

Federation. And you've written that off.

Or do you believe you still have

a chance to force it through?

>> I didn't attend a single one of those court hearings when the

appeal was underway; I didn't even follow it.

Our lawyers did an excellent job and

the best job they possibly could. And

the law, legal right, and justice were all on

our side. But I understood perfectly well that

this judicial system—well, listen, these

are the same people who overturned my sentence in the

Kirovles case under ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) rulings and sent

it back for a new hearing. These

people jailed others in Soviet times for

anti-Soviet activity, and now they

imprison people who speak out there,

uh, who say something against our

obscurantism. So I have absolutely no

illusions whatsoever about either the

Supreme Court or the Constitutional

Court. We're doing all this because

the truth and, as I already said, the law are on

our side, and we will keep doing it

going forward, but we have no illusions. We have entered

strike mode; we are going to boycott the

election. And that is our

only strategy.

>> On January 28, 2018, you

announced that this would be a strike. What

exactly will that be?

>> It will be a public action. A strike is

really a process. As soon as the Central Election Commission

issued the decision that I would not be allo

strike-related—sorry, I'm interrupting you,

a strike movement is

a process, whereas a strike is still

some kind of one-time act. No,

>> well, a strike is a one-time act. You're at

a workplace, they don't pay your wages, and

you say: "I'm not going to

work anymore." It's the same with us. We are citizens

of Russia. We are being forced or persuaded

to go to the polls, but we are not being given

political competition. We have no one to

vote for. So we say: "We will not

go to the election." And this will be a

process in which we discuss it. We

argue with our opponents or

strikebreakers, who say: "No,

you still have to go. Well then, we'll go

instead of you." So this is

still a process—a complicated

political process. And we will take part in it.

And specifically on January 28,

taking this opportunity once again, I call on

everyone to take part in this action. It

will be—well, we will call on people to come out

into the streets and, uh, including there in the streets,

to make their attitude toward these

elections clear—elections that are not really elections.

These are "elections" in quotation marks, and to demand that

we want real elections, because

a situation in which there have been no real elections

for 18 years has led not only to

political problems, but also to

economic ones. People are getting poorer.

>> In 2011, when you, uh, came out with the slogan

to vote, to vote for your favorite—for

any party except the party of, uh, crooks and

thieves, it was clear, it was completely clear to everyone

how to act.

I myself remember voting then for

Mironov's A Just Russia party. And ten times

afterward I was asked: "Was it right

for you to vote that way? Just look at

that Mironov." And I told them:

"Look at Dmitry Gudkov, at

Gudkov Sr., at Ilya Ponomaryov,

who were the only force of

resistance in the first year of the existence

of that Duma, that convocation. Now, to be honest,

I frankly don't see what the

course of action is here. People still need to understand: one,

two, three. So tell me: what is the one-two-three here?

>> In 2011, our strategy was clear.

In fact, it didn't matter whom you

voted for. The main thing was that you voted

against United Russia. There's no need

to justify yourself. You voted for

the Communists, for A Just Russia, for

Yabloko. It didn't matter. You

voted against United Russia so that

the level of, uh, United Russia's control over the vote

would fall enough that these

pitiful, feeble parties could

revive and oppose United

Russia in the State Duma. And that is

what happened. And only thanks to

falsification

was the Kremlin able to preserve this—

to preserve United Russia's majority in

the State Duma. Those falsifications then

led to those very protests

of 2011–2012. So

it was the right strategy. But we need

to recognize that in all the subsequent

years the Kremlin was preparing to

fight this strategy, because

with this strategy we were beating them. That is exactly

why all the most disgusting,

for example, laws were introduced precisely by

the Communists and by A Just Russia.

That's why people made exactly those

complaints to you that you were just talking about.

In other words, they arranged everything so that you would have

no second-choice candidate or party.

And now, trying to think in terms of

the 2011 strategy is simply

pointless. Here and now we have

a specific political situation in which

the Kremlin has simply programmed the

election in such a way that

Putin is guaranteed to get between 73 and

76 percent. That's my forecast. And nothing can

happen in this election that would prevent

that from happening. So right now

the best strategy is this. First, second,

third. First: do not go to the polls.

Second, to urge everyone not to go to the

elections. Third, to lower turnout by every

possible means. Fourth, to organize

monitoring so that they cannot falsify the

turnout figures. That is precisely why

the Kremlin is now so frantically working on

turnout. You didn’t happen to watch the video that

Roizman released just the day before yesterday, did you?

>> I did, of course, since Leonid

Volkov tweeted it.

>> And rightly so. After all, the mayor

of Russia’s fourth-largest city, he

describes very accurately how they will

artificially boost turnout for them. We currently have quite a lot

of insider information and documents. I am sure

that all these documents will soon be published,

documents showing how, through

methods like door-to-door canvassing,

voting outside polling stations,

and absentee certificates, how

the Kremlin will frantically drag up turnout,

because they understand perfectly well: nobody

wants to go to these elections, and they need

to create the appearance of legitimacy. Of course, this

already answers your next

question. What turnout percentage would deprive

the authorities of legitimacy? There is no answer to that

question, because it is not measured

in percentages; it is measured in people’s perceptions.

Right now, a man is walking down Novy Arbat (a major avenue in central Moscow)

and saying to himself: “Well, a lot of people

voted for Putin. I still don’t like him, but

let him stay in office.” And tomorrow he will be walking

along, and people will be telling him:

“No, he cannot stay there,

it’s all fake.” That is the moment when

legitimacy will collapse, but it

cannot be measured in percentages. So right now, uh, we need

to act simply, well, excuse me for

such a banality, according to conscience. If these

elections are shameless and indecent, then one

must not go to them. And we must actively

persuade everyone else not to go either.

>> The theory of electoral behavior says

that a voter, uh, when choosing whom

to vote for, is more likely to vote for

someone who is capable of reaching the goal.

What you are offering

voters is something

irrational,

you understand? Well,

>> No, no, I wouldn’t say that—you

are contradicting yourself, aren’t you? There, the

voter,

when deciding whom to vote for, would like

to vote for someone who can reach

the goal. Or at least someone who declares that

they are moving toward that goal. But here, everyone who

is not Putin has said outright

many times in public: “Actually, we do not

want to be president, we understand

our own insignificance, we will lose, we do not

want to do anything.” But we are running in order

to, well, and then comes a list of vague reasons—

to say some important words, or get something,

or something else. So why, then,

should a voter take part in that? And

it turns out that we are talking ourselves into it

and trying to find some pretext,

some rational explanation,

some mathematical justification for a simple

political fact, which is that

this is not an election, and the result will in

any case be 73 to 76 percent. I can already

tell you now what

the results of this election will be.

>> Tell us.

>> I will. Let’s do this—

let’s make a bet when you invite me back. Next

time, we will conduct our first

poll in January, and then I will give you

a substantiated forecast. For now, my forecast

is as follows: first place

goes to Putin with 73–76 percent. Second place goes to

Zhirinovsky, at 10 to 13 percent.

Third place goes to Grudinin, at 10 to

12 percent. And everyone else will be somewhere

between 1 and 2 percent. Yavlinsky, Sobchak, and Titov.

>> So you are

predicting

a different result from Levada’s? Lev

Gudkov, the head of the Levada Center, was on my

program. Their forecast for Sobchak is around

7 percent.

>> That is simply ridiculous. I mean,

listen, Prokhorov got 7 percent

in 2012, when there was

enthusiasm, when people went to the polls

and voted for Prokhorov. Back then people were not saying about him

what they said about A Just Russia (a Russian political party):

“I went to vote.” We all

were saying, urging: “Let’s go to the

elections.” And since then, first of all,

it became obvious how we were deceived with this

Prokhorov story, what complete

nonsense it all was. And the country is completely different now, the regime is

different too. So of course, those candidates

who are running now, with the exception of

Zhirinovsky and Grudinin, have absolutely no

chance whatsoever of getting

numbers above 5 percent.

>> Pavel Grudinin is the only one you have

spoken positively about lately.

At least, I

watched your Thursday program on

the Navalny 2018 channel.

>> On the Navalny Live channel, not Navalny

2018. Sorry. Uh, you spoke about

Grudinin, um, with a great deal of

sympathy, although, by the way, he, uh, about you

rather...

>> Well, he is not supposed to now. That is

also an interesting fact, because before

all this Grudinin nomination business, when people asked him about me,

he would also say, though rarely, “I am not

acquainted with him, I do not know his

work,” but he always spoke of Grudinin with sympathy,

whereas now he is not allowed to.

as expected, and so I view him somewhat sympathetically.

He stopped talking, which is also quite

a telling thing. But, uh, I can

say that his recent public appearances

before his nomination were

fairly appealing to me. He was kind of

the sort who, uh, tells it like it is, as

they say. Well, his biography, of course,

taken as a whole... He was a deputy from

United Russia for 12 years, but at least he looks like

an actual living person. But nevertheless, unfortunately,

it doesn’t look like he’s running

any kind of campaign, because if he were

running one, then probably he could

claim second place. As it is, I’m

afraid he’ll even lose to Zhirinovsky

(Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the nationalist politician). By the way, we separately

want to conduct a sociological

study on whether people even know

that it’s not Zyuganov who was nominated, but

Grudinin. And my assumption

is that even now

nobody knows that. He simply

isn’t doing anything. Well, look,

what’s the date today?

>> The eighth,

>> Right?

And our plan was that if I got

registered, I’d start right from the first day.

We even calculated whether we could afford

a plane so I could fly around and hold

two rallies in every city, because

this is your moment.

>> What do you mean, afford it?

>> Well, we wanted to—we were calculating whether

you’d have enough money to rent

a plane. Because you can’t do it on regular

commercial flights.

>> Oh sure, with white leather

seats. Well, we couldn’t even afford one without seats

at all, so

we dropped the idea, dropped it. If you want

to campaign in a country this size,

you need a plane. We couldn’t make it work,

so we flew everywhere on regular

commercial flights.

But that’s not the point. In any case, starting from

January 2, I would have gone into a mode of

speaking twice in every city,

holding rallies nonstop, because

this is your chance. Until the fifteenth,

everyone is sitting at home. Catch them

while they’re still there, collect signatures, campaign,

drag them to rallies—they’ve got nothing else to do.

Does it look like any of the candidates are doing that,

for example Grudinin? No,

it doesn’t. That suggests that, well, what kind of

percentage can they even

hope for if they aren’t even taking

the most basic steps? Instead, he’s going around

apartment blocks collecting votes.

I think in Samara. Going door to door

doesn’t suit a candidate. We just recently saw

how a

wonderfully competitive

presidential campaign in the United States was run, where

an outsider actually became president.

They held meetings with voters,

they held rallies, big rallies.

You know, one of the reasons why

people say Hillary Clinton didn’t

become president is that she didn’t hold enough

meetings in—where was it? In Wisconsin,

yes, she writes about it in her book. So, in other words,

>> Not Wisconsin at all—Philadelphia.

>> Exactly. So in the Midwest,

yes,

>> it’s a candidate’s job to visit cities intensively

and hold, well, big or

relatively big meetings, depending on what

they can manage. Not go door to door just

to get photographed somewhere.

That also needs to be done, sure, in between

the big meetings, because otherwise

there won’t really be any actual campaigning. And

most importantly, why all these candidates—

we started by talking about Grudinin—

whom I still, generally speaking,

view with some sympathy—why he is not

a real candidate, aside from the fact that he

still

>> And why do you feel sympathetic toward him?

>> Because I watched his

speeches, and he’s an absolute left-wing populist.

>> Right now, he...

>> Well, the only thing that saves him for you,

the only thing bringing you together, is this slogan: "I’ll lock up

everyone."

I haven’t heard him on Solovyov’s show (a major Russian political talk show), so I can’t

say anything specifically about his latest

public appearances,

but I did listen to him speak at

all those forums—the forum, what’s it called,

the Moscow Economic

Forum. There it was him, Potapenko, and

several other vivid personalities. That farmer,

Melnichenko,

>> Yes, he was saying that there are no real

food products at all, that all of it is made from...

And Grudinin in particular spoke very well

in defense of business interests, especially small

business. It was quite interesting.

He was one of the entrepreneurs

who wasn’t afraid to criticize the authorities,

although he avoided criticizing Putin himself. But

even so, based on that,

he was at least engaged in some political

activity, and in recent years he

had been involved in at least some kind of political activity

and had been speaking out, so I do feel some

sympathy toward him. But why

are none of them real candidates now? If you

want to win votes, then you have to

criticize Putin, Vladimir

Vladimirovich, because his rule in

Russia is a personalist—am I saying that

word correctly?—a personalist regime,

which he established. If you want to get

the percentages—take those percentage points away from him.

That’s the only chance: at least aim

for, well, ideally, a second round, for

some kind of double-digit result, for broad

support. It’s not about trying to mobilize

someone on Facebook or through

one of Solovyov’s programs. What’s needed is, well, excuse

my language, to go after Putin hard so that

voters peel away from him and

come to you. But not one of them

is doing that. That was the main

condition for allowing them to run. So the campaign is not

real, and going to these elections is

shameful.

>> The only action you’re proposing

is observers. You’re

recruiting them—I mean, what do you mean

the only action I’m proposing?

I’m proposing

a boycott. No, no, no, let me explain. Fine,

since you’re playing dumb—though I know you’re not

actually dumb—but still, since you’re

pretending to be, excuse me, dense,

I’ll explain: compared with all the

other candidates, who haven’t

done a damn thing and haven’t done a damn thing

over the past year, I am proposing

a boycott, active campaigning, I don’t

know, putting up leaflets in apartment building entrances, we

will print newspapers and carry out this very

campaign, this organizational work,

so that people do not go to the polls. We will

organize observers—not 20, not

30, not 1,000, not 5,000, and not only in

major cities, the way everyone else does, but

we’ll put tens of thousands of people in place across the whole country.

That’s a gigantic organizational

effort.

>> So, March 18, 2018. An observer—well,

you’ll have to, after all, get them all

registered. It’s not exactly

a simple matter.

>> No, logistically this is an

incredibly difficult task. In

fact, no matter what anyone says,

real observers have never

been deployed in numbers greater than, well,

20,000 people. Never. No one.

The Communists claim that they

covered all 90,000 polling

stations. But we know how that

works. They just hand over the paperwork to

the administrations. The administrations put

teachers, United Russia people, whoever they want there. We

want real, genuine

observers in place, including in places

where they have never existed before—in the Volga region,

even in the North Caucasus, including

in Dagestan in particular. This task

is astonishingly difficult, astonishingly

expensive. We understand that the Kremlin will, and

the wonderful Ella Pamfilova will

resist this tooth and nail, but

we are going to do it. So when you say

that all you’re proposing is election monitoring—

Yes, in fact we’re doing all the work for all

the candidates and for the entire political

system. I’m glad you used the word

“we,” because in the News interview I

kept reading “I, I, I.” So after all

you’re not alone, right, Ash? You somehow really

>> Well, I think maybe your

reporters changed my “we” into “I.”

Well, I say both “I” and “we.” But of course, and

especially now, in this voter strike

mode, it is “we.” It is those people

whom they decided to throw out of

the political system. I’m simply one of

those who publicly represent these people’s interests.

I go on Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station) on their behalf

and speak here. But of course, it

would be completely impossible to do all

of our campaign without the people who

across the country, in the overwhelming

majority of cases—99.9%—

do it entirely for free. The demographics

of the people who make up your

volunteers, those who were ready to sign

for you, those who work in the campaign offices—

do you have a sense of who they are?

>> Residents of big cities, educated residents

of big cities, who have access to

the internet, who use

the internet. Most often they’re 25 to 34—that’s

the core—but there are also quite a lot of

older people. It’s hard to calculate all

of this, because many of these people

don’t register in any

databases at all. We have 200,000 people

registered as volunteers. And based on

these people, now that we’ve got

a little time, we’ll conduct

a detailed study of who they are.

It’s interesting to understand: are they center-left,

center-right, what are their views

on various different areas

of life besides Putin and corruption? So

we’ll do all that and we’ll understand

them better. But for now—

>> Somewhere you said that Sobchak is, basically,

a classic representative of, well,

expensive, successful,

uh, pampered Moscow. And you are a candidate—

you are a candidate of the country as a whole, that you’ve

traveled around the cities and now, uh, you

understand things much better.

>> I didn’t say it exactly like that, but you’ve

put it well. Well,

then tell me this: how are the people you

met across Russia—during your

rallies, in campaign offices, and so

on—how do they differ from this

pampered Moscow?

>> First of all, I never said “pampered Moscow,”

and there is no such

thing as a pampered Moscow.

It’s an important part, and, well, this is something I

understood before too. After all, I mean, I...

I am a resident of the outskirts of Moscow, yes, and in

that sense I certainly never

belonged to any kind of elite or bohemian

Moscow circle. So I always understood

that this was not the case. Now it is absolutely not

the case. Moscow, despite the fact that

all the money is concentrated here, is

full of people who live from

paycheck to paycheck, rent apartments

with their last money, and do not have enough money

for anything. City Hall says that

the average salary in Moscow is 60,000 or

80,000 rubles. That does not correspond

to reality in the slightest. There are

huge numbers of people here, but we

would more likely be talking about 35,000 to 42,000

rubles. But we know this from the same

social surveys that we conduct. But I do not

claim that right now I can

give a truly representative

figure.

>> But when it comes to the regions, we know for certain

that they differ from Moscow in that

first of all, they are still much

poorer. Rosstat (Russia’s federal statistics agency), for example, gives its data on

average salaries based, in effect, on 38% of

the population—on employees of the largest

corporations and public-sector workers, whose

salaries are easy for them to

calculate. Everyone else is, to one degree or another,

actually hidden from them. And

salaries there are much lower. And I know

for a fact: you go to a

region where the official average wage

is, say, 31,000 rubles. You start asking

people, and they will tell you

their salaries are 22, 20, 19, 14, 15 thousand. And

that is why the regions, unlike Moscow,

even the biggest cities, even places like

St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, or Novosibirsk—

are, first and foremost,

about poverty. Second, there is hopelessness,

there are no prospects at all. In Moscow, at least,

there are still some prospects. You meet

people who earn high

salaries, say 100,000 rubles. And you

understand that you might be able to find

that kind of job too, probably, if you try hard enough.

Well, if you are young enough and

active enough. But in the regions, that does not exist; there,

no matter how hard you try, no matter how

talented, smart, educated, and willing

you are to work three jobs at once,

your ceiling will be 45,000 to 60,000. That is it,

there are no prospects. This is the

most important thing about the country in general and about

our election campaign, really.

Because we are precisely

talking to those people and relying

on those who have realized that

the lack of economic prospects in their

lives is connected to this

disgusting, hopeless

political regime.

>> Yeltsin’s electorate, when

back in the late 1980s he was entering

big-time politics, had a very female

electoral face. Women loved him,

they desired him. And when you

look at the crowd standing

in front of you in the cities, what kind of faces do you see?

Young, male ones.

Women like us too, but only a little. Uh,

the research we are doing, as

I already said, we will do in more detail, but

for now, based on the statistics we have from

internet traffic, we can see that,

of course, there are certain problems with

the female audience, simply because

our means of delivering, of getting

the message, the information out are very, well,

skewed in a particular direction.

>> Uh, sorry, I just do not want us to be

cut off. The news and ads are coming up on Echo (Echo of Moscow radio station).

And the regions are switching over.

>> They are about to start the local

news there, you understand? It is a real shame.

>> So it does not matter that we ran over here,

they just pressed a button there, and that was it.

>> And that is the problem, and so we will have to go out

like this, from the capital studio microphone.

announced that it had successfully repelled an attack

by drones on our country’s bases in

Syria. The ministry’s statement says

that terrorists, using aerial

vehicles, attempted on January 6 to attack

the Khmeimim air base and the naval base in

Tartus.

>> When you were talking about Grudinin

works

the BBC broadcasting company reported

the pen is not writing. Could someone bring me a pen?

In an interview with the RIA Novosti agency, Ncevich

said that he sees attempts by militants

to attack Russian military

facilities in Syria.

>> Well, 11,000. Hello, everyone.

>> Estonia will for the first time spend on defense

more.

>> The last time I looked, when I was watching you,

there were 11,000 people watching

us. Watch not only Echo of Moscow, but also

subscribe to Navalny’s channel.

Advertisement

of spending on defense. The prime minister said that

on the contrary

the last time

of all time. Not only do I not remember. I

do not think I have ever actually watched you live,

but it seemed to me there were

106,000 people watching. Could that be right? Did you

>> We have had times when more than 100,000 watched,

but those were some extraordinary cases. I mean,

my last broadcast had something like

19,000 or 20,000 online at peak. So

for us—well then explain to me how to understand

>> Dud says that what matters is how many people

are watching, not how many are subscribed.

How many? Look, there are several

metrics. A criminal case has been opened over

intentional destruction.

>> The first metric is the number of subscribers

a channel has. We have 416,000 there, but that

is important, though not really the most important thing.

The second is how many people

watched your video.

>> Do you have a million subscribers? No,

>> no, we have two channels. One has about

1.6 million. On the live-stream channel

we have 416,000 subscribers. But the most

important metric is how many

views your video gets. In other words,

when we do a live broadcast, it matters

who is watching. You have to understand, I go on air at

9:30, and by then all of Siberia

has already dropped off—they're all asleep. In the Far

East it's already morning, and even in the

Urals it's already too late. So only the

European part of Russia can watch

live online. The most important metric is

the total number of views, yes, because

most often people wake up the next morning,

go to work, do whatever

they need to do, then put on

their headphones and start watching YouTube.

>> And you can see that they do it specifically during

working hours.

>> Why aren't they working? This is more important than

any job. If they're watching my broadcast

during working hours, good for them. It's

more important than any job.

>> Alyosh, that's awful.

>> Oh, come on, 40 minutes is fine,

>> right? Well

>> a person can't spend work time watching something

that

>> attention: Morning Turn.

>> They can, they can

indeed,

>> anyone can watch for 40 minutes or an hour.

Miss Morning Turn from

8 to 11.

>> Because not everyone watches the whole

broadcast. We add time codes, and they

click around and watch. They watch the most interesting

20 minutes out of an hour.

Sergei Aleksansona.

>> So you check what performs

well and what doesn't.

>> Unfortunately, we can't see which ones—well, actually, no,

we can see that too. We can see the peaks on the graph

as well. Of course we check. I mean,

we try to analyze it. The most

important thing for us is retention: how many total

views there were and how long people watched

a particular video. Our retention on

my show is 19 minutes. That's

pretty decent. If 300,000 or 400,000 people

watch a broadcast for 19 minutes, well, I'm

satisfied. That's excellent.

Depth of engagement.

Broadcast retention is called leaders of states.

Sergei Buntman is joined by

Academician Andrei Khazin, a member of the commission under the President

of the Russian Federation on state

awards. *Diletanty* on

Thursday after 9:00 p.m.

The weekly roundup program *Scanner* with Olga

Bychkova, produced jointly with the

Interfax news agency. Listen on Fridays after

10:00 p.m. We discuss the most-mentioned

events and public figures of the week according to

Interfax. The program *Scanner* airs

Fridays after 10:00 p.m.

You, scrolling post after post and liking

all those cat pictures—better keep up with the news

in your VKontakte feed. Read blogs

that matter while sitting there with your smartphone.

Subscribe to the public page of Moskvy (Echo of Moscow)

—our community.

Echo of Moscow.

>> Full Alba.

This is Echo of Moscow. At the microphone is Yevgenia Bats

and in the Echo of Moscow studio is Alexei Navalny.

Alexei, I interrupted you. We went to

the news break when you were talking about the demographics

of the people who are there, who stand in front of

you. And you were saying that the female

share is smaller because our

methods of reaching people—well, we rely

primarily on YouTube right now. There,

in general, the audience skews more male. I've

spoken with various channel owners and authors,

including ones that are not

political, and yes, there is a male

audience bias there, and that has an effect. But

what's very encouraging is that we could actually see

how the situation changed over the course of this

year. I started my latest tour,

it lasted from September 15, and then

in the final days before registration it was really

clear that there were more and more,

first, women in the audience, and second,

many more older

people. That's great, that's excellent.

It works. It gets through.

>> I was going to ask you this at the end,

but since we've started talking

about

your channels, you're creating television.

That's completely obvious. And are you

planning to keep doing this after March 18

professionally, to create

some kind of, I don't know, television

holding company on YouTube?

>> I don't want to do that, and I would never

have done it in my life if there had been

other channels. But simply—where else can I

even hear news about

myself now? If you and I were discussing

this three years ago, we could have named

20 media outlets that could report on

the latest FBK investigation. A year ago

it would already have been 10 outlets, and now it's

countable on the fingers of one hand. And among them,

as for the really major media outlets, the ones that have

there are some that have instant reach,

there are 100,000 people there—that’s one Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station) audience,

in Moscow, where I am right now. And in

that sense, the information space

around us has narrowed. That’s why we were

forced to create all these channels. I

record videos, which I’m not very good at

doing. And we’re constantly experimenting.

Our experiments aren’t always

successful either, but I’m tremendously grateful to the people

who are on YouTube and are watching us

right now, who support all these

experiments of ours. Of course, we’re not going to build any kind of

media holding. That takes money,

>> But you are doing it, you do have programs,

>> Well, we do have a program, basically, everything

already makes it look like you’re becoming the face of Alfa-Bank.

One could take that to mean we’re already talking

about a fee of a million dollars,

so, uh,

>> Well, you know, to somehow initiate that, you understand,

it would be quite difficult for me to become

the face of some bank, and there’s absolutely no

desire to do that. Starting this year, we’ll begin

careful experiments with advertising on

some programs. Well, we don’t know how

to do that. We’re forced to,

>> We’ll be hiring, of course we will.

So, 2018 will, uh, be the year

when this direction of ours in

creating different kinds of

well, I’m even afraid to call it television,

communication—will really take off. We’ll be very actively

experimenting. But you remember

how at one point our experiment

was interrupted when

FSB officers (Russia’s security service) came and took absolutely everything out of

our office. Literally all, all the electronic

equipment. And only thanks to the people

who watch us were we able to raise

the money and buy everything again. So we

understand that, most likely, they’ll

keep doing that in the future, but we simply

have no other choice. We have to make

these programs and all sorts of things like that, even though we don’t

really know how to do it, and we understand that it

looks terribly clumsy and strange. Uh, but

we do it. You know, we’ve known each other for so long

already, Alyosha, that I remember when you

and Masha Gaidar were holding debates at the Bilingua club

Bilingua. Uh-huh.

>> And then they were even going to invite you

to the TV Center channel. Were you ready to go

there?

>> No, they actually did invite me, but after the first

pilot episode, they fired me.

>> And Vladislav Surkov was categorically,

they say, against it. He immediately understood,

>> In fact, that’s why I

>> was seen as a danger. So

listen, the progress is enormous. From

the Bilingua club to a million-subscriber channel on

>> Well, you know the saying, necessity is the mother of invention.

We have no money and no

means of communication, so we’re

resourceful—we’re forced to be

that way.

>> You keep playing yourselves down somehow,

judging by the kind of

investigations you do. And

>> No, when it comes to investigations, I’m not

playing anything down. We do them better than anyone else in the

country. That’s absolutely certain. And

on the contrary, people keep criticizing me for

bragging too much about it. But our

television product, of course,

our video product, these live-streaming

channels—I’m also very proud of them, that

we made them without being

professionals, but, frankly speaking,

there’s still plenty to work on.

>> Ah, I won’t argue with that. Uh, and I want to ask you

about the people around

you. You’ve acquired

two, so to speak, spokespersons,

Vladimir Milov and Sergei Aleksashenko,

who constantly appear as

your representatives. Uh, Sergei

Aleksashenko more on matters concerning

the economy, though not only that. And as for

Vladimir Milov, I see he’ll be

debating on Echo as well with Maxim

Katz about whether to boycott

the elections or not. Uh, both of

these remarkable people—they are

certainly talented—but there are

reputational issues. One has

issues of a moral nature; the other has issues connected

to the days of GKOs (Russian short-term government bonds), the Fimaco offshore company, if

that means anything to you, and so on. You are

someone who is very exacting

about how people earn

their money, what they do, and you’ve

destroyed more than one reputation, including

political reputations. And yet you choose

as your spokespersons

people against whom accusations can be made. At

the very least, on the internet you can read

quite a few complaints about these people. Explain

your choice.

>> Zhenya, you know, the person you can read the most about on

the internet is me. And

in that sense, I’m very proud that both

Aleksashenko and

>> Because somewhere it was written about you that you

tried to steal someone else’s wife.

>> Well, that doesn’t interest me, honestly

speaking, yes. I don’t think radio listeners would be

interested in that story. You know it,

I know it. Unfor—unfortunately, we

all know all that. But all of that concerns wives,

husbands, and whatever they do

somewhere. I’m immensely proud that both

Milov and Aleksashenko, who don’t

get a single kopek from us, never have

received anything, and yet have actively

started helping us in the campaign. Milov has also, in

addition to that, traveled around

...the country. Doesn't reputation matter to you?

>> Reputation matters to me very much.

And of course, without reputation, uh, none of our

movement is possible. But I believe that

Milov and Alex Sashenko are wonderful

people one can work with. Everyone has

a difficult personality, and everyone has a long

history of conflicts. I am speaking only about

reputation—about what you could probably

find on the internet, since you

really do the best investigations in the country.

I read all the information on

the internet. I believe that Milov and Alex

Sashenko are the people with whom we can

and should work. I value them greatly and

am very grateful to them. They are, in fact,

high-level professionals. And they do these

things with Milov. Good Lord, I argued with him for

so many years. You can read how he

called me every name under the sun there, for example,

during the mayoral campaign. The anti-Semitic

posts are very well remembered.

>> Well, I don't remember anything like that, but still

there is a varied history

of relationships with these people. We are

in fact, uh, building communication with

all normal people. And they, and in fact

we have equal relationships—everyone with

everyone. They are not obliged to report to me.

I cannot give them instructions, but these

two, and many other people, help us

sincerely. I am very grateful to absolutely

everyone who works with us. Well, that is

life. There are different people and different

relationships here. Therefore, as of today,

I will repeat once again and

emphasize: I am very proud that both

of them are working with us.

>> I see.

>> Understood. Now I have a second question for

you. In your program, since

it is your program, and really,

it does not matter who wrote it, you propose

as the form of government in a future

beautiful Russia

a presidential-parliamentary republic.

Georgia tried that, and it

ended badly.

It was enough for Ivanishvili to come

in after Saakashvili, and democracy there

declined sharply.

And they tried it in Ukraine, and

it ended badly twice. And despite all the

declarations about the United States, all of this continues

there just fine. No, the United States

is not a presidential-parliamentary

republic.

>> That is not true, because the United States is

a classic presidential republic.

And we, by the way, are not, uh,

a super-presidential republic, as you

say. Under the constitution, we, so to

speak, copied a version of the Fifth

Republic of France, where the president is not

the head of the executive branch, but

is the head

>> the head of state. Well, that is exactly

a super-presidential republic. But, Zhenya,

I want to say thank you for this question,

it is important, because this kind of

practical political science here does not have

much meaning. Under the constitution, we

copied

something from the Fifth Republic of France.

In reality, we are

I do not even know, some kind of

Latin American—not quite a dictatorship anymore,

but an autocracy. Belarus, on paper,

is one thing; in practice, it is something quite

different. The Soviet constitution, as

is well known, was also quite

democratic, and the Soviet criminal procedure

code was quite advanced and

modeled on the best, uh, examples. That is not

of great importance. The most important thing we

say in the program is that the powers of the

president must be curtailed and

redistributed in favor of parliament. The

guarantee that this whole system will not later

break down and that there will not be a usurpation

of power by a new president—a bad

Navalny, an evil one, or someone else—must

be the judicial system. In Georgia,

nothing worked out because, unfortunately,

judicial reform was not carried out, and

control over it remained with the

president for the sake of such declared

good intentions. Well, right now we will

jail corrupt officials, jail

bad traffic cops, and so on. But nevertheless,

they kept the judicial system

for themselves. Therefore, when another

president came, using that same judicial

system he simply jailed

the previous authorities. And this is extremely

important: that a new President Navalny,

for example, under a favorable scenario,

would voluntarily give up control over the judicial

system, which would greatly complicate

the carrying out of reforms, would greatly complicate

practical work, because shadowy

figures would begin influencing the judicial

system—oligarchs, certain groups,

and so on. But you gave it up, right? You cannot

call anyone. Even if you

pick up the phone and call, they tell you to get lost

on the other end of the line. That is the most

important thing. Therefore, based on

practical experience, based on many

conversations with various people, uh,

and there is always debate—you do not

agree with this, someone else does, but I

believe that what Russia needs now is

a parliamentary-presidential republic with

a very strong, independent judicial

system, which is what will create balance.

Ukraine.

>> Ukraine

>> Ukraine also went down that path

of a presidential-parliamentary republic.

Let's spell this out.

>> You're just like Putin. You keep wanting to

drag Ukraine into our conversation.

Let's spell this out and say that a

presidential-parliamentary republic

is a system in which there is a head of the executive

branch, and there is the legislature, parliament,

which can, well,

impeach the head of the executive branch

and so on. The clearest example is,

of course, France, which, as we know,

mm, had its last French Revolution

in 1830, and which has gone through a long and

remarkable path, but there is no other

successful example like it. Ukraine

tried to do this. We can see how

Poroshenko is now splendidly being broken over the

rack. And we can see

the main reason why this does not work

in Ukraine. And the main reason, one of the

main reasons for this kind of political

failure of reforms in Russia, this attempt to build

democracy, is the oligarchs. The oligarchs — the fact

that they control absolutely everything in

Ukraine; in that sense they control

an even larger share of the economy, they are even

more corrupt, venal, and

cynical than in Russia. And, of course, this is

a crucial factor that adds

a very significant shade

to this abstract political science discussion of ours,

which we are having.

>> It isn't abstract. If you look

at the 15 former republics of the Soviet Union,

you will see that two or three republics

of the former coun- former republics

of the Baltics — Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia —

went with the parliamentary model, as did

absolutely, with one exception,

all the countries of Europe, while the other, well,

12, including Russia, went down the path of a

presidential republic, yes, or

a model in which the president is the head

of state.

>> Well, they usurped power not

because they chose that path, but

because they simply controlled

the judicial system, seized the media, and

so on. The essence of presidential power

is that the winner takes it all. That is why in

the political section of our program we

from the very beginning emphasize

that the president's term of office, his

powers in general, should be

delegated toward parliament, in order

to break this pattern, so that jailing someone arbitrarily becomes impossible.

Could I do it or not? And I have no desire

to jail Albats. But if I were suddenly to seize

power and, because you, Zhenya, brought some

Ukraine into our conversation, wanted

to jail you for that, I would not be able

to do it, because an honest court would

acquit you. And I would be

impeached for having tried

to imprison an innocent person. That's

all. That's how it should work. And that's how it

will work in a normal country.

>> Well, basically, I'm just saying that I

want to understand your views clearly.

So, after all, you are

a supporter of a presidential system,

a presidential-parliamentary one. I believe

that at this stage of Russia's development, well,

again, we are not discussing this

in the abstract; we are discussing what

to do the very next day. That's what they said

in Ukraine.

>> And now Saakashvili is doing the same, running

through the streets, just as Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin tells me the same thing:

why are you so obsessed with

Ukraine? There are many

other examples. We are talking about the fact that

there is now a specific situation in Russia,

and how it should be resolved. And I

am saying that we need to begin by

drastically reducing the powers of the president.

And you do not want

to hear that, but instead you've latched onto some

piece of paper that says

presidential-parliamentary or

parliamentary-presidential, and around

that some kind of pointless debate is going on.

I don't want to cite any examples,

because all of this is abstract

political science, Zhenya. Any example can

be interpreted this way or

that way. It's all just juggling

geography and some textbooks of

history. And there is no truth in that. I

am talking about the reality that

objectively exists, and how it should

be changed for the better.

>> Okay. Well, if a rational voter

reads political platforms — and you know, that's

the kind of product you

are offering to the voter — where... when

you invited me onto this program, I

assumed there would at least be

a certain level of my personal

safety here. But now you want

me to die laughing when you say that

large numbers of voters

actually read them. Nobody reads those

sections of party platforms. We write them; our

platform is the best, but people are simply not interested in these

tiny distinctions and all these little games

of wording at all.

Okay. Bokrev, Alex, Alexei, unfortunately

you were not allowed to take part in the election.

That was predictable. For that reason,

for the first time I will not go vote. What are you

going to do next? Will you take part

in other elections, for example for mayor or

for parliament, or prepare for 2024?

>> Well, personally I do not plan to take part in

the mayoral election, but of course I... well, why

Is that what needs to be done? I mean, uh, I want

to use that remarkable

political system of influence that we

have created to make

the authorities reckon with us, run around,

take part in election after election—that

would simply be indecent toward

the voters. If I wanted to become

a candidate in the mayoral election, well, then I

should honestly say: "Guys, I

am running in the mayoral election. I'm going into it, I'm

building some kind of system. This is how it should

be organized." But to suddenly, right before

the election, jump in—as everything here

usually happens—and say, "Oh, and also

me, pick me, I can get 7%,"

what the hell is the point of that? I don't want to

do that, but I believe that in every

election we need to participate, if

they let us in. And if they don't let us in,

then we have to look for other options.

Alexei Venediktov suggested

that you—well, this is Alexei

>> mayor, but nevertheless here he is the editor-in-chief

editor-in-chief. In the mayoral election, will you, um,

support Ilya Yashin as a candidate? Is that

really the case? Do you think Ilya

will run?

>> I—well, I think that Ilya is currently doing

an absolutely tremendous job specifically in

Moscow with Moscow voters. That

is, he's not just doing a wonderful job

meeting with these people and dealing with

housing and utilities issues, social benefits recipients, and

everything else—he's really fighting on the

front lines, actually. And he's also doing all sorts of

impressive political things too, like his

recent event, when he

went head-to-head with the mayor's office. But I haven't

discussed that either with Yashin or with anyone else. I

am not even thinking about it. Besides, the election is

still a long way off, first of all. I know that I will not

be taking part in it. Everything else is

secondary for me right now. I am focused on

the presidential election, but

naturally, I will support whichever candidate

is doing active work. I

don't want to support idlers or

people who just post things on Facebook

and make statements. Yashin is working excellently, but

as I understand it, they don't have such

plans either. I would like everyone who

wants to run for office to say so now

and to demonstrate through their work

not only to me, but to you and everyone else, that they

deserve our support.

>> Yak 007, when can we expect a film from you called "He

Isn't Dimon to You?" Haven't you really dug up anything on

the one who can't learn your last name?

>> That's classified information. Well, we, we are constantly

constantly

working on investigations in various

directions involving different people. All of this is very

complicated, and there cannot be

any specific deadlines for it. And we never

disclose any details whatsoever about

our upcoming investigations.

>> But you are working on such

investigations.

>> Any investigation into corruption in Russia,

major corruption, is connected to

Putin. Any, any film or anything

about Rotenberg, Timchenko, or Shamalov

is all about Putin.

>> Cherepovets. What is the likelihood of Russia

breaking up like the Soviet Union? What could

contribute to such a breakup? What would you

do to unite the country

ideologically and economically

if you came to power?

>> What Putin is doing now is,

of course, work that is leading to Russia's collapse. It is

this current effort to strip all power from

the regions, squeeze everyone, uh, everyone

being driven out, because later, when

the pendulum swings, swings back in

the opposite direction, that will, of course, lead

to centrifugal tendencies of that kind.

So yes, I really do believe that

Putin is working toward the breakup of the country,

despite the fact that they are the ones who

most loudly claim that they are

trying to hold it together, while the economy is

supposedly already falling apart now.

No ideological foundation will

unite our country. People need to be given

decent wages if things are to go well for

Russia.

>> Alexei, we're with you. Makarov 14. Alexei,

we're with you. A question: do you have a clear

plan for after March 18?

>> I do have a clear plan for after March 18.

After March 18, we will

use every mechanism available to

make the authorities reckon with us.

We will take part in elections and

demand our right to participate. We will

spread information. We will

create new channels of communication, which

we have talked about. We are, at a minimum,

at least 30–40%

of the residents of the largest cities, who have already

realized that they have effectively been

thrown out of the political system,

who have been told: "Guys, you are not supposed to be

in these elections, and you cannot

put forward your own representatives. We ourselves

will decide who your representatives are, and you

can just come and vote for them." So

go vote. Uh, all these people—they are

there, and we will work to ensure that

they begin influencing the authorities in different

ways: through elections, through information, well,

through anything—leaflets, whatever. Politics has once again

returned to a state that is, you know,

the most basic, maybe even the most

honest, where now meetings with

voters and the distribution of newspapers

Leaflets are in fact the most important and

the main political process.

>> Well, for you, politics is a profession.

And what will happen to the Progress Party? We have never stopped

trying to register the Progress Party,

we have not given up those

attempts, and we will not give them up going forward. We

believe that we should have a party of our own.

It is not the most comfortable way

to do political work for most

people. A party is, generally speaking, the most

discredited

institution, as we know even from

numerous sociological surveys.

But it is important. And the question of participating in elections

is, of course, tied to the registration

of a party, because we are constantly

being told: "Oh, just go to PARNAS (a Russian opposition party) or

go to Yabloko (a Russian liberal party), and there you will have to

fall to your knees and kiss the ring." And

then we will let one person onto your

candidate lists. That is unacceptable. And most

importantly, it leads to no

result. So of course we will continue

to seek registration, to demand the registration

of the Progress Party, and nothing else.

>> On March 19, 2018, what will you say to your

supporters? I will give my supporters

an assessment of my work and their work up to that

point. Whether we managed to achieve something or

not. I will call on my supporters

to keep working, because March 19 is

not some super-date. It is a completely

technical date on which there will be a

reappointment of Putin. He

will get his 73%

and will go on waving those percentages in

our faces. And on March 19 I will say: "People, do not

believe this piece of paper. We will

continue"—continue fighting so that

we can influence the political system, because

without our influence, nothing good

will happen. Without our influence, we will

continue to decline and grow poorer.

And all these predictions that after

the inauguration there will be a sharp

tightening of the regime, since the leader

is not getting any younger—what is your forecast? Will things get worse?

>> Well, of course things will get worse. I do not think

something abrupt will happen immediately. This is the kind of

traditional forecast, uh, made by people who

like making forecasts, that from such-and-such a moment...

>> The program on your channel

is called *It Will Get Worse*—how much worse can it get?

>> That is the name of the program, so yes, I am saying that

things will get worse, but that is the logic of the regime. Everything

keeps getting worse. The number of

political prisoners is growing. Absurd

criminal cases no longer even make us laugh

when someone is jailed for a like

on VKontakte (a Russian social network). It is now just a routine

news item. It appears every single

day. So, of course, the whole logic

of this regime is that people will become

poorer, there will be more corruption,

more political prisoners, more repression.

Not in sudden leaps, but it

will keep intensifying, so things will get worse.

That is exactly why we must keep fighting.

>> That was Alexei Navalny. Thank you.

We will talk again in a week.

Full

>> We ended on an optimistic note. It will

get worse.

>> I printed something out for you специально.

>> Let me see. And you...

I dealt with this myself, you see? There are

things I knew well that used to annoy me

enormously...

That helps a lot. We are leaving now.

The wardrobe needs to be replaced.

>> YouTube is working.

>> YouTube is working. Yes, yes, yes. Let's go.

>> On YouTube. Hello, everyone. Goodbye, everyone.

>> How many people are watching right now? Tell me.

Interesting. Let's take a look now.

>> Oh, I forgot to ask: why did your

wife not go to vote? Damn, I

forgot a lot of questions like that.

Yes, and there were more—it's a shame.

>> I can choose not to answer that question. There is

nothing terrible about that. These things happen.

>> It is not loading. Well, people have already dropped off there,

so... chiffonier, as I...

that is wrong. So, wardrobe, wardrobe,

closet, and chiffonier—how do they relate

to one another?

What,

that you like him? Aleksan just does not

read the audio. Well, I am working on it.