Alexei Navalny’s interview with Finam FM

Good evening once again, ladies and gentlemen. At the

microphone is Yury Pronko, on the airwaves of

the radio station Finam FM, with the daily

evening interactive program Dry Residue

and the topic of today’s program is embezzlement,

kickbacks, the looting of the state, criminal

business—how will it all end? And my guest

today is Alexei Navalny, a lawyer and

a well-known Russian blogger. Alexei,

good evening. Good evening. And right at the

start, let me remind our listeners of the ways to get in touch:

there is a multi-line

phone number: 65-10-99 and 6, 65-10-99 and 6,

and the website is www.finam.ru.

the real situation in the country, and what this

will actually end in, in the final analysis.

Alexei, well, it would be unforgivable on my part

not to ask for, well, not to hear from you

some sensational

statements. You understand, journalists

they, well, they’re thirsty, eager

for statements. So let’s start

with politics. You’ve already been all but drafted

into it, both on Finam FM and in other

media outlets, with people saying that

it’s about time Navalny ran in the

presidential election—just like that, casually.

Yes, and various polls

conducted by different media outlets, I should stress, including ours,

gave you 97% after Stas

Belkovsky’s provocation, yes—you got that if you

were to run. In other words, 97% of Finam’s listeners

are ready to support you as a candidate

for president. Yes, so the question was not

whether they would vote for you, but rather

can you honestly, hand on heart, say

how deeply you are tied to, connected with

politics, and whether you have any far-reaching

pla-

I’m very grateful. Thank you very much to everyone

who would support me. That is a great

responsibility for me as well,

because people ask questions and they need

answers. Second, I would still like

to ask, including those who

voted for me: this thing

called a presidential election—what is it,

do we even really have that in this country?

This strange procedure in which

Churov (then head of Russia’s Central Election Commission) sits there shaking his beard and

filling in the boxes out of his own head

or from Surkov’s or Putin’s,

assigning everyone their results—is that an election? I mean, if

even one person really

believes that the result of a presidential

election reflects how people actually voted,

what is called the expression

of the people’s will—I think there are very

few such people. So the question here is whether

one should participate in elections or not, whether one should

take part in this strange procedure

which in

Russia is called elections—that’s

the first point. And second, everyone should

mind their own business. What I am doing now

is something I like, and apparently

not only I like it. It is fairly

effective, useful, and so on. Therefore

I would prefer to keep doing that and work in the

direction where I am actually useful, rather than

switching now to dancing around and playing

this game of hamsters running through

a maze, while above them again stands

Churov, laughing merrily as he watches these

hamsters. Mm-hmm. Well, that was a graceful dodge of the question.

So, you have no presidential ambitions?

My activity is, without any

political pretense—I’m not going to

put on airs here.

The corruption cases I deal with,

and the problem of corruption in general, are

the biggest political issue in the country.

Are you carrying out an assignment from President

Medvedev? I am carrying out an assignment from the

multinational people of the Russian

Federation, who have long since had enough of all this.

So my political

activity, which I am engaged in now,

I believe is important, and it is far

more important than, again, this running

through the maze built by the Central

Election Commission and the crooks who run

the Central Election Commission. Still, then,

a more practical question: do you have your own

political sympathies? I don’t know how you

feel about the United Russia party,

I feel very

badly about the United Russia party, and United Russia is

the party of corruption, the party of crooks and

thieves, and the task of every patriot and

citizen of our country is to do everything possible

to ensure that absolutely—I mea-

to do everything possible so that this party

is destroyed. Not in the physical sense—I

am not calling for any extremism, in the

sense that after today’s

program there will be a headline: Alexei

Navalny proposes destroying United

Russia. By legal means, I propose

making sure that United Russia and

all similar formations—before it there was

Our Home Is Russia, and so on—simply do not

exist, because they are the main

support of the corruption and lawlessness

that is happening now.

What is your attitude toward the leader, not the

official one there, the informal leader

of United Russia, Mr. Putin, a man

who, over the past 10 years, essentially

created a certain system? Yes, in

fact, our listeners know how I feel about

it. But what interests them most right now

will be your opinion, especially

in light of the Rospil portal (an anti-corruption website exposing suspicious public procurement). There and so

on, yes. As I understand it, this is

a kind of culmination of the system that

existed.

The informal and formal head,

the leader, Vladimir Putin, the leader of United Russia,

he created this system. He

deliberately created a system of corruption

which he called the vertical of

power, a system for delegating

corrupt powers, a system

for delegating political powers with the

help of which, in fact,

the country is now governed. Yes, to Ramzan

Kadyrov, roughly speaking, they can say whatever they like,

something like: you there, as the head,

give us 99 percent. And approximately the same thing

is said to any other governor:

give us 60 percent, and for that buy CT scanners

at three times the market price. There you have it.

Look, once again, without any prior arrangement,

I had a clash with

the chairman of Russia's Federation Council

Mr. Mironov. I would

ask: does a minister, any minister, not

specifically Tatyana Golikova, well, in

this case, of course, we are talking about her ministry,

right? Is she responsible for her subordinates? She is.

Then why is she still running

the ministry? I was told that she had been

set up, that most likely she had been given

125 supporting

documents showing that these deals were legitimate. Yes.

Then I had a completely cynical question.

I said: well, excuse me, was the minister

taken for a fool? Well, if that's the case, not

personally, without naming names, yes, without

offense. No, no, that can't be, but you

understand—and after that, essentially, the answer drifted away.

Why, in your opinion, are officials

who hold senior positions not

removed from office? I'm saying this without pathos.

When, essentially, they

fail at the job for which they were

appointed—for example, the minister

of social development. Yes, that's a concrete

example. Or everyone acknowledges that the terrorist attack in the metro

was a failure of the special services and law enforcement agencies.

I speak with various politicians and generals, and I say:

a failure is a failure. I ask: why is no one

held accountable? Well, you understand, the main answer is:

you don't change horses midstream,

raised to the fourth power,

not even cubed. What is the reason, in your

opinion? Well, first of all, this is of course a

traditional excuse. What

Mironov said implies this kind of naivety: we were

set up, those people were set up, these people

were set up. It gives the impression that

there exists some kind of group, a very

shadowy group of such

evil officials who are constantly

setting up the naive ones. That is, of course,

complete nonsense. Yes, Golikova knew perfectly well

what she was doing. The whole country knows what

is happening with the procurement of medical

equipment and medicines. This is known

to absolutely everyone. The Interior Ministry, the FSB (Federal Security Service),

Golikova herself, Putin, Medvedev—they all know it.

Absolutely everyone. I repeat: this is a deliberately

created system for delegating

corruption, and this whole business of kickbacks and payoffs.

That is why everyone is tied to everyone else, everyone

pays everyone else. That is precisely why they are not

removed, among other things. Wait, Alexei—

stop, let me—You know, guests very often

get offended with me because I

stop them mid-sentence and latch onto

specific phrases. What does that mean? Today I will be

a naive journalist, yes, one who

believes that the law is above all else, and as for

living by criminal rules—guys, take that somewhere else.

So how

you speak and argue elsewhere, while

defending the country's budget. So, I want

to understand: what does it mean to bring money in? What does it mean

to pay up? Well, look, here's a concrete

example, and not from my own experience at all.

Quite recently, there was published in

The New York Times, and then all across

the country, a letter from Russian citizen

Kolesnikov, who said directly

regarding medical equipment that

we supplied medical equipment

and, by Putin's order, a standard kickback rate was set

at 35 percent. With that 35 percent, we were building Putin a

dacha (country house). This is not something I made up; it is the direct

testimony of a person who took part in it.

That is exactly what is meant by bringing money in. There was

in effect an offshore

slush fund created, into which

money was skimmed off—clearly by more than one person. That is what

is meant by bringing money in, that is,

quite plainly, among other things. And what, Golikova didn't

know that this company existed, the one that

was supplying equipment at prices at least 35 percent higher

than normal, along with mobile

hospitals? Of course they knew. Everyone knew. That is exactly

why Golikova cannot be removed from

The authorities cannot be driven out; that is what

they call it. I knew too much, and at

all levels, yes, at all levels exactly

so. That is precisely why the leadership is not removed

of the FSB (Federal Security Service), because the leadership

of the FSB is not engaged in protecting you,

me, radio listeners, and everyone else from

terrorist attacks. The leadership of the FSB is engaged in

standing there with a rifle at the ready and

guarding Putin,

Rotenberg, Timchenko, and all the other

shadow and not-so-shadowy oligarchs, people

who

have latched onto this system. Vladimir Putin is

its organizer, its direct organizer,

and judging by

the testimony, for example the direct testimony

of the same Kolesnikov, who

says that Putin personally owns

bearer shares that belong personally to Putin

in this offshore slush fund. Judging by

everything, there really are grounds

to believe that Putin personally receives, among

other things, this money. But perhaps that is not

the case, and that should be established

through an investigation and a fair trial. Now I

have a big question: if

Kolesnikov states this directly in

an interview, wrote a letter, why

is the Prosecutor General's Office not

investigating it? Well, this is what is called

a crime report. It is from the same

series as when they could not find a translator

from English when the Americans, in the

Daimler case, sent documents to

them. Actually, uh, I was ready to offer my

services at that moment, but somehow I was not

asked. After all, I also worked on

the Daimler case. How much time has passed already? A week

ago, Medvedev said in Davos,

regarding Daimler, that the Americans had not

given us the documents. But that is a lie. We all know

all these documents have been published; there is

a specific list of offshore companies to which

the bribes were paid. All the Russian side

has to do is question

the people at Daimler in Russia, which

among other things admitted that they paid bribes,

and identify the ultimate beneficiaries,

the ultimate owners of these offshore companies, which

actually is not an especially

difficult task in our time, when finance is

fairly transparent, because everyone there

is fighting terrorism, money laundering, and so

on. Within the framework of criminal cases, identifying

these people is a two-week job.

The only question is what they will do

when they identify them and find out that it is

they themselves. Alexei Navalny

The Bottom Line program, Finam FM radio station

Finam FM www.finam.ru

[music]

You and I understand perfectly well—you even better than I do

the system that was

created. Yes, appealing to it now already

sounds rather unserious. Yes, I say this openly

to the guys from

United Russia as well. I say:

Enough already—you have been at the helm for 10 years

and in charge of all this. But a system has been

created; it is real, it is

a personalized system, that is,

it is specific people. And for the system to simply

say, all right, we are leaving,

or to suppose that Mr. Prime Minister

will say, yes, I was mistaken, I built the wrong model—

that is, at the very least, naive.

These are serious people who are seriously

engaged in serious business—yes, in

“developing” things. I prefer not

to call it embezzlement but “development”; it is somehow a

softer word. And it is naive to think that they

will just up and leave, just like that. I will give

a specific example. At the beginning of the year,

Yegor Gaidar, who unfortunately passed away too early,

said

that there existed, albeit a

crumbling,

system. In today's Russia, apart from

President Medvedev, who at least

says something, at least in words,

about fighting corruption, who

today talks about the police law, which says nothing

about fighting corruption,

and has been saying it for 10 years already—then tell me,

is President Medvedev

such a naive person, one who says

one thing, yes, but in fact knows

that everything is different and is not going to change

anything at all? He is not naive at all.

Naturally, there are no

naive people there, and no stupid people there either. Everyone

understands everything perfectly well. And I do not believe in

this myth at all, the one in which, judging by

everything, you also believe: the bad Putin and

the good Medvedev. They are more or less the same thing.

Medvedev understands everything perfectly well; he

understands perfectly how all this is arranged and

understands perfectly well that preserving such a

system is his only chance

to remain in power and stay

in power. Because these people, in a

competitive political environment,

cannot survive. It would be naive

to suppose that tomorrow they would say: that's it.

with a snap of the fingers, and we start holding free

elections. But since they are not stupid people,

they understand just as well as we do that sooner or

later this will end, and most likely

it will end soon. How it ends, we

are watching right now live from

Egypt, Tunisia, and many other countries.

That is why this all ends sadly.

Therefore,

Putin and Medvedev must

find the political courage and

gradually give up part of their powers; they

must share power, in the broad

sense of the word, with municipalities, with

local self-government, with anyone at all.

But for now, exactly the opposite is happening.

They are already getting rid of direct popular elections of mayors.

Exactly right. Right now, in our country,

excuse me, in not a single major city,

not in a single city of over a million people, is the mayor

elected. But, excuse me, that is absurd.

So they have usurped all this power,

they grabbed it, but they cannot swallow it.

Let me make one more naive argument

and say this: any system, no matter how

corrupt it may be—not pure and

innocent, of course—must have a

self-preservation mechanism. If that

mechanism does not exist, then the system spins out of control in the

literal sense. At the initial stage,

they took, grabbed, appropriated, moved everything out—

that is clear. But as you already noted,

the live broadcast from Egypt is, in general,

a sign of the final stage for any

such system. But wait—

then the system should develop immunity.

That means the system should be willing to

let off steam. I do not know, perhaps make

parliament a place for

discussion. Exactly right. The question is

whether they have the courage to admit,

including perhaps partly in public,

to admit that all this will end in a kind of

"Egypt scenario." If they do not now

voluntarily give up part of their power, if they do not

delegate authority, then after a certain

amount of time, that power will be taken from them. And

they will all be hit over the head with a log. Mm-hmm.

How far, generally speaking, has corruption gone in

Russian society? I mean, look,

they all say

Yes, it amuses me when I see, you know,

live broadcasts—there are channels like that in

Russia—and for some reason they are

called news channels. Well, I would

call them propaganda channels. And when Mr.

President delivers another speech about

fighting corruption, they write something like,

Honestly, Alexei, I want to take a look

and see what exactly they are

writing there. I will go now—there was a photo on the

internet.

But what I want to understand is this: if

this has already gone very deep, if it has become

well, like a kind of lubricating oil

for keeping all the gears and everything else turning,

then what is the scale of it? Mr.

President once said that out of 5 trillion

rubles in state procurement, 1 trillion

was stolen. There should immediately have been, I do not

know, decrees signed right away

and instructions to the Investigative Committee. Well,

perhaps there are, you see. I

continue to naively assume—I want

everything to be done according to the law. Can you

estimate the real scale? Putin

once said that up to

30% of budget funds are somehow

used for purposes other than those intended.

That is right—Putin said it himself, he admitted it.

One trillion is 20% of state procurement. It is clear

that you cannot steal 100%, otherwise we would be living

in some kind of void. But

it has completely swallowed the state

mechanism; it is the main and

only driver of activity for any

official. That is, I say with full

responsibility that right now any

official will do anything at all

only if at the core of his actions

there is the motivation of getting money, either for

himself or for some of his

business associates. Nothing else. That is exactly

why nothing happens here.

That is exactly why they failed at

that is exactly why there is no fight against corruption.

Because nobody needs anything else—there is plenty of money.

There is a sea of money. Just look at how much

money is spent on state procurement. Therefore,

any officials who are involved in

decision-making—what is he going to do,

fight some corruption, or

work on healthcare, when he can

buy tomography scanners instead? Especially since, again,

everyone understands very clearly that this

system cannot live forever and apparently cannot

remain stable for very long,

because all of this will collapse. So before it

collapses, what must be done? You have to steal

$5 million and move it to Spain,

buy yourself a house there so that

when everything here falls apart

and crowds start running around... And do you

think it will fall apart? Without any

doubt. I am absolutely certain. I already

said that this system, it, it

is unstable, absolutely everything, starting with, well,

I don't know, ordinary people on the streets

and ending with those most vicious

corrupt billionaire officials—everyone understands

that the system is wrong, rotten, and it

will collapse, and it will collapse, naturally, and

how much time do you think is left, and

how long would you give it? Well, you understand,

to predict that would be rather

naive on my part, because, well,

remember, two years ago everyone was also in

that same apocalyptic state of mind

back then, in May, everyone was talking about how the crisis

would force a rethink of the whole model, yes

so to say that all this

will happen in a year, or in two years,

or in a month—I can't make that kind of

prediction. But again, the example of Tunisia, yes,

banal as it may be, shows that this

can all happen completely suddenly, and within

a week. So, well, nothing good will come of

this, Alexei, for ordinary

citizens. Any revolution, yes—chaos,

mob rule—that's why I'm saying

that Putin, not being a stupid man, and

Medvedev—they should understand that in order

to prevent a Russian version of Egypt

or Tunisia, and in order, among other things,

to preserve their own safety, the safety

of their families, and possibly safely keep some

part of their money, they need to share

power. They need to properly

transform things. And besides that,

naturally, they must take some

measures to restore order, to restore

basic order, because right now in our country

real, basic order

is being replaced simply by a huge number of

militsiya officers (the old Russian police force). Well, and we're inflating our cheeks—starting in March it will become

the police.

By the way, will the substance of it change? No. People here are also asking

listeners what they think of Navalny's

remarks about these so-called gentlemen police officers. Well, look,

when a police officer is shaking down a Tajik migrant in the

metro,

then before midnight he's a bad militsiya officer, but

after 12:00 a.m. he's suddenly Mr.

Police Officer, even though all of this happened in the course of

extorting 500 rubles (about $16 at the time). The question is:

has anything improved or not? Your favorite

topic: state companies, state corporations,

companies affiliated with the state.

Yes, the well-known

segment on state-controlled TV channels, yes, where you were, in

essence,

well, accused—yes, accused of various things,

of harassment and of working for some kind of

shadowy Western interests. It's even simpler: they called me

a village idiot, if you

remember. So, Alexei, answer these people

live on Finam FM—what would you say

to everything that was said about you? Well, in

any case, I'm very glad that with the help of

my people—of the people who helped, the people who

support me, and so on—we

really forced them to say something.

Their excuses, of course, look

completely pathetic. I mean, I've already

spoken on this topic: you can call me

a village idiot, a city idiot,

I'm even ready to call myself a village

idiot—just let them return the money. During

the construction of this pipeline,

billions of dollars were stolen. I want

that money returned—as much as

can be recovered—and that the people who stole

it right in front of everyone, with absolutely no

shame, be punished. Yes, when one of the

largest—when

a state company gives billion-ruble contracts to a firm

that is registered using a stolen

passport—that shows a kind of

final stage of degradation. This is already

something they don't even do in Nigeria.

Alexei Navalny, Bottom Line, Finam FM.

Your questions, comments, and remarks at 65

10 99 6, or at www.finam.ru

So, in this interactive format,

let's work through the rest of the program.

Please answer briefly, yes—I mean, I will

ask both the listeners to be concise and you

to answer questions concisely; there are very

many of them. And by the way, before we get into all that,

let me ask you something:

since there is absolutely no way that we

will get through all the questions—not only that, I won't even

have time to read them all out before the end of the program—and

would you answer them after the broadcast, and we'll

post them on the Finam FM website? Well, I'll try.

Okay then, well, let's get started.

Alexei, with the fundraising campaign you announced

today, you're knocking away the chair many officials

are sitting on. They don't need to raise money

for the rest of their lives—they already have it.

So be careful, because they will stop at

nothing in order to remain

at the trough. Be sure to think about a security system

for those who will be helping

you. Good luck. What do you say? We'll hand out

laser swords, pistols, and so on to everyone.

They should be afraid of us, not the other way around. Mm-hmm, yes.

Let's do it this way: one phone call, one email. 65

10 996, Finam FM. Good evening, hello, good

evening. My name is Dmitry. Dmitry, you know

Because of my work, I travel a lot

around the country and interact with a very

broad social cross-section of people

yes, from the very poor to the fairly

wealthy, and I want to say that over the

past year the situation has changed radically.

That is my observation, yes — in other words,

there has been a very sharp rise in distrust toward our

government and a very sharp rise in

social protest. And this is

changing the situation precisely in an

exponential way. That is

one point. The second point I wanted to

make is this: in one of the towns in

the Moscow region (Podmoskovye), there are some guys who

play paintball, and they gather —

you won't believe it — in groups of

2,500 people. This happens there

regularly, and they are led by

professional former military men who

teach them how to seize... Dmitry, where are you

going with this? In short, what is all this

leading to? Well, in short, yes, yes — just imagine,

these guys — and this is in one town, in one

district of the Moscow region. And how many such districts do we have?

Twenty? I am more than sure that in

other districts it is the same. And these

people — most importantly, after these games they

drink beer, drink vodka, and

talk about politics.

And all of this takes place under a

nationalist banner, with a nationalist

flavor. A question for Mr. Navalny: what

is the question? The question is: just imagine giving these

people, instead of paintball guns, Kalashnikov

assault rifles and bringing them to Moscow at one

fine moment, all at once. Thank you.

No need for provocations on the air at Finam FM. Why

did you say all that? And Alexei?

Sooner or later, they will take everything themselves.

Sooner or later, they will come on their own, because

I completely agree with the listener:

over the last year — over the last two years, I

would say — the situation has changed

dramatically. If in the early 2000s

this corruption could be justified by the fact

that Putin had, well, pushed out organized

crime — well, the gangster cops

were simply replaced... his achievement was that he removed

the oligarchs from power, the oligarchs, Chechnya — that is,

in the early 2000s Putin undoubtedly

had certain

successes, some positive accomplishments, yes — that is,

but that is not happening now. Over the last two years

nothing — corruption has been growing, and it has become

obvious even to any grandmother who has

neither internet nor radio nor anything else.

Therefore, without any

doubt, sooner or later this will end with

the guys putting aside their paintball guns

and running off already... God forbid, any further than that.

Right, next question. Mr.

Navalny advocates income declarations for

officials. Is he ready to publish his own

income for the period when he served as

an adviser to the governor of Kirov Region?

Alexei, what is the story there? You were an adviser

to the governor of Kirov Region on a

voluntary basis. I was never a state official,

never, and in that sense I never

received a single kopeck of budget money,

so, well, there is nothing

to report on, really.

Next. Good evening, you're on the air. What is your

name? Good evening. Yes, please introduce yourself.

Vladimir. Alexei, I have this

question: people may have different attitudes toward Zhirinovsky,

but we know that

sometimes he seems to have a kind of gift

for foresight. And as I understand it, everyone

probably realizes that he is better

informed. And on some recent talk show,

I don't remember which one, regarding the

terrorist attack, he strongly attacked

United Russia and ended his

speech by saying that a coalition

government was needed — a coalition

government. Do you think there is

any sense in that? And how should we understand it in general?

Thank you. However we may

feel about him, he is a politician by God-given talent and a man

who very keenly senses the mood

of different groups. Yes, as I said, this government

must share its power; it

must delegate authority, and a

coalition government would become

one of the real mechanisms for soft,

positive change in the country without any

harsh upheavals. At the same time, you understand that this

will not happen, am I right? Because all of this

is happening now and will happen in the near

future. But I hope these guys

will come to their senses. Well, at least, once again,

let me stress: parliament is a place for discussion.

At the very least, let's start with that. Yes, we need to start

with elections; we need to start by

allowing parties to be properly registered

and by not fabricating the results, but

using the real election results.

I like the fact that Muscovites have been divided

into the reds and the others — United Russia, yes?

And it turned out that in our capital...

There are no opinions, so let's move on.

Hello. Thank you. Good luck. Would you happen to have any

desire to add a forum section to the Rospil website

so that people can communicate more easily and

discuss and look for ways to solve

pressing problems? We will do this; there are a great

many suggestions for improving the Rospil website.

Rospil—well, you have to understand that right now this is

simply all being done by one person who, for

free, out of sheer enthusiasm, created

this website. He can't do everything very

quickly, but we will gradually do everything and

everything will work wonderfully. I just want to emphasize once again

that for now we will proceed at the pace

of a Viennese waltz. Whoever knows the Viennese waltz

knows that it gradually builds up

speed. Yes, we have 21:39. Yes, we'll have to

right now, yes, 65 1099 and 6.

www.fmm.ru from their taxes? And I

think it is unlikely that we will be able

to do this with the help of international

institutions, but with the help of international

institutions we can, of course, perhaps quite

effectively put pressure on our authorities, because

all the money stolen from Russia is

of course invested abroad. Mm-hmm.

Good evening. Hello, what's your name? Hello.

Hello. Hi. Hello, Sergey.

My name is—yes, go ahead, Sergey. Alexei,

Well, in general, I wish you success. God grant you

health and good luck in your

struggle. But my question is this: well, I

actually agree that, well, the authorities

themselves—and I doubt, of course, that they

will voluntarily share their powers.

As for the opposition, I have a question.

Well, of course, I also understand that it is

all fake, and that, well, basically the point

is this: in light of the

upcoming elections, why not

hold something like—well, we do have, sort of,

smart people around you—anti-elections, anti-these elections.

You understand, something has to be done.

Thank you. I was an absolute supporter

of the idea of a boycott in the previous elections, but

unfortunately, we have to admit that the idea

of a boycott—well, it is not supported by

the masses. That is, it does not work. To my great

regret, I repeat, I was a supporter of it.

Therefore, I think that in the upcoming elections

the more correct political

strategy is to come and vote for anyone

except United Russia,

that is, to come and vote against United Russia.

Let's move on. Dear Alexei, Konstantin

from Kemerovo Region—so, in fact,

we have questions from different regions of Russia.

Dear Alexei, in one of the towns

in the coal-mining Kuzbass region, a mayor has been removed from office

who, in Governor

Tuleyev's opinion, shamelessly abused

his official position. Not long ago,

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov was also removed from office

on the grounds of loss of trust. But in my

opinion, also for immoderate greed,

writes Konstantin from Kemerovo Region.

And the actual question is: have the federal

and regional authorities begun fighting corruption?

You see, Alexei, you accused me of

being naive, yes, but people

well, this trend exists, there is a demand for it, yes.

It's just that some people are even more naive than

you, you understand. So if Luzhkov was removed

from office because of corruption, then

the question arises: why aren't we putting him

in jail? Why aren't we opening a criminal

case? Why aren't we trying to recover those $4

billion that Luzhkov

corruptly earned together with his

wife? That's what a fight against

corruption would be. When, excuse me, people

who stole $4 billion—Yelena Baturina earned it

through corrupt schemes—I believe that we

have every reason to believe that

the real reason for Yelena

Baturina's business success is her husband's

official position. I think there are very few

people who do not share this

view.

And in fact, that money was earned

through fraud, through abuse

of official position. Criminal cases should

be opened against them. Our

federal TV channels, when they were taking down Luzhkov,

were showing outright

evidence of his crimes. Well then,

if it's a crime, let's investigate it.

Well then why, Mr. Navalny,

let me ask you a question in return: what is the reason?

The reason is that Mr.

Luzhkov, if his activities are

investigated, is no fool. And I think

somewhere in Switzerland or Luxembourg

there are some very interesting documents that he

would make public, and they would tell us a lot

new and interesting things about the business

activities of Vladimir Putin, his

inner circle, his relatives,

friends, acquaintances, and so on. Therefore,

the Kremlin understands very well that by delivering

such a blow—by investigating Luzhkov—it

would mean that Luzhkov would reveal everything.

the information that exists about him. Okay.

So, I'm launching an SMS poll. Take out

your mobile phones, and here's what I'm

asking you: do you agree with Alexei

Navalny's position? Everything Alexei is saying

right now, in essence—if yes, if you agree with it,

send 5533, letter A. If no—Alexei

Navalny, and moving on. Ellipsis. Is it true

of your life? Yes, he's promoting himself there, well, I'm just

judging even by the messages that are coming in

there.

it's being monetized.

using anti-corruption issues for his own purposes. That is, I

it's being monetized.

means, that is—

honestly, it means gaining something from it.

If that's what you mean, then yes, without any doubt. Let's

call it this: I profit from it.

Political points, political capital—

call it whatever you like. Let everyone

benefit from it. Let's all together

come and fight crooks, and on that

a lot of political points can be scored. So,

do you agree with Alexei Navalny's position?

5533, letter A. If not, you don't agree, and next:

the truth of your life—5533, letter B. Once again,

5533, letter A if you agree with Alexei

Navalny's position. If not, then 5533, SMS

message with the letter B. No need to send anything else.

No need to send anything else. 65 10996 www.finam.ru

My name is Sergei. I wish Alexei every possible

success and objectivity in his

judgments. In principle, I...

Do you doubt him? That's the phrase. I don't

presume to doubt. I always find people

who are categorical in their judgments

a little worrying sometimes, well, that's

probably due to a lack of information.

Still, nevertheless, I would like to ask him

a political question, so to speak.

For example, it's absolutely clear that the entire

spectrum of political parties that we have

in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia's parliament), and elsewhere too, they have all

in one way or another discredited themselves

with ideologies, or with ideologies that are completely unclear.

Yes, and what I'd like to know is this:

say, in new elections or in those

discussions where people talk about the need

to create coalition governments and

so on—what spectrum of ideology could

replace the current one? Not parties specifically, but what spectrum

of ideologies could replace the one currently in power,

this vague ruling ideology? Yes, thank you.

Thank you. Without any doubt, we have

an entire ideological spectrum that is completely unrepresented in

politics—a spectrum of ideology that,

roughly speaking, is usually called

nationalist. I would call it

more right-conservative, yes.

"Nationalist" is a term with

a certain...

connotation, and I think that without any

doubt these people should be much

more broadly represented. Mm-hmm. And there is also

another completely unrepresented group—not as

large as people usually say it is. It is

liberal-democratic, and it too

should be represented. And, well, let's say

that what, what

United Russia is now trying to play with—

well, that's a crude Soviet-style thing, yes.

But nevertheless, such people do exist. There are

quite a lot of them, probably, and they

naturally should also be

represented in such a government. We cannot

ignore them. So, here's my...

great question, from Facebook:

Alexei, there is a thought that in the

near future you may be offered

some kind of position in the state apparatus, and

many people have had similar thoughts

because the impression is that you

and your activities are causing

a certain discomfort for some

corrupt people. I like that

wording—so, a certain dis...

a certain discomfort, yes. As for

if they suddenly call—if, if, well...

it seems to me there would be even more discomfort.

No. Well, in any case, in this

system you cannot work effectively if

you are not part of that system,

part of the corrupt system. We have

seen many examples, quite

recently, when a mayor, for example, who does not

agree with United Russia immediately loses

his high popularity rating because

in that city they simply shut off

the hot water, and people immediately stop

liking the mayor. Therefore, a normal person in this

system cannot exist, and cannot

perform his duties effectively and honestly.

Therefore, being part of a

corrupt, rotten system

is pointless. Right now there's this idea that

let's find three

good people and insert them into a bad

system, and they'll change something—but that doesn't

work. It's naive, and it won't succeed. Well,

so answer clearly: if they tempt you, you won't

go? No. At least not into this

system, yes. And, Alexei Navalny, in summary—

Finam FM. Good evening, what is your

name? Hello? Hello? Yes, good evening.

Please introduce yourself. Yes, my name is Maxim. And

a short question, a simple question: for an ordinary

average citizen, what should they do? That's all.

Thank you. What can an ordinary—thank you, Maxim—

any ordinary, average citizen do?

There are a huge number of things they can do. As I

already said: during elections, go and vote against

United Russia (the ruling political party), always.

Campaign, perhaps to a narrow segment,

in the fight against corruption. I constantly

propose formats in which any

person can take part: write complaints

and send them together with me, and so on.

They can fund some kind of opposition

activity. For example, we launched

a project to fund the Rospil website (an anti-corruption project); people

send 100–200 rubles each, and we will hire

lawyers. I hope we will act

quite effectively. Any person, in

fact, has no fewer

tools to work with than

any opposition politician. And when all

the fuss erupted around the publication

about Transneft, I happened to have, uh, in

the studio, Sergei Aleksashenko, and you were in

America, yes, and I remember everyone online

was saying, yes, Navalny is in

America, yes, yes, he’s there already, and from there

he’s doing all this from across the ocean. I asked Sergei then

a direct question. I said, how

do you think—will he come back? Aleksashenko said

he will definitely come back, without a doubt. But Alexei,

here’s a question from Agafon in Skovorodino—that’s all the way in Amur Oblast (a region in Russia’s Far East),

yes—he sent you the following

question. Skovorodino, by the way, is where the first section

of the ESPO pipeline ends, understood.

So, he asks you—I’m quoting

the letter exactly as it came: “Aren’t you afraid of the authorities?”

Question mark. “The current elite”—that’s

how he put it, yes, “the current elite.”

By the way, that’s the first time I’ve heard that phrasing. They can

maim you, kill you, and

imprison you. I am not afraid of this government. I understand perfectly well

that, yes, with any individual person

they can do

absolutely anything. And yet, taken as a whole, this is

a completely helpless and pathetic formation.

And I think it is simply

disrespectful—to yourself,

to those around you, and to your country—to be afraid of

these crooks. Yes, I’m a rational person, but

my understanding that anything can

happen to anyone, that they can do

whatever they want, is not an obstacle

that would make me stop what I’m doing.

But you do have a sense of danger, like

any person? Well, like any person,

I’m

reasonable. I’m not going to, I don’t know, jump at

police officers or lunge at someone, and so

on. I try to behave cautiously

as much as possible. But some kind of

feeling of fear—I don’t have it. If you

share Alexei Navalny’s position,

please send an SMS to 5533 with the

letter A. If not, 5533, letter B. Moving on,

what should Russian young people do

if they want to live in a lawful, just,

democratic, safe state

but constantly, every day, run into

situations where they can achieve nothing unless they

show loyalty to corrupt

officials or their relatives? What

is the way out? I do not agree in the slightest

that nothing can be done. Listen,

how am I any different from—well, I’m not exactly

Russian youth anymore, yes,

but Russian youth, the Russian

middle-aged, Russian old-timers—we

all have the same opportunities.

We can all do something. I am doing

something, after all. Thousands of people with me send

these complaints; in the regions, people

independently conduct anti-corruption

investigations a hundred times more dangerous

than mine. They do it, they do it—we all can do it.

At the very least, you can go to

the polls and vote against United

Russia, persuade your

neighbors. You can, I don’t know,

fight your petty tyrant of a boss—

you can do all sorts of things.

Uh, no, yes, let’s move on then. Just so that

no one later tells me the promo

didn’t air: 65-10-99 and 6

3 FM. Alina writes: “Alexei, you were investigating

the embezzlement at VTB Bank, including

the drilling rigs case, where the fact of

the theft is obvious. Many

people I know have acquaintances—many

people’s acquaintances, yes—who are on the

management board of VTB Bank. To my sarcastic

questions, they reply that you are no longer

working on this case.”

“According to them, all issues with you, Alexei Navalny, have been settled.”

I don’t know who supposedly settled what with me.

We are continuing this case, and we will

keep going. In the near future we

will publish new and very interesting documents.

There really is, in the VTB case,

completely obvious evidence that

the bank’s management stole $150 million

from the bank, which is comparable to

the bank’s annual profit and the dividends

that they

pay out. We will pursue these

crooks by every possible means.

The crime is obvious; we know who

Stole it, sure—but where did they move the money?

All of this will be published. We will, of course,

continue bombarding our police (militsiya, the former Russian police force)

which, unfortunately, takes bribes from VTB

and refuses to investigate, but we will not

stop. We have already been investigating this case

for almost two years now, and we will keep investigating it for another

22 years—is that what I understand? So, regarding

every word you've just said—do you have

an evidentiary basis? That is already a question

for a lawyer, absolutely. As a lawyer—please.

We told VTB a hundred times when we

named them directly. At the general meeting

of shareholders in Rami, they were told: come on,

guys, sue us—for defamation and

protection of honor and dignity. But what do they do? Because

we have all the documents that

show that these people stole $150 million

from the shareholders and, in the course of

a corrupt deal, also squandered

assets in Yamal (a region in northern Russia), now covered in snow there,

already dismantled, and they can hardly be

used. The total damage to the bank

will amount to more than

We will continue—under this government and under

another one. Let the crooks who are listening

to this program right now know that

sooner or later, we will get them. This is Finam

FM, "Bottom Line." Alexei Navalny

is answering my and your questions. For the last

time, then—so we have another half-minute to

vote. Do you support Alexei

Navalny's position? Then text the letter A to 5533

from your mobile

phone in an SMS message. If not,

5533, letter B. Once again, I ask that in the remaining

minutes, please be brief and concise.

Good eve—you're on the air. Ah, good evening.

Ruslan. Well, to begin with, I honestly sent

letters, though I still haven't received a reply from you.

Well, let's hope that Alexei will respond afterward.

Yes. So, my question is this:

this is my opinion, and I would like to hear yours.

As I see the situation regarding

Russia right now from the countries of

America and Europe, with current oil prices,

when this government feels perfectly

comfortable, nothing will really change. I

think that if oil were at $30

a barrel, then something in this country

would change. So to what extent does your view

on this topic coincide with mine, or not?

Thank you. I would disagree here, again.

The already overused example of Tunisia shows that

it was one of the richest Arab

countries, one of the most stable. However,

that stability collapsed, again,

despite high oil prices, with oil prices rising.

Over the past two years, we have seen

a clear growth in discontent, and we see

that all this oil, these high prices,

all of this is just

being squandered, which is absolutely obvious to the entire

population, and I do not think that high

oil prices are a guarantee of the survival

of the regime. Good evening, you're on the air. What is your name?

Ah, hello. Good evening. My name is

Ruslan, from the North Caucasus, and I

have been following closely and listening to what you

are saying. Of course, I am completely in solidarity with

Alexei and support him in every respect.

In fact, without any problem...

from the Caucasus said—well, I understand how

well,

corrupt it is. Alexei, that is absolutely

all true, really. And there was

one radio listener who asked what

an ordinary person should do. Yes, I have

the same question. For example, take me:

I have two children. Here I am,

currently living here in Moscow.

My wife is a Muscovite, and the children are too, in a way.

Well, I'm not officially registered here, but that's not important. It's just that I

send my child to kindergarten. Yes, for that I

pay 770 rubles

plus 30 rubles in, let's say, bank

service fees—well, a commission—and

I receive 750 rubles for him. It's just—this

is where we need to start, solving problems

in real life, right? Start with this.

Start there. As for ordinary people, Mr.

Putin and Mr. Medvedev have no concern for them at all.

They are simply engaged in business,

plain and simple business.

You mean the ratio between child benefits and

That is completely obvious. But here we should not

deceive ourselves: no social

problems will be solved until

the basic political problems are solved.

Therefore, dear radio listener, I will not

say anything new. I am calling—I am not

calling on anyone to grab a grenade and run off

to storm the barricades. But each of us

can make a contribution to the struggle against this

regime—our own small daily struggle.

We must force them to change. If

these people do not feel pressure and

constant pressure, they will not care how much

has to be paid for kindergarten. And even

if it is twice lower than the benefit. And Raman

asks how you feel about the separation

of the Caucasian republics from Russia.

Since we've started talking about the North Caucasus,

well, it must be acknowledged that at present

for the time being, the Caucasian republics are de facto

separated; they are not part

of the Russian Federation. There is no

authority there

— there are just some gangs there

roaming around, and you can no longer tell who these

gangs are for — whether they are Islamists or

simply some bandits, and so on.

So we need to start by acknowledging

that right now the Caucasus is not part

of Russia, and build

our strategy on that basis. And first of all, this should of course

mean the decriminalization of the Caucasus

and a fight against all these phenomena

that over the past few years have become

fashionable. Look at any Caucasian

politician boasting: we have blood feuds, we

kidnap brides, here everyone

has to wear some kind of headscarves, and so

on. This is an absolutely dead-end path.

This belonged in the past, yes, and

this imposition of tribalism in the Caucasus and

a clan-based social order, which is being carried out

by the federal authorities, by the way, is

an absolutely dead-end path. This is what

we need to fight. Good evening, you're on the air.

Good evening, namesake. Good evening.

Alexei, to keep it brief, my name is

Sergei. I support you, Alexei, completely

and fully — not just me, but, generally speaking,

the aviation intelligentsia from the city of

Zhukovsky. So I wanted to ask: how do you

feel about this proposal? What if

we had a president, so to speak,

similar to, let's say, Lukashenko?

Well then, all witnesses can confirm I didn't cut off

the caller — something happened. Briefly, I

think that's unlikely, unfortunately.

From Lukashenko, Putin borrowed only

the harshness and totalitarian tendencies, but he did not

borrow Lukashenko's kind of fight against

corruption. I think that in Russia, the time for such a

president of the Lukashenko type is simply

impossible. And in conclusion, a question

from Andrei: Alexei, in your view, what is the main thing

in life? The main thing, guys, is not to grow old

at heart — that is Alexei Navalny's answer. Thank you

very much. This was the first meeting in this

year, 2011. I hope it won't be the last, because

as

99% of Finam FM listeners support you.

Those are the voting results. An

absolutely astronomical

number of people took part — 1,212 over

this period of time.

Well, Alexei, 1% do not support you — that was

apparently Tokarev and Vainshtok who voted.

Thank you very much. Alexei Navalny was

today's guest on "In the Dry Residue" on Finam FM.