Alexei Navalny’s interview with the project “Russians Are OK!”

Let's imagine a pleasant thought

experiment: I am the President of the Russian

Federation. Moral superiority is not

enough. If workers have forgotten—come

to me, please, and I will help you create

a union, draw up a collective agreement,

and make sure that in this

you understand what you're doing. But if they took

you away, then you are definitely cogs in this system.

I'm sorry, of course, but you don't understand a damn thing

about how this works, yet you love

to make sweeping statements

and emotional judgments.

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Alexei, how is the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation) operating now? As I understand it,

basically everything has been smashed up,

the accounts are frozen,

you're labeled a foreign agent, and things are working very

well—it's hard for us to produce video versions

of our investigations. Still,

the FBK's main job is to conduct

the investigations themselves. We do them—we do them

for the record. And this banker, in a country where people

can't get free medication for months,

goes and buys his mistress a yacht and

a plane. So maybe VTB Bank is

paying for the prime minister's wife's flights,

and that's corruption. Or some oligarch is paying

for him—that's corruption.

Or a controlled foundation is paying, as

we described in the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*—that is

corruption. They just raid the studios,

take away all sorts of things here where we are,

lighting equipment, cameras—

they carry everything off. They've done it three times already. We

were forced at first to buy it all again, and now

it's clear that the strategy is

simply to rob us every one to three weeks, and

we just can't keep buying it.

And people send us money after

each of these raids—they try again

to send us money. But where are they supposed to send it?

We have a complicated system, but they

freeze the accounts within 24 hours, and

whatever comes into the account in that time, we manage

to use—say, I don't know, 300,000 rubles (about $3,300),

to pay salaries. After that, it's

blocked again. Plus, now we're simply

forced to switch over

to things like Bitcoin and, I don't know, PayPal, and

basically to some other kinds

of fundraising, because we

simply need to pay salaries, we need

to pay rent, and in the end we need

to rent equipment, because

buying it now has become pointless.

Have your own accounts been blocked? No, actually

they've blocked everyone around me.

Private individuals—seven FBK employees,

staff members from the regional headquarters—something like 150 or

160 people have had

their personal accounts frozen, the ones where

their scholarships are paid. For some, they even froze survivor benefits

for the loss of a breadwinner. There are a huge number

of absolutely monstrous stories like that.

Apparently I'm in the eye of the hurricane,

which means it's calm here for now, and

nothing has been blocked yet. How do you work with

the foreign agent status, and what does it actually threaten

you with? Honestly, we haven't really

dealt with it much, because we were absolutely

convinced that anything at all could happen to us, but

that they could never designate us as foreign agents,

because

we have never had a single kopek

from abroad. But in this country, never say never.

Well, first of all, there's an enormous amount

of reporting—you have to file reports,

basically keep a whole extra accounting system

just to prepare the paperwork. Second, you have to

label all of your materials as

"produced by a foreign agent," and it's

not very clear what exactly counts as your materials.

We'll have to figure that out later. Do I simply have to

put that label on a YouTube video that

isn't owned by—on a YouTube channel that doesn't

belong to the FBK? My main channel, which

is registered as Alexei Navalny, or the channel

called Navalny Live,

legally has nothing whatsoever

to do with the FBK. Should we put the label on the website? We do.

And as far as we understand, their

strategy is that they

demand that you hang some kind of

"foreign agent" sign on yourself.

If you refuse, they'll fine you.

Case two: could there come a moment when

the total amount of fines exceeds your revenue, so to speak?

Yes, it already has. That's exactly the point.

We're bankrupt already, in business

terminology, so to speak—potentially.

A huge number of people and I

held a meeting the other day—there was me,

Zhdanov, Sobol, Alburov—the total

amount of insane claims filed personally against us as private

individuals—

from the metro, from the police, from the National Guard, from

the prosecutor's office—now stands at 40 million

rubles (about $440,000). It's obvious that even if you added up

all our assets together, you wouldn't get to 40 million rubles,

so that's what they've done. And as for

the FBK, it's even stranger there.

They first announced that we had laundered

a billion rubles, which exceeds by several times

all donations received over all

the years. Then they announced the figure of 75 million

rubles (about $825,000)—that is, still

they declared all donations over all the years

to be some kind of criminal money, and now

every FBK account and every

FBK employee's account, and almost all

regional headquarters staff accounts, simply show minus 75

million rubles. That's how

the blocking is carried out, essentially speaking.

But in that case, it is simply a financial

shutdown — that is, the organization will not

be able to operate. The company announced

"Romashka," not LLC, I don’t know, Alfa

Bank, Sberbank, and so on. Still, we are

a group of people united by a single idea, and

of course, right now, organizationally, our

work has become more difficult, but many people

have, on the contrary, found more personal

motivation to do what they were doing, and

everyone understands that the actions

the authorities are taking against

us are, broadly speaking, part of the same pattern of how they

seize businesses in particular. People get angry.

This month they are working not through lawsuits

so much as through pressure. How much pressure can each person

withstand? How long can you endure pressure?

I don’t know — apparently it is some kind of infinite

quantity, it seems.

Our experience, by the way, shows

that this is how it works, and that in a meritocracy, people driven by conviction

ultimately turn out to be the most

intelligent people, and the most

professional people.

The bridge there is a little... 1.25 percent

much less, but people come to us

from the outset — people who are ready, who

want to do this, who find it interesting

after all, political work, and I

believe we have the most interesting job.

There is no more interesting job in Russia than

ours. So if you want to live an interesting

life, as long as you understand that this

increased pressure is, essentially, retaliation

for the Moscow elections.

you can handle — that is, this is the result of our undeniable

success, which

this has reached people who are satisfied

with our... part of it falls on us because

But many are being pressured simply because they

say things that you — that I — do not like.

And they started putting more pressure on us

because we beat them in the elections.

For a long time, the Kremlin built this

system in which there is the systemic

opposition and the non-systemic opposition, and they

believed that from any electoral

process, from politics, they could exclude the non-systemic

opposition — exclude us. We have no party,

I am not allowed to take part in elections, and

so on and so forth. But we came up with

a scheme in which we simply took

the systemic opposition like a club and started

using the club of the systemic opposition to hit them over the

head.

It was quite unpleasant for them. I certainly

take enormous pleasure from

the fact that in Moscow, in the elections,

a greater number of people, in absolute

terms, voted for opposition

candidates than for United Russia candidates. We truly

defeated them in the elections.

[music]

[music]

Obviously, in this situation there is only one way out:

one.

Urgently go on vacation. In this

situation, it is obvious that you need to cut

costs and focus on long-term

partnership.

Guys, what was that just now? You had a cappuccino?

Thanks for the tip — it’s probably time for you

to get some rest.

What, sorry? Perhaps you would like

anything else? No, thank you.

I’ll write it down now. Uh-huh, yes.

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Download the app using the link in

the description. In 2018, you gave an interview to Yuri Dud (a well-known Russian journalist and interviewer),

in which he repeatedly

and consistently

tried several times to convince you that you needed to

cooperate with someone, to call on people to vote

for others.

And you categorically refused.

You said: why should I... and you were really

outraged, saying: why should I

transfer my votes? Votes are not

transferable.

But it turned out that votes are transferable after all,

and that campaigning for others is possible. No,

it’s not like that. Every election is different; you cannot

speak about elections in general. We are dealing

with fairly cunning, malicious, and greedy

people sitting in the Kremlin. For them,

every election is a new election. For the State Duma elections,

we do not understand yet

whether there will simply be a fully

proportional party-list system, or, as they seem to be saying now,

there will be a fully majoritarian

system — that is, 450 districts. In Moscow,

every election is absolutely unique. So

what changed?

What changed is that in 2016, in the

elections, no decent

candidates were running at all, if you remember.

In 2016, the whole discussion of, let’s

endorse someone in the elections, which

was being discussed on Facebook, in fact

boiled down to: let’s vote for

Yabloko candidates. Well, back then, in

2016, I said that despite all my

affection for Yabloko candidates, I myself

There was a time when being with Yabloko was super mega.

Pathetic candidates—they're nice people, but they

have absolutely no chance in the Moscow City Duma; every one

of those we put forward, including those who were removed,

every one of them would have won. As for the State Duma,

we were being urged in advance to vote for people

who wouldn't get any votes at all. Shlosberg

is possibly the strongest candidate from

Yabloko. Dud mentioned him. So how much did he get there?

How many votes did he get—did he come fourth or sixth?

He got 4 percent in his own

Pskov Region.

There wasn't a single strong candidate there,

and back then there weren't really any decent

candidates at all, and there was no campaign, no

expectation of anything. Still, our

decision to take part this time was strategic.

It was driven by polling data and

our understanding of what is happening in

politics. The system was simply shifting.

This is connected with the increase in the retirement

age within the traditional pro-Putin

electorate—those people they keep

dragging out to vote all the time. So they have

about 15 percent, and they split that group

with the decision to raise the retirement

age. Some of them, so to speak, after that conversation,

felt offended and started thinking about it. So

now any district administrator

or housing office chief understands that at their own

polling station, if they bring in 1,000

people—whereas before those 1,000 people

guaranteed victory or a strong

result for Putin and United Russia—now

out of those thousand people, three hundred

will come to vote but, on principle, will

vote against them because they

got angry over the retirement-age

increase and, more broadly, over falling incomes

over the past six years. The campaign for the

State Duma will already be different because

they have seen and analyzed

the strategy with which, unquestionably,

we dealt them a defeat in Moscow.

So in the State Duma race, you definitely

shouldn't expect anything like that again.

There won't be that kind of leeway again, and as for money—we still won't have much.

We don't especially need a lot of it; that's one advantage of how we work.

I mean, we do need money because we

sit in offices, pay people,

pay salaries and so on. But our work

is very, very inexpensive. That's probably one

of the main reasons why it has been

The average salary is a bit higher now, but still

we're still that kind of organization—

Spartan and very efficient. And because

if we needed a lot of money

or some kind of luxurious lifestyle,

we wouldn't have survived. As it is, we have

ten thousand people who are ready

to send small donations on a regular basis

every month, and that money is enough for us. I'll ask

the traditional question: all those fat cats were sitting there with us

up against the wall—hands up, please.

Asterisk. No—why didn't they jail you?

And why did they let you out? With my own ears—or

eyes, I don't remember anymore—I read that, from

old connections, I still have sources

in various places. Not long before you were released, someone wrote to me:

"They're going to let Navalny out," and

the person says, "I don't understand why." The person himself

doesn't understand why. I don't understand

why either. Do you understand why?

Why the devil let you out? Why jail you in the first place?

Well, so that you couldn't coordinate

the coordinators, and

I had plenty to do there, fine—but why was it necessary

to jail all the candidates, including, frankly,

even the weakest ones? And why weren't they

allowed onto the ballot? Did they want to offend someone?

They're not zombies, they're ordinary people. It's just—fine,

there were lots of names, including weak candidates; this

wasn't just about one or two people, but they simply

decided to go hardline—like, right now

we're going to steamroll everyone here. After that,

why did they let you out then? Because

at first they escalated, and then they saw

a rally of 150,000 people, then they

realized a lot from those 150,000.

No, well, maybe it was 120,000—I don't know, it doesn't matter.

It was a very large rally.

Yes, it was very, very large,

unexpectedly large. And most importantly, they

saw the same thing we did:

the polling showed it, and all of it was hurting them.

They were jailing everyone, and of course for me

it was, on a human level, extremely unpleasant

to look out the cell window and see them being led

across the yard escorted by ten

OMON riot police officers—poor Yulia Galyamina among them.

But I understood that all of this would lead to one thing:

in the election, we'd simply crush them.

Because no normal person

approves of any of this. There was one faction

of crooks saying, "Let's lock up

everyone—that's the most effective way

to solve it." And at some point there was another

group of crooks saying, "No, but

we can ride this out—or let's at least

let people go, or start letting them go, or

let Navalny out, and then maybe

the rallies will get smaller and the tension around him will ease."

But notice—that's exactly what happened.

A lot of smart people—Konstantin Sonin, for example—

was writing columns this long every

day in *Vedomosti* and elsewhere about what they

needed to do to avoid such a

big defeat. He wrote that they shouldn't

arrest anyone, should release everyone, and

register a few candidates, and

everything would work out for them. If only all those

Kremlin crooks had followed not the

advice of some

political strategists around Kiriyenko, but had followed

the advice of some wonderful liberals,

things would have gone much better for them. But they

can't do that. First of all, they consider

themselves very tough, and for them

This is fundamentally important, but, like, you know...

to steamroll everyone into the asphalt and all that.

To dominate — but that won’t work here.

Listen, in the end they let all of you out.

Among professional politicians, there are people

who

went to these rallies

— unauthorized ones — which

professional politicians, including

you, urged people to attend, and now they’re in jail, right?

I know you help, that you’re doing something.

But even with that help, how do I put it — people

are sitting in prison, and it’s like a tram has run over their lives.

How do you even live with that? I couldn’t.

I really couldn’t.

Well, that’s probably the hardest thing for me, through my

work. But we understand perfectly well that this is

a strategy they’ve developed through many years of practice.

You call people to a rally, and

for that they’ll jail some random person,

just a completely random person, someone who has nothing to do with it.

The “24 guys,” the Bolotnaya case (the prosecution of protesters after the 2012 Moscow rally), the Moscow case —

it’s all the same story, about how

while they edge around the leaders, they simply

lock up unfortunate random people

in order to demonstrate: here they are,

ordinary random people; here are their mothers crying;

here are their wives and husbands suffering. And all of this is already

basically the norm. I mean, of course, this

follows a script and keeps repeating.

For years. Should we maybe stop calling people

to unauthorized rallies? This

hasn’t been going on for years — it has been going on

for hundreds of years. It is, in principle, a basic

strategy followed by all

authoritarian leaders. If you do nothing,

there’ll be no one to jail? No — in fact, they’ll still

go on anyway, they’ll just

take some ordinary random people, simply because

this regime devours people. It will

keep devouring people regardless, and

if we stay home,

we won’t make things better — we’ll make them worse.

Looking ahead, say, two years from now, we

still have to resist. And in response they

will respond.

Right now, for the time being, they’re jailing people. Our, our

actions have gone that far.

But what if the actions, what if the actions become

more forceful? Where is the line where you

say: no, that’s it, from this point I can’t call on

people to go anymore, I can’t call them to

unauthorized actions? I just have my own

understanding of what needs to be done. There is a set

of things I believe in. I have it, and so do

my associates, and a huge number of

people who go out into the streets, exposing

themselves to a certain risk, have an understanding

that this is the right thing to do, an understanding

that they are standing up for their country,

for their own future. After all, people go out

for that very reason.

Exactly. And because of that, yes, there is risk. But if you

don’t go out, then you have no future at all.

None whatsoever. I see how people

make these decisions, including young

people, because, for example, in my company

young people work there. Of course, in

there is probably something reckless in this, and maybe even

yes, because I’ll say this: it seems to me that

people do not fully realize the consequences. There is something

very harsh about it.

All these songs about it — here we simply need to

stop engaging in this kind of

psychological masochism. It is Putin

who is imprisoning these people, not those who organize

the rallies. The ones guilty of someone being

jailed are Putin, his courts, his

Investigative Committee,

and all his various Kovalchuks, Rotenbergs, Timchenkos, and the rest.

Their capital protects and sustains these imprisonments. Therefore we

absolutely must continue fighting

what is stealing our future, by different

methods. But when it comes to going out to a

rally, everyone makes that decision

independently. If we do not

go out into the streets, we will never achieve anything.

Organize it?

As is well known, an airplane is one of the

safest forms of transport.

But some passengers still

don’t believe that. They are afraid of flying and

try to overcome their fear.

They fight their fear by every means available

and become very exhausted in this

unequal struggle. We know for a fact

that flight attendants among themselves call such

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they often lose the ability

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You can organize it, but not call on people to come?

That sounds odd. You yourself — well, you, you

organized the rally.

But you say that when it comes to an unauthorized

rally, everyone decides for themselves. It’s impossible

to play games here. I say it as it is. I tell

people directly what is in my head.

I tell them honestly. I come

to the screen, to the camera, and through

YouTube I say: I am in courtroom 17,

where they are obviously about to place me under arrest for

calling people to the rally on the 27th. But if they

send me to jail for that, then that quite obviously

means I am calling on people to come to the rally on the 27th at...

Mary, at 2:00 p.m.—guys, there is no such thing as

an unauthorized rally being illegal

Can they arrest us unlawfully? They can. But I believe

the situation is such that we still

have to come out, and I’m saying that plainly,

in so many words, and I’m not going to

engage in any kind of

political spin here. We may be organizing, but

whether you go or don’t go is up to you, and if I

call on people, I simply call on them—I don’t

I saw how Azar, for example, said about the, about the

rally that yes, I’m among the organizers, but

I’m not going to urge anyone at that moment, saying, well,

that was nonsense. I mean, everyone

urges people and says certain things

based on their own understanding of the situation.

There was that situation with your wonderful

organizing committee and the march in support of Golunov (Ivan Golunov, Russian journalist), as I

remember—there was no ambiguity there, you were one of the

ones who—

who first called people to the rally and

then said, oh no, hold on—

No need to twist my words. What I said

was this: look, for me it was like this.

So to speak, I expressed my position quite plainly.

It was an instinctive feeling. I’ve known Vanya (diminutive of Ivan),

I’ve known Ivan Golunov from the newspaper *Vedomosti*

since sometime in the 2000s, I don’t even remember which year. We

worked together at RBC (a Russian media outlet). When you

when, say, I don’t know, a relative of yours

gets taken away, you feel this immediate

outrage. I know him very well too.

I was probably among the first, you know,

because you understand that you’ll do everything—you’ll call

anyone, talk to anyone, and

take any action you can.

That’s, well, a kind of expression of

your sense of injustice. May I ask a question?

Please, go ahead. Elizaveta,

don’t you feel, the way you live, that you project

an air of moral superiority, not

just in scale?

Oh, like this: “So, you called people to the rally, right?”

I didn’t call people. Don’t pin those laurels on me.

Together with Timchenko and Kolpakov,

we did—listen—

Listen, here’s my question, I’m confused. I’m talking

about the facts, without broadening it: you didn’t organize it,

but journalists threatened the authorities with

a huge rally, and they,

frightened by that, immediately released

Golunov.

The rally happened, and two people were jailed over it.

What I’m asking is this, without sugarcoating it:

how do you live with that?

Yes, and your answer should be: “I live with it just fine,”

because you didn’t force me or anyone else to go

to that rally. I went there, and I was

jailed—not by you, not by Kolpakov, not by

Timchenko. I was jailed specifically by the regime,

by Vladimir Putin, and he is to blame for all of it. If

people don’t come out and don’t threaten the authorities

with rallies, then Golunov would still be sitting in jail

to this day. I’m not a child, you understand that

the process of getting him released was complex.

You have to understand, there were negotiations at every

level. So to portray the whole situation as if

a crowd came out to protest and therefore

he was released, because someone even threatened

to go out to a rally—I think that

was only one factor. I know my own story. I’m

sitting here in front of you now, and probably if

I had been imprisoned in 2013

for five years, I too would only have gotten out recently.

But I spent those last five years

free exclusively because some

people said, yes, like over Manezhnaya (Manezhnaya Square protests in Moscow), and

they went out, and I was released. Some people—I

also came out then. But that’s exactly what I’m

trying to explain to you: it’s this instinctive

sense of injustice. I came out not even

because you were in jail, but because it

was unjust.

You see, I made an internal decision

about why I was doing this. With Golunov,

the degree of organization was as follows: for

myself, inwardly, I decided that I would go, because

this was simply unjust.

That’s all. Nothing more. That was my role in it.

Same for me. And I’m sure that for all

the people who go to rallies, it’s the same

thing. I feel that I—I just can’t

stay home. And probably everyone’s

range is broader. I can’t do it

for just one issue; I’ll go out for major

reforms, I’ll go out because of

political prisoners, I’ll go out because of many

things. I’ll take to the streets over 120 different things,

or 20.

And someone else might do it over three, or maybe 400.

But really, what you said was very

good: an instinctive, internal

sense of injustice. I understand that

things should not be this way, so I go out, and all the

rest follows from that.

[music]

In a recent interview, Vladimir, rather skillfully,

Sergei Guriev, who gave an interview

in several parts, very successfully, very

thoughtfully, actually said that the elite

is afraid of you. Did you hear that? In all your

I listened carefully to all of Guriev’s interviews. I consider

him a very smart man. But did you feel anything

when he said that the elites

are afraid of you? He’s told me that many times,

and

I—I don’t really understand what

the “elite” in Russia really means, because after all

the degree of it

varies greatly, and they are very, very different.

They’re very different. Well, of course it’s obvious that

someone like Igor Shuvalov

or Arkady Rotenberg is afraid of me, because

without question I would send them to the

defendants’ bench. Of course they should

be afraid of me. But there is an opinion—which, however,

I don’t entirely share—that there is some kind of

well-meaning but cowardly Russian

Business is so worried, so worried.

And they’re a bit afraid of me too, because they think that

if and when I—or people like me—come to

power, things will become very

difficult for them. But actually that’s not the case. I don’t

see why they need to be afraid. You don’t understand

why?

I do, because business in general

is afraid of everything. I’ve seen it in

Hong Kong—how business is afraid of absolutely

everything. Although, generally speaking, those people

in Hong Kong—every other interview I do there—

I ask people, from America all the way

across many other countries in between, questions

about things adjacent to politics—not even

politics itself, just something around it: how do you

feel about this, how do you feel about

that—and maybe 70 percent of them tell me,

“We’re not going to talk about that,”

because we’re business, my business is outside

politics. So this is a trait of business, unfortunately:

to be afraid. I don’t see any

big problem in the fact that all these business

guys, well, somewhere or other, when they meet me,

say, “Great, well done, good,” and then

later in some interview they say, “We don’t

support this,” or whatever. Where

are they telling the truth—when they shake my hand, or

when they speak in interviews? Hell if I know. But

in the real world they do shake my hand. I’m not

forcing them to.

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[music]

Still, you understand

that there’s a set of points in themselves that

business finds off-putting, yes, but

the main point is, fundamentally, a lack of

understanding. In other words, there will be a different scenario,

something different—and we’ve already

gotten used to that. We understand that, yes, we

have these kinds of risks, we can calculate them; they can

take everything from us, people’s incomes can

fall,

investment doesn’t flow in—but somehow

we live with it. Now something will change, and it may

change for the better, or it may for the worse.

So just in case—because

business needs predictability. This

unpredictability is the main thing. And it

doesn’t concern only me; it

concerns any politician. I don’t

think it’s absolutely any politician,

because, well, in different countries

it’s different. It seems to me there are a number of

pain points that people

react strongly to. I’ll just name

some of them for you. For example,

from our recent discussion—I mean,

we were debating, and you said, “We will move

toward trade unions.”

Yes, and we are moving toward them very actively. If

I had a big company,

I’d be alarmed, let’s say. I said that because

trade unions are anti-capitalism.

Because there are stories about how trade unions

have simply driven companies into bankruptcy, and

trade unions with all those

social payments and all that—

business can’t grow. It’s amazing:

when you talk to wonderful,

smart people like you, and you

demonstrate some kind of—sorry—

completely made-up idea of growth. But fine,

here you have two systems: Russia,

where there are basically no trade unions at all—they’re simply

a subdivision of the Presidential Administration

(Russia’s executive office), and that’s it—

here, right here, the Presidential Administration.

So don’t push that theory on me.

Whereas in America and in Europe there are

trade unions, and many people are very

unhappy with them, and they play an active role in

politics and in the economy. But we see that

America and Europe are thriving with those terrible,

as you call them, anti-capitalist

trade unions.

And we have no trade unions, and nothing is

thriving at all here.

Because, generally, it’s all very well to say that,

Europe and America are different. Are we going to discuss

Europe now, or America? Let’s

do America. Fine, let’s discuss America. In

America, trade unions are a response to

extremely harsh treatment of people under

labor law.

Because in reality, firing someone—that whole

thing you see in movies, where a person with

with a box in hand, got up and walked out, really.

So firing a person is cheap and,

overall, fairly quick.

That is why, in response to this, there emerges

a trade union movement as a response. In

America, capitalism is capitalist capitalism,

so that is one situation. In Europe,

the situation is completely different, and in America there is

economic growth; in Europe, not so much. Right now, who are we

copying from? Well, let’s look.

Compared to us, they—even compared

to us—have this kind of

economic growth. In Europe, no. Fine,

what model are we choosing, what model of

relations? That is, what kind of

capitalist relations? We cannot copy some

ideal normal version; we are looking at the real

situation. Right now, we are going with trade unions.

Why? Because we do not have such a thing as

people leaving with boxes like in the movies. But we

do have this kind of thing: when they shut something down,

it hurts more. And here, they say, you get five months’ pay.

That is, theoretically, five months’ pay. In practice,

people were thrown out onto the street beyond the red line,

at the tuberculosis clinic in the city of

Kurgan, and they simply say: write a statement

and you will be on some kind of unpaid

leave. These doctors are left in limbo,

not knowing what to do. If a person

consistently

if a person knows their rights and

consistently, so to speak, keeps

pressing the issue, labor disputes in court are decided in

people’s favor. All of this is inherited from the

Soviet Union. Or are you telling me

stories instead of real history? Do not

tell me I do not know real history,

because over the last year and a half I have

spent more than half

of my time devoting it, among other things, to helping the

trade union

of doctors first and foremost. Nothing like that—

even if a labor dispute

can still be won at work, and you

are talking about doctors or teachers—do you

really think that with state

institutions you are going to win? No chance. And

first of all, they get fired. But the bigger

problem is that they are not

paid. In America there is a minimum

wage, and in Europe it exists almost everywhere

too. In Russia, it exists theoretically, well,

that is, first of all, it is not really adequate,

it is a poverty wage, and no one actually pays it; they

manipulate what counts as the minimum wage.

This relates to the fact that in America, if

you

do not pay wages, that is outright

a crime. It is a different matter. And here,

it is supposedly the same, but here you have to go to the prosecutor’s office, and

then it gets buried under various, various

paperwork, different formal arrangements, so to speak. If

you think that

capitalism should be a simple

system, I think capitalism should

be complex, and there are many factors in it. There

are employers, there are workers, there

are trade unions. Why, after all,

should workers not have the right to unite

in order to defend their rights?

Why? How exactly would that get in our way?

There will not be any railroad barriers, I mean,

I am telling you how a businessperson thinks.

That is, if he now enters into an alliance with

trade unions, later he will have to

negotiate with them. And as a politician,

that is how one acts—one negotiates.

The difference between you as a journalist

and some businessperson who

theoretically does not think about this at all is that

there is no abstract issue here in Russia; there is simply a real problem, and I

am dealing with it as a politician—a real

problem. In Russia, for example, there are three and a

half million medical workers—doctors and

nurses—and they run around

shouting, “For God’s sake, how did this happen? We were supposed to be this

sacred cow,” and instead they are being pushed around

with no protection from anyone. I come into politics

and say, “Guys, I will defend you,” and I do not

think that I need to start the conversation from

the other side. I know about specific

doctors at the Moscow oncology center on

Kashirka (Kashirskoye Highway area); they are being driven out, fired, and they

come to us and say, “What on earth is going on?

We just want

the mold to be removed from the children’s wards, and instead we

are being thrown out. People cannot get

insulin.” A doctor comes to me and says,

“Well,

it is not even about us, but it is very hard for us

to treat people when it says that

insulin is free, but in reality it is not.”

This is an important issue. What do we have to do with it?

Let us move on to trade unions—come on, better yet,

look, starting from the doctors.

These are not, at times, some abstract citizens or demons of life—you

are talking now as if real life were somehow beside the point, but life is

not unreal; what is unreal are these fairy tales about

some businessmen floating around in a vacuum, you understand?

I mean, if inside my company

a trade union is created—yes, yes, I will

embrace it.

There is nothing bad about that, nothing at all.

Because then I will have a collective

agreement.

I do not know why anyone would object—let them create one.

In principle, then I will have

a collective agreement. Workers, if you have forgotten,

please come to me, I will help

you create a trade union, we will make

a collective agreement.

I just want to make sure that in this

case, if they create one,

a collective agreement, then on top of that I will still

have to give up everything I have and then some?

And then what? Suppose your workers came to

you and said: “But things are already fine here, we already

have normal conditions, no one is mistreated here.”

Why would I need anything extra? No.

Come on, just understand one simple thing.

They’re discussing it from the point of view of private interests, while I

am reasoning from the standpoint of everyone’s interests.

I’m not saying that private business should

be destroyed or that it should suffer.

I’m saying there has to be a balance

of interests.

Right now there’s another recent conflict like this.

It concerns Aeroflot flight attendants.

I wanted to say thank you as a former board member.

You’re a former member of the board of directors

of Aeroflot.

So, as a board member, you sit there

on the board, and your job is now to care about

making sure the company is as profitable as possible,

so that it, so to speak, lives

long and happily, as they say,

and so that the shareholders

are satisfied. As a board member, you

have to think about that. And I’m thinking

about that too. But you, Alina, are thinking about the unions.

That’s exactly the point: your view is simply too narrow

on all of this. As a board member,

I’m looking at the bigger picture.

Business has a narrow view? Well,

naturally, a person who owns

a business wants to get

a lot of profit, to maximize it. But

a normal businessman—and most of them are like that,

actually—they do look at the bigger

picture. Why should profit maximization

necessarily come at the expense of

lower wages? I was in Aeroflot,

I argued with them: they shouldn’t have spent hundreds

of millions of rubles on that damn Tina

Kandelaki (a Russian TV personality) — they gave her money and she

spent it who knows where. And my answer

is this: there are a few of us there,

unfortunate flight attendants, who want

the flights to be distributed more fairly—

short-haul and long-haul ones.

If extra spending is needed for that,

then let’s cut Tina Kandelaki’s costs instead,

and give that money to the flight attendants.

That sounds nice, but in reality this is

an entirely systemic issue, because

the number of flight attendants on each

flight is fixed. If you have

that kind of pressure—this isn’t the 1990s,

some kind of endless Ayn Rand fantasy—it’s impossible.

That’s not how things are arranged now.

So there are two approaches.

First, no one said that

the absence of a collective agreement

means low wages. It doesn’t mean that.

That’s not what I was talking about, and that’s not what it means.

It means flexibility

for the employer in decision-making, that, well,

in a certain sense, they have

more rights. Yes, but there are two approaches: either

business grows faster, so to speak,

earns more money, and people

become richer as a result; or there’s another approach,

a more risk-sharing, Keynesian approach.

There’s another approach.

Republicans and Democrats—we, through

taxes, redistribute things, yes, because

we believe that the economy is not working very

efficiently.

Elizaveta, basically, if sitting here

—imagine that a virtual

Sergey Guriev (Russian economist) were sitting here now, looking at you

with a very kind expression, the way he always

does, and saying in his gentle manner:

“You’re saying…”

“Elizaveta, your understanding of this is very simplistic,”

“these two approaches—because

business does not necessarily have to thrive

by cutting spending on

professional training.”

I didn’t say cutting. But in our country

business in particular thrives

by earning more.

Arkady Rotenberg earns more, but

he doesn’t pay higher wages. Rostec

buys 5,000-square-meter apartments,

but Chemezov doesn’t pay higher salaries.

I’m not disputing that, and I’m not objecting either.

I haven’t analyzed wages there in detail.

Forget Rotenberg for a second—but when private

business grows, then along with it grows

the prosperity around it. True, for

that business to grow, it needs

low taxes and maximum flexibility.

No, no—when we’re talking about

this, please look at Russia here, because

in reality, these are not low taxes at all.

But it is still said, they still claim,

that Russia has low taxes and some kind of

what they probably also call

“flexibility,” and that business is growing here.

I’m in Russia: there are sanctions and

international isolation, and there is a terrible

judicial system. What sanctions? Sanctions

are nonsense compared with that.

The judicial system—I won’t argue with that.

Fine, the judicial system, sanctions—

what other problem is there? But before

the sanctions appeared, business in

Russia was growing. Business in Russia, right after

2008, had recovery growth, and

after 1998 in Russia there was a new

wave of growth too, you understand.

You see, our economy stopped growing

in 2013, when there were neither

sanctions nor protests, and oil was at $120

a barrel. Nevertheless, in

2013 everything stalled and could not

keep growing.

If taxes are increased—well, anyway, I didn’t

say that about taxes. I believe that

taxes in Russia need to be cut; they are

enormous, especially payroll taxes.

I’m saying that people need to be paid more,

that they should take home more money, by

reducing payroll taxes and

giving businesses the ability to pay more.

At the core, the solution comes down to this basic point:

that

for business, we need to create

a normal political system,

a normal judicial system, and the abolition

of excessive government

regulation. That is what will allow business to grow.

But at the same time, in parallel with that, we

must offer people the ability to organize into

trade unions, the introduction of a minimum

wage, and all the other things

that are successfully used in the most

thoroughly

capitalist countries. And a new question:

Are you talking about small business, or is this for

everyone? For me, this is for everyone — for

Yandex, this would of course be abolished — well, not

abolished, but changed. What I need is

lower payroll taxes in general, among many other things.

So this is not only for small enterprises.

It is also for Yandex, and even for Lukoil,

and even for Rosneft — for everyone, although

they will never be normal companies

if they belong to people like Igor Sechin (head of Rosneft).

Across the entire economy, there is simply

an unbearable tax burden.

As for the details, we can leave them aside for now,

because right now it simply makes no sense

to discuss particulars. Our general approach

is that the tax burden

on wages in Russia is such that

you cannot really pay fully official, transparent salaries here;

you have to resort to some hellish schemes,

endlessly cashing out money

in order to pay people under the table,

and so on. As for small business,

we need to abolish almost everything —

almost all regulation — and free them from it.

Yes, perhaps even at the first stage they

should be exempted from all taxes

and fees altogether, because right now,

in Russia in 2019, small business is

not even really business — it is a means of survival

for people. If someone is doing something,

paying themselves a salary and also creating one

job and paying someone else

a salary, we should practically kiss them for it.

And here I am talking specifically about

administrative regulation:

licenses, endless permits for

trade, permits to sell alcoholic

beverages, and so on and so forth.

If you are a small business,

you are constantly running around instead of

working, going to the authorities and asking them for something,

while they ask something of you. We need

to make it possible for them simply to

exist and prosper without being entangled with

the state, because they are the foundation of the Russian economy.

If you take the RBC 500 index (a ranking by the Russian business outlet RBC),

those companies in the middle — the very unglamorous ones —

are not small business; they are very much

medium-sized business, and they are very

sensitive — and they would certainly appreciate it if

they are highly sensitive both to trade unions and

to any sudden changes. You are not really addressing

that segment at all, whereas

these are exactly the people who are growing,

who are, so to speak,

the workhorses that give people

jobs and wages, and whose wages

are rising. What matters more to them?

They are conservatives who are probably afraid of you.

I do not think so. On the contrary, they are exactly

the ones in the most vulnerable position,

and they have it the hardest, because their

companies — medium-sized businesses —

may be worth 100 million rubles,

but under a normal political system they

would be worth 1.2 billion rubles. That is many times more.

There is a difference — a real difference.

And that is precisely why they do not have

enough of their own

administrative leverage to be able even partly

to deal with the state on anything like equal terms.

They are always in a subordinate position.

Whereas the big corporate monsters

have the ability to keep several

deputy ministers on their payroll, and so they solve

their problems that way, while the mid-sized firms cannot.

It seems to me that you are probably

overstating that influence — for business to keep someone

on the payroll, that is not really

the era we live in anymore. I think that was left far behind

back in 2003. Fine, but then

where did all those deputy ministers get those

apartments and those cars that we

show in our investigations?

Some of them may be making money from

public procurement, but a significant share of them

simply receive it directly.

So, we will help small business and dispossess big business?

No, and not the middle either, so to speak. That is not what I am saying.

All right, then I am probably expressing myself

not clearly enough. Try to say it clearly.

We will help all business, because

what business needs first and foremost is

deregulation of the economy and a normal

judicial system. Second,

there must be decentralization of the state overall.

These are three measures that will help

all business. The main idea

behind paying higher wages lies not in

trade unions

and not in setting a minimum wage,

but in economic growth. Without economic

growth, there will be nothing.

[music]

I want to read you a list and

ask what these

companies have in common.

Intek, PIK, Magnit, VkusVill, Wildberries, and so on.

These are wonderful large

companies that were built through the efforts

of people in a fairly toxic environment.

They did not privatize some

factory or Norilsk Nickel; they actually

grew from scratch. That is how I see it — did I get that right?

Yes, but there is something else that they all have in common.

What unites them is that they all rely on difficult—

migrants, to one degree or another, and—

I have to say, my God, they use

migrant labor. I am not against migrants, and

the whole talk about migrants—please, there are

Yandex Taxi and Yandex Delivery, we know that

the sales staff at Magnit, and so on, and so on,

and so on—they all use

the advantage of cheap labor.

People who came to Russia to improve

their living conditions, and thanks, among other things, to

the fact that they make use of this

advantage—these are the companies that

have become successful.

They have good profits, and we

are proud of them. No, their advantage was

the use of different kinds of labor.

One of the things that goes into this—

you say it happened thanks to migrants.

That is one of the reasons, just as

for example there are companies in Silicon Valley

that use the labor of

Ukrainian programmers, and Russian and

Belarusian and Indian ones, and cheaper

labor from abroad—this is

a competitive advantage: lower-cost

labor. Among other things, one reason for this is

the availability of legal labor

migrants for whom it is very easy to come to

Russia and very easy to find this kind of

work here, and that provides it. Why do you

want to change that? Why take away this

advantage from them? If you introduce

a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia,

which you are proposing, that will automatically

—

lead to it. Let me explain it to you in simple terms.

Don't pretend that this contradicts what I said.

Addition.

People use the labor of

Ukrainian, Belarusian, or any other

programmers; nevertheless, a visa regime

does not stop them—they work remotely, first of all. Secondly,

people can come here

to work, including as Yandex taxi drivers, by obtaining

a visa, just as Russians or Poles

or Ukrainians go to Germany to work

as drivers by getting a visa. There are no

problems with having a visa regime, and the most

developed countries function perfectly well with it.

Where?

You just named a list of eight companies, but in a

developed country you could make such a list

of 228 companies, and all of those

developed countries have a visa regime with

Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and excuse me,

but no local business owner or

his business has collapsed because visas were introduced for

them. How many are there in America? In America,

no one really knows how many undocumented migrants there are.

No one, in fact. It is one of those

same things with Russia too: 12 million

people—Moscow is a city of 12 million—and

all these people work somewhere.

Well, in America they are more liberal about it. What

does that prove? It proves the following:

that even America, despite having

visas, cannot cope with the problem of illegal

immigration; America is the richest

country in the world, everyone runs there. Why?

And why do undocumented migrants go there

even though visas exist? And, as you like

to say, it is a normal country.

Because even with all sorts of problems,

people still live there in conditions where, even with

illegal migration and the risks

it brings, it is still more выгодно

to come and work at any job.

A question for you for a second, and for other

supporters of open borders: if America

tomorrow—let's say the United States—

were to introduce tomorrow a changed visa

regime with all countries south of the Rio

Grande,

what would happen? Would that somehow help

American business grow? I will return to

Russia now: so, in Russia, if

visas are introduced, nothing fundamentally new will happen.

That is, migrants from Central Asia will still come to Russia

from Central Asia

either legally or illegally, of course, and in

any case many of them will come illegally. That is, if

you ask me, much less will change—if even America

cannot cope with illegal

migration, then Russia, with all its porous

borders, official corruption, and all the

chaos that exists in Russia, certainly will not cope either.

It will not cope. If America, with all the power of its

state, has not solved this problem—

No, listen: America attracts

migrants.

I explained what will happen if you introduce visas.

Well then, corruption will increase, because

for people—for those people—because for

the people who come here,

it will be a matter of life and death.

Do you understand? They are already in a subordinate

position now, and they will become even more

subordinate. That is, they will

simply come illegally and live

like slaves.

You know, right now at least they can

do it legally: they can come,

pay small fees, and—

you talk so much about migrants as if

you know their lives very well, but I roughly see

how they live.

For example, I can be proud of the fact that

among all Russian politicians, I

spend the most time together with

migrants—I sleep

next to them on neighboring beds, they

ask me questions, they think aloud, and I

first of all discuss visas with them, and

most of them, paradoxical as it may seem,

are in favor of them, which seems paradoxical to me.

I know very well what introducing visas would mean.

how migrant labor is organized, how they live, and

all the problems they face

for example, they are often simply not paid

their wages. You know, they are simply

hired by the thousands on construction sites, and it is even easier to

have the cops and the Federal

Migration Service called in

by the construction site owners, and they take them all away so that

they do not have to pay wages. So when I

talk about legalizing them, and I get this long question

asking me to respond, I say that

of course, the problem of illegal

migration will never disappear, because

there is a rich country and there is a poor country

and people flee from the poor country to the rich one. That is

natural. If we want at least

to begin putting this system in order, and I

believe that every foreigner

who comes to work

from Pakistan should have a proper

work visa, proper medical

insurance, and minimum labor

guarantees. He should work under the same rules

with vacation once a year. He should also

work no more than 8 hours a day

and so on and so forth. Well, let's talk about

what is realistic — things like private

visas, at least some kind of registration, some kind of record

they should be accounted for; right now everything is just

simply happening as it is now. Once again, they

arrive and in principle they enter legally, but

they are legal — yes, technically they are legal now

right now there are simply no illegal migrants

no, they are all perfectly

legal now, which is already good. The only thing

they need is simply to go to the FMS (Federal Migration Service)

pay that fee of theirs — I do not remember exactly what it is now

— and legalize themselves that way

That is the whole point. Why, if they are all legal,

if you and I went right now

to Elektrozavodskaya metro station

and saw two police officers standing there

next to some unfortunate man, most likely from Central Asia,

we both know perfectly well — thank you for that

analogy

because most likely he did not want to spend 4,000

rubles (about $40) or 1,000 rubles (about $10), or he simply does not have it

for him that is just a lot of money, and he did not

go to the FMS and did not register. If he had

been officially registered with the FMS

he could have politely told them

goodbye. But isn't that exactly what I

am proposing? What you are proposing is

the following: in essence, it will not be one thousand

or two or four thousand, but for them the cost of this

legalization will be much higher. The price will be

much lower — of course higher — of course lower

Even now, what I am proposing is precisely

to legalize them. So why do you

call it a disaster? You know yourself that

they have no medical rights, no insurance

they are completely without protections, and if something happens

they can die. What is stopping us from adding to

registration a work permit,

FMS registration, medical insurance, the right to take

driving tests in Russian or in some

other language, whatever? In America, for example, you cannot

drive for Uber with just any license; you cannot do it

with a Russian license. Let us add all of that, and on that

list one of the items will be a visa

Why? Because based on all this

practice, I know one thing for certain:

all developed countries do not let in

just anyone — not even me — without a visa. I do not understand

why I should let people in here

from poorer countries — but that is a completely

different issue. The point is, I

understand that, and I will insist on it, because that is how

the system works, because it is better, because

it has been proven many times that it is better. The people

who adopted these rules in Germany, in

the United States, in Switzerland, in Singapore, in New

Zealand — in all the countries that

rank at the top

among developed countries with the highest

wages — there, society and the state

determined that yes, this is the right approach

They did not solve

they did not solve the problem of illegal migrants, nor

the problem of legal migration, but you can at least begin to address

these issues; otherwise you are nowhere

near solving the problem

But if you do not introduce a visa regime

you cannot even begin to solve these

problems

A police general from the Interior Ministry and the FMS told you — that is no secret —

that we have from five to

ten million illegal migrants, that is,

plus or minus five million people, and we ourselves

do not even know exactly how many are here

Why should we copy the worst practices of the United States?

The United States has a visa regime, and if the

United States did not have a visa regime with

Uzbekistan, then all of Uzbekistan would tomorrow

be heading not to Russia but to the United States. But they would never

do that — they are not fools there

Why should we be fools? People from

Uzbekistan will come not because

someone here is handing out benefits

or because they are especially needed here; they come

because there is poverty there, Alexei, because

life there is very hard. Look, I still want to

try to persuade you: right now, under

the current absence of a visa regime, you yourself said

five to ten million — those are the real figures. Well,

that is what some official, one of those responsible, says

So that means that with

relatively open borders

10 million people are somehow working

in Russia, and overall it is not a catastrophe. That is,

with open borders, more than that are not

exactly storming in here. Well, out of 140 million, roughly

that is how many come, have come, and keep coming

Let us say 10, plus or minus 2 more — that is,

8 to 12 million. So all the demand for Russia

is exhausted by those 12 million, and you see

you are already doing the subtraction yourself, because

in 2007 — in 2002 — their visas...

They come here not because there will somehow be a demand for them,

not because there is some kind of constant

demand.

It’s simply about the standard of living: right now in

Russia, wages are low, so they

come here less often. In 2007,

the gap between Russian and Uzbek

wages was bigger, so more of them came.

If tomorrow, say, Uzbekistan’s economy

— it has gas, after all — if suddenly tomorrow the economy of

Russia starts growing, another 10

million will come here, unfortunately.

Otherwise, yes, absolutely right, it won’t start

growing. But what I’m saying is that, overall,

the basic approach is this:

we currently have 50,000 people

arriving annually, while our population is shrinking —

200,000 people leave the country every year, and

that, in fact, is a monstrous thing

that is happening to the country right now.

The problem of migration hasn’t been solved anywhere, but

the starting point is still

a visa regime.

If you have a huge number of

Muslim countries with poor populations,

low urbanization, and traditional social structures,

that makes a big difference, because the United States

attracts, for example, migrants from

Latin America, but migrants

from Islamic countries, for example, they do not let in.

Because that, too, is generally considered

a violation of human rights, probably.

On the surface, it looks like a violation of human rights.

Authorities in all countries associate

crime with newcomers, but in fact

statistics show that labor

migrants commit the fewest

crimes, because they come to work hard,

and why would they get involved in

anything else when they came here to work? I’ve

seen this many times: they get fired from a construction site, or

someone breaks a leg, and there is no medical

insurance. So what does he do? He calls

his cousin and says,

‘Bro, bring me, please, 1

kilogram of heroin, because I have to

find some way out of this situation.’

That’s how an organized flow

of illegal immigrants will emerge, whereas right now

it is unorganized. Wait a second — but right now they are

legal.

They will become illegal, they will have even

fewer rights, and their situation will be even more constrained.

It will only get worse. No, listen, that’s not

true at all. I’m telling you,

it will be exactly like Mexico with this

system. I’m sorry, but you don’t understand a damn thing

about how this is structured, yet

you love making sweeping claims.

An emotional judgment, an emotional

judgment. But I’m simply telling you

that I speak with migrants

directly, every day — well, not

every day, but for two months a year, very

often I talk to them, so I know

what I’m talking about.

They suffer from this — the people

who come to work suffer more

under this regime. The main thing I

encounter is not just my conversations

with migrants, but also my understanding,

my understanding that in all developed

countries there is a visa regime.

It’s not a panacea, and all of this is still

very complicated. It doesn’t solve 30 percent

of the problems, but it does solve 70 percent of them. And

we don’t have a visa regime, and we’re trying

to invent some kind of workaround that simply doesn’t

work in Russia.

Yes, yes, there are countries with which there is no — well,

for example, tell me,

please, a country in the Americas that doesn’t have one. There isn’t one. With

Israel,

there is a regime; Afghanistan — with whom is there no visa regime?

With us. We have to admit that

economically, Russia is not as

attractive as the United States

of America.

And so, in fact, it is beneficial for Russia,

beneficial, for example, for those companies that

— I’m saying it is beneficial — to attract these

migrants. It is beneficial for us to have visa-free travel

with Israel and, I don’t know, with

Switzerland, with all developed countries.

But with Central Asian countries, it is not beneficial for us; ideologically

perhaps it makes sense for us to have visa-free travel with

Israel; perhaps it is beneficial for us to allow in, in a

political sense, visa-free travel with developed

countries. Economically,

it is beneficial for us, and it is genuinely beneficial for companies

that people can now come freely and

register easily for, I don’t remember how many

hundred rubles, and then you say, ‘What are you doing?’

It’s not easy for them, and besides,

a work permit is still

hard to obtain there anyway.

Still, it’s a fact: all these

migrants who come here, they still

live like slaves, like slaves, and they are

completely without rights. That’s because

the system is built that way. Okay, then

that’s victim-blaming — so you’re saying

migrants themselves don’t know their rights,

so they live like slaves, whereas they could

live differently? Of course these people

are rightless here and now.

And saying that this somehow helps only

the economy grow — that doesn’t help.

What I want is this: if you turn the Federal Migration Service (FMS) into

an organizing institution, like the ‘My Documents’ public service centers,

then in the Beautiful Russia of the Future (a Russian political phrase meaning an ideal future Russia), it will

work like ‘My Documents,’ only a hundred

times better. A large part of this problem

would disappear.

Then there would be no need

for us to live under this kind of arbitrary power.

We’ll fix everything and make it normal, but at the same time

there will be a visa regime, there will be electronic visas.

There will be visas, documents, and the right to

work, and the requirement to buy

insurance. In that sense, we will make life easier

both for ourselves and for emigrants, because

once again, because what we are doing is

introducing what is necessary, while a great deal

of what is unnecessary will be abolished.

[music]

Let’s talk about another painful issue

that is also related to

the economy. I’ve spoken several times

with people who lived through

it—and we did too, in a sense—

the easing of the sanctions regime.

I mean the Soviet Union, and with people

who were older than we are now

and who say: do you understand that

even the sanctions that were imposed

on the Soviet Union were never fully lifted?

The Jackson–Vanik amendment was repealed only recently;

it remained in force until quite recently. What’s more,

it had long since lost any real relevance,

because it was, so to speak, about

the Jewish question—that is, the process

of lifting sanctions

is a very long and complicated story,

regardless of who is in

power. Two presidents came and went before

that repeal finally happened.

I think some of the sanctions

—the Crimea-related sanctions—will remain with us for

many, many years. But they are the least

problematic. Any sanctions create problems, but

what are called the Crimea sanctions

are, well, something that involves

some fairly minimal restrictions.

I’m not ready right now

to clearly and substantively

rank all these sanctions, but my

understanding is that the Crimea-related

sanctions are the ones most likely to remain.

For political reasons, neither Europe

nor the United States will be able to lift them under a different

or next president, whoever that may be.

They will clearly stay for a long time. Here I’m simply

relying on the opinion of authorities in this

field.

As for the other sanctions, they will go away,

and I am sure fairly quickly, if

the current form of Putin’s regime goes.

What makes me think that? Because the main

reason for imposing sanctions is the war

in Ukraine. That is what made Europe

and the United States anxious and alarmed, because

for 70 years they had been building a space

where there were no wars, where everyone lived under conditions

—apart from Yugoslavia—

and in Yugoslavia the whole world got involved, rightly so,

and for many people it ended

quite badly. But overall,

the entire system

of security had been built so that Europeans, Americans, and

everyone else believed there would be

a zone where this sort of thing would not happen—where

tanks would not be firing and people would not be carrying

their

belongings on their backs, and refugees would not be

running somewhere. And then suddenly, in the center of Europe, we

started a war. So naturally all

the European countries and the United States were thrown into panic.

If there is no war, the sanctions will be lifted. I

think that is too idealistic a view.

Take exactly the same example:

under Jackson–Vanik, Jews had long since begun

to emigrate, but the sanctions were not lifted for another 15 years.

No one made any significant effort

to repeal those sanctions.

Jackson–Vanik could have been repealed long ago, but

it had effectively stopped functioning anyway.

It was just renewed every year. I’m not saying that everything

will be easy, of course. The question of lifting sanctions

will depend first and foremost on

what administration is in power there,

in European capitals and in the United States. There will always

be different views; there will always be people

who will say, ‘But what about

Crimea?’ That is exactly the issue.

Let’s imagine the future for a moment.

Let’s leave Putin aside for now

because these sanctions were imposed because of him.

He also introduced

idiotic countersanctions which, from the point

of view of the economy, are even worse for us. I

can imagine how we could repeal

the countersanctions—that is actually much easier. But with

Crimea, what do we do? Because there will always

be some senator or group of

senators who say, ‘They want to lift them

already?’

Well then, let them put everything back in place first.

Let them end the war, and Crimea—there will always

be a political camp that will

demand a zero-option solution.

And in fact, that will not even necessarily be tied

to Russia; it will be tied

to the domestic political situation in the United States.

There will always be such a camp. Our

task, through foreign policy efforts,

is to make sure that this camp remains in

the minority. If we reach an understanding with the

administration, we will stop once the war

is over. As I understand it,

the question is: what needs to be done about Crimea?

Another referendum needs to be held in Crimea,

you say? Suppose

—suppose it says, ‘We want

to remain.’ Well then, so be it.

We will follow the wishes of those people. Do you

think that would make it

legitimate? It will always, always

be disputed by someone. Of course, someone

will challenge it. But if it is done

that way, if the referendum is fair,

then

its legitimacy will increase.

It will never become one hundred percent legitimate;

several generations would have to pass,

or more likely, the issue would simply fade away.

only when Russia fully comes in

the European Union and Ukraine — that really won't, no

have any significance when this, I mean

at some point, in the case of Donbas, the idea is that

what is being proposed is what Vladimir

Putin

and what everyone else signed: to hand over

control to Ukraine

hold new elections there, give them

some form of local self-government, I mean

it will always be a very painful process

when blood has been spilled, people say, people

feel they are different, and have felt themselves

to be enemies; they were killing each other recently, so it will be a very

painful process that will

start, break down, start again — the main thing is to want to do it

to do it. That is, if we want to fix something there

we can put it in order fairly quickly, but

right now Russia's policy

is based on the idea that Ukraine must

become a failed state, that Ukraine must not

succeed at anything, and of course Donbas is

the main lever. No matter what remarkable

achievements Zelensky might accomplish there

or any other president, in the economy, in

social policy — you can always

pull that Donbas lever and then

everything will go completely off the rails

and the only issue in Ukraine's domestic

politics will once again become war — not

war or no war, but soldiers, conscription, and everything will collapse

10,000 people have already died, that's enough, and I'm

saying that this cannot simply be reset to zero

just like that, and it will not be healed in

the next 50 years. How do we make it so that

it can at least begin to heal? Leave them

alone. That's basically it. So, if I

were to imagine a pleasant thought experiment

in which I am the president of the Russian

Federation — do you often picture yourself that way? Well, I

often put myself not exactly there, but I do imagine

situations in which I'm riding around in, say,

a 12-meter-long car, I imagine

situations involving difficult decisions, what I would

do in that situation. So of course

he has to make, every single day,

a hundred very difficult decisions, and I think

about this. The decision is that we

must understand that objective reality

and our own interest lie in ensuring that

Ukraine becomes a prosperous state

the better things are in Ukraine, the better it is for us; the

richer Ukraine is

the richer we are. We need to leave them alone

and let them do what they want

together with Germany, Europe, and the United States, we move

on Donbas within the framework of these

agreements already signed by Putin

and that's it. I don't want Ukraine to always

dominate Russia's foreign and domestic

policy so heavily. It seems to me Russia

and everyone else have all grown tired of it

it seems to me that what it does — I mean, in the

PR sphere it dominates, but it seems to me

that this is, roughly speaking,

an ideological war with the West on

Ukrainian territory. That's how it has always been, yes

and the question is this: perhaps for

Russia and for the United States, a situation in which two

sides perceive each other as

geopolitical adversaries

may go so far that turning back

will be very, very prolonged, and it is not

really about Ukraine — especially since

Ukraine is clearly gravitating now

having been pushed away by Russia

toward the West. I think that with

Russia's current image

in the world, the situation will be either

neutral or bad, but not good

Russia's current image in the world is shaped

by a very small number of factors

first, the war in Ukraine; second, the Skripal case; and

third, Litvinenko; fourth, the hacking of those

emails by some murky hackers; these are

these four absurd motifs

in the press campaign

but that's an American campaign, though

a campaign of a fairly, well,

I mean, clearly provocative and

irritating, so to speak, biased portrayal

of Russia. That is, if something is written about Russia

then it is automatically bad

well, I wouldn't put it that way; at least I

don't really see some kind of, you know, sharp line there

I don't see that. But this is precisely an internal

political factor. If everyone in the world

— the rest is hard to make out —

for me this really hits a nerve

I mean, to such an extent that, well,

you start to feel embarrassed saying you're from

Russia. I watch your program, and it's wonde...

there are lots of wonderful Russians or Soviet-born people

or just wonderful people

I came, I recently met with you in

Palo Alto — every other person there is Russian

you just walk around and don't even realize. There are

also a significant number of people

who will not give interviews in Russian

because they don't want in America to be

somehow associated with it. And the problem, the problem

is one we largely created ourselves. If we

decided in this cartoon

to portray ourselves as villains, then well, there's no need

to be offended that everyone else will then

position themselves as the good guys in contrast to us, while we

are the villains. In a way that's actually good

in fact, nobody wants to spend their

time on some kind of struggle with us. If we have

a normal country, everything will change

very quickly, if we stop sending

those two idiots who were in the middle of

a city poisoning someone with chemical

weapons. But then who would

be rewarded, stumbling around, in order to

cover up...

to fix this, it is not enough simply

to stop — enormous effort is needed

I don’t begrudge any amount; what we need is

not to prove anything to anyone or do

special nice things for them.

We need to do good things for ourselves.

The unique and wonderful thing about the situation is

that we need to do good things

for ourselves — to tell ourselves that,

to put it this way, Russians deserve

to finally live well, truly well.

To hell with Ukraine and everyone else.

We’re going to build our own wonderful,

beautiful state and be friends with everyone.

We’re in a unique situation where

we don’t need to fight anyone; we can

trade with everyone and make money from it,

good money, really good money.

And when we stop harming ourselves and doing

this truly pointless nonsense that irritates

the establishment, including the Western establishment,

and when we finally start getting richer and

become a more attractive trading partner,

everyone will love us and adore us.

You were just saying, quite relevantly, that Russia

will become a wealthy European country.

Russian people like to reflect on

how special they are. Yes, it will be

a completely distinctive but civilized

European country. What historical

grounds do you have for thinking

that this will happen?

Was there ever a period in Russian

history when it was, as you say,

a normal European country?

We don’t need any historical

grounds. I simply have life itself, the people

I see around me. I can see that

things are actually great, that everything is developing.

One of the things — actually, it’s frustrating, the agenda

has shifted to a positive agenda — one of the things

that I kept thinking about,

when people talked about Europe, was that I see

that these are the same people. How wonderful

it would have been for Russia if not for these

20 lost years. Just look at the internet

or mobile communications. I don’t think all

20 years were lost. Fine, since 2005,

or from 2000 — but really, since 2007 we’ve

been in completely lost time.

And there was the global crisis, the global

crisis — but others emerged from the global crisis,

someone got out of it. We...

We — since 2007, we’ve been bombing Voronezh (a Russian idiom meaning harming ourselves to spite others).

Every year, we make things worse for ourselves.

Still, 145 or 150 million people live here,

people who earn money every day,

they buy things, they buy

clothes or ice cream, they buy

cars, so some kind of

development exists anyway — there’s some even in North Korea.

There is some. It’s just that we are here,

when we could be over there. That’s exactly what

I’m trying to say: ours is not

some horrible, monstrous country.

It’s a normal country, but we could live

much better; we could have done much

more. Why did I mention mobile

communications and the internet? They’re excellent examples of

how the areas of growth the state

didn’t interfere in really took off here.

Our internet is better than in Silicon Valley.

We have Yandex.

That was our spaceship,

the one we launched.

And in general, it’s a super high-tech product.

Who else has their own Yandex?

We can be incredibly cool, and we will be,

if we stop bombing Voronezh (that is, hurting ourselves).

I regret to say

that economic growth is achievable,

unfortunately, even in countries with authoritarian and

even totalitarian regimes. Here’s an example:

China. The Chinese model, much to my

regret, proves to me that within

a single generation,

400 million people can begin living

radically better lives without economic

freedoms.

So why are you arguing? We, we, we

are living much better now than we were

in 1999 or in 2000.

By 6 percent on average — all right, and another

key point: to achieve all this

wonderful progress, of course, as everyone says,

you need independent courts. But where do you get

such a large number of

honest, let’s say untainted,

people, and how do you change this

system overnight? You don’t need that many — seven

million. To staff the system, you need to find 200,000.

For that system, they can all be found.

The issue with the courts right now is the whole system around them.

What is the problem? In practice, judges

are appointed by the Presidential Administration,

or rather, in reality, by a personnel commission

on which

the FSB (Russia’s security service) sits. They decide who becomes a judge and who

doesn’t. That’s the first point. Second: an ordinary judge

is effectively in bondage to the chief judge,

who, through the way cases are assigned,

simply manipulates everything. Third: where do judges come from, and how?

How do people become judges? A young woman

comes to work there as a court secretary,

while also completing

a law degree by correspondence. Five years later, there she is — and they’ve

trained her, drilled her like a circus bear,

trained her to do this and that,

trained her to say the phrase:

“Please sign to confirm that you’ve

been informed; sign to confirm that your

rights have been read to you.” Beyond that, they don’t know a damn thing

and can’t do a damn thing. There are

four provisions of the procedural code,

civil and criminal, that they’ve learned

to apply — like a trained monkey — and

that’s it. And these are our judges.

Add a few former police officers,

a few prosecutors, and that’s

the judicial system we have. But what kind of...

No bar association anywhere

where the professional level of the people is

incomparably higher than in that secretariat.

We do have courts and police,

and the academic community is quite

large, and

we have people to replace them with — the main thing would be

the will to do it, because

for example — I mean, I have never

thought the courts were sufficiently independent. They

never were; throughout the 1990s they were not

independent. All through the 1990s they sat there...

There’s that well-known saying, remember:

"Once I take something on, I’ll see it through" — well, they started

watching them, but they were never independent. That’s one

of the reasons why I, once a big

admirer of Yeltsin and that whole crowd

— that whole gang — am no longer one, and now, as of

2019, I hate them all for it,

because they did absolutely nothing about

the courts. For their own purposes, they left this whole

— excuse me — Soviet-era system

in place. The chairman of the Supreme

Court, Lebedev, tried dissidents for

distributing the Bible, and now the same man

upholds sentences against people who, supposedly,

have offended the religious rights

of citizens. Back then, they should at least have

started replacing at least those

who had already been shaped by the old system. Business people used to say

that at a certain point, all jokes aside,

there emerged a fairly

competent commercial arbitration system, not at all

entangled.

I sued Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft

and so on, and everywhere in this wonderful

arbitration system I lost, despite the fact

that it was plainly, 100 percent, written there that they

had to hand over the documents, and they did not,

and they declared me a bad-faith shareholder.

Back then, what they needed was not

to purge at least the most odious judges

who had stained their reputations

and who handed down illegal rulings every day,

political rulings, back then, during

perestroika (the late-Soviet reform period). They needed

to be replaced.

People needed to be given at least a little

independence. They were afraid to do it

because

the courts, for the then-presidential administration,

for that whole gang,

for Yeltsin, Yumashev, Chubais — they needed

courts under their control, because they

thought they would manage them well.

Like: yes, the courts are under control, but

we’ll only ask them for good things,

that’s all.

And in general, it seems to me all leaders fall into

that trap. Yes, in fact, one of the problems

that happened in Georgia — and this is the main thing —

and what the new people in

Russia must not do, is say: well, let’s

reform everything here, but the courts

we’ll keep in reserve, because I’m a good guy, I

won’t, so to speak, abuse them.

Make a note of that and remind me of it

for sure, if it so happens that I

end up holding some position of power.

I need this shown to me.

I’ll remind you of it very clearly. You say

you’re for freedom of the media. Yes — well, I don’t remember...

No, of course, Mikhail — yes, Mikhail Leontyevich.

That’s a different matter, but when you criticize the media,

you come close to a line.

They may be wrong about some things,

or they may be right, they may justify

their decisions — the media often make mistakes. I spent more than 20

years in the media.

The media make mistakes all the time, everywhere,

and often write nonsense. But the way you

react

when the media write something that seems to you

incorrect

is just, well, wild. A good example

is your constant conflicts with

*Vedomosti*, when, I mean, at least

I can imagine how that system works from the inside.

You understand that in fact

they may have messed up, or they may have

simply worked that way — that’s how it is structured.

Or people make mistakes, or people make

certain judgments because they

are sincerely mistaken. But you steamroll

over them immediately like a tank.

Absolutely I do, and I consider it very important.

Just as you remind me, so I, with all

my great respect for the media, and despite everything,

while believing that independent media

are an absolutely crucial thing for

Russia’s future, indeed for any

normal society — still, if they can be harassed like this,

that is exactly why I want them to remain media. I’m from the

newspaper *Vedomosti*. But it’s easy to discuss this with

you, because the newspaper

*Vedomosti* during your time as editor-in-chief

there effectively became

my

godparents in the profession.

Put that on the record.

And when you covered me — yes, when I was suing

oil companies, you were there, writing columns.

When I was suing companies, and you

were covering it — *Kommersant*, for example, did not

write a single article about it, ever.

*Vedomosti* always wrote about it. I kept

thinking: who are these people? I didn’t know anyone there

at the time. You were simply writing because it

mattered — these were important

stories, and you wrote important news.

And then you named me Person of the Year.

And after that, for me, you simply became

the model of how

the media should be organized, and I lived with the illusion that there was

some institution that would remain that way forever.

And then, when you were no longer there,

*Vedomosti* was devoured; they turned into

something like — well, not quite the same, but gradually...

Censored, lightly: I can't stomach this, I...

I absolutely, unequivocally refuse to allow *Vedomosti* (a Russian business daily) to

compromise. That was my main

newspaper. I read it for years, and it

belongs to me as a reader too,

it was a kind of public asset, and even now it is

an asset. How long that will remain so—and Demyan

Kudryavtsev—unclear. Let's leave that aside for

now. I can't just leave him out of it, you know.

The conflict wasn't with Kudryavtsev over some abstract issue,

it was with specific authors,

specific articles, about which Demyan, I'm

sure, had nothing to do with them—he had his own priorities.

Still, my main conflict

had nothing to do with that at all.

My main grievance,

my fundamental grievance with *Vedomosti*, is that

Kudryavtsev headed Sobchak's campaign headquarters

while at *Vedomosti*. Everyone there knew about it, and no one

wrote about it. In other words, they knew and

lied in every article they published, and that is exactly

the point.

And we had talked about it before, in an interview.

Demyan said he did not head the campaign, as he

claims—not necessarily. I asked him

about it directly; I interviewed him.

But John said that *Vedomosti* should have

established that this was not true, that he had

an office there and was running things. Everyone knew that.

Everyone knew it, and you know that perfectly well, and everyone around

knew it too, and everyone at *Vedomosti* knew it, but they

lied, and I can't let that slide. But we

have to admit this. It's much harder for me to admit

than to admit that I was editor-in-chief,

and the editor-in-chief is the person

in an authoritarian role: neither you nor I

determine the editorial policy

of *Vedomosti*.

*Vedomosti*'s editorial policy

is determined by the editor-in-chief, who

looks at the world based on the conditions

they are working under. I'm not talking right now

about procedure—no, wait a second—rather,

it is specifically the editor-in-chief who decides what

is important and what is not for the news

agenda.

You sound puzzled, but I'm saying this quite plainly:

they must—we make certain demands

and we should make demands

of politicians, and in exactly the same way

we can make demands of—well,

in an informal sense—they have their own

agenda, their own business interests, they

think they cover business and

politics and everything else, and when they lie or

deliberately keep quiet about something, I don't think

—I mean, with everyone else I wouldn't

care.

But with *Vedomosti*, I don't think I should

stay silent, because it's my newspaper. Well, even if

it stopped being mine a long time ago,

I still have nothing to lose by reading it, and this is my

deep frustration: there's almost nothing left to read there, but I

found it in others too—I've forgotten the exact point—but this kind of thing

is so glaring that I think with it

this is the most important basic institution, without which

nothing good will remain for us. But

at the same time, I do not think that you journalists

are some kind of saintly, wonderful

people. I have to disabuse you of that. In fact,

everyone thinks so, but let me boast a little: I

have written more texts in my life than

most *Vedomosti* journalists, and I

—friends—I myself have been doing

journalism

or something close to journalism for years,

and therefore I believe I am fully entitled

to criticize both individual journalists and

individual media outlets. But overall,

I consider the media as an institution the most important thing,

the most important, and that is precisely why, Nastya, it is

sometimes possible to cross certain lines in some situations.

You can do it—there is no criticism without some degree of personal address.

When criticism is given without

Alexei, I categorically do not

agree with that. *Vedomosti* would never allow itself

to write

on its social media—I don't know—something like 'a cello case'

or 'a corrupt politician.'

You can't resort to insults, and you can't make it personal,

in my view.

To say that you—I'll tell you about

adjectives: that is making it personal.

We had a rule like that at *Vedomosti*:

don't use adjectives like

'wonderful',

'vile'—well, 'a crook' is actually

not an adjective but a noun: 'crook.'

No, that's not neutral—it is both a factual claim and a judgment.

If it's true, then saying that about a newspaper means it is

true. I think that a torrent of lies is exactly that.

And besides, 'crook' does not necessarily mean

someone literally stole something; a crook is someone who steals,

deceives, a fraudster.

He is definitely one of those things, no question.

Demyan Kudryavtsev is destroying my newspaper.

I'm not obliged to call him anything else than a crook, and

I am not saying that he stole anything.

I am saying that he is a crook.

I've just explained that he

while being

the publisher of *Vedomosti*, headed

the campaign headquarters of one of the candidates, while at the same time

the newspaper was publishing columns about how wonderful it was

that a woman was finally running in the election, and

everyone at the paper knew that

their publisher was heading the campaign of a pro-

Kremlin candidate. Well, they should have written about

it. I regret that they didn't. They didn't all need

to resign; they simply needed to write

some kind of disclaimer, or he should have

publicly disclosed it. If he denied his role, we could prove it.

If not, then I'll be damned—I'm

sure that no one at *Vedomosti* failed to know that

he was heading the campaign. Well then, if they didn't know,

they should all have resigned, because if they all

did know—but if these journalists who

cover politics don't know who is who...

heads the candidates' campaign headquarters, although this

was known—everyone in politics knew it, as if

they should all be fired. Answer me

please. And since we're at it, I really

think—for me, you have always been someone who

perhaps there one of the main reasons for

there is no investigation, honestly. But tell

me, please, give me permission

to call Vladimir Solovyov a crook and

Dmitry Kiselyov too, while we're at it

if you can prove it. I mean, it would be easier for me

it would be easier. Vladimir Solovyov

made that—from the lake side, and right away

we see a large three-story house with

an attic

in front of it, a small pier, a private

swimming pool, neat gardens, and several more

outbuildings nearby. This is

the Italian house that grew in his

we turn and fly around the house. Its

area is more than 900 square meters

thank God, it was built before Solovyov

so it looks quite nice

not politics—I don't need, so to speak, to

recruit anyone. Just say the phrase

looking right here: Alexei, can you call

him that? I will say that if you

have facts—I mean, I live by this

paradigm: if I have facts, I do not

have to hide the facts

you are deliberately dodging the questions. I am answering

as best I can, and then formulate

the question more precisely. Do you allow

the following phrase to be used? You would begin:

"Solovyov is a crook because he

bought two villas on Lake Como

and at the same time, appearing on

Russian propaganda channels

he talks about how terrible Europe is." I think that

you can make such value-laden

judgments if you have an evidentiary

basis that you can immediately present. Vladimir

Rudolfovich

Elizaveta, in your life, do you want

to ask me: the death penalty—for or against? Against.

I am fundamentally against it

the inevitability of punishment is what works here

there is a huge amount of research, it seems to me

I think

answer—80 percent of voters... I

understand you, that this is not a popular

point of view. In the U.S., and here, support for the death

penalty remains; in any European and liberal

country, it is not necessarily a majority there

but a substantial number of people

when a person is emotional, when they are

shown someone—this is also like with

journalists—not an abstract thing, but

they show: here is someone, he killed these children

everyone says, we must kill him in return

and it is hard to argue with that. So here

we need to think about the bigger picture. The bigger

picture is that

crime, including all these

murderers, is stopped by the inevitability

of punishment, not by retribution. Besides

when it comes to Russia, the rate

of judicial error is so high, or

the rate of outright falsification is such that we simply

cannot allow ourselves this. It will not improve anything

What do you think—will they lift

the moratorium? No, I think this is simply

such a political ploy in order to

discuss it and once again provoke a kind of

clash between the conservative and liberal

publics, but it will not work. Maybe among

the liberal public it still

can provoke a clash and shift

the agenda. Two years ago

various people, knowledgeable people, told me

that in the Kremlin it was being planned

to run a campaign discussing the introduction of the death

penalty—in other words, so that this

would become some main topic of discussion

they probably used this

Saratov murder for that. The way

this discussion is going, I can see that this is exactly

what it is. How do you feel about

the claim that Navalny is a Kremlin project?

For me, that is already a marker now, I mean

well, obviously it does not—no, it does not annoy me at all

I simply consider such people either

crooks or stupid. I know everything about myself

voters can be stupid too, but

yes, voters can be stupid. About

voters I am not speaking. Voters could have

calculated it clearly, but people who

claim that they understand something

and then make such statements—one immediately

understands some kind of nonsense. What I

know is that they are lying, and my activities

over all these years have been quite transparent, yes

I mean, everything I did—I wrote about all of it

it was all actively covered

by journalists, plus all these Kremlin

guys are constantly filming me and

posting my emails and everything else

under the sun, and they film me on vacation, they film

me there, they film everything. When I walk down the street

two people walk behind me who

film me nonstop. They came here—they did not

come with us only because we kind of managed to shake them off

from them

but almost always they are filming me, and

therefore my—my life is so visible

that, it seems to me, only a somewhat dim person

could suppose such a thing

Did Dasha's admission to Stanford weaken

your position?

I think it strengthened it, strengthened it. I think that

it strengthened it because after all

for me this is a very important part of my

positioning. I am not asked about this very often

I mean, I value

education very highly. The fact that I was at Yale, I also

consider a very great advantage of mine

because I understand how the system there works

the system. The fact that my child was admitted, as

I think he’s talking about me as a parent.

who would be able to

teach a child something—I value that.

I understand the value of a global education.

It’s great that American universities and

global universities, let’s call them that,

are much better. In other words, it’s better to go to a

university that ranks higher,

one that is in second or third place,

than one that is ranked 122nd. That trump card—

that people will say, “Navalny sent

his child abroad without understanding how

the payment system works.”

Stanford is known as one of the most expensive

universities. In what you said about how

the elite are evacuating their children abroad—well,

yes, that is definitely used against me.

A lot of things are used against me.

Some of it is just nonsense, outright fabrications used against

me, but I believe that

strategically, over a long

period of time, of course, it works in my favor.

Can you explain again how you managed

to get in without having to pay?

It’s a simple system, which, again, I only

kind of understood how it worked when

someone first came up to me and said:

students from Russia don’t usually apply, and I asked,

“So what does it cost?”

They said, “Well, look at the statistics.

Most of our students

at this university study almost

for free, or entirely for free. It’s the same at

Stanford. I simply got the paperwork, went to the

bank, got the statements, sent them there, and

they saw that my annual income was less than,

I think, $120,000. If it’s below $130,000,

that means Stanford pays the tuition,

and I only have to pay for housing,

or maybe not even that—there’s something like

up to $25,000 a year you still have to pay

for food and things like that, somewhere around that amount, a bit less.

If your annual income

is under $60,000, then even housing and

food are covered by Stanford, but you’ll have to

make some contribution yourself, somehow.

Something like that. So actually, for me,

my biggest expense was

renting an apartment. Now there’s also

the dorm, but it’s set up in a fairly

interesting way. They really

lay out a financial plan:

what we expect from you as a student, how much

your parents will pay, and how much

you will pay and need to earn yourself.

They provide campus jobs, and how much

that is—I can’t say, because there’s a

figure, roughly, and in general it’s on the website,

but you actually get a letter saying

that you are not allowed to disclose it—it literally

says so. My idea was that even

just so it would be discussed less, I should speak

openly about it, show everything, publish all

the documents—but it explicitly says that

you must not publish them.

Where and what should you study to build

a successful business?

This is a question I constantly ask in my

interviews on the Russian Norm project.

People basically say that you take someone’s

21st-century daughter—well, why can’t you just study

technology, since it effectively

brings together all the necessary subjects from

a concept like the iPhone—these things somehow

seem to take all of life into account for some reason.

Constantly.

But to this day, people still won’t be able to create

something completely new, something meaningful,

from scratch.

Accordingly, you need to learn how to

create new things. We finish our formal

education at 22, or at best by 30

years old.

We get our degrees, and yet the most

successful businesses, statistically, are founded by people

at 45.

The world changes so quickly that over those 15 to 17

years, your knowledge becomes completely outdated.

Entrepreneurship, meanwhile, requires

constant renewal, constant innovation.

And the people who build companies

and run businesses don’t have two years—

not even two months—to prepare for an exam.

That’s the reality.

Specifically for entrepreneurs and

executives,

together with the business institute at

Berkeley and UC Berkeley, we developed

a unique educational program in

the Valley. It will take place at the end of February

2020. You simply cannot afford

to miss this course: 10 days of intensive

classes led by top

professors from Berkeley and

Stanford University, practical

workshops with active participant involvement,

meetings with entrepreneurs and

investors from Silicon Valley, and

an official certificate of participation from

the organizers. The participant application form,

pricing information, and participation terms

are available via the link in the first comment.

How will you earn money? The same way

I do now. I have an individual entrepreneur status,

and the account hasn’t been blocked yet,

and I work as a lawyer, mainly on

cases in European courts right now. I mean,

I receive

fees from people—right now from

one person, for example.

Actually, I can even disclose this information without any problem:

through Zimin (likely referring to Boris Zimin, Russian philanthropist),

for the past few months, he has been

supporting me. Zimin and I agreed that I

would organize some kind of work, projects,

for which he would effectively pay me

a fee. And that includes work

with organizations involved in defending various people.

people at the European Court of Human Rights

It’s a big undertaking and requires

a lot of coordination. I work on this,

including as paid work, and

how much exactly is confidential information, but you

will see it in the next declaration

that I publish. Actually, we

have nothing—nothing particularly new compared

with my previous declaration.

A little, well—I mean, it’s hard for me to pay

for both the dorm and a rented

apartment at the same time, but I have fairly few

expenses. My lifestyle is pretty simple.

Let’s keep it simple: what’s your athletic

goal? I wanted to run 10 kilometers in under 50

minutes. No, wait—what’s your current time?

Right now, if I ran a 10K all-out,

for time—at the Moscow Half Marathon

I once ran it in 58 minutes, I think, or maybe 59.

So you haven’t broken 50 minutes yet.

Well, I mean, it’s probably hard—people probably laugh at

a goal like that if they run a lot,

but I was only 46 seconds short.

Oh, so you didn’t break it either. See?

See, I’ll be improving slowly, but

actually I’ve clearly changed

my goal a bit. I made my running goal simply

to start enjoying, say,

a five-kilometer run three times a

week. I enjoy it when I run

in a nice place. When I run

near Avtozavodskaya, close to home, I mean

I’m more forcing myself. If you’re somewhere

where there’s a park nearby

or if you at least make it to Luzhniki (a major sports complex in Moscow) and

run there along the river, then of course

it’s much easier to get into it—you end up running

two or three times more.

After 5, you’ll automatically get there, but

I’m just afraid that then it won’t be

enjoyable for the first 10K, that

it’s important—really important—not to quit, right?

That’s why I don’t want to make it so that

running becomes associated for me with

some completely unpleasant

feelings. I already had a hard time making myself

run, and I’m proud that I’ve kept it up for almost a year now

with regular runs—really

regular—and I want to keep that going.

That’s okay. Thank you—thank you so much.

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