Well then, congratulations to everyone. Residents of Novosibirsk will be able to spend 2 billion rubles of their own money on themselves and their families, rather than on Minister Abyzov’s Italian villa.
The governor of Novosibirsk Region has reversed his own (insane) decision to raise housing and utility rates by 15%, leaving the increase at 4%—within the rate of inflation.
Why is this a shared victory? Because the people of Novosibirsk showed how it should be done. They once again proved the points I keep repeating:
Right now, in Russia, the only way to achieve anything is through rallies and marches—street protests.
Any issue has to be politicized by every available means. The moment people start talking about “non-political protest,” they have already lost.
In Novosibirsk, the situation was unique: everyone united against the residents. Even Communist Party deputies supported the rate hike. Even the Communist mayor, recently elected on slogans of “we will not allow housing and utility rates to rise,” voted for the increase and hustled on behalf of the monopolies.
But the residents said: we still won’t give up, we’ll keep protesting. They created the most diverse grassroots initiative group imaginable and began appealing directly to the public, since the deputies had betrayed everyone.
Their first rally took place in -30°C (-22°F) weather. By the third rally, they did exactly the right thing and invited all the presidential candidates to speak. I was there at the time, and beforehand we published a short investigation into the situation.
At that same rally, it was said that next time the main demand would be the government’s resignation.
And despite a bunch of propaganda hacks whining, “let’s keep politics out of this,” the people of Novosibirsk did not let themselves be played—they kept politicizing the situation.
And that was absolutely the right thing to do. What is the government afraid of? Not rallies in themselves. It is afraid that opposition politicians will use those rallies and the protest wave to sweep it from power in the next election. Obviously.
It became clear to Governor Gorodetsky and the valiant presidential envoy Menyailo that if they did not reverse the tariff increase, the rallies would only grow larger. Those rallies would produce new politicians who would be hard to deal with. They are not fools—that is why they backed down.
Exactly as I said in my address: take to the streets and the tariff hike will be canceled. Or stay home and pay for Abyzov’s villa.
Excellent.
Once again, congratulations to everyone. Especially the people of Novosibirsk. Especially those who went to the rallies and won this victory. Especially our campaign office, which distributed thousands of leaflets urging people to come. Especially the rally organizing committee (thanks again for the invitation). Especially our Sergei Boyko and Andrei Gladchenko, who played a crucial role in the rally organizing committees.
Special greetings and thanks to Volodya Milov, who tirelessly and professionally explained the nuts and bolts of the tariff increase: it was unjustified and served only to enrich the monopolies.
And thanks as well to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) staff, who suffered and struggled, yet still had to travel to Tuscany, Italy, to film the Tesoro villa.