Today is March 8, International Women’s Day. A holiday that is often, and wrongly, treated as just a day when all the boys are supposed to congratulate all the girls, give them flowers, and wish them to remain the most beautiful, the “true ornaments of our team.”
But in fact, today’s holiday is far more serious than that. It is a day of solidarity with women’s struggle for emancipation, equal rights, and justice.
It is an excellent, deeply important, and necessary holiday. And today I would also like to express my solidarity—with the brave women journalists who were not afraid and recently spoke out against the disgusting deputy Slutsky, accusing him of sexual harassment.
These accusations are more than enough for Slutsky’s immediate, disgraceful resignation. But as you can see for yourselves, instead of throwing Slutsky out, the deputies are defending him. Their attitude is basically: who knows what people say? Why should anyone believe the women? Slutsky hasn’t broken any law—so put up with it, and if you don’t like it, quit.
I believe that everyone who supports and covers for Slutsky is awful. And Slutsky himself is not only a disgusting man who humiliates and degrades people with his harassment, but also a crook. An incredibly wealthy crook living far beyond his means—and a crook for whom, in this very video, we will present ironclad grounds for immediate resignation.
So. Slutsky. Although most of you had probably never heard of him before the harassment scandal, he is a fairly well-known and high-ranking official. He has been living off the public since 1999—he has served as a deputy in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh convocations of the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament).
We have been paying this man a salary for almost 20 years. He is a public official, an elected representative, whose only job is to represent our interests. As a deputy, he is subject to serious obligations. For example, he is not allowed to run a business, he is supposed to live on his salary, and he must declare his property carefully and thoroughly. That is the law.
Let’s start by looking at Slutsky’s asset declaration for 2010.
In the declaration we find a splendid flashy car: a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. That is how the name is actually spelled. Deputy Slutsky has learned how to buy Bentleys, but not how to spell their names correctly.
Alarm bells start ringing. A car like that costs about 13 million rubles. Slutsky’s annual income is one-sixth of that—2 million rubles. He has no other income, and by that point he had already been a deputy for 10 years and was required to declare all earnings. He is not allowed to accept gifts like that either. The car is registered to his wife, but she is unlikely to have bought it—she earns 7,000 rubles a month. So where did the Bentley come from? No idea.
Those alarm bells turn into a full siren when we open Slutsky’s latest declaration, for 2016. Because there is another Bentley in it. This time, a new Bentayga SUV.
The price ranges from 15 to 22 million rubles depending on the trim. To afford one on his income, Slutsky would have had to stop eating, drinking, and spending a single kopeck from 2012 onward.
The Bentley is again registered to his wife, but despite her improved financial situation—she now earns 16,000 rubles a month—she still could not possibly buy it. And by the way, they did not sell the old Bentley. So where did the second Bentley come from? Again, no idea.
And when it is constantly unclear how an official spends 100 rubles on a salary of 10, that raises suspicions. Suspicion of what? Illicit enrichment. The concept is that when income and spending do not match, that fact alone is enough to open a criminal case. It is a law adopted in many countries, and our officials fear it like fire. Because it is simple and effective: if you live beyond your means, then explain yourself. If you cannot explain it, get out of public service.
We can state that there are two glaring signs of Slutsky’s illicit enrichment—namely, the Bentley cars that keep periodically landing in his family’s possession.
But besides that, we are interested in one more car from Slutsky’s declaration: a Mercedes S-Class. And here the issue is no longer the price—although it is, of course, also very expensive—but the fact that we managed to identify Slutsky’s specific Mercedes, which turned out to be a Maybach, and in doing so crack open a portal into the life of this elected representative.
There is no doubt that the car with this license plate is the one carrying Slutsky; in the photo above you can get a pretty good look at his deputy’s bulk in the front seat.
Now brace yourselves.
Since June 2017—that is, in just over half a year—Slutsky violated traffic rules and was fined 825 times. Eight hundred and twenty-five.
See the number highlighted in red at the bottom? That is the number of pages of Slutsky’s fines: 59 pages.
To be clear, Slutsky rides with a driver, but obviously the driver drives the way his boss tells him to—a very important passenger with parliamentary immunity.
So I say this responsibly: this car is used by a socially dangerous psychopath. We are talking about an average of three violations a day, and if we assume that Slutsky uses the Mercedes only to commute to work, then it is five violations a day.
He COMPLETELY, absolutely ignores traffic rules. ALL of them.
Have you ever driven along Kutuzovsky Prospekt in Moscow and seen a car racing down the median strip? That is Slutsky. He has dozens of fines for exactly that.
Seen a Mercedes driving into oncoming traffic in central Moscow? That was probably Slutsky too.
And what about driving in a dedicated bus lane IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION? That is Slutsky too.
Here is a summary table of Slutsky’s violations over 258 days.
While we were putting it together, Slutsky picked up 10 more fines, bringing the total to 835. Over this period, the fines amounted to 1,405,500 rubles. If you extrapolate that over a full year, it comes to 2 million rubles. In other words, Slutsky’s traffic fines alone eat up 40% of his annual income. That is yet another argument that Deputy Slutsky is not living on his official salary. What he is living on remains unknown.
Honestly, I do not understand by what miracle Deputy Slutsky has not killed anyone in his Mercedes. But at least five times every working day, he comes extremely close. And this is a de-pu-ty. An elected representative. The head of a Duma committee. A man whose job is to represent our interests. And instead he tries to kill us every day.
I sincerely believe that in Slutsky’s case, the harassment and humiliation of women journalists is more than sufficient grounds for resignation. But in Russia, people still do not resign over that. I also believe that the Bentleys appearing out of nowhere in his declarations are grounds for an investigation and most likely dismissal afterward. But Russia does not have that either, at least not yet. What is more, I believe that 825 traffic fines in half a year are grounds to examine this deputy—if only for basic mental fitness, never mind compliance with standards of conduct and ethics. But here too, we have little reason for hope.
But. My favorite kind of “but.” In Russia, there is a strict formal rule requiring all state officials to declare their property—both what they own and what they use.
And now we need to move over to Rublyovka (the elite, ultra-expensive suburb outside Moscow, naturally!), where Deputy Slutsky has a house.
Let us take a look at the deputy’s 800-square-meter house. If it were not for the location and the golden-priced land of Rublyovka, I would call it rather unimpressive.
He has had this country house since 1999, so I will not even raise the question of where he got the money. Prices were different back then, so let us assume he had it. But the issue here is not the cost—it is the size of the plot. Slutsky declares a plot of 1,200 square meters, but if we carefully examine the boundaries of the actual property, we see that it extends more than twice beyond them. So it is not 12 sotkas (1,200 square meters), but 28 sotkas (2,800 square meters).
Which naturally raises a question: did Slutsky illegally seize another 16 sotkas—1,600 square meters—of land?
And the answer is no! Slutsky did not seize 16 sotkas. In 2008, he LEASED the neighboring forest plot, covering 1 hectare—about six times more land. And he never declared it once.
To give you a sense of the scale of this scheme:
I do not know, and do not want to know, what Slutsky does in that forest. Nothing is built there, nothing is planted there, there is nowhere to park a Bentley—it is just forest surrounded by a fence. But in fact, that is completely irrelevant to us. Because legally, he holds the lease on that forest until 2055. And leased land must be declared regardless of what may or may not be happening on it.
Need references to the law? Here you go:
Slutsky is leasing 1 hectare of very expensive land for a term of 47 years, under a fully official, registered contract. Of course that must be declared. He has no chance whatsoever of proving that something like this could be “forgotten” or omitted as insignificant. Nor is it possible to cast doubt on the fact that he holds the land—the registry directly names him.
This is ironclad grounds for Slutsky’s dismissal and the stripping of his parliamentary mandate. Here is our official complaint to the State Duma committee that handles such matters. It is headed by a woman—Deputy Poklonskaya—which adds a particular interest to the review of our complaint. But honestly, in this situation, I do not see how Poklonskaya or the Duma leadership could possibly “let Slutsky off the hook.” In the matter of this land plot, he acted like a complete idiot. He should be thrown out of the State Duma.
But that is only a formality. Let me stress this again, because it matters. The undeclared hectare on Rublyovka is the smallest of the problems with this disgusting Slutsky. Deputy Slutsky is a disgrace—literally the worst of the worst. We, the taxpayers, have been paying this parasite a salary for 19 years. In recent years, 450,000 rubles a month. And he struts around, humiliates people, drives into oncoming traffic, and, apparently, does not intend to answer for the harassment.
And in closing, let me once again express my admiration for the courage of the women journalists who told us the truth about Deputy Slutsky. That deserves enormous respect. Let us all do our part to make sure this vile deputy, Slutsky, is driven out of public service—and that nothing like this happens again.
Thank you. Happy International Women’s Day!