Alexei Navalny on the program “Week” on REN TV
In the interview, Alexei Navalny explains his participation in the “Russian March” by saying that he believes it is necessary to publicly discuss issues the state prefers to keep quiet, including illegal immigration, interethnic relations, and federal subsidies to the Caucasus. He rejects rigid ideological labels and says he came to the march with his own agenda, intending to promote his own political slogans and influence the nature of the event. At the same time, Navalny stresses that his main work remains investigating corruption through the “Rospil” project, which, he says, helps challenge questionable government procurement contracts and return funds to the state budget. He also says that the authorities avoid engaging in dialogue with him because of uncomfortable questions about corruption, including allegations of bribery in the procurement of Mercedes cars for Russian officials.
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And here is one of the most truly
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discussed topics in the blogosphere. Why did
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the country’s leading online anti-corruption crusader,
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Alexei Navalny, the author of the high-profile
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RosPil project, take part in the Russian
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March? This event is traditionally
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held on National Unity Day by
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Russian nationalists. Navalny,
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incidentally, has marched there before,
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but this time he was announced as one of the
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organizers of the procession. The liberal
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public took Navalny’s move
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painfully. Many
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political analysts, however, believe he is acting
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absolutely correctly. After all, nationalism in
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Russia is becoming fashionable. True, this
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fashion is being shaped along very dangerous lines.
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Navalny’s demarche. In an interview with our
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program, the country’s leading exposer
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explained why he stood shoulder to shoulder with
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nationalists.
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>> Alexei, first of all, let’s clarify
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the terms. Are you a nationalist, since you
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took part in the Russian March?
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>> I’m a person who talks about real
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problems. You see, all this
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political-science nonsense — nationalists,
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liberals, left, right — in our
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real world it doesn’t always work
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properly. Well,
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>> but it does at least set markers for
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people, so it’s clear what kind of person
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the person addressing them
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actually is.
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>> Exactly. For me, the markers are
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real problems. There is
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a real problem of illegal immigration in
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Russia. Russia ranks second in the world by the number of
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illegal migrants. There is also
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the real problem of Russians as
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Europe’s largest divided people,
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there are problems in the Caucasus, and so on. At the
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Russian March, people came to discuss
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these issues — different kinds of people. It was not that
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you can talk about these problems only at the
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Russian March. In the end, I talk about these problems
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everywhere. Unfortunately, it turns out that
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most of these problems are
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taboo. They are discussed neither in the
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State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament), nor in the
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government, nor on the main
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federal TV channels. And it is precisely because
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these topics are shut down everywhere and people are not given
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the chance to discuss them, that this
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leads to radicalization.
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>> All right. And television really has not
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been very eager, let’s put it mildly, to
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show that very Russian March,
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for example the one that took place last
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weekend. Let’s take a look both at you at the
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Russian March and at the Russian
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March itself. Please roll the video.
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>> So they robbed and stole.
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>> Russians, forward! Russians, forward!
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>> Moscow is a Russian city.
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>> Moscow is a Russian city. Moscow is a Russian
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city.
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Russia, Russians, forward, Russians, forward
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... We are not
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forward
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forward
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jury. And to the end, shoulder to shoulder. And to the
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end, shoulder to shoulder.
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>> Well, look at what this amounts to. People are used
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to seeing at the Russian March
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that sort of, you know, frenzied youth,
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throwing Nazi salutes, as people now commonly
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say. And right there beside them is you, a person
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who very nearly became an icon of the
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liberal opposition.
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>> I’ve been going to the Russian
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March for four years in a row. And to all my critics I say
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just one thing: if you want the Russian March
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not to look like that — if you want it to look better — then
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come yourselves. I came to it with my own
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personal Russian March, with my own personal
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political slogans: Down with the party
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of crooks and thieves. I voiced those slogans, and
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I conveyed my own position. It seems to me
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that I was heard and supported.
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That suits me perfectly well. When you enter the United States,
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you’ve probably seen that
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people give their fingerprints at the
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border there, and nothing terrible
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happens. Even Democrats, in the Senate and
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in Congress, including Barack Obama,
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voted for building a wall on the border with
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Mexico. Here, it’s simply a question.
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>> But not alongside nationalists or,
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say, people who put on
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Ku Klux Klan hoods and shout
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some kind of, essentially, Nazi slogans. You’re absolutely
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right, Maryana. And that is precisely because
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there it is discussed in the Senate, so there are no
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people in hoods running around the
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streets. There is, for example, the campaign
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called Stop Feeding the Caucasus. Yes,
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the Caucasus republics should receive
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federal subsidies, like all the
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others. But let’s discuss the size of
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those subsidies. Let’s discuss what we
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get in return. And no one asks you,
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as a citizen. Does that offend you?
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>> I’m a taxpayer. It doesn’t just
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offend me — it outrages me to the depths of
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my soul. If you like, it infuriates me. And,
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of course, I go — and not just me, but all
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sorts of other people go to the Russian March and
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say something.
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>> Doesn’t it bother you that you are stepping into
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Zhirinovsky’s turf, and he has long since
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made this nationalist issue his own and, incidentally,
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quite successfully.
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>> Maryan, are you still concerned about
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illegal immigration? Do you acknowledge that
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in terms of heroin use
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of Tajik and Afghan heroin, Russia
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ranks first in the world? I’ll say this:
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among drug couriers there are many completely
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ethnic Russians, so what concerns me
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is drug smuggling,
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but I would not tie that to
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nationality.
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>> You are tying it to that. Problems concern me, and
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I don’t care about anyone else’s turf. I’m on
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my own ground. I talk about the problems
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that exist, that need
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to be solved, that are being hushed up. I
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retain the right to say what I want, and
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the fact is that I have a very broad audience on
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the internet as well. And that audience
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grows every year.
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I’m not afraid of losing anything. I will
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continue saying what I
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believe is right and what I believe
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is necessary. As for online exposés, that is
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your main work now.
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>> From the start, I was involved in very
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specific things. I’m a lawyer, and
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my main area of work is
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investigating corruption in
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state corporations. I was doing that
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before, and I’m still doing it. Since
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neither television nor newspapers want to show the results of
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my investigations,
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I publish them online. And that is exactly
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why I became a blogger. We created
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an entire campaign, the RosPil project, where
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lawyers sit and, every day, uh,
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challenge such corrupt procurement deals.
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Just the day before yesterday, we got canceled
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another procurement contract worth 290 million rubles (about 290 million RUB).
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In effect, we saved those 290
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million rubles for the budget. But it seems we are doing the job
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that, in a normal system,
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the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee
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and so on should be doing, but here all of this
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turns into online exposés. And
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you are one of the most famous bloggers in
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the country. This week there was a meeting between
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President Medvedev, incidentally,
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internet users and bloggers.
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>> You, well, presumably because you were not invited to that
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meeting. Does that bother you?
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>> No, I’m not upset. It was fairly
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obvious to me, and I know they simply have no
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answers to the questions I want
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to ask. And so on.
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>> And what question would you ask Medvedev?
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>> There was the so-called Daimler case,
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which was fairly well known. It concerned the fact that
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the Daimler corporation admitted that it
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paid bribes in connection with vehicle purchases
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to our officials, officials from the FSB (Federal Security Service), the Interior Ministry,
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the Defense Ministry, and so on. And
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Mercedes admitted all of this. There are
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the numbers and names of the offshore companies,
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I even have them myself; I published them,
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the ones that received this money. So
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the question arises: why is it that, to this day,
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despite the fact that I and some of my
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supporters online organized
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thousands of complaints, appeals, and crime reports,
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still nothing has been
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investigated.
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>> But look at the risk you run. They could
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say that you were not invited, well,
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for example, to that very meeting of the head of state
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with bloggers, because why
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invite a person who takes part in
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some marginal actions, as people now
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say, this kind of
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street protest action. There he is, with
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nationalists, shouting something, just about
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short of throwing up his arm in a Nazi
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salute. Why invite such a person
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to meet supposedly serious people?
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>> If there is no desire to invite me and there is fear of
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hearing my question, then a pretext for
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not inviting me will always be found.
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>> You have become so famous, at least
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on the internet, that it is time to ask you about
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your future plans.
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>> In our country, so much is stolen, and so
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openly, in corporations like these
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all my favorites—Gazprom, Rosneft,
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VTB, and so on—that I have plenty
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to keep me busy for the foreseeable future.
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That is, investigating
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corruption continues to remain my main
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focus, and I have a great deal of
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work.