Alexei Navalny on the TV Rain (Dozhd) program “Direct Line” in 2013. Part 1

TV Rain and the city newspaper

Cityboom

present: Direct Line — the Mayor and

[music]

Muscovites. Hello, friends. Good evening.

Dear Muscovites, with the Moscow mayoral election

the first election in the past

10 years just a week and one day remain, and

that is why we are here. We are beginning our

telethon, our direct line with

the candidates for mayor of Moscow. We believe that

elections are impossible without discussion,

impossible without dialogue between candidates and

voters, and that is why all of us are here with

you today, and that is why today there will be

candidates for mayor of Moscow here. This is a campaign

event in full compliance with

election law. Invitations were sent to

all registered candidates.

Some responded, and they will

be here today. As for us,

we are now on the roof of TV Rain,

where the audience members are seated, whom you can

see on air right now. And on the fourth

floor, in the main studio, there are also

our viewers who could not fit in here,

and they too will be asking

questions to the candidates. And at three locations

in our beloved city of Moscow — at

Hermitage Garden — our

colleague Yulia Taratuta is there. Pavel Lobkov

is at Triumfalnaya Square near

Chaikhana No. 1, and Lev

Parkhomenko is driving around the city collecting questions for

the candidates. Unfortunately, our website has once again

been hit by a DDoS attack, the TV Rain site. So

it is better to watch us on Avocado or TV Rain

Live. And on YouTube as well — yes, we have a channel on

YouTube with a live stream you can watch. Well then,

let us welcome our first —

not guest, but participant — candidate for mayor of

Moscow, Alexei

[applause]

Navalny. Hello. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Alexei. Good afternoon, dear

friends. A brief opening statement. Well,

first of all, I would like to

thank TV Rain for this

opportunity to speak. Very often, when

I complain that television is completely

closed to me, I am always told: but what about

TV Rain? And once again, I have

the opportunity, the chance to appear on

TV Rain, for which many thanks to them.

These elections are very important for

Moscow, important for our city. As you

rightly said, these are probably the first

elections in years with at least some

real competition. And my team and I

are running in these elections because

we truly represent

an alternative to the government that currently

exists. We are running on a platform

that speaks about fighting corruption,

fighting monopolies, dignity, and

a normal judicial system. I am absolutely

certain that we can win. Today I am proudly

ready to answer your

questions, ready to present our

program. Please — any questions, tricky or

not tricky, critical or friendly — I am

entirely at your disposal. Thank you very much, thank you.

Let us determine

the format, determine the rules for

asking questions. Specifically,

the first question will come from Mikhail Fishman

of TV Rain and from our viewers

who sent questions on the website

TV.ru. Here in the studio, in the studio

on the roof of TV Rain, Nikita

Belogolovtsev is here and will help you

ask questions. Raise your hand and we

will point you out, and he

will come over with a microphone. And

today’s live broadcast is hosted by Ksenia Chudinova and

Mikhail Fishman. Alexei, I have the following question:

in your view, what is the main substance of

this election? Is the office of mayor of Moscow

an administrative position, or

a political one? Is there a difference between these

two

concepts? Is Moscow different from

any other city in Russia? Well, obviously

it is. Moscow is a gigantic city;

15% of the country’s population lives here.

Moscow’s population is, on average,

larger than the population of an ordinary country. Just

look at a map of the world — Moscow is a huge city.

Naturally, the office of mayor of Moscow is

a political office. In fact, we

are choosing not just the mayor of Moscow. We

are not only choosing how we will lay

pipes in Moscow, although that too is very important,

because right now pipes are being laid at

twice the cost they should be.

We are choosing a way of life; we

are choosing the political system of the future.

All political changes in the country

will happen or not happen depending on whether

Muscovites want them or do not want them.

Therefore, the most important part of this election is

that we are now coming out to vote

for corruption or against corruption, for

competition or against competition, for

rule by phone call in the courts or for

a normal judicial system, for whether

people should remain imprisoned in the Bolotnaya case (the criminal case against protesters after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square rally), or for

their release. This is a fundamental

choice, a political choice, and everyone

will have to make it on the eighth.

Thank you. Well, raise your hands if you

would like to ask something. Nikita, help us, please.

Your opponents accuse you

of having a fixed match with

Sobyanin. What do you say to that? To that I

would say that any person who

looks at my speeches, looks at our

program, perhaps looks at

today's, this today's speech

He will see that there is no collusion of any kind

there is no fixed match, and frankly I do not want

to say anything bad about your

respected candidate from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), but when

the LDPR candidate tells me about fixed

matches, all I can do is

treat that ironically. We are running with a

real, tough alternative. We are not

just criticizing; we are proposing

practical solutions, and everything I am

talking about, from corruption in the

construction sector, corruption in

metro construction, corruption in housing and utilities, these are

specific allegations backed

on our side by legal action

that we are pursuing against the mayor's office. This is not

a fixed match; this is truly a choice

of alternatives before Muscovites. By and

large, the choice is

to choose Navalny or Sobyanin, to choose

corruption or the fight against corruption. That is

what these elections are about.

Let's move on, probably. Next, please.

Please stand up so it will be easier. Sergei

Koltovich, thank you very much. Alexei, very

interesting. Still, despite the fact that

you said these are political elections, in

any case the position of mayor of Moscow

implies serious administrative

work, and administrative

work, well, generally cannot be

done by one person. I got the slight impression

that your campaign is

something of a one-man show. So perhaps

tell us a little about your team. If

you suddenly succeed in these

elections, who will be doing what?

After all, with Sobyanin, despite

his somewhat

faceless style, with its pros and cons,

it is clear who does what. And who on

your team will be responsible for what?

Thank you, thank you very much. Of course, I am by

no means some kind of

lone politician. That is absolutely not

the case, and it never has been. Throughout

my entire political career,

perhaps I may be more visible against the

background of some of my colleagues simply

because that is how the media space is structured,

but both in the Anti-Corruption Foundation and in

all the projects I have led—RosZhKH,

RosPil, RosVybory—these projects could not

have happened if a coordinated team had not

been working alongside me.

As for the structure of our campaign and the practical

side of the election campaign, we have already announced

that we will name specific people in

the second round of this election. We

are confident that a second round is inevitable; it

will happen. I am already saying now that for

every area of work there will be a

special personnel committee that

will select the appropriate people. I assure

you that our team's кадровый potential is enormous

and we will be able to assemble not

just an alternative, but a superior,

better alternative to the team of supposedly

technocrats that Sobyanin prides himself on, but

in reality it is simply a team of the very

same old officials who

mostly came from Luzhkov's era, whom

we know to be implicated in corruption,

and to be ineffective. Right now they have simply

been given a light whitewash, you know.

These are not new technocrats; these are the same

people who have sat for 20 years in all those

prefectures and district administrations, whose work

we all know very well. And we are not

thrilled with that work. We have

a question from Dozhd's Twitter: Chichkov Mikhail.

Sorry, we have wind. What mode of transport

will you use after being elected

mayor

of Moscow? When I am elected mayor of Moscow,

I will use the same transport

I use now. I will

use either a car or the metro. I—

when I am elected, I plan

to continue living in the district where I have lived

for the last 17 years, in the Maryino district. The traffic jams

there are enormous, and even when I become

mayor, over the next 2 years it is obvious

that they cannot be solved radically in

such a short time, although I am sure that

there will be some significant improvements.

Therefore I think that for the most part I

will have to use the metro

simply in order not to be late for meetings

at City Hall. I understand that this question

of course implies

a flashing beacon. I am

a principled, principled opponent

of special signals. Whether by car or by metro—in

the metro I will not need a flashing beacon.

You understand, even if it were flashing on my

cap, no one would let me go ahead

in the underground

passage. I see a question from the audience, but

while Nikita is making his way over, let us, as it were,

take a women's question: How

will healthcare be improved?

asks Elena Buyanova, also on

Dozhd's Twitter. What is happening with Moscow

healthcare now? We see that

colossal sums are being allocated to it, but

there are no major improvements. Not

long ago, the Moscow government spent 100

billion rubles (about US$3 billion at the time) on the so-called program

for modernizing Moscow healthcare.

At the Anti-Corruption Foundation, we can

see very clearly why it did not

work: because these gigantic

sums were poured into capital expenditures, into

equipment procurement at prices far

above the market average. And this equipment

is just sitting somewhere covered with sheets.

no one can work on it. My

strategy regarding healthcare

is not crazy and useless

capital expenditures. First and foremost, it is

investment in human potential, in

doctors. We need general practitioners,

we need internists, we need

a sufficient number of doctors so that people

receive medical care on the very day

they seek it. The current strategy, where we

bought a great many CT scanners and ultrasound machines,

but there is no one to operate them,

simply does not work. I have already held, probably,

about 80 meetings now in Moscow districts. At

every meeting I ask: Please tell me,

is it easy at your local clinic

to get an ultrasound exam? And people

just shout in unison: impossible. So we

must make sure that doctors appear,

I will be the mayor who hires

doctors and works on improving their qualifications. They

are simply pointlessly buying

equipment in order to enrich

the purchasers of that equipment. Question. Well,

now we give the floor to the women. Valentina

Mikhailovna, LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia). Alexei, I have heard a lot about yo

we have many representatives of your

party here today. With pleasure. Thank you. As for me,

as a Russian woman and a mother, I want to ask

a question, assuming that you are already mayor

of Moscow: how will you address the issue

of the spiritual and moral upbringing

of young people? Back in the Soviet

Union, we had an ethics class at school; we

were taught how to behave, we were explained

what is good and what is bad. We

had two shop classes a week, you

understand. Russia will never

break through and move forward if we do not

develop the spiritual and moral

upbringing of our youth, because

that is... Well, I suppose the question is roughly

understandable. We are not talking about Russia, but about

spiritual and moral development. You are asking me

a question, as you said, as a Russian

person and a mother. Well, as a Russian person and

a father, and as someone who studied in the

same Soviet schools as you,

I attended those shop classes and those

ethics classes, which in fact everyone skipped,

and there was absolutely no

spiritual or moral upbringing there,

not even close. I want to say that

I am absolutely convinced that the task of spiritual

and moral upbringing of a person

lies in the family; parents should

be dealing with that. No teachers,

no deputy principal for educational work,

will teach a person any spiritual foundations.

Family, relatives, reading

good literature — that is what people should do.

My task as mayor is not to impose

on people some kind of, you know, myth that

let's spiritually educate everyone.

Now I look at the audience and say,

what kind of guys are you...

My task is to ensure that Moscow's

education system develops, that schools are not

merged thoughtlessly as is happening now,

when we lose teaching staffs,

that there is no corruption in schools, neither at the level

of textbook procurement nor at the level of purchasing

food for these schoolchildren, so that

the money we invest works

for education. If schools teach

properly, if children can

attend extracurricular clubs for free

instead of, as now, already the third club costing

money, then the school will provide the foundation, and

everything else, including spiritual upbringing,

should be left to parents. And now

let's listen to the questions people

asked in different districts of the city.

[music]

of Moscow. So, Alexei, we invite you to

choose, in fact, choose a district. So:

Pechatniki, Perovo,

Petrovsko-Razumovskaya, Shchukinskaya, Prospekt

Vernadskogo, or Butovo. In all of these districts

I have already spoken. Well, let's do Perovo.

Perovo. I would like to know how long

this lawlessness will continue

by people from Central Asia in Moscow, and

when it will stop. This is what

probably worries all

Muscovites most: the issue of immigration.

Indeed, in districts like Perovo, like

my district Maryino, in outlying districts,

this is a colossal issue, and it concerns

all Muscovites. After all, we know that our

city, unfortunately, ranks first

in the world in the number of illegal

migrants, and migrants commit

a significant number of crimes,

including serious ones. My position here

is very simple. First, when I become mayor,

I will push for the introduction of a visa

regime with the countries of Central Asia and

the South Caucasus. Without this, we will get

nowhere. No restrictive measures

will give us anything if we do not

establish tough penalties for city

contractors who hire illegal migrants —

not just fine them, but permanently

bar them from city contracts. And third,

the measure that we will implement

within a year: enterprises working with

municipal money, with our

money, will not have the right

to hire foreigners with that money. They

have enough resources to

hire both Russian citizens and Muscovites.

These are the three measures I will apply. I am sure

that within 2 years the number

of migrants here will decrease by about 70 percent. Mon vo

Yes, according to sociological survey data,

during the time the election

campaign for mayor of Moscow has been underway, the issue of migration

and migrants have begun to worry Muscovites

noticeably more. This is

an indicator, if you like, not so much of the attitude—well, not

toward the problem itself, but of a certain degree

of aggression that exists in Moscow.

The campaign itself seems to be fueling it.

Can you comment on that?

How much do you think there is such a

problem? It is a fairly obvious

phenomenon. The migration issue really

has always concerned Muscovites, and it has been

one of the key problems, of course.

Politicians who run for office

speak about it quite a lot—about the

migration issue. There is a public

discussion, and this

is being stoked; the Moscow city government says very often,

“Well, it’s no longer such a

big problem. The Moscow city government

is now allocating us 110,000 places

as a quota for foreign migrants,” and

they say that in this way they are

solving the problem. But that’s deception. We know that

there are hundreds of thousands, and apparently

millions, of migrants in Moscow, including

undocumented ones. They tell us that a quota of

110,000 people solves some kind of problem.

So despite the fact that we see the

temperature of the public discussion sometimes

going through the roof, these things need to be discussed—not

just discussed, but resolved. I am convinced

that until, for example, a

visa regime is introduced with the countries of Central

Asia and the South Caucasus, nothing at all

will move forward. And for me, frankly speaking,

it is rather sad that I am the only

candidate now for the post of mayor of Moscow

who clearly supports the introduction of a

visa regime. This is a basic measure without

which we will not get anywhere at all.

Look, here’s a young man, yes, and while I’m

making my way to you, young man, I would like

to address our viewers as well and

say that if you have any

questions but for one reason or another

couldn’t come here, write to us on

Twitter, hashtag Direct Line, ask your questions,

and we’ll start asking them right now, including

to Alexei Navalny, in just a moment.

Please introduce yourself and ask your

question. Hello, my name is Timur.

Hello, Alexei Anatolyevich. I would

like to ask a question precisely on this

topic. You talk a lot about it, and I

basically, on the whole, agree with you about

the visa regime, because

after all, I grew up in a more or less Russian,

Russian-speaking culture. Still, I am

an immigrant. I came from Kazakhstan, and I’m

interested in what you think about those

agreements that already exist now—

international ones, yes. That is, we have a

customs union with Belarus and

Kazakhstan, yes. We have a common

economic space, there are

agreements that

allow citizens of these three countries

to work. Will there be any restrictions

on employment, say, for Kazakhs and

Belarusians in Moscow? Thank you. I believe that

some changes definitely

must be made. We see that even in the post-

Soviet space we have very different

relations with different countries. For example,

we have a visa regime with Georgia. We

have a visa regime with Turkmenistan, and

generally speaking, nobody has died from that. And

no major problems arise from it.

Indeed, we have a more

advanced stage of integration with

Belarus and Kazakhstan. We see that

migration from these countries does not create

very serious problems or difficulties for

Muscovites and Russian citizens. Nevertheless,

framework decisions must be

made. I believe that with regard to

Belarus and Ukraine, we should

retain a visa-free regime, while with regard to

the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus

a visa regime should be introduced. Even

despite the fact that with some countries

we have customs agreements,

for example Kazakhstan. According to the statistics

I see, a small number

of citizens of Kazakhstan come here—

practically no so-called guest workers,

ethnic Kazakhs, in

Moscow, practically speaking, because

Kazakhstan is a fairly advanced country in terms of

its economic situation. The people who come here are

citizens of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

They come not simply because

there are jobs here, but because,

first, it is very easy to treat them

virtually like slaves, and second, because in

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan the states have simply

collapsed—there is neither

health care nor education there. There

it is impossible to find work. I am convinced

that the measures I propose will not

somehow harm or cause major damage

to, for example, Kazakhstan, which is

a fairly advanced country. But they

must be introduced with regard to Uzbekistan,

Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the countries of the South Caucasus,

because we simply must protect ourselves,

our country, from an influx of people. If

with regard to you, with regard to me, with regard

to everyone present, there is a

visa regime imposed by Germany and

France, that is a normal measure. So

we too must protect our country from an influx of

people from other countries. Dear friends,

because of large-scale, very massive attacks

on TV Rain’s website (Dozhd, an independent Russian TV channel), we cannot connect our

locations around the city where Pavel Lobkov,

Yulia Taratuta, and Lev Parkhomenko are working. We are working on it

for now we cannot do it, but we are working on it.

the solution to this problem if you want to support

the candidate, write on Twitter or simply

come to Red October (a former factory complex in Moscow), you still

have time. As I understand it—sorry, this is

within the framework of the memorandum on fair elections

they organized an attack on the website for us—for you.

Yes, right now we’ll start taking

questions. Let me remind you once again: this is a live line

—ask your question to Alexei Navalny for now.

Well, and here are the questions we have. Let’s

move a little

forward—there’s Alexei. I have a

question about your opening

remarks. Economic issues are of course very

important—healthcare, utilities, education—but

right now it seems to me the most important thing is

to free the Bolotnaya prisoners (those prosecuted over the Bolotnaya Square protest). I didn’t

quite understand how this is connected to the mayoral election.

After all, it wasn’t the mayor who

put them in prison. It is directly connected: it wasn’t

the mayor who jailed them, but the system, of which

the mayor is undoubtedly a part. And when it comes

to the Bolotnaya prisoners, we see that

Sobyanin’s guilt is completely direct: it was he

and his city administration who changed the crowd placement scheme

in the square. He and his Moscow police department did not

warn the organizers. It was they

who organized the provocation, as a result of which

innocent people are sitting in prison.

And it was he who also behaved insultingly

toward Muscovites when he

ostentatiously went to visit the riot police officers

who, you know, had some kind of

bruised finger, and in the hospital he handed out apartments to them

against the backdrop of the fact that those same

riot police officers were beating completely unarmed

people. These people will be released when

the political situation changes. They’re

being held now not according to the law; they’re being held

because they want to

demonstrate to all of us: yes, we are the Kremlin, we are so

powerful, we can do whatever we want with

Muscovites. On the eighth,

Muscovites must come to the polling stations and

demonstrate that we no longer

allow people to do whatever they want to us,

that we support an alternative

path of development. And I am sure that if

millions of Muscovites come and vote,

I am sure that if I become mayor of Moscow,

the federal authorities will never again

allow themselves to do the kinds of things

they are doing today, every single second.

Well, basically, again—a live

line, Twitter, please watch

and send in your questions. Let’s—well, let’s

actually, we’ve just started

receiving questions from Twitter. Alexei,

a user named Pin with the hashtag Live Line

asks you the following: Alexei, I do not

believe any verbal promises from anyone. Do you

have a concrete plan, a schedule of promises with

deadlines and people responsible for carrying them out?

Well, that sounds rather strange when

you don’t believe my verbal promises but

would believe my written promises.

We don’t have a schedule of promises. We have

our program, which can be downloaded from

my website, navalny.ru; it is completely clear

and straightforward. We have the mayor of

Moscow’s first ten steps, we have six draft laws—everything

is clear. Elena Alvarez: housing prices in

Moscow are unjustifiably high. How can

this problem be solved?

And housing prices in Moscow are indeed

unjustifiably high. Right now our average

price per square meter is more than $6,000

per square meter.

Well,

for advanced

Muscovites, this corresponds to nothing at all.

This is the result of

corruption and monopoly in the construction

sector. I am very often reproached for the fact that I

repeat like a parrot, perhaps,

corruption, corruption, corruption—but when

we are talking about the inflated price per square

meter, I am ready to repeat it 100 times:

corruption, corruption, corruption.

The allocation of land plots,

the awarding of contracts, monopoly over

connections to utility networks and electricity,

and so on—as mayor, I will fight this.

This is a specific point in our program,

and I am sure that the measures we

will apply over the next two years will seriously

reduce housing prices in Moscow. Alexei,

one more question from Twitter. Andrei,

username Lermont: Alexei, the government

is raising the issue of abolishing maternity

capital and student stipends. What is your attitude toward

this issue? Well, it seems to me my attitude

cannot differ from the attitude of

millions of people who hear this nonsense.

We cannot abolish maternity

capital now—there are no grounds for abolishing

maternity capital. A huge

amount of money exists in the country and in

the Moscow budget and the federal budget.

We see absolutely colossal

senseless construction projects on which

billions and trillions are being thrown away. And against that backdrop,

they tell us: let’s abolish

maternity capital. But this is one of those

things that really works,

one of those things that

allows mothers to receive these funds,

invest them in their children’s education,

and pay at least part of their mortgage

loans. I am categorically, of course, against it.

Well,

let’s first turn to questions

from Moscow’s districts. Yes, let’s choose

one more district then. Remind us:

Petrovsko-Razumovskaya, Pechatniki, Prospekt

Vernadskogo, Shchukinskaya, Perovo. It would be

the other end of Moscow then—Prospekt Vernadskogo.

Let’s do that. How easy will it be to govern

the future mayor who will be elected by the voters

large

of Moscow, how easy will it be to govern

the territory of Greater Moscow? Well, that is a question

about Greater Moscow.

There is really no significant

problem in governing this territory.

A relatively small

number of people live there; in all of Greater Moscow

the population is about the same as, for example,

in the district where I live, Maryino, although it is

much more compact. Here, rather,

the issue is why Greater Moscow was needed at all.

The decision on Greater Moscow was strange and ill

considered, made in order to move

government bodies to the so-called New Moscow,

the federal government bodies. You

remember all this. Then they decided

that no, they would not move the government

bodies there. Then Sobyanin said that we would move the mayor’s office

there, then they said no, we would not

move the mayor’s office. I see one thing: I see

a lack of any calculations, a lack of

proper plans. I see simply

arbitrary decisions, when two

people woke up—Putin and Medvedev—and

thought, what shall we do today?

Play badminton or expand

New Moscow? Let’s expand New Moscow. Before

investing even a single kopeck there, into these

infrastructure projects—was it calculated

that just for the transport

infrastructure alone, 82 billion

rubles—sorry, dollars—would need to be invested? That is colossal

money. First we calculate, then we spend

money. And that should be the approach to

New Moscow. All right, fine—should Moscow

expand, or perhaps was this

idea wrong from the very beginning?

Moscow absolutely does need to expand.

Moscow is an extremely densely packed city, very

large in population. It seems to me that

first of all, concepts should have been

considered for annexing to

Moscow those towns near Moscow

that are already Moscow in practice. Khimki, for example,

is territorially in Moscow Region,

but in practice, of course, it is Moscow. Reutov,

Krasnogorsk, even Odintsovo—these cities

are effectively part of Moscow, yet for some reason

we annexed territory all the way to Kaluga Region,

where nobody lives, and adopted there

a law on land seizure. Under that law,

land can be taken from the new Muscovites

with no problem at all—even more easily than in Sochi.

This serves only

the interests of certain businesspeople. I

believe that decisions about expanding the city,

which will determine the development of our Moscow

for the coming decades, cannot

be made in such an arbitrary way: the mayor

Navalny comes out here and says, let’s

annex Khimki instead.

This cannot be decided in a week, or in two weeks, or

even in two months. I believe

that hundreds of specialists, including

foreign and international urban planners,

should carry out long, painstaking work,

after which they should present the results of their

work to us for discussion. Everyone interested

should be able to criticize it, and after we

decide that we need it, and that we have the

funds for it, we will make one decision or another

that will determine the fate of the city.

We have an excellent question from

Kirill Zharo, who asked it on the website.

It goes like this: you said that you would not

work with members of United Russia (the ruling political party), because

they live by one set of principles, while you live by

the principle of not lying and not stealing. How then will you

cooperate with Vorobyov,

particularly on transport issues, since

traffic jams in Moscow also depend on the governor

of Moscow Region, who is currently acting governor and

is also running in the September 8

election, because

traffic jams in Moscow also depend

on the road situation in the region? Well, Vorobyov

is not the main thing, not the only

United Russia member in the power system. As for Vorobyov,

I will have to interact with Putin,

with the government, and so on. I will

interact with them. I do not see a

big problem here. I will

interact within the framework of official instructions

and powers. Vorobyov, of course,

is a United Russia member, and as a United Russia politician

I find him unpleasant; I consider him

harmful. But as governor of Moscow

Region, he must act within the framework

of his official instructions and powers.

I assume Muscovites do not want me

to become a mayor who tomorrow unleashes

a holy war and simply starts

boycotting all United Russia members. I will

work within the system in which I can

achieve both political and economic

successes. I will interact with everyone.

Alexei, since we have started the topic of interaction with

United Russia, Andrei Veselov on our

website also asked a question related to

this topic: why did you ultimately decide

to accept the signatures of municipal deputies

from—followed by an epithet directed at the party,

apparently meaning United Russia? How will this affect

your campaign against this party? How

could I not accept these signatures if for

several weeks my team and I

were forcing United Russia and

Sobyanin to let us through the so-called

municipal filter? I had dozens

of people at headquarters working around the clock,

calling, calling back, speaking with them by

phone. United Russia initially

proceeded from the assumption that only

15 to 20 of the most desperate

municipal deputies would sign for me, a couple of

whom I can see right here, standing here among

from Tushino and from Mitino, but we did far

more

signatures than the 12 required, and of course

Sobyanin and the city hall understood that if they

didn’t let me onto the ballot but did let

KTR, Mitrokhin, and Levichev through, there would be

a truly enormous scandal. They understood that we

would then reformat our campaign headquarters into a

boycott headquarters; no one would recognize these elections.

Yes, Sobyanin would get a big

"Chechen-style" percentage — 85% support — but with

15% turnout, we would simply make sure that

no one recognized these elections. Therefore, for

Sobyanin, the only thing to do was

to hold at least relatively decent

elections by allowing me to take part in them. We

deliberately

forced them into a corner through the municipal

filter, effectively making them themselves

admit that this municipal filter is

a stupid idea that exists only

to keep candidates out. They created it, and for us they destroyed it.

They created it, and for us they destroyed it.

So we are very pleased with our work

regarding the municipal filter.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s do this: right now we’ll

take one more question, one that

was posted on the Dozhd website (TV Rain, independent Russian channel), and then we’ll give the floor to Moscow’s districts.

Again, let them ask their

question, and then we’ll return to our

improvised hall. The question from the website is,

in my view, very interesting. Viktor Guberniev asks:

How do you feel about the idea of dissolving

the Moscow City Duma, and in the future all

legislative bodies of government? Well,

let’s stop at the Moscow City Duma

since we are talking about Moscow, after all, and replacing

it with direct popular democracy through

an internet portal like ROI (Russian Public Initiative platform). How can I

feel about the Moscow City Duma, in which

95% of the deputies are United Russia members? Well,

tell me, those gathered here,

representatives of different parties who are not

only supporting me — does a Moscow City Duma where

95% are United Russia members correspond to your political

preferences? Well, obviously

not. The Moscow City Duma is now

the result of falsification.

Representation in the Moscow City Duma is

a direct legacy of fraud and

manipulation. In any case, in a year it

will be re-elected. I believe the Moscow City Duma

needs early elections, just as

the State Duma, by the way,

which is also a product of

falsification. This absolutely needs

to be done. But to completely replace

it with a mechanism of direct democracy like

ROI would probably be

premature right now. Besides, it would require

significant amendments to the Constitution,

which would take a long time,

years, in perspective. In the future, I

believe that we need to expand

the mechanisms of direct democracy, of course — not

just ROI and electronic voting, but

referendums. Just look, for a moment, at

Moscow, a city of 15 million people: in recent

years, not a single local referendum has been held in

Moscow — not one local, citywide, or district referendum, not

a single one. Here, for example, we have present

deputies from the Mitino district, where recently

an initiative group was created;

several thousand people demanded

that a local referendum be held, and the Moscow mayor’s office

refuses, and always refuses.

Why do I want to become a mayor who will

hold referendums and will allow

citizens to directly exercise their will?

Because citizens want this.

A clear, understandable idea, but here

a question automatically arises

about the division of powers between

the district level and the city level.

You hold a referendum in a district, cancel

the construction of a highway, and that means there will be a gap —

the road will run into a dead end. How do you solve that?

There won’t be any gap. Naturally, I

support giving far

more money, authority, and land to

the local level. I believe this will

work прекрасно just as it works in

other major cities. There are no prosperous

large cities where effective

local self-government does not function, and in

Moscow it will function too. There are issues

of local significance, and there are issues

of citywide significance. There is no need to think that

the residents of Moscow are so, you know,

irresponsible that tomorrow they will ban

all construction altogether. We can see that

conflicts arise where there is

infill development, where there is

the seizure of land from

vital living space — that is where people really

come into conflict. As for projects

that the city actually needs, there is no conflict. If

we look at residents’ protests

regarding major road-construction

projects, we see that most often

there is no justification whatsoever for

these road-construction projects. Simply nothing

at all. Take the Northwestern Chord, for example:

70 billion rubles — there is absolutely not even

the slightest justification for why we are

building it. There are no urban-planning calculations,

no urban development projects, nothing

at all. There is only the desire of Sobyanin’s

mayor’s office to hand out yet another fat contract

to some Rotenbergs, Putin’s friends,

who will build this road interchange at

twice the price. That is why residents

are outraged, and they have every right to be. And

now let’s give the city districts a chance to ask

their question.

[music]

Moscow still has

Pechatniki, Petrovsko-Razumovskaya

Shchukinskaya and

Butovo. Although I might be repeating myself here.

Vernadsky Prospekt caught Butovo's attention.

Let's go with Butovo.

if he becomes mayor, becomes mayor, mayor

what exactly is he promising

to pensioners?

Specifically, will we get an increase in

pensions?

Thank you. A specific question: what exactly is he promising

pensioners? A completely specific answer:

our program includes a provision that

we

will freeze it already for the thirteenth year

until we raise the Moscow

pension supplement twofold. To do that,

138 billion rubles are needed to increase

the Moscow supplement, which is now

about 4,000 rubles, by two times and make

the minimum social pension standard

16,000 rubles. The Moscow budget has

this money. We guarantee that we will do

this in the first year after I become mayor.

Alexei, there are a lot of questions from Twitter.

We're literally being flooded. Unfortunately—sorry—

questions from Twitter. And are you reading them from

a piece of paper, or do you have some kind of magic screen?

I don't know, Alexei—Alexei

Kalinin asks: Will you abolish

residential registration when you become mayor of Moscow?

The old propiska system no longer exists;

there is registration now. That's a federal measure.

It cannot be abolished from the position

of mayor of Moscow. In practice, of course, it

doesn't work. It is fairly

archaic, and we don't need it. If we

want to create some kind of restrictions, then those

should be different restrictions, for example

proper insurance policies and other taxation

mechanisms, and so on. As for this

registration system, it can't be abolished in Moscow.

In principle, it no longer works. Let's return to

pensions. You said that you would

double the Moscow...

well, not quadruple after all—no, that's clear enough.

Kirill writes from Moscow with the hashtag

#DirectLine: Major companies are registered with Moscow's tax authorities.

How do you feel about the fact that Moscow is draining other regions

of the Russian

Federation?

Indeed, in general our whole

system of governing the country is

quite ugly. It is overly

centralized. The issue is not even that

Moscow is siphoning money from other

budgets, but that everyone is moving to

Moscow. As I have said here many, many times,

15% of the country's population lives in this city.

That is simply a colossal

disproportion. Of course, it should not

be this way. But this is already a federal

matter. For this, we must also change policy in the

country so that a person who has earned

a little money in Novosibirsk would want

to stay in Novosibirsk rather than make

their first major investment immediately an apartment in

Moscow. Any person in the regions

earns a bit of money—what do they

do? First they buy themselves a Mercedes, and

then an apartment in Moscow, because in their

hometown it is impossible to live. That is why

we wrote on our campaign

poster: Change Russia, start with Moscow. We

must begin political changes in Moscow now

that will affect the whole country, including in the direction

of other cities beginning to develop and

people beginning to stay and live in their own

cities instead of everyone striving to come to

Moscow. And gradually we must get out

of this

situation

where it pulls in the whole country like a pump.

Yes, you will start with Moscow. But the more actively you

begin, the more comfortable a city we

hope it will become, and the more actively

it will attract people from

other cities.

These will be two

parallel processes: when we begin

changing the system in Moscow, we will begin

changing policy in the country, and people in other

cities will probably also feel one thing

or another. But at the very least they

will feel hope. They will see that

in another city—in Novosibirsk, in

Chelyabinsk, or in Kazan—it may be possible

to elect a normal mayor who relies

on people, not on the election

commission or on television. In any

case, we will have to do this, because

otherwise—well, how can everyone come to

Moscow? Then everything will collapse, turn into a black hole. Alexei, a question

with the hashtag #DirectLine is coming in to us:

Why are there so few modern

sports arenas in Moscow? We have a top-tier hockey

league, a good football championship, but not

a single modern stadium.

The answer here is very simple: just look at how much

money is spent on stadium construction.

For us, every stadium, whether in Moscow

or in St. Petersburg,

costs four times more than it should.

With the money that exists in the Moscow

budget, that is allocated for all these

construction projects—the Zenit stadium in St. Petersburg

and so on—not even just specialists,

builders or designers, but simply

everyone says that all of this is extremely expensive.

Ordinary fans, when they look at

the estimates for stadiums in Russia and stadiums in

Europe, their eyes practically pop out because

everything is three or four times more expensive. Here

one can say simply: corruption at every

step. They want to make $300 million

on the construction of a stadium, which is why there are so few of them.

One more question from Twitter with the

hashtag #DirectLine. You can keep

sending questions. lemi kpur lemi

asking whether you know what Alexei’s

salary is for a Moscow street cleaner right

now, and whether many Muscovites are ready

to work as street cleaners. I know this issue

very well, because at every one of my

meetings with residents I ask the question:

How much does the migrant worker street cleaner in

your courtyard earn? And I constantly hear figures like 8,

9, 12, 15, or at most 18,000 rubles. But I know

the approved minimum standard calculation

says that in Moscow there should not

be any street cleaners earning

less than 30,000 rubles. This is the kind of

secret all of Moscow knows:

they hire and bring in

migrant workers for these jobs specifically, workers who can be kept in a

slave-like position, because you can

take half their wages from them. On paper they

sign for at least 30,000 rubles,

but in practice they get 15; half is simply taken

off to the management company, the district administration, or the housing office.

Questions keep coming in, and readers

of the city newspaper City Boom as well. Misha, let’s

take one of the questions viewers have sent in

right now on the website, please. People

can actually leave specific

instructions for the future mayor. And, for example,

here’s one: Inna Ilchenko suggests

increasing the number of free parking spaces

and solving the problems of traffic jams

and overcrowding in the metro. As for

free parking, that is really an ideological

question. Should people

have to pay for it or not? Look,

when we talk about this, most likely we mean

the city center—increasing the number of free

parking spaces there. But here, unfortunately, I have to

repeat a phrase Muscovites are very fond of:

Moscow isn’t made of rubber; the center can’t

stretch. Historically, that’s just how things

developed: in the morning all of us go to work

in the center, and in the evening all of us go back to the outskirts.

The center of Moscow objectively cannot

accommodate the number of private

cars that arrive every

morning. This is less a matter of

paid parking and more a matter of

parking rights in general. That is,

in principle, we should be banning parking on this

scale. Look at what’s happening.

Look at your Red October (the former confectionery factory complex in Moscow), where we

are right now. You come here at 12:00 noon,

and it looks like hell, just some kind of

nightmare out of a fairy tale. Everything is jammed,

the sidewalks are packed, it’s impossible either to walk

or to drive through. It’s impossible. In principle, over

the next five years we need to

come to terms with the fact that the number of

parking spaces in central Moscow will be

very sharply limited—not even only

through paid parking, but limited in principle,

so that people can walk on the sidewalks,

so that people can move around normally

and live. These measures, of course, should

be accompanied by increased spending and

investment in public transport. So do you

support the measures being taken in

this regard by the current Moscow city government?

I think this strategy has

some sensible features, but I see that

it is being implemented not systematically, but very

chaotically: introduced here, not introduced there. We

believe there should be an overall

strategy for the development of paid parking,

so that Muscovites can see, over the next three years,

where parking will be allowed and where it won’t

be allowed, and so that they can decide for

themselves whether they need a car or not.

This also has to be a long-term

strategy. Right now, once again, we see

an arbitrary decision: let’s say, on

part of Tverskaya Street, for example, near

City Hall up to the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky,

parking is prohibited, but дальше we see

everything parked up again.

That should not happen; there must

be a strategy and

a system. And now, right now, we’d like

to hand over to our colleagues not only

here on the roof of Red October, but also

one floor below, where many viewers have gathered

who want to ask their questions

to Alexei Navalny right now. We hand

over to Lika Kremer.

[music]