The paper describes a meeting between voters near Bagrationovskaya metro station and Alexei Navalny, held on Thursday, August 15, where he talks about his family and childhood, emphasizes his familiarity with the district, and stresses the need for public support to solve the city’s problems. Navalny criticizes the current system of governance for its lack of transparency and corrupt practices, speaks about the mayor’s accountability, and argues that money from natural resources should work for citizens rather than elites. A separate section is devoted to claims about Sergei Sobyanin’s daughters’ “elite apartments” and discusses published reports on income and property, as well as possible mechanisms by which the housing may have been obtained. In conclusion, Navalny is described as an anti-corruption activist, the results of his projects and appeals from voters are listed, and contact details for his campaign headquarters are provided.
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NAVALNY
AT BAGRATIONOVSKAYA
CANDIDATE PROFILE
“I really need your support, because I want to solve the problems in this city that irritate me and make it hard to live normally. I would very much like to become a mayor whose source of wealth—for example, where he and his family get their apartments from—is clearly known.”
PAGE 4
RESIDENTS’ VIEWS
“I think Alexei has the best campaign right now. Unlike the authorities, whose meetings are held against a backdrop of reports about achievements, these are genuine meetings with ordinary people.”
PAGE 2
DADDY’S DAUGHTERS, OR CROOKS' PROPERTY
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A MEETING OF VOTERS WITH ALEXEI NAVALNY, A CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF MOSCOW, TOOK PLACE ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, OUTSIDE BAGRATIONOVSKAYA METRO STATION
Navalny emerges from the cultivated bustle, as if out of nowhere, and walks toward the low stage already set up by volunteers. After the televised debates, people recognize him and follow him with their eyes. And soon, where just a moment ago only a couple dozen people had been sitting and standing in front of the stage, quite a crowd gathers. Then again, Alexei is no stranger to larger audiences either: attendance records have topped a thousand.
Alexei smiles: “Did you see the report claiming that Navalny organizes meetings with residents and no one comes? Thank you for coming! My team and I believe that meeting in person is the best way to communicate with voters.” Noticing empty chairs in the front row, the mayoral candidate urges people to take them, using a single phrase that seems to sum up his views and his platform: “There are no elite seats here.”
“THERE ARE NO ELITE SEATS HERE”
“My name is Alexei Navalny, I’m 37 years old,” he begins. Applause suddenly breaks out. “Thank you! Well then—why did I even come here to campaign if such basic information already wins approval?” Alexei jokes. Then he adds seriously: “I’m very pleased!” He talks about his family, his childhood, his parents. About how well he knows this district: when he was in college, he used to take the suburban train to Fili. “And what else do you know about me now?” Alexei asks. “Everything!” people reply.
“I really need your support, because I want to solve the problems in this city that irritate me and make it hard to live normally. I would very much like to become a mayor whose source of wealth—for example, where he and his family get their apartments from—is clearly known,” says Alexei, hinting at the luxury apartments owned by the daughters of the current acting mayor.
“The state is us,” he declares. The oil and gas whose sale brings in most of the country’s money belongs to each of us, not to a few dozen oligarchs and top managers. So where is that money? Over the past 15 years, $3 trillion in oil-and-gas revenue has been received. That comes to 640,000 rubles per Russian citizen. What has it turned into? Industry, healthcare, education, roads? Apartments for everyone, regardless of rank?
SLAVES OF THE DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION
“I want to become a mayor under whom the head of a district administration earns a decent salary and lives normally, while I, meanwhile, pay exactly what I should for housing and utilities—and not a ruble more,” says Alexei. This issue interests not only him but ordinary Muscovites as well; in particular, it is discussed on dedicated forums. Alexei intends to conduct an audit of housing and utility tariffs to find out why Muscovites pay substantial sums every month for services that are far from top quality.
MONEY AND CAMPAIGN MATERIALS
A hostile question is asked: who is financing Navalny’s election campaign? Alexei asks everyone gathered who has sent him money to raise their hands. There are at least two dozen sponsors among those present. Navalny’s campaign account consists entirely of donations from ordinary people, who send him 100, 200, or 500 rubles.
LET US SPEAK
“All of you candidates speak beautifully,” says an elderly woman who comes up to the stage and introduces herself as Tatyana Ivanovna, “but as soon as you get into power, you change immediately.” Alexei replies: “Power corrupts people. That is exactly why we want to change the system. Change it so that it will be very, very difficult for me, or for my colleagues or acquaintances, to steal. And so that those who do wrong can be thrown out of power.” “Give us your word that you will step down as mayor if power starts to corrupt you,” Tatyana insists.
NAVALNY
RESIDENTS ON THE MEETING
VALENTIN, 40, A VERY EXPERIENCED DRIVER:
“I’m concerned about traffic and congestion. I’m unhappy with how road problems are being handled in Moscow right now. Sobyanin isn’t a Muscovite and doesn’t know the specifics of our road system, doesn’t know how we get to work—by suburban train, by metro—and he introduced dedicated lanes that only paralyzed traffic instead of giving it the green light. Over the past two or three years, traffic jams have gotten worse, especially in autumn. In my view, the current mayor has failed to deliver on his platform. So I’ll vote for Alexei if he consistently follows through on all the tasks he has set. And in general, on the day Navalny was arrested, I noticed how deftly they redirected car traffic. While the light was green and we were crossing at the pedestrian crossing, there were women and children walking, and representatives of the authorities were signaling to drivers—run them over, keep going. But that’s a serious violation! It shouldn’t be like that.”
EVGENIA, 31:
“I believe that Alexei currently has the best campaign. Not like the authorities, where meetings are held against a backdrop of reports about achievements, but real meetings with ordinary people. No matter how the election ends, this live interaction with voters will still count as an achievement for him, and he will gain many times more supporters than he had before the election. Where there were seven thousand, there will be seventy.”
DADDY’S DAUGHTERS, or CROOKS' PROPERTY
Civil servant Sergei Sobyanin has been at the head of Moscow for nearly three years. During that time, many questions have piled up for him, but he does not like answering them. And he does not. He stays silent about the paving stones on sidewalks that in many places fell into disrepair soon after being laid. Yet this involved hundreds of millions of rubles—either squandered incompetently or simply stolen from Moscow’s budget by dishonest officials. He says nothing about the landscaping of Tverskaya Street with scraggly shrubs costing eight million rubles each (experts estimate that similar “landscaping” should cost at least ten times less). And now Sobyanin has a new reason to stay silent: his daughters’ luxury apartments.
MOSCOW
On the eve of the election, the election commission published information on the income and property of Sergei Sobyanin, his wife, and his underage daughter for 2012. One thing immediately stands out: a 308-square-meter (3,315-square-foot) apartment in Moscow owned by schoolgirl Olga Sergeyevna Sobyanina.
HOW MUCH IS IT WORTH?
Open databases make it easy to find the address of Olga Sobyanina’s apartment: 12 Rochdelskaya Street, Building 1, Moscow. It is a super-luxury building in central Moscow near the White House (the Russian government building).
An apartment measuring 200.2 square meters (2,155 square feet) is for sale in the same building. Its price is 103.8 million rubles, or about 518,000 rubles per square meter. It is not hard to estimate that the 308-square-meter (3,315-square-foot) apartment owned by civil servant Sobyanin’s underage daughter is worth about six times more than his total income over the last 10 years! And Sobyanin’s tax declarations make it clear: he had no legal source of income to buy an apartment on Rochdelskaya Street.
PRIVATIZED?
Sobyanin said that the apartment in central Moscow had long been declared by him. “This is standard practice”—however, the law “On the State Civil Service” prohibits a civil servant from receiving apartments as gifts (Article 11, Clause 8). And under the law “On the Privatization of the Housing Stock,” official service housing cannot be privatized (Article 4).
In addition, a citizen of the Russian Federation has the right to privatize housing free of charge only once in a lifetime. Sergei Semyonovich has already used that right: he owns a 116-square-meter (1,249-square-foot) apartment in Tyumen. But despite all this, within a couple of years the service apartment on Rochdelskaya somehow became the property of Sobyanin’s underage daughter.
A DESTITUTE ORPHAN?
There remains one more version of how Sobyanin could have legally obtained housing: under a social tenancy agreement. The law provides for such a possibility if a family’s income is below the subsistence minimum. Navalny objects: “But we are not talking about the declarations—we are talking about whether it was obtained legally.”
Building 12 on Rochdelskaya Street
CHILDREN OF CIVIL SERVANTS ARE EASY TO RECOGNIZE BY THEIR LUXURY HOUSING AND UNDENIABLE BUSINESS TALENT
HIS INCOME
Sergei Sobyanin first declared his income in 2000, when he was a candidate for governor of Tyumen Region. His annual income for 1999 was 299,000 rubles. In 2003, together with his colleagues from United Russia, he published a declaration according to which he earned 1.6 million rubles in 2002. For 2008, his income amounted to 3,472,000 rubles, and his wife’s income was 21,800. For 2009, they were 3,219,776 and 18,586 rubles respectively. For 2010, 4,760,000 and 19,300 rubles.
The apartment owned by civil servant Sobyanin’s underage daughter is worth about six times more than his total income over the last 10 years.
ON SEPTEMBER 8, VOTE FOR ALEXEI NAVALNY!
WHO IS NAVALNY?
ONE OF US
For many years, Alexei Navalny investigated cases of corruption in Moscow and across the country. For those who read the news online, his name is synonymous with a successful fight against high-ranking crooks and thieves. Together with his team, Alexei came up with and carried out civic projects that improve ordinary people’s lives. City Hall officials feed us promises, but Navalny’s projects actually work.
“Real politics means saying what you really think and engaging in public and political activity without asking anyone for permission.”
Navalny became a candidate for mayor of Moscow in order to fight arbitrariness and the plundering of all of us on a new level. For Navalny, change in Moscow is the key to change in the country. He is convinced that if corruption and lawlessness are stopped in the capital, positive change in Russia will become inevitable.
Alexei Navalny was born on June 4, 1976. He graduated from the law faculty of the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia and the finance and credit faculty of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation. He lives in Maryino, a panel-apartment district in southeast Moscow. Alexei’s family includes his wife Yulia, his 12-year-old daughter Dasha, and his 5-year-old son Zakhar.
NAVALNY HAS ALREADY DONE A LOT
Navalny runs several successful projects that help ordinary citizens. He has brought together thousands of people to fight theft and inefficiency.
PEOPLE TRUST NAVALNY
People trust Navalny and voluntarily fund his projects. Around 30 THOUSAND people donate small amounts to his Anti-Corruption Foundation, which is how the Foundation operates.
RosZhKH
WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE THOSE WHO CHARGE US FOR HOUSING AND UTILITIES DO THEIR JOB
More than 90 THOUSAND complaints about violations have been filed, and more than 25 THOUSAND violations have been corrected.
RosYama
WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE BAD ROADS BETTER
More than 45 THOUSAND complaints about potholes have been filed, and more than 12 THOUSAND potholes have been filled.
RosPil
WE KNOW HOW TO DEFEAT THEFT IN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
The misuse of 59 BILLION RUBLES of taxpayers’ money has been prevented.
Campaign headquarters: 22 Lyalin Lane 8 (495) 215-54-31 team@navalny.ru
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