The news that we appealed the swindler and fraudster Liksutov’s “victory” in a Moscow court to the European Court arrived, for me, at the same time as those “happy letters” from the bailiffs, who are very eager to collect 600,200 rubles (about $6,500) from me in Liksutov’s favor.
Let me remind you that the “trial” was held behind closed doors, and I was not allowed to use a lawyer’s services.
The bailiffs didn’t bother me about this before—I was under house arrest, all my accounts were frozen, and they didn’t understand how to enforce the ruling. But now there’s no way around it. I have no doubt that we’ll win in the ECHR, just as we won the case over my 2011 arrest, but for now I’ll have to pay, irritating as that is—and, frankly, expensive.
That’s how it goes. Liksutov is a crook, and we proved it. He had illegal offshore companies, and we proved that too; in fact, he doesn’t even dispute it, blaming it on a “lawyers’ mistake.”
Nevertheless, the direct cost of publishing the truth about the fraudster Liksutov came to: ACF’s expenses for the investigation and for obtaining certified documents from Cyprus. Those costs are covered by your donations. 600,200 rubles (about $6,500), which I will have to pay personally.
And yet, in a normal country (or in the beautiful Russia of the future, which will of course come), an investigation like this would actually be enormously profitable for any NGO. It would end with: a) Liksutov being fired, b) a criminal investigation being opened against him, c) great publicity and increased recognition for the NGO, and d) a sharp influx of donations to that NGO.
The costs of publishing the truth are rising rapidly. If you are a media outlet, an NGO, a political party, or simply someone who wants to spread truthful information, you immediately discover just how much more expensive truth is than lies in Russia.
People even get paid extra for lies, while if it’s the truth, broadcasting becomes more expensive because your license gets taken away. Distributing a print edition becomes more expensive because you’re barred from newsstands. Legal costs are astronomical in part because not just anyone is allowed to found your outlet. And every one of your successes or victories turns into a lawsuit against you; Sechin’s “victory”, in which he sought to ban the media from publishing information about his income, is the perfect case in point.
And it’s also entirely possible that your editorial office will simply be shut down, and you’ll have to spend money relocating to another country.
An important feature of post-industrial authoritarianism: people are, of course, jailed for telling the truth, but above all the system tries to make truth prohibitively expensive.