Alexei Navalny on the program Bottom Line on Finam FM

9:06 p.m. in the Russian capital. Good

evening once again, ladies and gentlemen. This is Finam

FM, the daily program Bottom Line, and

today it will air in a somewhat unusual

format. Today, you Finam FM listeners

will be up against a man whom many

of you respect, but I want to emphasize

the key word here: against. I

know many of you are in favor of him. But today you need

to make an effort and speak

against him. Today, Finam FM listeners are against

Alexei Navalny on the program Bottom

Line. Good evening. Good evening. And at the

very beginning, let me remind you of the ways to

get in touch. So, we have received hundreds

of questions; there are a great many of them on the website

www.finam.ru

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for Finam FM listeners. So once again: 65

10-99 and 6, Moscow area code 495, www.finam.ru

Putin today explained the purpose of creating

the All-Russia People’s Front. We have not yet

discussed it. We discussed United Russia with

you, we discussed a united front. We have not yet

Sorry, there it is — a slip of the tongue, as they say.

Yes, a Freudian slip: I called their

front a united front. Yes, but all the same

the All-Russia People’s Front — the prime minister

said that the new organization

should give United Russia a chance

to come back to life, I quote him, and to live thanks to new

ideas and new people. Mr. Navalny, how

do you feel about this new initiative? And I also

liked that he called all the other

fronts copycats — such a

wonderful word. Well, Putin was absolutely right

to say that: to come back to life — because United

Russia is already dead, and now he is trying

to create this kind of

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galvanized version of that entity.

Is it dead, or can it really

reboot United Russia? Well, absolutely

not. We can see that all the people

sitting there in the presidium of this

front are already members of United Russia, or

former members of United Russia, or people like

Shmakov, the head of the trade unions, who

signed a cooperation agreement

with United Russia. In other words, there is not even

a serious attempt to deceive anyone. Mm-hmm.

Excellent, let’s move on. I’m just

bringing the day’s issues up to date here. Yes, this is for

our colleagues in the news service: every fifth

ruble allocated for defense is stolen

from state funds. That statement

was made today by the chief military prosecutor,

Sergei Fridinsky. According to him, year after year

the schemes for illegally siphoning money from the state

are becoming more sophisticated. He

described one case in which

medical equipment for the troops was

purchased at a price three and a half times

higher than its actual value.

Alexei, how would you characterize

the current status quo? Is this an exception

that Mr. Fridinsky happened to uncover,

or is this commonplace? It is commonplace,

absolutely commonplace. This figure — every fifth ruble —

is generally popular with us. Medvedev said that in

public procurement, every fifth ruble is stolen.

And now in the Defense Ministry, every

fifth ruble as well. In our RosPil project

we observe this every day. I disagree with Mr.

Fridinsky on one point: he says

the schemes have become sophisticated. But they steal as crudely

as ever — just as crudely as before. It is simply

inflated construction prices, inflated

prices on any procurement. This is done

completely openly and without any

special tricks, for one simple

reason: because no one is afraid

of the consequences. Everyone keeps droning on

on television about how awful, awful

corruption is, but during Medvedev’s presidency

we have not seen a single

major anti-corruption case. Well,

we are going to have a little mini-debate now

because our listeners are asking for it,

in particular Dmitry Yesyunin

from Moscow, he is 25 years old. He writes: “Yury, as is

well known, supports Medvedev, while

I can explain further: I have already been declared

a Kremlin project. I don’t know, maybe

your address has already

as well.”

On the radio station where Alexei Navalny

said that he has a negative view, quote,

of that part of the intelligentsia

that considers Medvedev separately from

the thieving regime. I don’t know whether you said

this or not, but it is presented as your direct

statement. Yes, I would like

to hear a dialogue between you on this

disagreement. Alexei, I will formulate

my thought, and you can respond, yes? So, I

proceed from the status quo that the current authorities

are real people in a real country, with

very real power, and you cannot simply remove them at

rallies

or even in smoking-room conversations; they cannot be removed that way. With them

you have to negotiate. My main thesis,

why I support President

Medvedev, is that he is

the only person in this vertical power structure

who is vested with constitutional powers

and he can

to reach an agreement that these people leave

but they do not leave empty-handed—they leave with those

capitals and assets that they

earned through backbreaking labor

through backbreaking la- labor. Of course, I

all other ways for these people to leave

are, generally speaking, connected with sad

possible consequences for the country, that is,

what worries me is the fact that then we

may

be overwhelmed by scenarios of a change of power. I

am categorically against that, while at the same time I

perfectly understand that elections in the current

situation are also not an option. That is, behind

tightly closed doors, this issue must be resolved

this issue. Now my question to you, and

your rebuttal: why is it, after all, that you

do not trust President Medvedev?

Listen, they call me naive,

but when I listen to you, I realize

now this is a naive person. That is absolutely

right—you said these are real people with

real deeds, who steal

very real money, and to suppose

that they will give all this up and themselves

throw someone out there—this is completely

would be

uh, that would be completely naive. Again,

President Medvedev is, uh, vested with

constitutional powers, but I wanted

to point out that no lesser

constitutional powers are vested in you, me,

or this radio listener who asked the

question, and we must have the ability

to influence this government no less

than Medvedev, and in practice we

influence it ten times more than

any Medvedev, because Medvedev is

an absolute product of this regime

and we see that despite his loud

statements about fighting corruption, every

single day there are reports of completely

open and unsightly wrongdoing. Look

at what is happening with VTB Bank.

People credit Medvedev with the fact that he

removed Luzhkov, but do we have, with regard to

Luzhkov, even a single criminal

case opened? And that sheer hellish bacchanalia

that they staged around the Bank of Moscow

in which the Moscow mayor, a Medvedev appointee,

is also involved—Medvedev himself gives some kind of

unclear approval, some Yusufov

a former minister, someone buying something from someone

no one understands anything, then a

Chamber of Accounts (state audit office) inspection begins, after which it

is stopped because they say it

will harm, harm some processes

Medvedev sees all this every single day

he runs this VTB Bank, some kind of

and now we are seeing the birth of this kind of

Medvedev-era oligarch, Yusufov. A man

who has not worked a single day anywhere except

in government service, nevertheless

is buying up shipyards worth tens of

millions of dollars, and now he is making

or ready to make some investments of more than

billions of dollars. Well, it is completely

obvious that the origin of his

money should at the very least be investigated, yet

nevertheless Medvedev—personally, Medvedev

gives him the green light to invest his

very dubious and strange money, and

after that, someone is going to tell me

that he really is somehow

trying to change something and really, in

some back rooms, he will be talking with someone about

something? I think that right now, I

am sure, maybe in the back rooms someone is

making some kind of deal, but Medvedev is not present in those

back rooms. So you are not

just not hopeful—you are basically writing off

the current head of state as someone

who could potentially turn

Russia away, by a bloodless route, from that

status quo that was established in the

2000s? No, there is no need to write anyone off

of course, I am not writing him off. I

am simply stating a fact: everything he has done

so far has been just one failure

an endless failure—four years of failure, and

and now we have seen such—well, three so far, yes

and a kind of final point was his

completely meaningless, in some

ways cowardly, this

press conference from which everyone expected

bloodshed, and instead all he did was eat a siskin (a Russian idiom meaning he did something trivial).

And this is the head of state—he could have done

amazingly right things, and he still can

do them. It is just that I very much still think he can

do it, but I very strongly doubt that

after behaving like this for three years, tomorrow morning he will

wake up and say, well then, let us

finally do what I am able to do

today. And once again there was a demonstration

of this kind of powerlessness, which

which he, for some reason, apparently considers

a demonstration of strength. There he was again at

some meeting talking about how, well,

should I perhaps dismiss the Minister of Education,

Fursenko, and glaring threateningly around. Well

what is the problem? Go ahead and fire him—why talk about it?

You pulled out the gun—shoot. Well then, dismiss

Education Minister Fursenko if

all the scientists have complained to you, and for three years now they

They complain, saying, "Take him down," but that never happens.

Well, you see, all this talk about...

how someone is supposedly being cast in granite and...

so on—well, it's all just talk. I'd like...

it not to be that way, but unfortunately... Rea...

to work if President

Medvedev invites you onto his team, in that...

team—the president's team. First of all, you see...

there's some kind of strange bargaining going on here:

am I ready or not ready? First of all, to work for whom?

And what, really, can President

Medvedev's team—who does it even...

consist of? In President

Medvedev's team, as I understand it, there is

Dvorkovich, a normal, excellent

person; there's Timakova. But beyond that, I don't know anyone else.

I don't know who is even on President Med...

who is actually in it at all.

What does President

Medvedev actually want? Judging by the fact that he's grooming for himself

an oligarch, Yusufov, I'm not at all sure that I have

the same goals as President

Medvedev. And I am definitely not ready to work

to help cultivate all these Yusufovs,

Kerimovs, and this whole oligarchic

gang that's close to him. This gang

of oligarchs is just as disgusting to me

as Putin's oligarchic gang—

Abramovich and all the rest. I don't see

any difference at all. How do you feel about

Vladimir Putin? As for Vladimir Putin, I

as follows:

badly. I regard Vladimir Putin

as follows:

and this—this is my wording, I...

my wording, you caught me there. I regard Vladimir Putin

as the man who is now

heading the party of crooks and thieves and

leading it into the elections. Vladimir Putin

is the man who made corruption

the state's main system of governance

and the foundation of the state. Vladimir Putin is

the man who, uh, made the system

of negative selection the country's main personnel policy,

meaning that decent, normal

people only move downward,

while every kind of crook and scum moves

only upward. In your opinion, can the current

prime minister of Russia leave that

Olympus voluntarily, of his own

free will, or will the system he created

in the 2000s not allow him

to leave that bridge—or that little bridge,

the captain's bridge? Yes, because, roughly

speaking, they prop each other up: Putin props up

this system, and the system props up Putin. Well, he would,

as I understand it, be glad to leave.

It's truly an enormous strain; being in

that position for years is difficult. But he himself

made an all-or-nothing bet. He got

everything, and the moment he loses

the real levers of control over the situation,

they'll devour him. His physical safety,

the safety of his money—well, he'll be destroyed.

And it won't be some radical opposition figure—neither

Limonov, nor Kasparov, nor Navalny, nor

Belov, nor Mironov, nor anyone like that—who starts eating him alive.

It will be those same Yusufovs, Kerimovs,

and so on. In other words, the oligarchic gang

that, let's say, didn't get everything

it wanted to get will begin

taking everything away from his businessmen, from all

those Timchenkos, Kovalchuks, Rotenbergs, and

in the course of this war for resources, it

naturally won't leave

Putin himself untouched. And without any doubt,

as I already said, leaving power—leaving

real power—for him is simply

physically dangerous, because he could

lose his freedom, possibly lose his life.

Certainly he and his friends would lose their capital,

and so on. So the stakes are extremely

high. And that's why Putin stays put. Well,

I assume—and he's no fool—he understands

this very well. He sees these people, he

raised these people, and he understands that this

pack—this herd of sharks, hyenas, piranhas,

whatever you want to call them—as soon as it no longer has

access to the nuclear button and the Dzerzhinsky Division (an elite internal security unit)

on the phone, it will devour him. That's the bottom line.

That's the bottom line. This is Finam FM, and today

Finam FM listeners are questioning Alexei

Navalny. Two more short questions.

Alexei, do you see a bloodless scenario

for changing the current government? Yes, I do see such a

scenario. I insist specifically on a bloodless option. I

do see such a possibility. I think that, of course,

such an option is naturally

preferable. I don't necessarily think that a

scenario involving, let's say, some kind of

spontaneous unrest

and what is commonly called the Tunisian

scenario, or any kind of Ukrainian

scenario, must necessarily be bloody. There is no

such direct connection. If people tomorrow

take to the streets and force the authorities

to change and, for example, hold free

elections, that absolutely does not mean

that everything will be drenched in blood. It means

absolutely nothing of the sort. Likewise,

your program will still go on the air: today

a revolution happened, tomorrow we all

still need to go to work. So I think

that such a scenario is entirely possible.

and quite highly likely. Besides, well,

still, theoretically, the probability of what

you, Yuri, are dreaming about does, after all,

exist—that tomorrow you will once again

go after me over President Medvedev. I'm not

going after you. I'm simply having a dialogue with you. Tomorrow

he wakes up and realizes that the day

has come, that he needs to take a risk.

We carefully remove the minister

of internal affairs and appoint a decent

person, bring in... there are such people, I believe.

I believe there are. I think that, well, the task

is this: if tomorrow he needs to find 10,000

... not in this system, as I've already said.

Negative selection makes them hard to find.

For now, Medvedev knows nothing about them; his

task right now is to find 15 decent people, 10

decent ones who are, on the one hand, loyal, and on

the other hand, the kind who on the third

day won't start saying, "Wow, look how much

money there is all around. Why are we bothering

with anything when you can just reach out and take

a billion—just reach out and take it". Such people

can be found.

Moving on now to the listeners' questions, I

will put it, again, the way it was put, you know, 10

years ago in relation

to the current prime minister: who are you,

Mr. Navalny? So, Alexei,

there's a huge, huge amount of information, I'll put it that way, yes,

circulating through various means

of communication. Your opponents here, your main

opponents—I mean, of course, the head

of Transneft, essentially,

... one of the... all right, one of the

people who formulated the idea there about

inflated project costs, payments, and so on.

Most likely you've commented on this, but I

still want you to answer me

and our listeners on the question: who is Alexei

Navalny? Who is he? Listen, for the last four

years I've practically lived as if on a reality show, behind

glass. I described every one of my actions

daily on my blog.

So a little attention and half a day

of time will show any curious

person who Navalny is. I am

a completely ordinary, ordinary guy,

an ordinary person who uses

mechanisms that are entirely accessible to anyone,

including legal ones, in order to

defend his rights. My

activities don't cost any money; they

don't require significant organizational

effort. They require only a little

inner conviction, and anyone can

do this—absolutely anyone can

do this. I don't possess any

unique knowledge, any unique

abilities, telepathic or otherwise.

Or something else—well, confirm that you're an American

project. Say on the air at Finam FM that you are

an American project and that you're acquainted with

... an American spy, something like that.

That's what they accuse me of. Well, you understand, what else

can they accuse me of? The conversation is

the dialogue with this Tokarev is structured in such

a way that I ask him, "Tokarev, who

stole 4 billion rubles, where is it, and when are we going

to look for those responsible?" And he says,

"You're an American spy." That's all. But what else

can they say in response, because the

conversation about who actually stole it—or whether

it was stolen at all, whether we will prosecute

or not—will in any case be

fatal for him. Because then we begin

to get to the heart of it: why does the pipe cost

this much when it was bought for that much? And why

did the design work on the ESPO pipeline cost 20 billion

rubles, when it should have cost 5 billion rubles, and

so on? He doesn't want to answer these questions,

so they start

making up these strange things.

Well, what else were they supposed to

say in their place? So they invent this spy story.

So, to sum up our listeners' questions, yes,

I'll put it this way: are you

a nationalist, a liberal, a communist? And that's

what they're asking you, yes? That is, who

is Alexei Navalny in terms of his political

views? I'm not asking about ideology, yes,

that can vary. But who are you closest to?

Because, again, from the standpoint

of certain information

technologies swirling around you,

yes, there's a lot of it: sometimes you're a nationalist, sometimes you're

outside the system—where are you? Well, all this comes from

people's attempts to force someone's

views into some narrow

ideological niche, to stick labels on everyone,

sort them into jars, put labels on the jars,

arrange everything neatly on shelves. In real

life—especially in today's Russia, with its

strange political system—that

is impossible to do. I am a person from real

life who talks about real

problems. There is the problem of Kondopoga (a town in Karelia associated with ethnic unrest), and I

talk about the nationalities issue.

There is the problem of corruption, and I talk about

corruption. When there is violence in the street

against people of non-Russian

ethnicity, I talk about that too.

So I don't see why I should...

to take and self-objectification

At the same time, there is no doubt that in Russia

there are its own national particularities

which absolutely must be taken into account

there is no doubt that Russia has a national

question; Russians, as a distinct

national community, have their own problems

Russians are the largest divided people in

Europe, and so on. That is why I do not understand

why, based on that, well, you understand,

on the issue of controlling and distributing

weapons, I am far-right on that issue; on the question of

abortion, I am quite liberal. Well,

I am simply a person with a set of

views. Each of these views—I believe in them

firmly, and I am ready to defend them. But

all this applied political science—"let's

place them here on the spectrum"—

it simply does not apply to anyone, really

in fact. I am sure it does not apply to you or to

anyone else. You know, I do not know why,

but I often hear that you

as a project—forgive me, Alexei, for using

that kind of terminology—will be dumped

sometime closer to September. Explain

to me, what does that mean in practice?

What does "dumped" mean? Right now

there is some compromising material. What do you think—

is there compromising material against you, something

serious enough that it could interfere with your

future political—or, I do not know,

legal—career? Well, right now we

can see this compromising material being brought out. It is

the criminal case that was opened over

the RosPil logo. Yes, a criminal case

that is completely fabricated. It seems to me

that this is obvious to many people, almost

everyone—that it was fabricated in Kirov Oblast (a region in Russia), and

so on. But what does compromising material mean?

I mean, without any doubt, I am an ordinary

person, but in my life I have done—I

hope I will never do anything for which

I would be ashamed before all

humanity, before the country, before the people,

and so on. And for which they might possibly

open a criminal case. Well yes, now

when I go to some

hotel and a maid comes into the

room, I will definitely run out of there

So in that sense I will be doubly

careful

Alexei Navalny on Finam FM, Bottom Line

65 1099 W finamfm. Alexei, could it

happen that closer to the parliamentary

elections we will unexpectedly see you—or

perhaps expectedly, I do not know—in

the party list, for example, of one of the three currently

active political parties that

have a license—you understand, yes,

that are already registered

and have the right to participate in

elections—or do you rule out such a possibility?

That is completely out of the question; I

fully rule out that option. At the same time, I will

take an active part in the

election

I hope that all citizens of the Russian

Federation will take an active

part in the election campaign. I have

said many times that as an ordinary

voter, a person endowed with

constitutional rights—returning to the

beginning of our conversation—I can influence a great deal

I have said many times that

the only morally correct

political position at the present time

is contained in a simple maxim:

vote for anyone against United

Russia. This is the message that needs to be pushed. I

will promote it; I will go and I

will vote for any party against

United Russia, and I will urge everyone

to do the same. Can you reveal right now

the secret

which party, potentially, you

might choose? That does not matter. What matters

is depriving United Russia of its monopoly on power

United Russia is—so, are you ready

to vote for the Communists, for example?

I will flip a coin and vote for

the Communists. It does not matter. Yes, for

Prokhorov, I will vote for anyone there

it does not matter. Only one thing matters:

depriving United Russia

of its monopoly on power. United Russia

is what all these thieves and crooks stand on. It has

two legs: Putin's real

approval rating, which is absolutely real, and

Putin does enjoy support; and then there is

this bloated toad, United Russia,

which needs to be destroyed, and we must

destroy it together. In your view, what

is the secret of Putin's popularity, and what

is the secret of the popularity of

Navalny? The secret of Putin's popularity

is very simple. It would be foolish to deny that in

the period up to 2003, Putin did

several useful things, and those

several useful things gave him an

extremely high approval rating, especially in

comparison with the previous president, and

that rating has held up to this day. To that, of course,

one must now add—but only add—

television, administrative resources,

and so on. But Putin simply...

There was demand for that kind of leader, so

you can't say that Putin was just some kind of

accidental figure who was appointed by chance.

But he was shrewd and smart enough

to usurp that power and gain

genuine public support. Now, by 2011,

a significant part of that support

had simply fallen apart, because from 2003

to 2011 he wasn't doing anything

good anymore, and in recent years he only

installed his crooks everywhere, people who

just steal and do nothing else.

As for the secret of my

popularity, first of all, I'm not inclined to

overstate it.

And yes, there are some people

who support me. But it's not like

there are millions of them roaming around

the country with slogans like, 'Navalny for...'

A dictator? Are you aiming

to become a dictator? No, I do not

want to be a dictator. I am against

anyone being a dictator in Russia. And I

think this is less about being for

Navalny and more about being against them.

Besides, people probably like

the way I work, because it's not

just talk, but also

actions, which may not look

like the most effective in the current situation.

Yes, I haven't put anyone in jail. For many years now

I've been trying to put all these people behind bars,

investigating what they do, but I haven't

put anyone in jail—truly, I haven't put

anyone away. But I'm trying, and that's why people want

that. Lock them up. I am absolutely certain that sooner

or later I will put them away. We have something on all of them—on everyone there are

files, black notebooks, everything is written down.

Take VTB, for example. We

have this fraud case where $150 million

was stolen in drilling rig deals.

We found all the documents for the

last three years. Everything is documented.

We know who stole it, how they stole it, and so on.

We have it all laid out—where the

money came from. In other words, we've done all the work

that should have been done by

an FSB (Federal Security Service) investigator and so on. Sooner or

later, these people will go to prison. They

dream of only one thing: that the statute of limitations

will run out. We'll abolish the statute of limitations. You—

Wait. When you say 'we,' who do you mean?

We are the people who, sooner or

later, will gain levers of influence in this country and

who, sooner or later, will restore order

in the country. Do you know them by name? Who are they exactly?

By name? No, absolutely not, by

name probably that's impossible. But I

am sure the day will come when there will be

free elections in this country, and those free

elections will make it easier—they will make it possible

for decent people to take part in elections, and

decent people are not necessarily 100%

ideologically aligned with me, and maybe I

will even lose those free elections. But other

people will come, and they will do what a

normal

government is supposed to do.

Some people say that

you are a Kremlin project, or even a project of the

special services. Yes, and as an argument

against Alexei they say: where does he get

his information? Can you reveal

the sources of your information about the same

business entities you're

talking about? Listen, we started

this program with Yusuf. A lot is now known in detail

about what he's buying there, what he's

planning, his biography, and so on.

Open today's issue of Vedomosti (a Russian business newspaper).

A large part of everything I said

I simply got from the newspaper. I trust

Vedomosti.

Look at Gazprom's corrupt deal

to sell Novatek shares—yes, it

was covered by all the media, it is reflected in

the company's report, and so on. So you don't

have some kind of leaks—you use

publicly available information. It's all so

brazen and obvious that from the business

press and simply from company reports you

can get a sufficient amount of

information. Sometimes in my work,

very rarely, I use some kind of

confidential documentation—like those same

Transneft documents that were

classified. But I've been doing this for more than one

year now, so at this point in any company there are

thousands of people working there, hundreds stealing, but

all the rest are generally unhappy

about it, and they are ready to help me. Let me

put a very, uh, cynical question

to you—my apologies for it. And

aren't you afraid that

physical measures could be used

against you? People are asking this too, including

listeners of Finam FM: isn't

Navalny afraid that—well, Alexei, if we call things

by their proper names—you could be killed because

you are crossing certain lines and getting in the way

of very serious, real

people, as we agreed to put it. You

certainly haven't shocked me with your cynical

I get asked that question once a week, and I’m

not an idiot — of course I’m concerned, and I

try to take precautions.

The thought that I could

be shot, or just, I don’t know,

get hit over the head with a club — that doesn’t

fill me with delight, of course. But it’s

a normal risk, it’s part of my work. I’ve

always seen it that way, and if it

if I were afraid that this would happen, then

I simply wouldn’t be doing this. And aren’t you

afraid for your loved ones, your family? Well,

of course I am. I worry about my loved ones, my family.

My family supports me in what

I do, but any person who

does something — a journalist, I don’t know,

an investigator, a lawyer, an attorney, anyone,

a human rights activist — who in our country

is engaged in genuinely independent

work faces the same risks, and

often much greater risks. Take

any journalist who writes about

what’s happening in the Caucasus — they face risks

every day that are a hundred times greater than mine.

Hand on heart, tell me:

have people close to the authorities ever suggested that you fall in line

with them, stop your activities in exchange for

certain bonuses or privileges, or

has there never been any such conversation? Not once in your life?

I have never spoken with anyone, never

discussed it, and I’m not even acquainted with or have seen the

people you refer to as “the authorities.”

Well, yes, I think that

first of all, they definitely understand — it seems to me,

or at least I very much hope — that over the years

of my work I’ve proven, in that sense,

if you like, that I’m not for sale, and they understand

that such a conversation with me is impossible. That is,

I’m not doing this so that

I can fight corruption for another two

months and 35 hours and then trade it all

away.

[music]

10999 and 6, Moscow area code 495, and www.finam.ru

Yes, I’m very often criticized

for my support of President Medvedev. I

want to ask you — and, Alexei, I’m not going to ask about

whether he wants to run or

doesn’t want to go into big-time politics in

this election. On my program you

said: “Where is there politics in Russia?” Yes,

when there are honest, free elections

— and there are no such elections now — then you’ll agree to take part in them.

But I’m a provocative journalist

who is interested in understanding

public opinion, yes, and in particular

the opinion of Finam FM listeners. If tomorrow

Alexei Navalny announced that he

had finally decided to run in the Russian presidential

election, would you

support him? Yes — send an SMS to 5533 with

the letter A. No — and you have your own truth of life

— why wouldn’t you support Navalny?

5533, letter B. Once again: tomorrow Alexei

announces that he has decided to take part

in the country’s presidential election, and then you

support him — 5533, letter A. To

this short number, send just one

SMS message with a single letter. No

— 5533, letter B. The vote is open, you

will have exactly 10 minutes to vote, then I

will stop it and announce the results, and

I won’t ask Alexei

to comment on them. Whatever we get, that’s

what we get. And now, your letters and calls.

Good evening, you’re on the air. Hello? Hello?

Hello, my name is Ivan. Yes, Ivan,

go ahead. Yes, I’m a supporter, but

I have a question — or rather, a complaint.

You started raising money for RosPil (Navalny’s anti-corruption project exposing fraud in public procurement),

and even boasted on your blog about how

much you’d collected — but where is even one

court case, exactly? And may I add one short

remark, very short? Yes, you know,

Alexei, if the host allows — don’t

take offense — but when a criminal case was

opened against you, someone came up with a joke about you.

A joke, simply.

Go ahead, tell it — it’s not vulgar, I hope? No, no,

let’s not do that, and

he’ll go to jail. Yes, thank you, thank you, no

need for that.

The project does not involve a large number

of court proceedings as such.

Public procurement and violations during

the procurement process are challenged before the Federal

Antimonopoly Service. It’s a kind of

procedure that is, in some ways, similar to

a court process, but it is handled through an administrative

procedure. We have dozens of such cases, such

proceedings; they are ongoing

every day, and the lawyers who work

on this are constantly doing it. You can

go to the website — there is a special

document there, and you can look and see what

each lawyer is working on at the present

moment, which complaint he is reviewing,

and the outcome — whether the decision was made in our favor

or against us. And as of

today, the majority of decisions,

uh, the majority of our complaints are found

to be justified, and decisions are issued in our

favor. Let’s move on. Good evening, you’re

on the air. What’s your name? Please introduce yourself.

Hello, Andrei. My na— please, here’s

I'm from Moscow; I've been working in Kirov for more than 16 years.

Worked there, or rather, was involved in manufacturing.

Building materials, yes, and earlier as well.

Maybe it was possible before, then Mr. Belykh came.

Together with Mr. Navalny, yes, and...

And overall it turned into complete lawlessness. Why

talk about some big forests when you can

just talk about how nicely

the entire forest in Kirov Region is being divided up. How

wonderful it is that funds are allocated to a small town

so that the streets can, well...

as they say, be made to look decent, children's playgrounds where

65% was apparently skimmed off there. After that, there's no need for any

big investigations. Go outside Prague and take a look

at how wonderfully navigators

and ship captains live, the ones who very successfully

caught crabs and the like, for

a million, two, three, four, five million

they stole, and now they live wonderfully there, all outside

Prague. And finally, what frightens me most is

that people like

Navalny and Karaulov, to a lesser extent,

can calmly say things like this,

and they're saying the right things, I

don't dispute that. I'm a communist by conviction, generally speaking. Well,

not a Zyuganov-style one, of course, but a communist, yes, I am.

I understand life perfectly well. So, they say these things

calmly, even though they say they're afraid. They're not

afraid; they say these things, and it became

frightening, because you realize you can say anything,

absolutely anything, and nobody gives a damn.

Nobody cares. Yes, thank you, Alexei, for your answer. But

I didn't quite understand the point about Kirov Region.

If you have any information

about violations in Kirov Region, then please follow

my example. Whether you like him or not,

write to the prosecutor's office. Yes, about

any violations that, if you believe,

were committed by me, by Belykh, by whoever.

Well, file complaints then. If there are

facts, they need to be investigated. If the police don't want

to investigate, then we need to investigate

it ourselves and make all these facts public. But this

passage about how some

captains live outside Prague and so on—

I'd just like to note very briefly

that we have this case, the so-called

case of the Japanese fishermen, which

I am also trying to investigate a little. In

Japan, several fishing companies

also confessed—they were caught, and they admitted

that they

were paying sailors directly at sea,

border guards, and were also paying bribes for

fish catch quotas. So in Japan

the investigation is ongoing; in Russia

there is no investigation at all. Who was it—the person

I don't want to boast too much here,

who sits there writing complaints to

the border service,

the FSB (Federal Security Service), the prosecutor's office, and so on, demanding

that the materials be requested from

Japan, and that a criminal case be opened here as well.

We're working on that. So I, for one,

do not want some crooks

who stole here through the quotas to live

outside Prague. I'm the one actually trying to

get them back.

Now, if you're ready to support

the potential nomination, say,

of Alexei Navalny for President of Russia as

a candidate, then to 5533

please send an SMS message with

the letter A—no, to 5533, the letter B. The SMS

vote is underway. I simply have to remind you:

65-10-996.

wwf FM, this is Bottom Line on Ekho FM. Vitalik

asks why you aren't creating your own

party. Actually, Alexei, let me expand

the question: not just create one—potentially

it might not be registered, yes—but don't you have any

desire to get your own, I don't know,

party and become its leader? Well, let's

first define what we mean by

the word 'party.' Do we mean

some group of people united by a single

idea and defending their

political beliefs, who are fighting

for power? Or is a party just a piece of paper,

a registration certificate from the Ministry of Justice?

If I want to get a certificate

of registration from the Ministry of Justice, I have to

spend a huge amount of time and effort

collecting the names of all these people and

putting together folders by region,

holding a meeting, then taking this

package of documents and running to

the presidential administration and begging them

to register these

supporters of mine. Do I need that? No.

How would that help me and these people in my

struggle? In no way. But there is a certain number of

people who support me. They are

supporters. Maybe they don't support me personally,

but my ideas; maybe they criticize me,

but overall they help me. Well, that is

a party. Why must a party be

something that necessarily has

Excel spreadsheets listing

last names? No—do you have authoritarian traits

in your character? What do you

mean? Well, you see, practically

all political forces in Russia, perhaps

with the possible exception of the communists, have

strong, clearly defined leaders. Yes, starting from

United Russia and ending with, well, those

systemic parties that exist on

the Russian political horizon, as a rule these are

one-man parties. Remove Putin from

United Russia and the whole structure crumbles; yes, remove

Zhirinovsky from the LDPR and the structure

falls apart. Really, I don’t need to tell you

about the Yabloko party, right?

That is, Grigory Alexeyevich stepped aside, and

the party is, generally speaking, facing major

difficulties. This is a colossal problem

in Russian politics: truly, everything

comes down to one person. And I’ve said many

times that this would be

the greatest tragedy of my work if

tomorrow, say, this whole thing just—well, I don’t know—

if aliens abducted me, or if

I got tired of everything, quit, and went off to live in

the countryside, and everything fell apart—then that

would mean that everything you

did was done in vain. That’s why I

believe

that any new parties or movements,

formal or informal, should

be built on a fundamentally different basis, and

all people who hold leadership

positions should come to them through

a process of genuine primaries. And a person

even if he is a leader, a chief figure, and so on, he

must regularly fight for leadership in

his own organization. Of course, leading

an organization probably requires a person with

genuinely strong leadership

inclinations, but even so, that position of his

—of leader, if you like—should every two

years be open to challenge, and he should

have to fight for his leadership.

Alexei, tell me honestly: can you be bought?

There’s a very common saying,

you know: everyone has their price.

Everyone has some threshold. Well,

roughly speaking, if a million isn’t enough for you, then

they’ll offer 10; if 10 isn’t enough, then they’ll offer 100, and

so on. So for yourself, how do you see that?

It’s just that, in fact, there are things more important

than money. I mean, they simply matter more.

Absolutely without pathos. And I’m sure that

any person understands this, even the most

greedy, grasping, disgusting

member of United Russia—he understands that there are things

more important than money. Those are the things I’m fighting for.

Some people fight both for money and for

those things too; there’s nothing wrong with that. But

there are things that simply cannot

be exchanged for money. Mm-hmm. Good evening, you’re on

the air. What’s your name? Hello? Hello? Good

evening, my name is Vladimir, and I have a question.

Alexei, you

keep talking about what’s happening in

the country, but what actions do you propose?

What legislative proposals would stop this?

Yes, thank you. So, briefly and clearly, if

there is an answer—well, first of all, I, I, I

have already said that my activity,

what my work consists of right now,

is putting pressure on the authorities so

that those in power begin to change.

I’m engaged in this; I don’t have answers to some

universal questions. I don’t have a formula

for world peace or universal happiness. Basically, I’m

a lawyer who investigates

corruption in corporations, and now also in

public procurement. That’s what I do.

It’s my work. And I think I do it

quite well. Some think better of it,

some think worse, but that’s what I do.

On specific issues of corruption or

questions of corporate governance,

corporate management, I have

a corporate reform program, and so

on. If you want, I can explain it,

but then we’d be getting into a separate long

conversation.

But to think that every person who

is engaged in political activity

must come out with 50 legislative

proposals for every possible situation—that’s

naive. I’m not the legal department of

the presidential administration, and so on. I

have my political views,

probably on every important issue, but

drafting detailed bills is precisely

a completely pointless kind of

activity right now from the standpoint of

real politics, a real struggle for

power, from the standpoint of actual

politics. What we need to achieve

right now is free elections,

in the sense that everyone will have

the opportunity to take part in elections; they won’t

kick him off, no crooks will deny him

registration, and his signatures won’t be rejected by

some fake handwriting expert from the

Ministry of Internal Affairs. Let’s move on.

65 1099 and 6 www.finam.ru

Dear radio listener, no, it’s not that

society is silent outside the MKAD (Moscow Ring Road). Yes, it

is constantly buzzing. Look at the fishermen:

they came out when paid fishing was introduced for them

and held rallies across the country, and all of this

United Russia, all of Putin and his approval ratings,

instantly, within two days, ran to cancel

everything and publicly scolded that

the unfortunate head of the State Fisheries Committee

Spartak fans got through to Masha Gaidar and

changed the entire policy

part of the agenda, and Putin, with all his

approval ratings and all his power and all

his military men, FSB people, thugs

and thieves like Rotenberg and Timchenko,

meekly got on the bus with them and went

to the cemetery. No one is staying silent. And if

you understand—what does “staying silent” even mean if I can’t

make it so that there are not

a million people running after me right now? But that’s my

problem. I can’t persuade that million

people. But people are absolutely not silent. So

all right, I’ll still ask some questions from other cities

to be objective. Igor

from St. Petersburg asks when there will be

an application filed to initiate

a criminal case over the logos of other

federal agencies, such as Russian Post

the Russian Football Union, and so on

As far as you know—that is, against you

a criminal case has been opened? Yes. The thing is

that if one has been opened, I will be

listed as a witness, so I do not have

the formal right to demand

the order initiating the case

The investigator told me verbally that

the case would be opened, because there is

an expert opinion that the RosPil logo is

desecration

Well, if the case is in fact opened, I do not

rule out that we will conduct such a

wonderful experiment: I’ll collect all

these amazing logos—there are many of them now

people send them to me—where, on the basis of

the Russian coat of arms, there is something completely

outrageous

with sabers, little axes, anything you like, but

for some reason that apparently is not

desecration, even though there is such

forgive me, pornography there—there is definitely some kind of

desecration. I’ll announce it one last time: the SMS

vote is underway. If Alexei Navalny

decides to run—he hasn’t decided yet. This is my

question to you, dear listeners of Finam

FM: if he decides to become a candidate for

president of Russia, will you support him? 5533

letter A for yes, 5533 letter B for no. That’s it, I won’t announce it

again. And Sergei asks

A good question, Alexei, because you

have decided to become a public politician, right? Or

have you already become one? Sergei asks:

A real-life question: how do you

make a living? Does

the RosPil project bring in income? The RosPil project cannot

bring in income because we spend

exclusively on lawyers’ salaries and

the taxes on those salaries. We also have, well, some

minor expenses there, postage and so on

I pay for those myself, personally. I

earn my living, as I’ve said a million times, as

a lawyer. A client, Yuri Pronko, comes to me and says,

“Alexei, I became a shareholder in

LLC Romashka, and the shareholders of LLC Vasilek are

squeezing me out and want to forcibly

buy out my shares.” I’ll say, “Yuri, let’s sign

the contract.”

Cheap? Well, what can you do? Well, I

hope it will be worth it. Yes, if I ever have

such a problem. Good eve—everything

will be fine. Hello? Good evening. Hello.

Hello, please tell me, I

was listening to your program. My name is

Svetlana. I actually got a little bit

scared. I don’t even know now what I’ll decide

whether I’ll go vote next year, but

I just have a question for Navalny: if he

becomes president, won’t there be the same kind of

corruption that exists now? Because after all,

a person comes to power, and he wants things too—

a yacht, a dacha (country house), maybe a second wife, and so on and

so forth. Well, let him answer that.

Thank you. I liked the part about the second wife most of all.

An absolutely astonishing

approach. Svetlana, it’s just that they

come in and—well, there is this public opinion,

you’ve heard it, right? These old ones—

at least they’ve already taken theirs. But the new ones will come, they’ll come

and steal too. Right? And the old ones have already

stolen enough. That is completely untrue.

First, the old ones will keep stealing

forever. Second, there are absolutely, in

our country, people who do not need

a second wife, who do not need a house or

a yacht acquired by criminal means. I am one

of those people. I know many others

like that who tomorrow will not

necessarily have to rob or kill someone

in order to earn money for a yacht

and drive away their old wife and take

a new one. I have a wonderful wife, I have

a decent home, and I am sure that I and

my colleagues absolutely do not have to

trade power for money

Good evening, you’re on

the air. Well, no, I don’t have time to wait.

Good evening, you’re on the air.

Good... Vladimir, trying...

please... and I would like

to ask, well, let’s say, I tuned in somewhere probably

halfway through the program, I’d like to ask

a question, since I myself

ask a question. Do you think that there are people

who are sensible, who understand, who

are ready to work—and enough of them—in Russia?

they can be found, and there will be enough of them. Because the people

who are now, well, in power do exist, but

people match their positions by maybe 15 to 20 percent

of the posts they occupy. Even if we assume

that the other 80% we somehow

hire,

then I’m not sure there will be anyone

to govern—who would they govern? Because people

in our country, by and large, are really not that

numerous. If we take the regions, so to speak,

not just Moscow and St. Petersburg, where there is

overpopulation, but if we look

somewhere farther away, there are basically no people

there, by and large—and no one to govern

there. Yes, thank you very much. I apologize

for cutting you off so abruptly, but we

don’t have much time. People do still

exist, and as I already said, of course, in

a system of negative personnel selection

good people move only downward, while upward

only various crooks move up. But at the

same time, as I already said on the

program, if Medvedev needs 20

decent people right now, he will find 20

decent people. And those 20 decent

people are ready to be among those 20. But I

am not sure Medvedev is doing anything

useful. Looking at what he does, I

am absolutely not convinced that he wants

to genuinely fight corruption. He is not fighting

it. He has far greater opportunities

than I do. Tomorrow, for example,

Medvedev says that, well, there should be

an investigation into the VTB case, and it

is being investigated. He says, as he already

said in the Magnitsky case,

that the case is being investigated, as he already stated. By the way,

regarding Transneft, in my case, he

says it should be investigated and

that it is being investigated. And if it is not being investigated,

then someone should be kicked the hell out. Push them—

sorry for interrupting—the president into

into unlawful actions? The question is: as

head of state, he is obliged to do this. He gets paid

for making sure things are investigated, for

making the interior minister

investigate corruption at VTB, at

Transneft, or at Gazprom. That is his

duty. I should not have to ask him

to do it. Well, for example, I do ask him, and

they still do not do it. So why are you telling

me to support him or join

President Medvedev’s team? There is no

team at all, and President Medvedev

is engaged in some strange,

incomprehensible things. There are people in our country,

but we do not have the ability to replace

all leadership positions tomorrow. But some

number of them we will replace. And these people,

the decent ones, will force everyone else to live

by the law, and I am sure they will make them do so

I promised to give priority specifically to the regions.

via the website www.finam.ru

The presidential administration began

organizing various

political provocations against him. People came there—

which president’s administration? Uh, which

president was it then? It was probably Putin

or during the transition to Medvedev.

Well, let’s say it was roughly the same thing,

the same guy who runs

the administration of the guy who

was running the country at that moment. It

considered the project dangerous, and they began

organizing provocations against us.

In one of those provocations, some

rowdy football fans showed up. A classic move,

the way they hire football fans to

stage provocations. They started a fight

there, and during that fight I, among other things,

used a traumatic pistol (a non-lethal handgun that fires rubber bullets).

There was an investigation, and it was determined that I

had used it entirely lawfully.

There were 200 witnesses there, and so on and

so forth. That was it.

It ended—well, it all ended

quite sadly for the project, because

we had to shut it down. We understood

that we could no longer guarantee

the safety of those attending. There were

quite a lot of people—300 were regularly

present—but specifically in this

episode involving the use of a weapon, I was

absolutely

in the right. Good evening, you’re on the air. What’s your name?

Hello, hello, good evening. This is Alexei.

A question for Alexei as well—from a namesake. Go ahead.

I wrote to the radio station, but even so

they still didn’t say quickly why

for example, Navalny wouldn’t write on

Twitter to Medvedev or to some other

high-ranking official about his

investigations, so that the matter could simply

be brought into the open, into open court?

That’s all, thank you. First of all, I organized

campaigns of formal appeals to Medvedev,

not just something on Twitter where you can

reply if you want or ignore it if you want. Complaints were filed.

In the Damera case, 15,000 complaints were submitted

on paper, which had to—had to—be answered.

As for Transneft, yes, I don’t even know exactly

how many—there were thousands. We also organized Twitter campaigns

and so on. So one thing you definitely should not

be mistaken about is that Medvedev does not

know what is happening or know about my

investigations and so on. He knows all about it.

He knows perfectly well from that same Transneft case.

Medvedev was asked what he thinks about

it. He said there should be

an investigation, but nothing has moved.

He also said there would be an investigation,

but nothing came of it. Your Medvedev knows perfectly well,

your beloved Medvedev, and your beloved Yury,

he knows. He doesn’t want to do anything. It’s not even that

he can’t do anything — that too is

a misconception. He simply doesn’t want to do anything.

I’ll stop there. This is, after all, a program

against Alexei Navalny. Good evening.

Hello? Well, listen, don’t wait until

Hello, good evening.

Alexei is arrested for him to tell you what

kind of story happened there, when

he has already answered that. Go on, stay on the air,

go ahead. Good evening.

Hello? Yes? Hello?

Hello. Hello, good evening. Yes, you’re

on the air. Briefly, clearly, to the point. You

introduce yourself and ask your question

to Navalny. Dmitry from Moscow. Alexei, what

will happen with the Narod movement? Will it still

continue? The Narod movement was created

to promote a national-democratic

ideology, a national-democratic

agenda. As an

ideological movement, it was formed and

it existed, I think, quite

effectively. Organizationally, it did not

really come together, because its leaders, well,

were simply busy with their own affairs, and

now it is in a kind of dormant

state. Wonderful people — Sergei

Gulyaev from St. Petersburg, one of the leaders

of the St. Petersburg opposition, Zakhar Prilepin,

a well-known writer and politician — they were co-

chairs of the movement. They are now engaged in

quite effective

political activity. In that

sense, as the sum of the actions of the movement’s leaders,

the Narod movement exists; as an ideology

it exists. But as for organizational

development, no, because, well, I don’t

see any point in it right now. And the last

question is from Mark. Go ahead then. Alexei,

are you an extremist?

Uh,

the current authorities consider me

an extremist because I demand that they

obey the law. For them, obeying

the law is extremism. But I will

keep demanding compliance. I will demand

criminal prosecution of these people. I

will demand that they end up on the

defendants’ bench. I will demand that

they be in prison. If because of that I

am called an extremist, then yes, I am

an extremist. And on that note, we will conclude

today’s edition of Bottom Line.

Alexei, thank you very much. The only thing

left is for me to announce the voting results. Well,

it would have been strange, of course, if

Alexei Navalny had not received support

among the listeners, but I will note that

your standing dropped by T percentage points

compared with

our last broadcast with Yevgeny

Fyodorov, when you debated. Back then you

received

99%; today you received 96% of listeners’

support from Finam FM listeners. But 4% in

this case withheld their support from you. Thank you

very much to everyone who voted. Thank you to everyone

who listened to us today on Finam

FM. This was Bottom Line, and today you were

against Alexei Navalny.