Alexei Navalny’s Interview with Echo of Moscow in Ufa

Good afternoon. As promised, we’re beginning

the broadcast on Facebook. Why on Facebook?

I’ll explain right away: because we simply don’t have

the option to go live on a weekend

day—the schedule is set up that way. But on

Monday we’ll definitely post the recording.

So, as promised, here with us in the studio in

Ufa is Alexei Navalny, politician. Good

afternoon. I remember that before, when I interviewed you,

I used to think: what comes first—blogger

or politician? Now politics comes first,

you’ve finally grown into it. Thanks a lot.

Although, although... Anyway, there are questions now,

because now people are saying that Navalny is

Russia’s leading journalist.

Navalny is a person who, unfortunately, has to do

a great deal of journalistic

work. I don’t particularly enjoy doing it,

but since our foundation

specializes in fighting corruption,

it’s an integral part of the work. In fact,

journalism is one of the

tools for combating corruption. That’s exactly

why... Have you noticed in Russia

that the community, especially those who are usually

praised, many of them were offended by your

wording—by that description that

“Navalny is the main journalist”—and started

pointing out that they had done investigations like that

before too, and so on. Naturally,

there’s a certain jealousy within

the professional community. But let’s say

not exactly the professional community—I

consider the professional community to be

investigative journalists, after all. They are

in a sense our colleagues. There aren’t many of them,

in Russia. Of course, like everyone else, we

after releasing an investigation, then spend

the next 24 hours running around Facebook and

looking at what people have written—people who

really do investigations,

who know and understand how this work is done. They

mostly all

praise us. But journalists in general, who in

today’s Russian reality are very often

just adrift—people who

have nothing left to do but write

columns or work for media outlets where they

can’t say what they really want

to say—they worry a little,

they get jealous. Well, there’s nothing you can do about that. Yes,

no... Anyway, investigative journalists

get jealous too—well, the real ones,

the ones whose investigations

I read myself—it seemed to me that they

weren’t jealous. Well, what does “jealous” even mean?

When I see a great investigation

published somewhere, I think, damn,

they beat us to our topic, or why

didn’t we think of that first? But that’s

still not jealousy. It’s more like

a slightly different feeling, I think. And

still, since we’re talking about

the investigation, it’s clear that you’ve already

received a million questions and answered them on this

topic, but here in Ufa we’re interested in

one small fragment, of course, that was

mentioned only in passing: it’s

Bashneft. Bashneft was mentioned in

the investigation, but only briefly.

Why wasn’t there much information there? Or

did it seem unimportant to you? Is there

anything you can tell us now

in addition about Bashneft? I can say this:

a subsidiary company—yes, a subsidiary

of Bashneft. That is to say,

roughly speaking, Bashneft itself really did

transfer about 2 billion rubles (roughly $34 million at the time) into these

Medvedev charitable foundations and

put money into this pool from which

he later bought his luxury

real estate. And this debt was

written off as unrecoverable—that is, it was basically

zeroed out at some point. But after

Rosneft took over Bashneft, that money,

as far as we can tell, was returned.

We don’t understand from what source; we don’t

fully understand it, yes, but it was

returned because apparently, well,

the owners changed, and here I can only

speculate.

Yevtushenkov had some kind of arrangement, and

he was paying some sort of tribute there, whereas

Sechin apparently said, “Sorry, Dmitry

Anatolyevich, I’m not going to finance your palaces.”

Maybe that’s not exactly how it was; maybe

something else was going on. We didn’t go into it

in such detail because

after all, the main—well, obviously—

donors to these Medvedev

corruption funds were other people. But

in general, the very fact of what

is happening with Bashneft, and what

happened with Bashneft’s transfer to Rosneft—

is that more of a positive thing for Bashneft, for

the economy? Well, you see, even the money—

Negative, absolutely negative. There’s

not even the slightest doubt about that. I mean,

the money may have started coming back, but that’s

a separate matter. We can see that, according to

the documents, the debt seems to have been repaid, although

initially it was written off as bad debt.

But we still don’t fully understand how this whole

mechanism worked—that’s the first point.

Second, overall this is a minor detail compared

with Bashneft itself, and I assumed that

here in the republic people would ask me a lot

about it, and my view is unquestionably

negative. Bashneft was a private

company that was performing quite well,

that was delivering results

better, for example, than Rosneft itself,

and that paid more in taxes than

Rosneft if we calculate it per

barrel of well fluid equivalent.

In other words, this company was

better than Rosneft, and then suddenly we see that

it was simply swallowed up—sorry for the expression.

A word for what? For what? It’s gigantic.

Rosneft, which is experiencing many

problems and is managed very poorly,

which now has a debt of 3.5 trillion

rubles, and that is a record debt in its entire history.

For Russia as a whole, it’s some kind of

outrageous debt, completely out of proportion

to the size of the company. Why suddenly should it

Rosneft is bad? Rosneft is a shareholder.

of Rosneft, and I—I have been carrying on my own dialogue, which

many would even call a scandal, with Rosneft’s management

for many years now,

regarding terrible corruption,

regarding the low quality of management.

I don’t understand why they suddenly should

have gotten Bashneft for themselves. You know, when I

watched your film, I saw that at the end there were

the most, yes, the most striking figures who

get the biggest rewards from this regime,

the biggest perks, apparently. But Sechin wasn’t really there.

You know there’s a lot of

conspiracy theorizing around the film—who commissioned it, wasn’t there already

plenty to add, so to speak,

to the conspiracy theories?

Well, quite often after each of our

investigations, people who think they know tell me

who supposedly ordered the investigation.

When we talk about Shuvalov,

they tell us it’s Sechin. We release

an investigation about Sechin, and they tell us it’s

Medvedev or someone else. Well, in fact, we currently have

several videos right now; they’re

not really investigative, just critical,

more like takedowns, ready and waiting for their

moment. If we didn’t mention him, that doesn’t

mean that I somehow like him.

I consider him one of the most negative,

most toxic figures in

Russian politics, and one of the biggest

corrupt officials. There is one aspect

that is also connected with the investigation into

Medvedev and concerns Plyos (a small resort town on the Volga)—you

surely know who is the head there

in that very Plyos. Do you mean

Plyos as in the gift, or Plyos as in

the town? I mean Plyos as in

the municipal

entity. Some son-in-law of Sechin’s,

and he is, generally speaking, from Bashkiria (Bashkortostan) too, from

there as well.

Well, we knew that Sechin’s son-in-law, naturally,

works in Plyos; there have been quite a lot of publications

on this topic. They say that allegedly there is,

again, a conflict between this son-in-law and

Medvedev’s group. That’s exactly what I wanted

to ask: when you were there, did you notice

when, I mean, you were checking this whole

story—did you notice this conflict? We did not

notice this conflict. Perhaps it

exists; perhaps it is connected with some

new projects that they are planning

to pursue. But from the point of view of our

investigation, we were analyzing a simple

thing: these funds that were pumped full of

money, what Medvedev bought with this

money, and our task was simply

to tell the citizens of Russia: guys, just

look—70 billion rubles is simply

bribes from oligarchs that

Medvedev received, and he spent them not only

on palaces inside Russia, but also on various

vineyards and residences abroad.

This is especially important because

they used charitable

foundations. It’s honestly insulting.

You understand, the 70 billion that Medvedev

received under the guise of charity—

that is more than all charitable giving in

Russia over many years. The reaction to the film,

which some people now have and others do not,

did you more or less imagine it

that way? Compared with what you predicted, is the

reaction we are seeing above expectations,

below them? Well, let’s put it this way:

this eloquent unwillingness

to comment at all—we thought that

still, that would not happen. I know very well

that over many years, the clearer

and more evidence-based the investigation we release,

the less desire officials have to

comment on it. But here something truly

remarkable happened: they literally did not say

a single word. The typical comments were:

“He’s a criminal, we’re not going to say anything.”

That was said by Timakova, Medvedev’s press secretary,

and Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, said it too,

and they all repeated it.

Substantively, zero words were

spoken. For us,

this was generally expected. We hoped that

they would at least say something, a little

more, but apparently we hit

so precisely on the right point that they are afraid to say

Well, there is a lot that could be said about this investigation.

One last question on this

topic: did you notice the reaction of

Transparency International and the fact that they

said, yes, everything is great, but the direct

link to Medvedev still has not been proven?

Well, for me, Transparency International is still

really Elena Panfilova—that is,

not some of her, perhaps good,

staff members there,

people who, it seems to me, do not really

understand very well what an investigation is,

but Panfilova herself, who is now the head not

just of the Russian branch, and, as I understand it,

has already become the executive

director of all Transparency

International—she assessed this investigation

positively. Okay, then let’s move on to

questions

that concern our region more directly.

Especially since, as I understand it, in Ufa

it’s your first time? Yes, it’s my first time in Ufa. What

are your first impressions? How were you received

here? We were received amazingly and

fantastically. We arrived by train, and—

from Samara. Well, at 8 a.m., and basically this is

always a rather gloomy kind of arrival.

You arrive by train, sleep-deprived,

in a dark mood, you get out, but on the platform the local—well,

either NOD (National Liberation Movement) or United Russia—they

put on some kind of extravagant show. There were

American flags and signs saying, "Agent

of the State Department." You know, you step out

onto the platform in Ufa and see a person

standing there with a sign reading, "U.S. State Department agent."

For me, the most astonishing thing

was watching the reaction of the people around us,

and there were quite a lot of them—Ufa

is a big city, there were lots of people on the platform,

with trains arriving and departing—and behind us there was

a whole crowd with a megaphone.

They were chanting, shouting, swearing,

and you should have seen the faces of the people who

simply had no idea what was going on.

A few miserable police officers were running around

nearby, and they couldn't do anything either.

do anything.

And, well, this is a very good

example of how power has now been replaced

by some kind of surrogate. Even

a police officer can't make sense of whether this

person with a megaphone, who is, well, simply

causing a disturbance on the platform, is allowed to do it

or not. At some point they

started throwing eggs, as is their custom.

And as a police officer was walking by, two eggs landed

right before my eyes, and on this

police officer's face there was just total cognitive

dissonance. He couldn't understand: damn, I'm

a police officer, you're not supposed to throw things at me.

But these people behave so brazenly that

apparently you're not supposed to detain them. But overall,

of course, there are inconveniences like

having to wipe egg shells off

your clothes afterward. From the standpoint of word of mouth,

that kind of pompous arrival, it seems to me, is more likely to

Let me remind you that we're not live on the radio,

we are live on Facebook, and there

our listeners asked a great many questions—

our readers online. So,

here's what they're asking, Alexei: what do you

know about Bashkiria (Bashkortostan), about Ufa? What

ideas

or stereotypes? I know a lot—I read the briefing.

The thing is, I

spea

try to be a responsible candidate.

If I'm coming here to open an election

campaign office, a briefing is prepared; I personally

help prepare it and read it. Though you're probably not

interested if I start rattling off

statistics you already know.

What did I associate it with from that briefing? Well, Ufa

is of course associated with a region that

should, overall, be very—it's a region

that ought to be very rich,

since this is an oil-producing region, with its own

oil company. But unfortunately it is not

that rich. There is a clear

disproportion between what, well, one would expect

the republic to have and what exists

in practice. The average

salary is not that high. Just now, as I was driving through

the city—it's a very beautiful city—but the snow, I

understand that this winter is still

abnormal, but even so, the snow is not

being cleared at all. "Abnormal" in the sense that

the mayor said back in the fall that there would be no money

for snow removal. I don't remember the last time

I saw snowbanks as high as

a person. They're right there,

here in the courtyard of your radio station. Though

at least on that snowbank they were able to stand,

those NOD activists with flags and a red jacket, and

well, it also looks very

ironic—like, was it the U.S. State Department that failed to

remove the snow from here, or your own mayor

of your own city? In other words, the republic is

underfunded. Here in Ufa, for us,

this region matters because here the points of our program on

are especially applicable.

federalization and local self-government

This is the most important group of questions

that our listeners have also very actively

raised. Let's talk precisely about

federalization. The thing is that

the Republic of Bashkortostan is a republic.

Yes, this is the first republic where you

are opening a campaign office; before this, it was regions. If you

become president, will this same

federal structure remain? In what

direction will it move? Will there still be

republics, oblasts, and krais, or will everything

be standardized, as, I don't know, in

the United States, for example? I don't see

any point in standardization. At the same time, I

acknowledge that the current federalism is

absolutely false and nonexistent. Well,

some are called republics, some

are called oblasts, some krais—but that has no real meaning,

because governors are

effectively appointed, city mayors are

effectively appointed,

and the population has no real influence on the authorities.

That is wrong. I believe that

federalism must be real. After all, these are

different regions in principle. Moscow Oblast differs

substantially from Bashkiria (Bashkortostan).

Substantially. But look, we already have

real federalism now. For example,

deputies in Ingushetia say, 'We

ban the installation of monuments to Stalin,' while in

some other region, monuments to Stalin

are being erected. Or, for example, in Mordovia they say,

'We ban wearing hijabs,' while in Chechnya

they say, 'We want people there to wear

crosses, hijabs, and so on.' To me, that is

not federalism, no. For me, federalism

is, first and foremost, about money and

powers. I believe that money and

powers should be transferred, to a lesser extent, to

the republic level, and to a greater extent to

city mayors, because

Well, this is exactly about snow, you see.

They can’t clear the snow because there’s no

money. And why is there no money in Ufa?

Basically, it’s nonsense if in such a

huge and wealthy city as Ufa there’s no

money to haul away the snow. That means that

the system is so broken that

it’s completely unfit for purpose. How to fix it,

I don’t understand. Because money and

authority—right now all the money and

authority, all the tax revenues, they

go only to Moscow, and from Moscow

they are distributed in a rather bizarre way

across the region and the city.

More should remain there, and

excise revenues should stay there; a sales tax could be introduced; personal income tax should

be distributed differently between

the city and the region, and so on. In other words,

it’s a whole package of measures, but overall it should be described

simply like this: leave more

money and authority at the local level. What will happen to those

regions that are already economically unsuccessful

and live only on subsidies?

They will continue living on subsidies—that’s exactly the point.

People will simply move away from there. We’ll just

abandon the Far East. And what is happening to the Far East now?

What’s happening with the Far East is that

nothing good will happen there; it will only get worse. Unfortunately, we

really have a country that has been

turned into a raw-materials appendage. That’s a fact.

Sixty percent of the federal budget is purely

oil money. That is specifically Putin’s doing.

Even in the Soviet Union it was

much better, and a significant share of

regions are simply sitting on

subsidies. They are supposed to be on subsidies. But

if over the last 10 years the situation has only

been getting worse every year, and we already see

donor regions turning into

subsidized regions, then that means

everything is working wrong. And right now we

are in an absurd situation where,

for example, a city mayor or a governor or

the president of a republic, essentially, has no

incentive, no reason, even to develop business,

because whether you develop it or not, no matter how much

you run around here, no matter how much you personally escort

entrepreneurs, in the end the taxes

will all be taken by Moscow. Am I right in understanding

that under this model you are not worried by

a situation in which rich regions will

grow richer, poor regions poorer, and from

poor regions people will simply

move away? Is that what you want—to increase

social mobility? Are you trying

to say that this isn’t already happening now?

It is, perhaps not exactly in this form, but right now

this is happening on the largest

scale. When I become

president, I’m not proposing that Tyumen

or, for example, Bashkortostan should keep

all of the mineral extraction tax

for themselves. Of course not, naturally.

That is national rent; it should

be distributed more or less fairly.

It’s simply obvious that some regions

are inherently richer. There are simply

more people living there, and they have always lived

better. That happens in every country.

You simply need to give the regions freedom; you need

to make it so that a city mayor or

a governor, by making an effort, could make

their region a little richer. Right now that is

simply impossible: no matter what you do,

Moscow will come and take all

the money. Here is one small example that

simply shows the insanity of

the budgetary

distribution. Despite the fact that

Bashkortostan is considered a wealthy region and

Ufa is considered a wealthy city, here

the city budget was about 20 billion rubles in

2016, and at the same time

Moscow was spending on beautifying part of

the Garden Ring 12 billion rubles. But that’s

madness. You gave a similar example—I

will give this example in every city.

Of course, because there it is—

it really hits the mark. In every

city I’ll use it. Now, there’s a whole group

of questions concerning

the federal structure, and I’ll ask them exactly

as users asked them on Facebook.

And what is your attitude toward the Federal

Treaty of 1992? Should

in accordance with

it, should there be

adjustments made to the Constitution of the Russian

Federation? No, there shouldn’t. I consider the Constitution

of the Russian Federation bad overall. And

I also consider that Federal Treaty

bad overall. It’s all some kind of nonsense

that was invented—what was it invented for?

So that the governor would get

more powers? Well, I already believe that regional

authorities should have more powers. But

most importantly, this is the key point

of my program, which differs

probably from the views, including

those of your regional leadership. I

believe that the main power should rest with

city mayors. In other words, it shouldn’t be governors

competing with one another, but mayors

of cities. A city mayor should be given both

money and the authority to introduce certain

small local taxes and keep

tax revenues locally. And of course, the mayor should be elected,

because now there is not a single large

city where we—if we continue

the topic of federalism but move away

from economics—what about

national languages? A question, yes, from

Ravil. Alexei, how would you see

the structure of the national republics

in terms of language relations? There are many complaints

from ethnic Russians, which may well be

fair, who are required to learn the language of the titular ethnic group

in each republic. Yes, but also

For example, we Bashkirs see a threat

of the Bashkir language disappearing, inevitably.

This is something that worries us, as

it should—it is an important problem. We have a staff member

from the investigations department who was actually

one of the key organizers of that

investigation we talked about at the

beginning. He is also from Ufa—Alburov—and he

told a very interesting story about how, at

school, he studied the Bashkir language, and we

regularly ask him to say how something is said in

Bashkir, but unfortunately he no longer

remembers anything. No one should be forced, but

naturally, the problem facing Indigenous peoples and

the problem of their languages is of the utmost importance.

Because if we lose it, we will lose something irreplaceable.

More money should be allocated so that newspapers can be published in

Bashkir, so that there are Bashkir schools,

so that those people who want to be

native speakers of the language can preserve it.

And maybe that is not always

most effective in the form of schools. Well,

teaching Bashkir to Russians like Alburov

—what is really the point of that? It would be better simply

to provide more funding so that films are made

in this language and books are published in

this language. Yes, of course—otherwise this

will not be solved. We have seen many cases around the world

of peoples losing their languages,

losing their culture. Although Bashkirs, in

fairness, cannot really be called a small people;

they are very much a nation. And then, after

a few years, people were clutching their heads and tearing out

their hair, because by then it was already impossible to restore

what had been lost. And of course we must

avoid that. The most painful question is

the question of federalization: when you give

more powers to the regions and more

money to some regions. Let us say

there is some hypothetical republic—call it “Nestan.”

A completely hypothetical one. It might say, or

another hypothetical one might say, for example: Listen,

why do we need you at all?

No, it will not say that. I think that is an absolute

fiction. Well, even if we remember

that crisis of the 1990s, when

Yeltsin said his famous phrase: “Take

as much sovereignty as you can swallow,” well,

did Tatarstan or Bashkortostan

separate from Russia? Chechnya had different

circumstances, and you cannot apply

the example of Chechnya to the rest of Russia

because we can see that this is absolutely

wrong and simply not how things are. Now we

are in a republic that

is considered a traditional area of Muslim residence,

so what—does that mean there are many people here who are

classified as Islamic extremists? No.

By the way, several dozen were detained. Well,

it seems to me that this is mainly

the FSB (Russia’s security service) making arrests because it needs

to report that it is catching some kind of

extremists and thereby justify its budgets. I

believe this is largely a problem that is

more invented than real.

But the main remedy to prevent this

from happening is exactly what I have been

saying: powers should go to mayors, not

governors. In other words, authority should be pushed

downward. We do not need these

little tsars at the head of republics. They should

have more powers, but they should not

control the police and the courts, as

unfortunately happens now. They

should have more economic

powers and more money. But overall, power

should go even lower—to the mayor,

who does not depend on the governor,

who is elected by the people, who

makes decisions independently and does not depend on

the President of Russia or anyone else. Let me remind you

that in the studio in Moscow is Alexei Navalny.

Alexei, let us talk a little about

elections. The last time we spoke with you, it

was just on the eve of the election

campaign in

Kostroma. Overall, it was probably not the most successful

election campaign.

How do you think—what does Russia today

resemble more: Moscow in 2000

or 2001, or

Kostroma in some sense?

Russia resembles Russia in 2017—that is,

different regions, different cities.

Naturally, for me Ufa is more like

Moscow. It is a big city. You

said that 4 million people watched our

investigation that we released

the day before yesterday, but I know for certain that

100,000 people watched it in Ufa, and in

that sense, a big city with high

internet penetration is, for me,

fairly close to Moscow—a city of over a million.

The smaller towns where we will later

open campaign offices are, of course, more

similar to Kostroma, with a high

share of rural population. But what definitely

unites everyone now is this:

the situation has changed compared with 2014,

when there was euphoria on the wave of this

imperial hysteria—this idea that we were now going to

conquer everyone. People understand that they

have started living much worse, and they understand

that they are not going to live better. Our

real household incomes have been falling for the third

year in a row, and even the government itself

does not dare claim that this

will be fixed. They say openly that

until 2030 or so, we will have

stagnation and household incomes will not

grow. In other words, with this

government,

people will live more and more poorly with each

passing year, and people themselves already understand this now

everywhere—in all cities, in Kostroma too. I think you

used the word “guaranteed”; that is

the key word. At the very least, they will

to understand that, well, a little poorer

a little

poorer, somehow more sharply—they should be

sharply poorer. Well, that’s exactly the point

Listen, this is what Putin says, and

this is a completely false choice. Putin

says: Guys, you live in poverty here, we have

the average salary in Russia, the minimum

wage there is 7,000 rubles

that’s the stability of poverty. But rejoice

in this stable poverty, because tomorrow

for some reason there will be total collapse. And

why should that happen, Alexei? You

will probably agree with the idea that

the average Russian has never

lived as well as he does now, not

because

right now—I mean, under Putin—well

under Putin. This doesn’t analyze why this

is happening. Our election campaign

aims to analyze this

issue and explain to people that they lived

better indeed starting from the 1990s

because the price of oil was rising, because

oil cost $12 per barrel

and in 2013 it already cost $120

per barrel. But now it still costs

still fairly high, around 50

And here I am, I came to an oil-producing region and I see

snowdrifts as tall as a person, and

already—even back in 2013, when

it was $120 per

barrel, economic growth was 0.3 percent

with a forecast of 3—3.5, I beg your

pardon, with a forecast of 3.5. I’m simply

saying that this regime has degraded

so much, has reached such a dead end, that

even high oil prices won’t

help it. Why didn’t it work out in Kostroma then?

Because we controlled nothing. It was

a different party. Our party, the Party of

Progress, was first denied registration several times

and then liquidated

so we really did help

organize the campaign in Kostroma, where

we were allowed in three weeks before the election, but

it was a different party, PARNAS

headed there by Mikhail Mikhailovich

Kasyanov, a leader who is not very

popular in Russia. And no matter how much I

traveled through the villages of Kostroma and

told people how great I am, how we

are good people here fighting corruption, a person

would stand up and say: who is the leader of the party

you’re asking us to vote for? I

say: Kasyanov. And they say: Well, sorry, you

may be likable, but we’re not going to vote for you

now. This election campaign

is about our program; we control everything in it

I bear full responsibility for

every word I say right now

if I say the right thing, I’ll get votes; if I say the wrong thing

I won’t get votes. But there isn’t some

person in whose party I have to

operate and bear responsibility for

his mistakes

Well, in any case, you say that there

was some kind of negative backdrop there

from RPR-PARNAS and so on. Why

won’t that exist now? Why do you think

people don’t associate you with those

so-called democrats of the 1990s or

the beginning

the 2000s? The negative, negative backdrop

will definitely be there, because, well, the authorities

have nothing else to say in response to me. What can they

say to me on the substance of the matter?

Nothing about the claims I’ve made. So

everything they say to me is

you’re a foreign agent, despite the fact that

I haven’t even been abroad for

six years—they won’t even give me a foreign passport

you must have ruined something in the 1990s

when I was in school in the 1990s. And

you’re the heir to some oligarchs, even though I

they are the heirs of the oligarchs—they were with Chubais

in the same government, whereas I

criticize Chubais and demand that Rusnano be shut down

Substantively, they can’t accuse me of anything

so they use two

main tactics: to a lesser extent

propaganda and outright lies against me, and to a

greater extent they ignore me. They stay silent

they pretend nothing is happening

they know who I am, and Peskov has not

once in his life—not to mention Putin—

said my last name. Instead they say things like

“this gentleman.” But yes, that’s why we are running

this election campaign. That’s why I

came here to Ufa, and today I’ll gather

volunteers so that they can go around

the city and tell the truth. I

specifically looked again, yes, at that, that

old interview, and we devoted a lot of attention then

to the primary procedure. You

said how important it was, that

it was impossible to run in elections without primaries, yes

and so on. But this time, suddenly, you

are running without primaries

Why did I announce my candidacy? Because the time

had come to do so, because I want

to run a normal election

campaign, not the kind we’ve seen

for the last 17 years. And in Russia it is impossible

to run an election campaign if you

announce your candidacy within the 90 days provided by law

I need to open 77 campaign offices

even if I open one office per day

I still won’t

fit it all in. So a year before the election is still

not even very much—in fact, very

little. At the same time, if there are primaries, I

am ready to take part in them. I have said many times

that I am ready. I do not think that

they are realistic. But even if there are

primaries between the Communists, the LDPR, and

representatives of the democratic

opposition, to which I belong, I’m ready

to hold city primaries. I believe that in them

I can win. Whatever else may be said, I have always

been a supporter of democratic

competitive procedures and am not at all afraid

to take part in them. I am confident in my victory.

And, to wrap up the topic of the previous elections, I want

to ask how you feel about Gudkov’s movement

for the Moscow mayoral election. Will you support

him? Will you work together

on the campaign? And by the way,

the campaign, as far as I understand, has the same campaign manager

the same one.

Katz was your campaign chief back then, wasn’t he?

He was working on the campaign team, as I understand it.

I understand that Gudkov wants to bring him on now.

As for Katz, we actually parted ways rather

badly—we fired him from the campaign staff. But

that is not important. That is not the point. It is too early now

to discuss the Moscow elections because

they will only take place after

the presidential election. First of all, we

do not know either the timing or the conditions. Second,

as I understand it, both Mitrokhin

and Gudkov want

to run from Yabloko, so let them

sort it out there together with Yavlinsky

as to who will run from Yabloko, because without a party nomination

you cannot run in the election. After that, we

will think about whom to support. Well, you know,

the rules can be changed, as it turns out.

Some new laws have already been introduced here.

But Yabloko certainly will not be the one to change these rules.

For now, the rules have been set by the Kremlin, and they

are such that you need a party, and both Mitrokhin

and Gudkov are saying: we are running from Yabloko.

Yavlinsky is silent. So what are we supposed to do?

Support him or not support him? Gudkov did not

consult with you and did not conduct any

negotiations regarding his nomination

for the Moscow election. I learned everything from the press. Well,

he is running—fine. Let him. Of those who

have already declared that they want

to take part, it seems to me that the strongest

candidate is Klychkov from the Communists. Wow. Well,

absolutely. Look at his result

in the election: he defeated the prefect

of the Southeastern District when he

ran against him. He ran

several... He is a communist, which means that

there are some substantial

ideological differences. But if

you look at all this from a detached perspective, I

am not saying that I will support someone or

not support someone among those who have declared so far.

Of course, Klychkov is the strongest right now. If he

asks for support—we will see. I

know Yabloko; we will see what the overall alignment will be.

What matters to me in the Gudkov–Klychkov pair is who

is closer in views and who has a better chance

of winning. That is the question: who among them

has the better chance of winning among those who

have declared so far? It seems to me that

Klychkov has a better chance of winning. But for me

it is important that the race for the post of mayor

of Moscow be real, that there be no

setups, that no one be blocked out. Competition in

elections is more important than political

views.

Let me

put it this way: people need to unite,

including with the Communists and everyone else.

Then here is another question. Again,

I watched your interview yesterday in

Samara. You spoke a great deal

about lustration. Does Russia need it? Well, yes,

I get asked about this a lot. The mistake

of the 1990s was that it was not carried out, absolutely.

That was a catastrophic mistake. And

now we understand just how

catastrophic that mistake was, including

when we see that the countries that have developed most successfully, including

in economic terms,

are the countries where lustration was carried out:

Poland, the Czech Republic, Germany, and so on. That

is, they are wealthier because they carried out

lustration, while we were left with these

people who back then were, well,

Communists and, for example, atheists.

Then later they were all democrats,

and now they are conservatives and Orthodox Christians.

These are simply hypocritical people. But

someone like Klychkov, who, well, was

a communist and remained a communist—he would, he

in theory should be

subject to lustration? I do not think so.

He is not older than I am; he definitely was not part of

the Soviet system. He is now a communist from

the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and we have quite a lot of people

who are ideologically communist. Not everyone

should automatically fall under

such lustration. Of course not, because otherwise

we end up in a situation where

everyone has to be subjected to lustration except you and

me. That is absurd. There are people

who, in fact, in terms of their views,

are left-wing, and moreover

many of them sincerely admire, for example,

Stalin, which I find very repulsive. But okay,

that is part of their worldview. I am not going

to subject someone to lustration or demand

someone’s lustration because they have

different views. What needs lustration is the nomenklatura (the Soviet-era ruling bureaucracy),

those people who sit in power and

make decisions—those are the ones who need to be punished.

And yes, it is clear that the CPRF is not really

a genuine opposition force, but that does not, does not, does not

automatically mean that they bear

full responsibility for everything

that is happening, or that they are all bad.

There are many perfectly decent

candidates there, including Klychkov himself. Our

program has basically turned into a promotional

break

for Klychkov in Ufa for some reason. Well, here you also

actually have fairly strong

Communists, and they represent a

significant part of the opposition. On

local issues, they are quite active.

they speak out and say what they think

is necessary. As we wrap up today’s recording

and Facebook live stream, here’s the question:

how do you learn various bits of news from

the presidential administration—from the press, or

does someone tell you? Whether you’re allowed in or not,

not allowed in—are there some people there

who act as intermediaries between you and the administration,

who move back and forth between both sides, and they, they

tell you things? How, how

is that decision made? Do you understand it? I

more or less understand how the decision

is made. And that’s exactly why I don’t learn about it

in any way. And you don’t learn about it in any way either

except from the newspapers, once it’s already in its final form.

There is one man who lives some kind of

strange life and is alternately fascinated by—well—

fighting in Syria and rebuilding

Palmyra, then playing hockey at night,

then building himself some kind of palace in

Gelendzhik. Everything is funneled through this one person;

there is a huge line of people waiting to see him

with folders, and in those folders are all the questions,

from how much money

to allocate to Ufa, all the way to how much money

to sell a Zenit football player for, or

what the minimum

wage should be, or whether or not to jail

Navalny. These people stand there, shifting

from foot to foot in that line. Then they

reach the man, and if he decides something,

it appears in the press. All decisions

are made by one person, and that is a colossal

problem for the country. That is why it is not

developing. Even, broadly speaking,

supporters of the authorities do not deny that

there is now both political and economic

stagnation, because simply nothing

happens. It is impossible to resolve

anything at all, because the level below

the presidential administration is afraid

to take responsibility for making decisions, and Putin

simply has no time—he’s off there

dealing with Palmyra and his

confrontation with Hillary Clinton

or Donald Trump. He has no interest in

what is happening in Tver or in Samara. So how, in that situation,

can you genuinely

run an election campaign? By relying on

people. That’s exactly how I am running my election

campaign—without looking over my shoulder at the presidential administration,

or any so-called insiders,

political analysts, and all those

wonderful people who write on Facebook

and whom you promised—or rather, your

associates promised—to feed to the lions at the

zoo. Well, yes, to be honest, I myself would

treat political analysts—most political analysts—

the same way. None of that interests me.

I have a platform,

and I know for certain that in any city, and

in Ufa in particular, there are huge numbers of

people who, like me, are against

corruption, who, like me, support

the fair distribution of tax revenues and

national wealth, who, like me,

believe oligarchs should pay more

in taxes. And I rely on these people,

bringing them together as I go into the election. Are you now

going to meet them at the campaign office? And

why is it that these stories with campaign offices—in every

city, or only in Ufa—have this certain

air of secrecy, you know? I mean,

until the very end it wasn’t said where

this office would be. People had to

register in advance because a large

number of people were calling simply to our

newsroom asking, ‘How do we get there?’ We said, ‘We can’t

say.’ But it’s not about secrecy;

it’s simply about technical capacity.

Yesterday, for example, we ran into this problem in

Samara, when we rented a fairly

large space in the city center,

but so many people came that they

literally could not fit inside. So in any

city of over a million people,

so many volunteers register, and so many people simply want

to come and listen, that if I announce

on air right now, ‘Come at 3 p.m. to

such-and-such a place,’ we’ll have a crush of people, and

nothing good will come of it. For us, this is

still a working event;

these are volunteers who registered

and said they want to work for free

on the campaign. So we’ll meet with them,

talk, explain what we want to do—this

is that kind of thing. It’s not a rally,

because, well, it’s winter, and we want to launch

the campaign office, not just hold a political

event. Thank you. That was Alexei

Navalny, who arrived in Ufa a day

earlier than in Kazan—take note. Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Thank you—so I take it that’s important.