Alexei Navalny on the program “It Will Get Worse” on “Navalny LIVE”

[music]

Good afternoon.

Alexei Navalny—I'm being nudged to say that I should

say the program has started, otherwise it'll be worse.

With you is Sergei Smirnov, editor-in-chief

of Mediazona, and Alexei Navalny. Hello.

Hello, everyone. Today we'll begin by talking here in

the studio about the March 26 case. Right

now, at Moscow's Tverskoy District Court,

the arguments have already been heard in the case of Alexander

Shpakov, a carpenter from Lyubertsy, and the judge has for him—

requested two—sorry, the prosecutor

of course requested two years of imprisonment

in a general-regime penal colony, and the court

has now recessed and in two

hours will deliver the verdict.

This March 26 case is what Alexei and I

are going to discuss now. Carpenter Shpakov—yes, here's what

is known about him. Yes, he was with me in that

police van, and I mean, all the March 26 cases

are fabricated, both criminal

and administrative ones. But with Shpakov, I personally

saw it all, because right there with me into the

police van they dragged two people,

including him. He was beaten before my

eyes. I even recorded a video of the end of it, though unfortunately by then

it was already the end of the beating. Well, because at first I

was just yelling at those cops

something like, 'Stop it!' Then I

realized they weren't going to stop, so if I

took out my phone and started filming, that would

I took out my phone and started filming, and they

stopped doing it. And I sent

that video to the lawyer, Vadim. I don't

know, uh, whether it was somehow included in the

case materials here or not, but this is of course

an absolutely outrageous thing: an absolutely

innocent person who

should really be recognized as the victim in court, but instead he's

the defendant. It should be those

police officers sitting there.

I hope—though it's hard to hope here—that

he'll get a suspended sentence or something. But

this is more or less how they

intimidate us, and again it's an example of what I

keep talking about: they grab random

people in order to show us:

'Look, we're taking a carpenter from Lyubertsy

and we'll lock him up for some period, so

don't go anywhere and don't get involved in

politics. It's all extremism. Protect

yourselves.' It's important not to give in to this, but it's also

important, of course, for us to defend every person

who ends up in a situation like this in every way

we can. Yes, here I can see him in the photograph—

they dragged him into the bus with that flag, and

there was, you know, that moment when

a man wrapped in a flag is lying on the floor of the

bus, and this big colonel—this is

specifically him, there in the photo right now, and

he's in my video too—he's just there

smashing him in the head.

I actually want to clarify something about the

testimony—why Alexei is not in

court right now telling this, and why we're

talking about it here in the studio instead.

The thing is, Shpakov—I don't know how

it happened—but he was simply

forced to give a confession.

They told him, they said, 'We'll give you

a lighter sentence,' and he's going to trial under

special procedure—well, under that special procedure.

Roughly the same thing happened as

happened with Kuli and everyone else,

as I understand it. We'll explain now.

Okay. So there is one person who

did the right thing. They were all detained,

they were held for two or three days, they weren't

allowed access to lawyers, and they were lied to,

manipulated—basically exactly what the, uh,

Investigative Committee always does. Well,

'Sign for special procedure, we'll ask for

a suspended sentence.' That's what they promised, but they gave 8 months in a

penal settlement colony. As I understand it, they promised

Shpakov the same thing. They weren't allowing

lawyers to see him at all. They only found out by chance

where he was, purely by chance, because

one of his cellmates passed along

some kind of message. They held him and

deceived him, and this is just one more

example of why, uh, you should not plead

guilty if you are innocent, and you should not

believe a single word these people say. These are

classic tactics, right? Good cop, bad

cop. 'Come on, have a smoke with us,

let's help you out. Do you need anything in the

cell? Anything? Just sign

this paper now, quickly, under special procedure,

you'll get it over with and be home in two weeks.'

They'll lie, of course they'll lie. We haven't had

a single case where they didn't lie. Every

time they lie. There was a major study,

yes, by Agora (a Russian human rights group), which analyzed

several thousand verdicts—these

verdicts under special procedure that

require an admission of guilt—and the conclusion of that

report was that people

who go through special procedure with

an admission of guilt, who are supposed to receive

lighter sentences, always get more than

those who don't. In the Bolotnaya case (the prosecutions after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protest), the same thing happened with

us: Luzhyanin was the only one who

admitted guilt, whom they were absolutely

sure about—and he got the longest sentence of all, the most.

It really was the first verdict. And by the way, why is this being done

so quickly? Good question.

Uh, of course, it's to make sure people don't

come out for the June 12 rally. That's the first reason. And

second, they already played around with all this

after May 6 (the 2012 Bolotnaya protest) and of course realized that

a lengthy

lengthy court consideration of a case

is a problem. Well, what should have happened

now in Shpakov's case is that I

should be there as the main witness for him.

He was beaten before my eyes. He was detained,

dragged into the bus. He's being accused of

supposedly trying to free me.

Naturally, I should be a witness at

that trial. Well, I would tell everything. I would

show the video I filmed, and his

lawyers would submit it as part of the case file.

There were lots of people there, and

photographs would be shown, and once again everyone

would be convinced that what was being done

was fabricated from the first

word to the last document.

That is why they need a special procedure, that is why

they need speed: first, to show that

yes, they grabbed him quickly, quickly grabbed him and

locked him up; second, they have sealed off as much as possible

all the evidence, all the proof. This is a new

tactic, this way of operating. Exactly.

Whereas before, they generally aimed for

lengthy trials,

long, tedious proceedings that dragged on for years,

now, after many trials,

they have realized that this does not work. Remember

even in my case, the Kirovles case—you

went there many times, filmed it, and nobody

understood why they were doing this live

broadcast, showing all the documents. They

were actually convinced that this

live broadcast would work against

me. We did something simple: we simply

published all the case materials, and everyone

saw that it was a fabrication, and

and now all those schoolchildren, I don't

know, students, whoever is thinking about whether to go

to the June 12 rally or not—they

would, in exactly the same way, looking at these trials,

be convinced that they need to go. That is why they

want to wrap it up. And now—are there risks for

people who are going to this rally? What should they

do? Yes, well, we always have

a few people under arrest. What? Mm-hmm, yes, I remember.

Please remind me, what outlet are you from?

Which publication? The editor-in-chief? I

read your Mediazona, and you realize that

there is a risk in doing anything. That is exactly what I wanted

to talk about. Every single day you

write about people imprisoned for likes,

imprisoned for reposts, imprisoned for

reposts of reposts. Yes—where was it that

recently I was in a city where

a person was convicted for reposting a repost,

and

it is astonishing. Right now in Russia, you cannot even

say that there are

any safe areas. If you say anything at all,

do anything at all, if you simply live, then

they can imprison you. Then maybe you looked at someone

the wrong way. So going

to a rally now is no more dangerous than simply

posting on social media—if not actually

safer, perhaps even more. No,

it is definitely safer to go to

a rally; it is safer than riding in

a car. The probability that you will get

into an accident is higher. But the main point

is not that we should be weighing

risks, but that we should understand that this

repressive machine will not stop.

And not even because—well, not because

it is Putin, but because the logic

of the machine is such that it does not know how

to stop. They have now felt that

they need to jail everyone. They like jailing everyone,

they like it. It does not matter that they have no

evidence—they will jail everyone, and they will

keep going,

trying to prosecute

any person who steps outside

what is approved. So yes, people need to go.

Of course, there is always a risk of being

administratively detained,

or given administrative arrest, as I constantly am

at every rally. But there is nothing

terrible about that, really.

Getting hit with criminal charges, like what happened

to the guys we are discussing, is much

more unpleasant. But of course, people still need to go

all the same, of course they still need to go,

because otherwise the number of people imprisoned

will be even greater. That is all. By the way, I just

wanted to say: yes, we remember the May 6 case

there were, what, already 35 detainees

who became defendants in the Bolotnaya case (after the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests); here

so far we see five. So maybe

they

are wary of the twelfth. They

are certainly afraid that mass arrests

will lead to even more

people at the rallies. Right, and we need even

more people—then there will be more arrests, is that

how it works? No, we need more people so that there are

fewer arrests. That is exactly the proportion. But

if they make more arrests—well, what does

more arrests mean? Well, 35 people in

their case—well, they are not going to arrest 100 people,

but in this country there are 140 million

people who are being robbed every day, who

are already exhausted, who feel hopeless. Yesterday, to our

office, some young people came

as a group. They were from different regions. What

united them all was that they

had been detained or arrested specifically for

the rallies on the 26th, all aged 21 to 25,

and every single one of them said: we have

nothing to lose. It is hopeless, we understand that, but there are no jobs.

The best job you can

find in the regions pays 25,000 rubles (about €400 at the time)

How are you supposed to live on 25,000 rubles?

In Moscow, it is all very straightforward—business is

hard to imagine. If you are a very

lucky guy, you might find yourself

a job paying 45,000 rubles, and then

you will be the richest one there. But even on that money

you still cannot really live. What is 45,000

rubles? Less than €1,000. You cannot

start a family, you cannot rent

or buy housing with a mortgage, you cannot

do anything. You are condemned, for the rest of your life,

to buying yourself a mobile phone on credit.

So they say: well, somehow we will still

keep going, because if we do not

There’s no point in going out and trying to find rallies.

They’ll never appear, Alexei. But the police—

their salaries are so low—

and yet they carry out their duties so precisely.

They watch the videos too,

and they get angry too, right there on the same bus.

Back then, when they were shaking his bus, I was inside,

Shpakov was there, and another guy too, and those same

police officers were shouting at me: why are they

shaking our bus? Why do they

hate us? My salary is

21,000 rubles, a female police officer shouted at me.

She was with the National Guard or whoever they were there—

it’s hard to tell anymore.

And I told her: they’re shaking your bus

so that your salary will be higher.

Most police officers understand

all of this. They really don’t like

this government. Most of them

have watched the investigation, and generally speaking

they support it. It’s just that the part of society

that wears shoulder boards is

more infected than anyone else with this

virus called “nothing can be

changed.”

They take everything passively; they think

it will last forever, that someone new will come along—favorite

thesis— and start stealing too.

They watched your film and said: yes, that’s all true.

Basically, I watched it—it's a typical conversation:

a cop watched it, showed it to his acquaintances, they all

watched it together, everyone is of course horrified,

outraged. But then it’s like,

you can’t achieve anything, nothing can be done. It’s a kind of

dead end for them. They just think

you have to sit tight: I’ll just do my job.

Well done, Alexei, I support you.

Please step into the cell, I’ll

close the door behind you. That’s a typical thing

that happens. But it shows

that with these people, you simply have to keep fighting.

In principle, all of them

support us. They see this

injustice. They see this stupidity.

But, well, yes, they just obediently carry out

what they’re told from above.

And here’s a question about this so-called “thaw.”

There was a lot of talk that now, well,

that now there would be a lot of talk no longer—

in Telegram channels that write all kinds of

[ __ ] nonsense—what thaw? What kind of thaw?

Good Lord, I hear talk about a thaw

all the time. I go to

some criminal enforcement

inspectorate to check in, and right now, after

your broadcast, I’m going there. So, I’ve got to

be registered for a second time

because they received a second

sentence in the Kirovles case, and I’ll have to

keep reporting there.

It’s just that I was convicted under a sentence with

one case number, and now there’s

a sentence under a different number, so

they have to register me all over again, they need to

take my fingerprints again. That’s just how

the system works. I don’t see any of it now, and no one in

this office sees any

thaw either. So remind me, what were the main

signs? They let Chernorets go?

That’s a sign? They let Dadin go? Two

signs of a thaw? Okay, so the signs

of a thaw are that Dadin (Ildar Dadin, Russian opposition activist) was

jailed for two solo pickets, tortured,

tormented, abused like the worst

actual fascists, Gestapo thugs, and when all

of that came out into the open and

a huge scandal erupted, then

a few months later they

released him—and we’re supposed to treat that as what

now? Of course, that’s like, you know,

what do you even say next? First of all, it’s

monstrous. Second, it’s as if I said,

guys, just imagine, I wrote about

20,000-ruble forks at Rosneft,

and today they canceled the order—does that mean

there’s a thaw? No. It just means we forced them

to do it, we pressured them and they had to, but that’s not

a thaw. It’s simply that they’re forced to

respond somehow to public opinion, that’s

all—at least in these peak,

painful moments, when the situation reaches a broad

public. When all of this stays on

Facebook

and Telegram channels, they

don’t care. Why are they afraid of

our video? Why are they trying to shut down our channels?

Well, because the audience is

immediately much larger—hundreds of thousands of people,

even millions. If I publish, if I write in

my blog about Rosneft, 200,000 people read it.

They don’t care. I make a video and it gets,

I think, one and a half million views now,

plus a bunch of newspapers wrote about it,

so now it’s a million-strong audience. Then

it takes on political significance. That’s why

they backed down. But then the question is: thaw or no thaw?

Not a thaw. As for the attack near

the office—that’s another question. How is it even

being investigated, if at all? What

is happening? Is anything known about the case?

The only thing known is that my lawyer—

one you know well—went

to the local police officer who had the case.

The officer said, the case isn’t with me, I passed it

on to the city inquiry unit.

The lawyer went to the city inquiry unit and found out

documentarily that nothing had been done there—

absolutely nothing had been done, absolutely nothing.

A month later, we’re still doing nothing,

nothing at all.

That may be very simple, because the person

who splashed that filth

—yes, he—

quite clearly committed a crime for which

he should be imprisoned. This is already

aggravated hooliganism, part two—up to 6 years—with

the use of a weapon and bodily harm that

can no longer be denied, with a whole stack of medical certificates proving it.

from state hospitals

from state hospitals, and he generally

should be arrested now and, uh, kept there until

the trial already. But we know that because

what was done for him on the twenty-sixth

This person gave testimony. I have

the interrogation records. Damn, it's a shame I didn't

bring them now—I would have shown them on air

these are people who were originally brought there

Well, or they say: we came there in order

to control something there, who

even tried to detain people on the spot

and then, generally, they outright consider themselves

look, listen, they are freelance employees

of the Investigative Committee; in fact, they are

on duty, they think of themselves that way. Well, they think they

are somehow entitled to it. Seriously

someone is paying them somehow

yes, exactly for that reason

No investigation is taking place because

he ought to be jailed, but he has already been working

for the Investigative Committee—he was carrying out

an important task for them right now: giving

false testimony against an innocent

person, and as we understand it, he did this in exchange

for immunity from the state, represented by some

I don't know, some minor officials there

from the presidential administration. Let's recall how

this works. So, the attackers

from the NBP (National Bolshevik Party), who they worked with—yes, of course

minor officials from the presidential administration

—Nikita Ivanov, who isn't even

that minor—and he says: guys, well done

fight the fifth column, throw things around there

make a scene, do whatever—you'll have immunity, we

guarantee it to you. And what do we have now?

To throw Slava in jail for what

for doing what you yourself asked him to do

just yesterday—so there will be no investigation

I'm not expecting one, honestly. That is, the case

won't even make it to trial at all, judging by

what there is now—there's nothing at all

nothing. I think, well, we'll

keep bombarding them. But here's another example for you

remember the Anapa attack a year ago, a year

ago, the attack in Anapa—there it is

video footage, some thugs right in the

airport—an attack, violence, obviously

a group of people, conspiracy—what else

premeditation, everything needed for

that. And what is there not? No case. No case has

been opened, although, let me remind you,

there was an instruction, the minister, the deputy minister

of internal affairs, a letter to the ombudsman

for human rights, a million newspapers wrote about it, and

everyone was told: of course there will be a case

an investigation. Nothing

nothing exists, as if nothing happened, so

come on June 12 in general, because

any person in Russia, you understand, cannot

achieve justice in anything

Alexei, here's a question I'm often

asked, as a media outlet: what should be done

about the system—what can be done with the system if it is

like this? All right

change the system. Well, listen

these same people who go to work in the police

who work in the Investigative

Committee—they don't go there from the outset

with the idea: I'll go there and fabricate

cases, and I'll go there and imprison

innocent people. On the contrary, generally speaking, they

don't like it; they see it as a kind of

forced chore, maybe. They really don't want to—it

of course they don't want to, they don't want to do

meaningless work and produce all this

when there are actual

crimes, real cases, and well

probably at least more than half

of these people would prefer to receive a normal

salary

and do normal work. Right now they are being made

to engage in

the fabrication of criminal cases. If this

system stops receiving signals

from above—yes, to cheat, deceive, lie

every day—then it will function more or less

properly; overall it will work

simply. But look at the Investigative

Committee, the central building, yes, what is it called

the Main Investigative

Directorate of the Investigative Committee. They

handle all the politically motivated cases

when are they supposed to do anything else? They still have the May 6 case there

I was a lawyer, after all, and to this day

the defense counsel for one of the

people in the Yukos case, Pavel Ivlev—there

to this day there's a room bigger than this

packed with files, a bunch of investigators still

to this day

of course sit there twiddling their thumbs and supposedly

doing something on the Yukos case. These are all

ordered, politically driven cases, and they simply don't have

the capacity to investigate

a real attack. What we see in the

Nemtsov case, yes, there seem to be the very best

investigators there, and they brought the case to

the end. But the quality of the materials that

we see there from reports, including

Mediazona, well, it's simply below

rock bottom—they don't know how to work properly. And

when are they supposed to work, when? They

need to open a criminal case against

me, against Shpakov, against ten

other people, plus some other politically ordered case

someone brought money, paid up—and when are you

going to investigate an actual murder? Well

what do you call that? It's like: I don't have 100 rubles, but

you have many of them and there's only one of me. Well, Alexei, on

the last question, I can't help but ask about

today's video address

the second one from Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov. Actually

my next question is: why is he

pushing himself into this so hard? He was sitting quietly, not

bothering anyone, nobody needed him, and now all day long

he's recording things, there's even a show—are you

trying to take all the likes and views

for yourself so that I can tell you the most

It’s interesting, but he’s getting involved because—

he was told to, well, take a look—basically, that’s it.

It worked. Go to the news sites, and everything is

filled with Burkanych. Is there even

a single mention of Medvedev there now? No.

That’s it, the task is done. Well, the task overall is that they’re

trying to solve it in such a way that he

records brazen videos, gets likes,

and people follow it closely, and, and

it already starts to seem that our entire investigation

is some kind of confrontation between me and

Usmanov, and a discussion of whether he committed

rape or not,

rape, uh—and everything is sort of being diverted

away from the fact that, basically, Usmanov was one

of those who bribed Medvedev. There were many

like that. And in general, Medvedev here is

the main villain. Usmanov is certainly a villain,

but not the main one, and so on and so forth. And

our screen just went out here—does that mean we

dropped off the air, or did it just

turn off?

It turned off. So anyway, this

tactic is even partly working, well,

everyone is discussing Usmanov, discussing whether

Navalny is right or wrong, whether he raped

or didn’t rape, what exactly happened there,

but other things should be discussed.

Without a doubt. And Usmanov is definitely our enemy,

certainly not a friend—a harmful oligarch,

a corrupt man who imposes

censorship both on the internet and in traditional

mass media, absolutely. And

to Burkhan, we have plenty to say in response, and we’ll

gladly engage in dialogue with him

and with this whole oligarchic

crowd in general. But here it’s important not to forget where

all this began. Because if we

forget, then Medvedev will just sit there

snickering with his PR people: “Great job,

what a brilliant idea. Just look—Navalny and

Usmanov are recording their forty-

seventh video for each other, and everyone has already forgotten about us.”

Thank you very much to Alexei Navalny for

coming on the program. We’ve gone over all this,

he’s already explained everything and answered all the questions.

Thank you very much. We’re following

today’s verdict and the

political cases connected with March 26.

Burkhanovich, we’ll come back to this later today. We

continue our program.

We are shaken by today’s events. Kirill

Serebrennikov is one of the brightest

Russian directors, whose achievements

are recognized not only in our country but throughout

the world. We all know him as an honest,

decent, and open person.

We’re waiting for the theater doors to be opened so that we can

begin preparations for today’s

performance.

There will be no more official comments

today.

Here you can see video from the Gogol Center

from yesterday.

The detention, the searches, and the detentions there—

even if only as a witness for the time being—of

Kirill Serebrennikov caused a huge

public reaction here in Moscow, especially in

the theater world. There was a rally in support of

the Gogol Center.

What I would like to draw attention to here

is this. I think many people know what the essence

of the case is: they are accused of theft,

fraud amounting to more than 200

million rubles allocated for

the promotion of culture. What I would like

to emphasize here—look, this is

the first case that has truly

shaken this creative

bohemia, a case they perceived as

directed against them. Yesterday all the

famous actors were there, including those who previously, yes, had

been in the role of

people defending Putin’s policies. Starting with

Chulpan Khamatova, who came yesterday, and others.

Fyodor Bondarchuk as well. And yet,

what is happening? How is it that

this case

has so deeply stirred even these people? And

this is exactly what we were talking about: we

are now in an environment, in

a situation where there are no other ways

to resolve problems except through criminal

cases. If you have some kind of

conflict with someone, if you’ve fallen out with someone—it’s

not very important whether you used to be loyal or

not very loyal—this whole

clear line that meant you wouldn’t be touched no longer

exists for any group. That’s

very important to understand, including for the

creative intelligentsia. I think

yesterday’s searches and this

conduct by the security services toward a director and actors

tell us exactly that: these are the new conditions.

The second thing I would like to say regarding

the Kirill Serebrennikov case—the second very

important point—is how the case developed,

what we know. Yesterday, Meduza reported

citing a source in the Ministry of

Culture that the case was initiated

after a request to inspect Serebrennikov’s

activities, alleging that his

work contained pornography and obscene language. Well,

a direct complaint like that could not have led to

a criminal fraud case—that’s

impossible. Because if the complaint is about

pornography and profanity, then that’s what they check for.

Pornography, profanity—but how do cases

appear in Russia,

how are they launched, and in general how do these cases

move forward? The scheme was almost certainly the following.

Almost certainly. Of course I can’t know for sure,

I wasn’t standing there, but it’s quite possible to infer

what happened.

There really were these complaints; they

were read by the responsible officials, and then on top of that

the self-styled defenders of morality come in and say,

“Look.”

Pornography, profanity here—what are they doing?

What's going on?

Well, there are some people there who make

decisions in the Investigative Committee, who are sitting in

a banya (Russian bathhouse), I don't know, with representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church

and saying, "Come on, these directors

have gotten completely out of hand, look what they're

allowing themselves. Get me

an investigator here, let's see what we can find

on them." So these kinds of appeals

these denunciations are used as

the starting point, as a pretext. The order is directly given

to open a case, but this is where it begins,

with the message: "Have you completely lost it?

With Sokolovsky, that's how it was—those Pokémon, right,

the well-known case—that was also just a pretext.

And here too, the complaint is a pretext. It's a way to get

some big boss among

the security services involved: "Katya, what is this, these insolent people

with pornography and foul language—come on, let's

see what we can find on them."

What is this, anyway? And the third point, on

the case of Kirill Serebrennikov:

yesterday it sparked such active

discussion about Serebrennikov's own position.

Oleg Kashin today

already wrote a column on Znak.com that

very neatly sums up this

discussion about Serebrennikov's role.

What is known about Serebrennikov is that he

was loyal for a very long time and had good

relations with the authorities. He staged

the play Near Zero,

which was written—this isn't even really hidden—by

Vladislav Surkov. He

spoke for a long time about cooperation with

the state and, incidentally, in

2008 suggested that everyone who disagreed with policy

should leave. And now Kirill Serebrennikov

has found himself in this situation, and

of course Kashin writes that this kind of gloating

among the public arises over

this. I also want to say that

gloating is gloating, but

discontent is discontent, and still we must

understand that repression is the same against everyone,

and it's hard to gloat here.

You can't react to one kind of repression that way;

it is absolutely

immoral to support any kind of

repression right now against

any people whatsoever, no matter how you

feel about them. This is a seriously

immoral issue, and it should not be done.

Kirill Serebrennikov himself, as far as we

can tell—I was reading today's news—

is no longer answering in Russian, but on his voicemail in

German. Well, you know, that's exactly what they

want. Let people leave, let there be

fewer people we like.

That is their policy: to push people abroad.

You leave, and here we'll keep

only the agreeable ones among the people. That is exactly

what this is about, exactly what this is about.

All those people we don't like,

all those liberals—we'll throw them out of

the country and we won't

talk to them or deal with them. And once again

I want to stress:

to support in any way any

type of repression right now

in this situation is simply immoral.

We continue our program. Last time I

said that today I would

answer more questions, so

I urge you to send questions with the hashtag

#ItWillGetWorse. Write in—we read messages on

Twitter and other social networks. I

will try today to answer

as many questions as possible. And to

start, regarding the previous episode of the program, I was

quite rightly told in the comments

that in the episode where I

told the story of how an engineer,

Fundator, a Jew by

nationality, tried to put up a

monument and was denounced—well, that

story from the previous episode, I wanted

to correct it. I was wrong. Last time I

said that he was a

specialist in armor, but that is not true.

Fundator was a metallurgist, but not in armor;

he specialized in casting, and his great achievement

was that for the T-34 tank he managed

to devise an alloy that significantly

reduced the weight of the engine. So he was, of course,

a metallurgist and a casting specialist, not an

armor specialist. I apologize. And please,

by the way, if you notice any mistakes

or inaccuracies, write to me. I will try to

read and review everything, and I'm glad that

you notice things among

all the words here—there is always something

that needs correcting, so I am only

entirely in favor of such comments and

suggestions. Well then, I think let's move on to the questions.

Let's see what questions we have

today.

Ashkir asks a question: Khamatova and Madarchuk

do reduce the political nature of the case to nothing, don't they?

if you're sure this isn't about financial

score-settling? But you see, here's the thing I want

to tell you: here,

they try to reduce absolutely everything to financial disputes.

I am sure that

all financial disputes in Russia, both now and

before, are resolved without criminal cases.

If something goes beyond the bounds of

some internal agreements, then

in any case we are talking about politicization.

Look, if we're talking about a denunciation over

pornography and profanity—well, how is that

not political? Of course it's political. I

actually understand the interests of people

who do not want to bring politics into all

this. Even in 2017, it still seems to them

that if politics is involved, there is less

chance of influencing the success of one thing or another.

You know, ten years ago things weren’t like this, but

not in 2017. For us, everything is political, and

now the courts are political, and any

criminal case is political, especially a major and

high-profile one. So what kind of apolitical stance

could we even be talking about here? I’m sure that

nothing of the sort is possible.

Another question: hashish was allegedly found

at Serebrennikov’s home. What is this fashion for conducting

searches of witnesses? Is this the trend in today’s

Russia? I think there’s actually nothing

surprising about it at all. Witnesses are subjected to

searches. More than that, I think that at some

point Serebrennikov’s status as a witness

or not a witness was up in the air. I can easily

imagine that the investigators, the people who

make the decisions, always had

two possible scenarios at their disposal.

What were they? First,

to leave him with witness status, and

the second option

was to make him a suspect. That’s also a kind of

status: being a suspect does not necessarily mean

formal charges have to be brought. But in

Russia, by the way, this is generally how the system

works. As someone from

law enforcement recently told me,

if

a person becomes

a suspect, then for reporting purposes,

for internal explanations, for all that

bureaucratic work, that person has to be made

an accused person. Otherwise, how can you call him

a suspect if nothing further happens and he never moves

out of that status?

It’s very convenient. So one tactic is

to make someone a suspect, but have him

leave for another country, go abroad.

Why? Because then the bosses, and anyone else

who asks, can always be told: no,

you know, he’s abroad, he’s a suspect, I can’t

bring charges against him. Or

let him be charged—we still won’t

catch him. But if a person

who is a suspect remains in Russia, then

of course he has to be moved to the status of

an accused person and

held accountable—that’s the whole point.

It is practically impossible to stop a case.

That can also be done, by the way, in

Russia with high-profile cases, but only

on the basis of political will—if certain

people get together, think it over, and say:

let’s do this, we won’t take it

any further. Only political will can do that.

So, regarding the hashish, there’s an important point

I forgot to mention in the first part

of the program. I want to draw your attention: look,

hashish was allegedly found at Serebrennikov’s home,

drugs. More than that, we know that in the home

of one of the witnesses in the case—one of the

defendants, excuse me—in the May 26 case,

Yury Akula, drugs were also found.

He said they were not his,

they ran tests, and indeed he had not

used drugs. But nevertheless,

this is an important issue.

If you have something stored away, no matter how you

feel about it—I don’t know, legalization,

decriminalization—be prepared for the fact that

any substance, anything you have used,

can be turned

against you. With the June 12 protest, and again

I say this regardless of how you feel about

alcohol or drugs, keep in mind that these are

aggravating circumstances, and traces remain

for quite a long time. In Shpakov’s case, for example,

there are, unfortunately, aggravating

circumstances: alcohol was found

in his blood. Think about that.

Alcohol can take a day to leave

the body, even a bit longer, while

plant-based substances remain much longer.

Keep that in mind. Don’t put yourself at risk of

aggravating circumstances if you can avoid it.

More than that—fine, we’re talking about a rally now,

but this is an ordinary, everyday situation. If you are in

some kind of status and fear possible

investigative actions, you should definitely keep in

mind the risks of all this. And we’re not even

talking, by the way, about planted

substances. I think we’ll devote one of our

upcoming programs to Article 228

because I don’t think there is any other article

of the Criminal Code that generates so many complaints

and so many strange cases.

Although, of course, as I say that,

I can immediately think of a dozen other

articles as well—even

today’s Article 318. Article 318 concerns violence against

government representatives, which is what

the participants in the March 26 rally are accused of.

But in reality, Article 228 is still

a very painful subject, and still,

be careful—I urge caution and

vigilance.

Questions. Dmitry asks: it will get worse, but

who, then, is the suspect if Serebrennikov

is a witness? More than that, in the

theater-related Serebrennikov case, there are already two

suspects—figures connected with

the Seventh Studio. More than that, as I

understand it, they will probably be formally charged,

judging by the logic of events, because

it became known last night that they had been

detained—the director and, as I understand it,

the accountant

of the company that

worked with Serebrennikov. So in

this theater case, we will definitely have

suspects and defendants, absolutely no doubt about it.

There is no doubt about that. But mainly

Serebrennikov will remain in that, you know,

unclear status: a witness, but if necessary

we’ll move him into suspect status.

Moving on, what other questions do we have?

Wet Sweater asks me: does touching

a police officer count as a criminal offense here?

a crime—how sensitive our law enforcement agencies are

agencies are. Yes, you know, and here

there’s an interesting point: Article 318, about

touching a police officer. It really

raises very serious questions about how these

cases are even supposed to be handled.

What’s more, not a single prosecutor in the

mid-2000s said there were no

Article 318 cases for one simple reason:

because police officers simply found it

beneath them to file complaints under Article 318, Part

One. Why? Because

there are other parts to it—Part Two,

for harm dangerous to health. That is, if an officer is

beaten or someone tries to do something

that genuinely involves a risk to

health or life, then there’s Article 317,

on attempts against a representative,

a representative of the authorities—a police officer. So

Article 318 is used fairly often

in cases, you know, when there is no

other evidence. I personally have

a case I’m following very closely.

It’s the case of Arkhangelsk lawyer Krepky,

who was sentenced under Article 318, Part 1, to

two—almost three—years.

Simply because police officers

stopped him for the sake of paperwork, and he started

asking what right they had to do that. They beat him.

In the end, he filed a complaint against them,

and the police filed one in response,

and he was sent to prison. By the way, with

Shpakov, yes, it was the same story: he was beaten

near a police van for detainees, and he should have been

recognized as the victim. But no, instead a case was opened

against him. I assume that case against him was primarily

because he had been beaten, and

the police officers thought, ‘Oh, he’s been beaten—what if

he files a complaint against me? Let’s file one

against him instead.’ Alexei Gaskarov, in the May 6 case

(the Bolotnaya case), the anti-fascist and anarchist Alexei

Gaskarov was beaten on Bolotnaya Square on May 6,

filed a complaint against the police, and in

the end, it was he who faced criminal

prosecution and was sent to a penal colony

—he did, not the police. You know,

there’s a very important point here: in Moscow,

police officers are simply never prosecuted for

any kind of street violence against

the opposition or journalists. There is no such

law in Moscow—it just doesn’t function.

Police can do absolutely anything

at mass events, and nothing

will happen to them for it. They know that perfectly well.

They feel their impunity.

Yes, this has to be fought, and something has to be done about it.

Well then, I suppose we continue

our program.

The next segment

is a story

from the regions—from Nizhny Novgorod.

Nikita Sologub wrote it for us. I’d

say it’s an entirely ordinary, domestic story, seemingly, at

first glance. And I think right away

I’d like, you know, to get ahead of some of your

skepticism and all that. Why? Because

the story begins with the main

character taking a bottle out of the fridge,

pouring himself a couple of shots of vodka, and drinking

those couple of shots. It’s hot outside, so he goes

out and buys another bottle

of vodka,

and wakes up at the police station. Yes, right away

that doesn’t exactly make you sympathetic to the hero, does it? I

I think all readers, like me,

have doubts: what kind of hero is this?

He’s sitting drunk in a police station, so

from the outset he seems unstable. And

it feels like there can’t really be any sympathy for him.

.

What happens next? He asks to be let out; he

comes to his senses and asks the police officers

to release him from the Nizhny Novgorod police station,

and they argue with him there, while he has his hand

on camera—he has his hand on the

metal door frame, and the police officers forcibly

slam the door shut. He doesn’t manage

to pull his hand away in time, and right there in

the police station, two finger phalanges are severed.

Right there in the police station. What’s more, you know, when I

got to that point, I immediately had

my doubts: oh, two phalanges in a police station,

with a door? Come on, that sounds like nonsense,

probably some drunk guy making things up, maybe something happened

to him somewhere else. Even I, yes, someone

who deals with this all the time,

kept reading. What happens next to

this man?

An ambulance is called, and a paramedic arrives.

A paramedic.

I don’t know how the man was behaving, but I imagine

very erratically. Just imagine:

he’s missing parts of two fingers, he’s covered

in blood, of course he’s behaving erratically.

The paramedic somehow bandages his hand, and he

doesn’t go to the hospital. I think, yes, in that

condition he obviously wasn’t

thinking clearly about what was happening. He himself says

that he wanted to document how those

finger phalanges had been cut off. I just think

he was not in a very sound state at that

moment. He leaves the police station without those

two phalanges, then, as you understand, he starts

losing consciousness, knocks on the police station again,

they open the door, and he says: call me an ambulance,

I feel very bad, I’m losing a lot of blood.

They call again, and another paramedic arrives.

And saying, ‘You’ve really had enough of me,’

the paramedic simply

beats the man up.

His eye is injured and three

ribs are broken. A paramedic, a paramedic, a paramedic.

You’re looking at me in the studio in surprise. Yes, he

also, to a man missing two finger

phalanges and bleeding heavily, breaks three

ribs and injures his eye, so that

his vision worsened as a result of this whole

story.

This is a story from 2017, and right now

this is what is happening to this, to this man.

The police, the paramedic—well, how can that be?

The question arises: how is that possible? Then I read

and I think maybe there must be some explanation, maybe something was made up, then something...

Then there’s the police explanation. They say, well, yes,

they really did slam the door shut, they just didn’t

check where his hands were. Well,

it’s true that he lost two

finger phalanges, yes. Of course that was

careless, but it’s hardly likely they had malicious

intent—they weren’t deliberately trapping him. Yes, it

happened by accident, but how can you possibly

fail to check? What kind of attitude do we have toward

a drunk person, or a person who

annoys you—is it really that animalistic? Yes,

how can that be? He’s a medic. That’s what

really gets me—seriously, I just can’t

wrap my head around it: a man who’s already missing two

fingers then has three more ribs broken.

He filed a complaint with the police.

An investigation was carried out. I read with

interest the descriptions given by

both the paramedics and the police—they all

say, for example, that yes, that’s how it was: he worked himself up

into an inadequate state, so we used

those measures against him. Well, we accidentally slammed

the door shut, we apologize. The paramedic actually

said that while they were transporting him, the paramedic

basically took the side of the classic

the classic police officer. And

in the statement it says that this

man didn’t even identify himself by name, and

they even changed his surname for us somehow,

or rather, in the text as we know it, he

is listed under a different surname; and that

in fact, while he was being taken to the hospital, he

was falling down on his own and banging his head against the wall. Well,

that was the paramedic’s explanation, so

that’s supposedly how he broke three ribs—by banging

his head, or I don’t know, somehow smashing his ribs. And the pol...

That’s the story. That’s the attitude toward people.

Even if they were drunk—or not drunk—

there still has to be accountability. By the way,

speaking of this man’s case—what’s happening with it?

A case was opened over the beating

of this man by unidentified persons in the police

station. So in the police station there are apparently some

unknown individuals who inflicted injuries

classified as minor harm and injuries of medium

severity, and they still haven’t been identified. The case is being handled

by the Committee Against

Torture in Nizhny Novgorod, generally speaking.

The case is in Nizhny Novgorod. There is nothing

surprising to me about the fact that the Committee for

the Prevention of Torture is in Nizhny Novgorod,

and that this whole case happened in Nizhny

Novgorod. I want to say that back in the 1990s,

I personally used to travel a lot to away matches for my favorite

team in other cities, and

Nizhny Novgorod in the 1990s was considered

practically the most hellish city

for away trips. Nizhny was known as nothing other than

"OMON City" (after the Russian riot police), because there it was fashionable that

OMON would simply go into the stands and beat up visiting

fans, all of them. And from a

preventive point of view, all

the visiting fans in the city

would be rounded up whenever possible and

sent to one of the district police stations. I may

be mistaken, but I think it was the Kanavinsky station.

Just because—that was simply how it was.

That was the attitude, those were the traditions in

the city—exactly those kinds of traditions in the city.

That was the relationship between fellow citizens and

law enforcement. One could say a lot here

about Nizhny Novgorod itself.

Nizhny Novgorod also has that wonderful

Center E (the anti-extremism police unit), whose chief is very active on

social media—you can always

find him.

oper_nn, there on Twitter. So Nizhny

Novgorod does not really surprise me as the place where this

story happened. I would

say, unfortunately, that this is more the norm than

something unusual. But let’s continue the program.

Let me probably answer a couple

of questions.

Ivan Oznabishchenko writes: devote

an episode to the Law on Police—what rights do we

have, and what can be done if

police officers are clearly violating the law? You know,

that’s a very good question. Rights—we do have

many rights, but we need to analyze not

only the rights we have. We

will definitely talk with you about

those rights, about what can be done, but

we still need to understand what real

possibilities we actually have. Often there are no real possibilities.

Why? Because when it comes to

complaints about the police,

police abuse, violence—where do we go?

To the prosecutor’s office, the Interior Ministry, the Investigative Committee. Well, do we

really trust all these structures that much?

Who are they more likely to believe,

you and me, or police officers?

You understand what the problem is, right? But

of course we will talk about rights. This

situation has to change. Besides, there are

perfectly decent, honest

officers too. But the fact remains:

rights and formal rules are one thing, another

thing is how it works in practice. We

will also talk about how it

works in practice. Alexei Gufinsky

asks me what weapon one can

use if a cop is beating you. Have you

lost your mind, as we say?

What weapon in that situation? You would immediately

fall under Article 317—attempt on the life

of a police officer. Don’t even think about weapons.

Drive all such thoughts away. Article 317 means life

imprisonment. What weapon can

you use? I can tell you: the weapon is the word.

That is the only weapon you can use,

the only one that may help. Forget

the word “weapon” altogether. What kind of

questions you ask here—I want to tell you.

to say

Please advise—Marcel Ocean asks:

Then what should you do if

circumstances lead to an encounter with

the police? How can you avoid becoming a victim of a fabricated case?

and so on. Here I want to advise

those who didn’t see the previous episode with

Dmitry Din, a lawyer—here he talks about

how best to conduct yourself when dealing

with police officers, and how not to become

a victim of fabrication. But keeping track of this

as closely as possible—fabricated cases are a very painful

issue. We will definitely continue

to talk about fabricated cases, and of course

have a lawyer, preferably one you know

and simply be careful, don’t say

anything unnecessary. The main thing is not to confess in the first

minutes. That’s the most important thing

required of you: do not confess, and watch carefully

everything that is happening. And now we

continue the program. You know, this

news about Sechin and the little spoons,

the glasses, the sugar bowl, and

the blanket for 124,000 rubles (about $1,300)—I

read about those little spoons and thought: where have I

read all this before, where had I

seen all this? Honestly, I didn’t remember right away.

To be honest, it came back to me only a couple of hours later,

and I even wanted to write about it right away on Twitter

or social media—no, better that I tell you.

Sechin graduated from a university

as a language specialist; Sechin himself, in

the early 1980s, was sent to

Africa. He worked as a translator from

Portuguese—Mozambique, Angola, those

countries where pro-Soviet regimes

were engaged in struggle against

pro-Western forces. There really

were civil wars there. Igor Sechin spent

quite a long time in Africa. And I start

thinking: Africa—well of course, something

similar to Africa

comes to mind, and then I remembered:

1977, the Central African

Republic.

The head of state,

Bokassa, decided to proclaim himself

emperor—an emperor.

He spent a quarter

of the country’s budget on his coronation—a quarter. More than that,

the coronation was staged as an exact copy

of Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation.

Igor Ivanovich, take note:

be sure to study how Napoleon Bonaparte’s

coronation went. I’ll even quote

what was made for that coronation.

Quote:

“The crown’s design was traditional: it had

a heavy frame resting on

an ermine headpiece with a crimson

canopy.

A golden circlet was placed in the middle,

with an eagle figure set upon it, and from

the circlet extended eight arches

supporting a blue sphere, a symbol of the Earth,

on which the outline of Africa was

highlighted in gold. The value of the crown

was estimated at no less than two and a

half million dollars at the time.”

Food supplies: more than 240 metric tons of food and drink

that were to be served at

the banquet afterward were also flown in from

abroad by plane. Then there’s the alcohol, and then further:

“In addition, Bokassa ordered 10,000

pieces of silver tableware from Europe for

his coronation.” I think at this point Mikhail Leontyev should have

appeared and asked:

“What, were the guests at Bokassa’s coronation supposed to eat

with their hands? Wipe themselves on their sleeves at a coronation?

Or maybe wipe themselves with the crown, with that

what’s-it-called

headpiece with the crimson canopy?”

The guests, that is.

A quarter of the entire country’s budget was

spent on Bokassa’s coronation. Bokassa

was a fairly well-known dictator, and I think

these orders of yours, Igor Ivanovich, are

something African—something deeply out of

Africa. It’s that kind of style,

hard to describe; most likely it comes from there.

At Bokassa’s coronation there were the most

expensive shoes in the world. And what else is Bokassa

known for in history besides that coronation,

you may ask? I think many of

you know the answer: he is known

as a cannibal. Though there’s an interesting

story there: the thing is, in court the accusations

of cannibalism did not hold up. In court

in the Central African Republic, he

said that he kept

his enemy’s liver, or other

body parts,

in the refrigerator only

not in order to eat them, but rather to deprive

his rivals of their strength. So that’s the story.

What I’m getting at is: when you see, in state

procurement, an order for human meat

by Rosneft, don’t be surprised. The style

remains the same style—there is

nothing surprising about it. Be prepared; I allow for the possibility

that this is exactly how things will go for us. So

the Central African Republic

is becoming

an object of imitation for our elite. And

Africa in general is, of course, simply

staggering.

The Africanization of Russia’s elite.

Well then, let’s continue.

Next, I think we have some questions—another couple of questions.

So,

I’m being asked—and Alexei Dufinsky,

who asked after the previous segment, writes:

“All this has gotten me down a bit.” Don’t

get discouraged by all this. First of all, and second,

it is within our power to change all of this. You know,

I want to say: when law enforcement agencies

come up against someone more or less

with organized resistance at

the legal level; at that level they feel very

uncomfortable, they

are forced to change something. And you know,

within the agencies themselves there is this

attitude that what is happening now

is abnormal, it is very

bad, it is extremely inappropriate.

So, moving on, what questions do we have?

And Korsar asks me: if I am a

freelance documentary reporter and sometimes

film rallies, can I be subjected to

real repression, not the Kremlin kind? Well,

Alexei Navalny already spoke today about

the fact that the problem with our country is that

there is simply no way to guarantee yourself any kind of

indulgence or ability to avoid

repression — it just does not exist, not at all. That is,

any person here, one way or another,

if they end up at the wrong time in

the wrong place — and we cannot know exactly what time

is the wrong one or what place is the wrong one, we cannot

— they can fall victim to repression. You

say you are a documentary reporter,

you film rallies.

I think that at the very least you could

face administrative punishment

as a participant in that rally. Very often

police simply do not distinguish between

journalists and rally participants, and

this happens constantly, everywhere.

The last thing I wanted

to tell you about today is, of course, Alisher

Burkhanovich Usmanov. I am not going to talk about

his case for one simple reason: as for

that case — yes, the one for which he was imprisoned

in 1980. Why?

The case file has not been made public. More than that,

if it is made public, there will be

many questions about it. Why? Because over

the time since 1980 — and especially after

Usmanov became a billionaire — those files could have been

altered fifty times. We will wait for

accounts from witnesses, from direct

participants in the proceedings. I think, by the way,

they are still alive, and we may well

see and hear them yet, and it will be very

interesting to watch. I would like

to explain about Uzbekistan — what kind of background this was,

or rather, under what conditions Usmanov received

his first prison term. I think it is important

to understand this for those who do not quite understand what

this is about. Uzbekistan in the 1970s and 1980s

was Rashidov's fiefdom, the favorite of Leonid

Ilyich Brezhnev.

He knew how to give everyone gifts. And he

had, for a long time, absolute personal

indulgence. Rashidov knew how to give

people gifts. He knew how to receive

guests properly, gave them jewelry, and very much liked

coming to Uzbekistan, and Rashidov had

an excellent position. At the same time, the KGB

knew perfectly well, as did all the security services, about

the enormous scale of falsified production figures in the republic.

They were simply gigantic. Raw cotton

was the main thing, the main product that

was supplied from Uzbekistan at the time.

And the main thing there was false reporting on, I mean,

billions — that we were sending all this

cotton, while in reality that cotton

did not exist. The Uzbek elite had money,

colossal, absolutely colossal

amounts of money. During searches they found millions

of rubles. At one time I

spoke, several years ago, with

an Uzbek lawyer. She told me that

she had a client who was also from that whole

Uzbek elite, and 3

million were seized from him, and they demanded another 20 million

rubles. For Soviet times, 20

million rubles — just imagine, the average

salary was about 100 rubles.

20 million rubles — I do not want to get lost

in the math.

An unbelievable amount of money. So what matters is that

Alisher Burkhanovich and his father belonged

to that very Uzbek elite, the very top

of the Uzbek elite.

Alisher Burkhanov's father was the prosecutor

of Tashkent. Listen, that is

an extremely high-ranking law enforcement official; he knew everything.

He knew about all these corruption schemes and

cases. In other words, he grew up in an environment of

total corruption and total

impunity. Yes, later he said that

it was political persecution.

What political persecution? What are you

talking about? Political persecution

did happen in other republics, but in

Uzbekistan, at most, it could have been

a clan struggle: one clan lied a little

more than another. That was the only

possible form of repression there. By the way, Alisher himself

Burkhanovich enrolled in 1971.

Listen, that was practically impossible

for an outsider. After the memorial—

there are also very serious

doubts here as to how he got in there

and how he graduated from that university.

Listen, this was the most corrupt place,

the most notorious center of corruption

in the Soviet Union. And then we wonder

where Usmanov's initial money came from,

his starting capital — well, from there, of course.

Those enormous, simply fabulous

sums, that capital accumulation. So we need

to understand the environment in which he ended up in

prison in 1980. What exactly

happened there — I do not actually know for sure. We

will follow this case. By the way, we

they were accused — he and his

accomplices — of helping to extort

30,000 rubles from some person. Well,

we will see, we will follow developments. I think

this story will definitely develop.

Without a doubt, so we will keep watching. But

simply, this was the most corrupt point

in the Soviet Union.

the gigantic income that Usmanov himself

was involved in, and Rashidov and all the others there as well

they said that there, in the million-strong

Tashkent, half a million people were living in

dugouts

was awash in it; gigantic sums were spent

were seized by investigators, because

by the way, why did the so-called

Uzbek cotton affair appear? It's all very

simple: Brezhnev died, and then

Andropov came to power, and he had long been infuriated by

this whole Uzbek

setup in the authorities, and the main problem

was that the KGB would send people to Uzbekistan

to investigate crimes

but Rashidov and the Uzbek elites

would simply throw them out of the republic. With

one of today's regions, this is very

strongly reminiscent of a similar situation in one

of Russia's regions—I think you understand

what I'm talking about: gigantic money,

enormous money, and total impunity.

With that, we're wrapping up today's

program. I see all the questions. I will

answer some of them, and

next time as well. By the way, people are writing:

Yes, I can't help but respond today, Timur

Merkamilov: what the hell does Africa have to do with it?

It's a standard scheme for carving up the state budget into

people's pockets. The point here isn't luxury, but

how much cash was stolen and divided up, including

in this case too. And you think it isn't about luxury?

A yacht—sorry—isn't that luxury? And these

apartments we're seeing—aren't those luxury?

Why skim off money at all? So that with that skimmed-off money

you can buy something else

as well. So I think this is also

Africa too—this glitter and everything else is

part of that as well. Yes, and I'm being corrected

that Leontyev doesn't use the word "eat," but

uses the word "gorge" instead. There you go,

right in the middle of the broadcast. I apologize

for the inaccurate quote. Yes, indeed,

"gorge"... vacancies... to the guests... a display... and

there really would have been nothing to eat if they

hadn't bought 10,000 pieces of silverware

Thank you all very much for your attention

for today, I'm saying goodbye

Please ask questions, write

hashtags, suggest topics for discussion, and we

will think about how best and most properly to

present them. And follow the March 26 case

literally within the hour, a verdict will be handed down

in the case

against a carpenter, an ordinary guy from Lyubertsy (a city near Moscow)

who simply found himself at the wrong time

in the wrong place. Thank you all for your attention

All the best

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