Alexei Navalny on the program “Direct Line” on TV Rain in 2016

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Direct

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Line. Good evening. It is 7 p.m. in Moscow, and you

are watching TV Rain. My name is Yulia

Taratuta, and next to me is politician

Alexei Navalny. And we are beginning our live

call-in broadcast, during which Alexei will

answer your questions. And those

questions were submitted on social media and

through TV Rain’s platform. We are also taking

your calls at +7 495 744 0101.

Alexei, are you ready? Yes. Good evening.

Thank you very much for inviting me. I am very

glad to take part in this subscription

marathon. I’m a fan of yours, and I urge everyone

to subscribe. I’ll be happy

to answer questions. Thank you. Alexei, we

have very little time, so in our mutual

interest it would be best to keep answers brief. I, for my

part, promise to do that, and

I ask the same of you. First question: what is your

forecast for the libel case brought at the request of

former investigator Pavel Karpov?

As far as we know, you were summoned for questioning

today. What are your overall

expectations for the outcome of this case? Here

the answer is actually very simple.

The forecast is simple: I will be convicted in this

case, and I will receive another criminal

sentence. There is no doubt about that. My forecast

is exactly the same as for all

my other criminal cases. They are

opened not so that I might be

acquitted in court, but so that I can once again

be convicted and my activities can be hindered,

including preventing me

from taking part in elections. So whether there is one

more case or one less case doesn’t really

make much difference anymore. I’ll be convicted for the fourth time. So,

the next question is from Sergei Sushinsky.

Actually, I want to warn Alexei

Navalny that this person had 10

questions, and we selected just one of them.

You have long been fighting corruption. Have you ever

considered taking the post of Prosecutor General of the

Russian

Federation? Have I considered taking the post

of Prosecutor General of the Russian

Federation? Excellent question. Given that

this appointment will be made in the near future,

I think my chances of getting this post are

extremely slim, and of removing Mr. Chaika

from it as well. I think that

of course, in the current system of power

that exists now, my presence

in any position is simply absolutely

unacceptable. This government is built on lies and

corruption, and my mission, both declared and

practical, is to fight lies and corruption.

So of course, for this government I am

absolutely someone who cannot in any way

be used. Obviously, the question was

whether, in a different system of coordinates,

you would become, and would want to become,

a prosecutor. We will all secure the right

for people like me, and specifically for me,

to have the right to participate in elections, to have

the right to compete for certain offices. I

will compete for offices, including

leadership positions in our country.

Which one specifically I will be able to obtain

will depend only on me and on the

support that voters give me.

Well then, Alexei Ponomaryov from Kronstadt

believes that the people about whom

you conducted investigations have only

strengthened their positions, and in this

connection asks: do crooks ever send you

to your black

box compromising material about themselves so that

you will later publish it, and thereby

enter the caste of the

untouchables? This really is an

annoying part of our work. We understand

perfectly well that when we publish compromising material

about some scoundrel, we make his position—

for example, the same

Prosecutor General Chaika already mentioned—he is a disgusting

person, a corrupt person. He should not

be Prosecutor General, and it is awful for us

to realize this, but the truth is, perhaps we

did something that helped him remain

Prosecutor General. As for whether

people send us compromising material, I don’t know. Our

black box is set up quite fairly, and

we do not know who sends things in. It may be

that there are officials who, in this

exotic way, are trying to strengthen

their positions. But there is a popular

joke inside the Anti-Corruption Foundation

that we could take money from officials

for conducting investigations against them—

after that, they definitely won’t be removed from office. And

there is also the opposite version. There is an opinion, and

it came up every time your investigations

coincided with someone’s interests, namely

the interests of certain state bodies or

the rivals of the subjects of your

investigations within the government. That was the case with

Mr. Chaika as well, since against

him

the siloviki (security-service officials) were plotting, and for example in the acute

phase it was the same with Mr. Yakunin,

who in the end was, quite literally, removed from

his post. With Sechin and with everyone else, everything

always coincided. Any of our

investigations naturally coincides with

the interests of some competing

group. Our government is like—well, it is

spiders in a jar, or bulldogs fighting under

the carpet: people who are part of one

mafia-like system, but who at the same time

hate each other and fight over money or

spheres of influence. No matter whom we

investigate, it will always be

to someone’s advantage. We are quite

calm about that. So you are calm about it

how do you feel about the fact that you could become

part of someone else’s campaign

we conduct our own independent work

if that happens to have some kind of

indirect harm or indirect benefit

for someone, there’s nothing to be done about it

naturally, when we conduct an investigation

against Sechin, it benefits Gazprom, and

vice versa. That’s just how power is structured in Russia

for us, the main thing is that we ourselves know

and that the people who support us know

about us that we truly are

independent, and not driven by any

commissioned agendas

that’s not what we do. Well then, Vladimir Kirilyuk from

Perm is also interested in your

investigations. Let’s hear his

question. In your view, Alexei, that is,

what needs to happen? What is the main

change that must take place for

the situation

to change, so that there would actually be

official investigations—not

your investigations that get attention, but at the

official level? So that it would be

shown there on Channel One (Russia’s main state TV channel)

if I understood the question correctly

what needs to change for there to be

a real fight against corruption? There are no

secret, hidden

formulas or unique solutions for this

for there to be a fight against corruption, you need

independent mass media

political competition and a judicial

system people could turn to and at

least appeal certain decisions

until these three things exist, even if

the Anti-Corruption Foundation starts

working 100 times better, even if

tomorrow they appoint a good Prosecutor General

nothing will change without

political competition, without independent

media there can be no fight against corruption. That is

simply an axiom. But unfortunately, our

government is built precisely on the fact that there are

no free media, no political

competition, and no independent courts

therefore, for a real fight against corruption

we need a fundamental transformation of the

political system. And as for showy

arrests—if that’s your creative method, would you

it

want that? Arrests are necessary; there is no such thing as

an abstract fight against corruption—there is no fight against

corruption at all without punishing

specific corrupt officials. They do not

necessarily have to be theatrical. There is no need

for anyone to burst in wearing masks and

drag someone away while he resists, somewhere, while

his children scream, ‘Oh my God, leave us

our daddy and his yacht!’ None of that is necessary, but

nevertheless there must be normal

consistent, calm work

within which there absolutely must be

arrests and there must be bringing

the guilty to justice. Speaking of yachts

children, and, and, and other lyrical details, viewers on

Facebook who are watching our

live call-in are asking you, Alexei

why did you shave off

your beard? Well, I shaved off my beard because I

was preparing for Dozhd’s live call-in, and I thought

that without a beard I would be

more presentable here. Yes, I’d look more transparent, and it was funny

when we traveled

recently to Krasnodar Krai, where there were

various events, including some not very pleasant

ones. I had already shaved off my beard, but even so

I, like other employees of the

Anti-Corruption Foundation

was checked for links to ISIS. So from

that point of view, you see, a beard

doesn’t affect anything at all. I kind of wanted

to joke about it, and then thought it wasn’t worth

joking on this subject, since it is such a

you should have added that it is a banned

organization in Russia. Good that

you added that. Vladimir Kirilyuk—that is,

sorry, Vladimir Ivanov from Moscow

is asking a question about your unfinished

campaigns

up to the point where you are officially removed

and

and banned. Why don’t we take things all the way to court

and to the point where we are removed or

banned? Well, as for the courts,

we’re record-holders here. No

organization has as many court cases as

we do—that’s first. Second, we do see things through to the

end. The Barvikha campaign

reached its logical conclusion

the point of the Barvikha experiment was

that in this small district, but one

that is fundamentally important to the Kremlin, because

the whole Kremlin crowd, that whole gang, lives

precisely there

and we had to force them either to

hold fair elections or

resort to outright falsification. And so

the authorities first resorted to falsification

and then canceled the elections, so we

achieved our goal, and in Barvikha everything

ended very clearly and definitively. And, and

the last part of the question was: why don’t you

go so far that you are

banned from participating in elections? Alas,

unfortunately, we’ve gotten to that point too. I am

officially banned from participating in

elections. The Progress Party, which I

lead, has been officially

liquidated, not merely removed from

the Justice Ministry’s lists. Therefore, we and the

Progress Party are also banned from participating in

elections. We try to go all the way, and in

most cases we do. Well,

the question is about your supporters, not about you personally, because

everyone knows that you do not

have the right to participate in elections, there is

that view, and you probably know it as well—that

skeptics believe you pulled out of the election

Because, because you simply walked away

Because it seemed disadvantageous to you

to run a long campaign, and you understood that

there would be no success in the election

for the State Duma—you mean, you

mean that the Progress Party and I

that we left the democratic coalition

Let’s answer that question too, and

first of all, I think there are not many

opposition politicians, and certainly not many

non-system politicians, who would

have taken part in elections as often as I have. I

took part in the mayoral elections, I took part, we

all took part together in regional

campaigns; we ran in four regions, and in

three of them we were barred from participating. We were also actively

preparing the campaign for the

State Duma in 2011

Although I had no opportunity whatsoever

to take part in the elections, I ran

the campaign “Vote for Any Party Except United

Russia” (the ruling party), so it seems to me rather

unfair to reproach me for

not participating in elections. As for

these specific elections to the State

Duma and the coalition,

we created this coalition, we

promoted and advocated, if

you like, the idea of primaries, a new way

of forming candidate lists so that those

lists would truly receive broad

support. After our ideas were

rejected by PARNAS (an opposition party), the primaries were effectively

shut down, and we considered it impossible and

wrong to take part in that list

Although at the same time I think very highly

and continue to think highly of both PARNAS and

Yabloko (a liberal political party), and I would like to point out that

the party-list campaign for the State Duma is only

one half; the other half will be formed through

single-member districts, and there our

candidates are participating too, including members of the

Progress Party, where registered parties

agreed to support them. So we

are participating. Alexei, those are appealing

explanations—you always have them

an argument for why you leave somewhere

and then come back, but there are some people who

believe that you are to blame for the fact that this

democratic coalition fell apart. At the very

start, you met with Kasyanov and understood

each other’s positions, who each person was

How long can this same thing be repeated, year after year,

literally for decades—that the opposition

simply cannot come to an agreement when it

needs to unite, and instead only publicly

quarrels? As you said at the beginning, there are

people who think that you are to blame for everything

There are always people who

think I’m to blame for everything. Chubais (Anatoly Chubais, a prominent Russian reform-era politician) thinks so

too, perhaps—not exactly the company I

would have wanted to be in, but still

there are people who believe that

there is a significant share of my fault here, and

there really is. It means we

were unable to reach the right agreement with

Kasyanov. It means we were unable

to persuade Kasyanov to go ahead with

primaries; we were unable to persuade

the party

PARNAS. Several regional branches

spoke in our favor; the party’s deputy leader, Ilya

Yashin, supported us. Inside the party there was

a major discussion, but we were unable

to convince our partners, and I publicly

acknowledged this, and I am ready to do so once again

here on TV Rain (Dozhd, an independent Russian TV channel): that the defeat of the

democratic coalition and the abandonment of the idea

of forming the entire list through primaries—

that is my personal defeat. I do not disclaim

responsibility. However, however,

I believe it would be far more harmful

if we were to say, “All right, to hell with it,”

“their ambitions won out, so let’s

now unite around them”

in the name of consolidation. I think it would be wrong

to encourage people who

refuse debate and competition

and it would be more honest toward

the voters, my supporters, and the members

of the Progress Party who

authorized me to take part in the coalition, to withdraw

from it. And the vote that we

held internally showed that

the majority of people support me. Well,

so, and now we have

a phone call. Please introduce yourself, you are

live on TV Rain. Alexei is

listening carefully. Nikolai, Nizhny Novgorod

Alexei, here’s a question. There’s that well-known

story where an elderly woman turns to him and says,

“Son, well, 8,000—that’s my…”

pension.” What did he reply with those famous words?

I read comments on blogs. It says there

that keeping a dog costs much

more. I speak with specialists, yes, and they

tell me that at a canine training center

it costs

What do you think should be done in the long term with

pensions? Yulia, if you repeat the question for me

it’ll be easier, because I can’t

hear very well. The question, obviously,

was about what to do with pensions

since they are small. Did I understand correctly?

Yes, correctly.

Right. It’s a broad question. Pensions—pensions

are small because the economy is small

The economy is small because in Russia

nothing is happening, nothing is being

produced; our entire economy revolves around

oil prices. Sixty percent of our export

revenues come from the sale of hydrocarbons

add primary-processed metals and

timber, and we will see that Russia is, unfortunately,

a raw-materials appendage. There cannot

be—there simply cannot be—large pensions in

in a country that serves as a raw-materials

appendage of developed countries. Therefore,

forgive me, this may be a banal answer,

but high pensions and high wages

will only come to Russia after

the economy starts to resemble the economy

of developing countries, when

It's a real shame that we actually can't

make a transition—or rather, we can make

a transition to the previous question before

the call. Yes, since we were discussing your

associates and ways of uniting, well then

Anton Reznikov from St. Petersburg, he

also asks

a question about your associates. Let's

listen. For example, during the election

campaign in Barvikha, Lyubov Sobol

commenting on the situation on air, with her

manner of speaking, her intonations, her

system of argumentation, practically

copied you. That is, essentially, in front of us

sat, as it were, Alexei Navalny 2, only without

the beard—well, and with some other outward

differences. Tell me, Alexei, do you notice

such a trend in your circle

and do you consider it acceptable for yourself?

If not, what ways do you see to stop this

trend, and perhaps even

turn it

back? We see that Alexei Navalny himself

is also without a beard now. I do notice that,

but that's not Lyubov

Sobol's problem—it's a problem of the fact that in Russia

there is no competitive politics, really.

Lyubov Sobol simply has no one to learn from. And

where are political debates in this country, where

is any kind of discussion? Where is the talk show

that Lyubov Sobol could come to

once—as a hypothetical Lyubov Sobol—and be

routed there, and then come back a second time

and win? This political environment simply

does not exist, where political

activists turn into politicians. Well,

Sobol argues with me at the Anti-Corruption Foundation

on certain issues,

and probably with her voice—or yours, uh, well,

her own, and, and, and, quite possibly she

copies some gestures or

argumentation from me. But come on, Lyubov Sobol—yes,

I suffer from this myself. I too would like

to see some politicians from whom I

could borrow something. But you

speak English. You can

look at American elections.

I do look at American elections, but

you understand, American elections are

an American political agenda. There they

argue about abortion and the minimum

wage; in Russia, that agenda simply

doesn't exist, about current issues. Over the

last few years, I have twice

taken part in debates, both of them, incidentally,

were on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel), but on

the federal channels there are no debates.

There is no competition, no discussion, so I

would say now that this is important: neither I nor

other politicians, unfortunately, can

really train our political skills.

And unfortunately this leads

to phenomena like someone copying me.

Tell me, did you study anywhere

stage speech, literally the art

of speaking, political speech? No, never

did

I study.

Am I really so advanced in political

speech that one could assume that?

But no, I never

studied it. I'm not sure political speech

can really be taught; some skills probably

can be picked up, but I'm not

sure that, in the end, form will very

strongly determine content. You can

speak well, but if that were all there was to it,

then actors would be the main

politicians here. What matters, after all,

is substance. And precisely when it comes to

substance, there are no formats for participating in

debates. To be honest, out of sheer

hopelessness, inside the Anti-Corruption Foundation

we hold weekly

closed debates. We just assign roles:

you'll be for Putin today, and you

will be against Putin, or we all gather

together—people debate—in order simply

to train some skills in ourselves.

Do you put on a name tag saying 'Chaika' (likely referring to Yury Chaika, former Prosecutor General), and Alexei on

No, we don't wear name tags, but everyone has

a backstory about whom they represent, and we

record it on video. I very much hope

that these videos never leak online,

because I myself, among others, several times

have played members of United Russia and talked about how

great United Russia is, how we should

rally around Putin—I really got into character.

I tried. A call—let's listen to our

listener. Please introduce yourself.

Please. Yes, hello, Alexei. My name

is—I am involved in public

activity, I'm a civic activist in Pechatniki (a district of Moscow),

and the more I engage in this

activity, the more often I hear

from the mouths of officials and deputies, even

local ones and members of the Moscow City Duma, accusations that

I work for you, receive money from you,

am your friend, and so on. So I have

a question in this connection: what do I

need to do so that they stop

thinking that and accusing me of it? Or

maybe I need to stop doing

something? What do you think? First of all, I would like

to congratulate you, because apparently you

are doing something very right,

something good, because they are fighting you

and trying to discredit you.

And for our authorities, that is still

the first

sign. Second, I really do observe

Such an interesting trend. For example, in my district,

where I live, in Maryino,

there is this candidate running from the Communists,

deputy Rashkin, and he is distributing leaflets

showing me together with this Rashkin under

some American flags. In other words,

it is amusing that the authorities

are trying to discredit certain people by suggesting they may be connected to me.

I am not sure that this works, especially in

Moscow, particularly in the Pechatniki district, where

you

live, if I am not mistaken. In the

Moscow mayoral election, I received about

25%, so if you are planning to run somewhere

for the municipal council

or for some other office, I think this will only

help you. And most importantly, I would

advise you not to pay attention to all these

people and just focus on your work.

The main thing is that the residents of Pechatniki understand

that you are doing something worthwhile.

Well then, now a question from Maxim Katz

from Moscow, your regular interlocutor.

He submitted his question using, yes,

our TV Rain app, Strana Dozhdya, and Maxim

reminds us that he was your deputy—well,

more precisely, deputy campaign manager—

when you took part in the Moscow mayoral

election. After that, your paths

diverged. You have not commented at all on

major public campaigns

run by City Projects, nor have you

said anything about my participation

in the Moscow City Duma elections,

although, of course, I had counted on your

support after my long and successful

volunteering in your campaign. And now

you are also not saying anything about the campaign of

Dmitry Gudkov, where I work

as campaign manager, and many from that

team who worked back then in 2013

are also taking part in Dmitry

Gudkov’s campaign. At the same time, in none of your conversations with

me, whether public or private, have you explained the reasons

why this attitude arose. And in

private conversations with the media, I know, you

say rather unpleasant things about me

that I have no opportunity

to respond to, since it all happens behind my back.

What is behind this attitude of yours toward

me and the team that did quite a lot

for the success of the 2013 election

campaign? Thank you very much to Maxim for this

question. I am glad that I have the opportunity

to answer it. First of all, I would like

to say that I am very grateful to everyone who

worked with me during the Moscow mayoral

election—to the entire huge team of people.

There were hundreds working in the campaign offices alone.

The core of those people are now with me at the

Anti-Corruption Foundation. Of course, we could not

employ all of them there, because

that is simply impossible—it would have become far too

large a structure. But I

continue to work with these people,

and once again I want to thank everyone who

helped me then. That is the first point. The second is that,

as for my support or lack of support for

other projects, of course I, the Anti-Corruption

Foundation, and the Progress Party

support first and foremost those projects

that interest us, the ones we

are engaged in. I have a board in my office;

it has 30 project names written on it.

Ten of them are underway, and 20 more I would like to launch.

But I do not have the time to

carry them out, and our priorities, of course, are

to do what we ourselves came up with, what we

want to work on. As for

interaction specifically with Maxim, I—

well, I am sorry he is not here so that

I could say these unpleasant

things directly to his face. Maybe I will just look into the

camera. I would like to

make this clear:

my experience—and not only mine, but that of the Anti-Corruption

Foundation as well—in interacting with him

shows that he is a person who is

dishonorable and, frankly speaking, simply a

chancer. I completely rule out any

possibility of working with him, and there are

for that, among other things,

political reasons, because, well, we cannot

support a person who

says that when Liksutov

transfers his offshore assets to his wife, that means he

has cleverly tricked the system and is not

corrupt. I cannot support in an election

such a person. Maxim himself ran in an election,

and during that campaign I did not say anything

bad so as not to somehow hinder him, but

nevertheless I cannot support

a person who says, you know, I

hid my income and transferred it to

my parents’ foreign bank accounts; I

cleverly tricked the system. But the

Anti-Corruption Foundation cannot support such

candidates, because that is exactly what

corruption is. We are fighting against it. So,

it is entirely possible that Maxim or the people

working with Maxim are doing some

good things,

but for me and for the majority of the

staff of the Anti-Corruption Foundation,

any interaction with him

is absolutely out of the question. He is simply

a dishonorable person. So, are you now

retelling a conversation you had with Maxim?

His

admission? I actually have not seen him for many years.

In fact, I simply, simply wanted

to say that he quite often follows me around and

asks, why do you not

work with me? I would just like once

again to say that I do not work

with Maxim because he is a chancer, because

he is a dishonorable person, and I try, within the framework of

organizational cooperation,

to work with people who understand what

ethics is, what normal

working relationships in a team are. And

as a matter of fact, Maxim

was the head of my campaign staff and fired him 2

weeks before the Moscow mayoral election for

some such reasons. I supported that decision,

so

he is not someone we can

work with together. Well, that too is

something of an indication of the public

rhetoric and public disagreements within the

very circle I was talking about in

the previous questions. And now a question

from Albert Gurdzhiyan from Nizhny

Novgorod. He reminds us that you, Alexei,

promoted several proposals on

the direct electronic democracy platform on

the ROI website, and his question is

this: you made people believe in

electronic democracy and then abandoned it

halfway. Why didn’t you force the masses

to put the initiatives back to a vote in order

to collect, for example, 2 million votes? After all,

that is exactly how many votes are needed to apply

to hold a federal referendum

on any issue, and since you are not doing that,

tell us: are you more interested in replacing

one government with another, or rather in

replacing government with direct popular rule?

Thank you in advance for

the answer. Thank you for the question. I’m very glad that

the viewer asking it is apparently just as

big a fan of electronic

democracy as I am. We really

devote a lot of time to it, and

indeed we submitted several

bills through the so-called

ROI system, where it was necessary to collect

100,000 signatures in order for

a bill to be submitted to the State Duma. We

were the first to do this, with a bill

banning and limiting the cost of

officials’ cars. Then we collected

100,000 signatures for our bill on combating

illicit enrichment.

But unfortunately we were forced to stop

this activity because all of us were simply

deceived. This is exactly what happened. If you

remember the famous promise

by Vladimir Putin, when he said

before the election that he would submit to

the State Duma bills that gathered

100,000 signatures. In practice, they created

a system under which we collected 100,000

signatures, but our bill did not go

to the State Duma, where deputies could vote for or

against it. Instead, it went to some kind of working

group of the government under the leadership

of Minister Abyzov, where some strange

people, appointed by who knows whom, sat

there discussing it, and in the end our bills were

rejected by the authorities, and not one of them even

made it to the State Duma.

So unfortunately we have to say that

that

the system of

so-called electronic democracy created by our authorities

is completely false. It is a fake, and we

will not use it. Nevertheless, we

continue to use mechanisms such as

petitions and signature collection. I believe in all

these mechanisms; it’s just that what has been created

now is, well, simply deception. It is

a trap. You won’t believe it, Alexei, you are

being asked about by one of our viewers from

the United States, Irina Van Pat

from Seattle. Why wouldn’t I believe it? I

absolutely

do believe it. Do you remember yourself when you were young—when

was the moment that you decided

that you would stand firm to the end, that things were already so

frightening that nothing was frightening anymore? It seems to me

that your advice here would really help

young beginners who are not

indifferent to this country, because fear

now grips the whole country, and it seems to me

that it is not only the fear that they will come after you,

but also the fear that you will not hold up under

pressure and will betray yourself.

You know, I would like to tell

some beautiful story about how

something happened, I saw

an injustice, and at that moment realized

that one must stand firm to the end and fear nothing,

but unfortunately there was no such

story. My political evolution

took place together with the country’s evolution.

When I came into politics with

the Yabloko party in the early 2000s, the country was

completely

different. Basically, the only repressive

mechanisms back then were

election fraud, and even that was not very

large-scale. Back then even Khodorkovsky

was not yet in prison; there were effectively no

political prisoners in the country. When we

wanted to hold a picket or a rally—I handled that in

Yabloko—we held it

right at the entrance to the State

Duma, at what is called the second entrance, and

members of parliament literally walked past our

demonstrators. But gradually the country

changed, and it is impossible

to imagine that we would now do what

we were doing in the early 2000s. But I, just as

I once decided when I entered politics,

that I have my human and civil rights,

that there are inalienable

and non-transferable rights, and I will defend them.

There is nothing extraordinary in that;

I believe there is nothing

heroic about it. There is nothing heroic in

simply remembering that I

have rights. And just as I came into

politics with that awareness, so too have I

now arrived at 2016, when

the country is completely different, but I still

stand up for their rights, and

defending rights that are being violated now is

a much riskier

thing to do than it was in the early 2000s, but I

keep doing it, and I’ll say again: I do not

consider it something heroic. I believe

that every decent person should do it

and must do it. It is simply

an insult to your human

dignity to give up some of your rights

and forget about your rights. Do you consider

yourself a brave person?

I consider myself a brave person because

I

well, I think of myself as someone who, at

a moment when things are frightening, or

a little frightening, or when you think

that you ought to be afraid, I try

simply to make myself understand that

there is no need to be afraid. In other words, I give myself

a little

psychoanalysis session and

convince myself that I need to act

the way I acted yesterday and the day before

and that there is nothing to fear.

It’s not that I have some kind of diminished sense

of danger; I am fully aware of

what is happening. I simply do not think it is necessary

to give way to anyone. Oleg Alefirenko,

an entrepreneur from Italy, asks you

a question about the events in

Anapa: who struck first, and whom, during the attack

by Cossacks on your group in Anapa? Thank you

very much. Well, I was

a participant in those events. It was all

a huge brawl, and it is hard for me

to say who hit whom first there, but

there is one obvious and most important fact: there was

an attack, a group attack,

brazen, in broad daylight, in front of cameras,

with no shame whatsoever. About 40 people attacked us

with hooligan motives, and

simply started beating people.

So I have absolutely no doubt

about who provoked

all of this, who organized it all, and who

is, of course, responsible for the entire incident.

Of course, as I understand it, there was

some version of events according to which a person

who was with you did something first.

All of this went on for about 15 minutes. There are

different video fragments; among them there is

a video in which one of the people who was with

us hits one of the attackers. Well,

yes, he did hit him, and I would have hit him too in his place

if he had come within reach, but

that is of no significance because

if we look at the entire event from

beginning to end, there is no

doubt that this was an attack. These people

must be held criminally

liable, which, by the way, is not

happening now: a criminal case has still not

been opened there. Well then, and now

Vladimir Skvortsov from Moscow

asks about your

family: to what extent does your family understand

and appreciate the importance of the path you have chosen?

How united are you, together with

your family, in this? To what extent is this

a shared mission, or is it simply

your work, something separate, and you just

come home and talk about work there as well?

And to what extent does your wife

understand that tomorrow things may no longer exist in the

form they exist in

today? Thank you very much for the question. This is

important to me. I believe that

it is practically impossible for a politician

to function and carry out his

work if he is not supported by

his family, and I can proudly say that

my family supports me completely,

that this really is, in a certain sense,

well, you cannot call it a joint project—

“project” is a silly word—but everything I do,

I do in part for the sake of my family,

for the sake of families like ours. Because my

family supports me; they are

normal, responsible citizens

of Russia. My children understood less about what

was happening around me before that very

episode in Anapa, and, well, it is impossible

to engage in opposition activity, especially in

Russia, if your family does not support

you. It is impossible to come home

if your wife says—not even

“I love Putin, stop criticizing

Putin”—but simply keeps following you around and

saying, “This is very dangerous, let’s

stop.” We understand that there are some

things that are quite dangerous, there are things

that are unpleasant, but my family supports

me 100%. Does it ever happen that

some decision is made by your

wife—a political decision within the family?

My wife makes a lot of decisions.

As for political decisions,

of course I make them after consulting

with various people within the Anti-Corruption Foundation

and with the people whom I

respect. But some specifically personal influence—

simply because she is my wife and because

she whispered something to me—does not affect

my judgment in that way. But Yulia

is 100% my political ally, and

generally speaking, whatever she advises me to do, I was already

planning

to do anyway. Vera Krichevskaya, our

colleague, recently on TV Rain (an independent Russian TV channel) we launched

a new program called *Evening Hillary*. The first

episode

was devoted to the topic of public politics and

sex. We talked about whether

our president, a single unmarried

president, has the right to sex. Should he hide

his private life while in the status

of a single man? We also

Of course, we were discussing the sex scandal

surrounding Mikhail Kasyanov. I’d like

to ask you a few questions.

First: does a public politician have the right

in Russia to have a sex life? Must he be a

decent, respectable family man?

Should a politician’s private life be

public? Well, my God, we’ve finally gotten to

questions about sex. I assumed they would

be saved for the very end of the show—the most sensational

and scandalous

questions. Should a politician have the right to

sex?

Well, as far as I know, no one has taken away my right to sex.

I’m not going to dispute

the right to sex for him or any other

official, as long as they are not

using public funds

to obtain sex or something like that. I

think that, of course, speaking seriously, every

person has a right to a private

life. I have absolutely no interest in that

side of things unless it concerns

corruption. I can say that our

tip line quite often receives

information about who is sleeping with whom, living with whom,

who has what kind of family, who has children with whom. We’re

not interested in that

unless

some mistress or wife, say,

starts receiving government contracts, for example.

As long as it is not connected to

corruption.

Vladimir Putin hides his family; that

looks a little strange for the president

of a huge country. I think

it is generally wrong, but it is his right.

However, the moment his

daughter starts heading some

academic councils at Moscow State University and receiving enormous

contracts, or supervising multibillion-ruble projects,

that is where his

right to privacy and the right to

keep some secrecy about his family

end, and the public interest begins to apply.

If Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law is simply

an ordinary person, he has the right to keep

his son-in-law private. But if the son-in-law, as in our

case, Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law Kirill

Shamalov became the richest and youngest

Russian billionaire, then, sorry,

there is no right to privacy here

anymore.

So it is a fine line, but we nevertheless

try to draw it, and we have decided for

ourselves that we do not intrude into private

life where it does not involve some

public interest. For us,

public interest matters—we are, after all, the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

Where there are

signs of corruption, we are ready to talk

about it, and we will talk about it. This

was Alexei Navalny, briefly on sex in

politics. And now Yuri Rekin from

Kaliningrad. Please tell us, under

President Alexei Navalny, how will

the issue of relations with

the republics of the North Caucasus be handled? Will we

stop

“feeding” them? Will Lyubov Sobol be sent there

as presidential envoy, or are there

other options? Yes, there are excellent

options—they are all laid out in the Constitution

and in the law. There is no need

to invent anything. The republics of the North

Caucasus

should receive normal, respectful

and equal treatment, just like

all the other republics and simply

the regions—all the constituent entities of the Russian

Federation. When we say “stop

feeding the Caucasus,” what we mean is that we must

stop giving out unexplained

giant transfers that are stolen

by the leaders of the North Caucasus,

the leaders of the Chechen Republic first

and foremost, and that money does not even

reach ordinary residents. You see, in

Chechnya, no matter how much money has been poured in,

the population is still poor; people

go into the forest to gather wild garlic, while at the same

time we see videos of how, at

Kadyrov’s nephew’s wedding, there were

Mercedeses and Rolls-Royces in huge motorcades.

So the approach to

the North Caucasus should be based on the

Constitution and the law. If they lack funds,

they should receive federal transfers

like all the other republics—but

comparable ones. If they have suffered a

natural

disaster, then they should receive a little

more. If there is a

counterterrorism threat

or terrorist threat there, they should also

receive more, for example, than Smolensk Oblast,

but all of this must have a

reasonable explanation, and there must be

a guarantee that this money will not be

stolen or handed over to those same

terrorists. So simply equal and

honest treatment. Well then, we have

2 minutes left in our live

broadcast on TV Rain, and we will

hear from Alexander Khusho from

St. Petersburg. In your opinion, which party should

democratically minded voters

vote for?

Has it discredited itself,

or perhaps it would be better to refuse

to take part in this year’s elections altogether?

Thank you, that’s an excellent question. This year’s strategy

will be fairly complicated, because

well, I’m not prepared to put it in such sweeping terms and

say that PARNAS has completely

discredited itself. Yes, there is much we

do not like, but nevertheless it

continues—PARNAS remains

the independent opposition party Yabloko

possibly less independent, but even so

it is still a party with many decent people

and overall its actions are also fairly

independent; there are decent deputies

who are running in single-member districts from

the Communists and A Just Russia. This is a

complicated

setup. We are not ready right now

to offer voters a specific course of action

because, well, right now

the process is unfolding, and we do not understand

how many and what kind of single-member candidates will be nominated

whether Yabloko will agree to nominate any

decent people, what will happen with the list

of PARNAS. We do not fully understand that. My

view is this: well, these elections, I

took part in the democratic coalition, but I do not

recognize these elections because I am not allowed

to take part in them. I want to participate in the elections

to the State Duma, but I am not allowed into

them. Am I supposed to recognize them? I do not

recognize them. The Progress Party wants

to participate in these elections. The party

would have cleared the threshold; the Progress Party

would definitely have formed a

faction. We are not being allowed into these elections, so

are we supposed to recognize them? No, we also

regard these elections as non-

elections. Nevertheless, well, we should not

simply boycott all of this outright, and

we will try to come up with a smart strategy

and explain it to everyone. Well then, that was

Alexei Navalny, who does not recognize

the upcoming elections. We are not saying goodbye to you

we are simply giving this part of the studio over

to the news. You can continue watching

the news on TV Rain, and we

are moving to another part of TV Rain's studio

and will continue talking with Alexei

Navalny and broadcasting our live

stream on Facebook. Stay with us