Alexei Navalny’s interview on the program “Sobchak Live” on the TV Rain (Dozhd) channel. Part 2

We are live on Sobchak Live, and with me

still in the studio is Alexei Anatolyevich

Navalny, a candidate for mayor of Moscow. It’s just that

once I became a mayoral candidate, you kept

emphasizing all the time that I’m Anatolyevich, which is

of course—I’m already somehow learning to pronounce

the first name and patronymic correctly, as many people

write it. So, you believe in victory? That’s

good. All right, let’s talk about something else.

About your criticism of Sobyanin: in your blog

and in your public appearances, I’ve read and heard a great

deal, but I’d still like to know, in your

view, what good has Sobyanin done during

this time, and which of his initiatives are you

prepared to continue—or is there nothing at all

for which you could praise

Sobyanin? Well, compared with

the Luzhkov era, even if these things

were obvious and clearly needed

to be done, the Luzhkov period

is not especially different from the Sobyanin period.

What good has Sobyanin done? He has done something,

without a doubt, for this “something”

he deserves credit. At least at the level of

rhetoric, he began talking more about

the inadmissibility of infill development

especially at the beginning of his tenure, it really was

connected with the fact that many

things were reconsidered. Now we see

that the construction... well, what I liked was this:

I like any steps toward

transparency, fighting corruption, and so on.

What was being done at the first stage

looked more or less, at least

in terms of the statements, more or less acceptable to me.

For example, I liked that he brought into

the economic bloc Andrei Sharonov—that’s

an excellent professional—and there were

a couple of other people too. I liked

that at the initial stage he consulted people, and

his program was written by many of the same people who

later helped me write my program. But

all these ritual, rhetorical things

came to an end.

After a few months. Well, why?

Advertising banners, park improvements,

some genuinely useful decisions on

bike lanes—you should say,

well, there are pluses here. I try

to look at the whole picture. And I can

explain—I try to look at

the picture from above: here is a city with

a budget of 1.6 trillion rubles

—a gigantic budget for a gigantic city.

Sobyanin is not engaged in improving

the management of the city, but in PR. They’ve

made bike lanes—let’s photograph them,

let’s do

a hundred reports about them and say that this is great.

It is good, but when people tell me what a

wonderful Gorky Park

we now have, I say that in the city of

Moscow there is so much money that with that money

my Maryinsky Park should look

magnificent too, and no worse than Gorky Park. But

when I see this—well, you understand, something is better

than nothing: a park was done up, advertising was removed,

spot development ended. Thank you

very much to Sobyanin for not

having us shot, you know—and why not praise him for that

even if he is your competitor? Well,

I am not going to praise a competitor for the fact that

out of 100 items in his job description

he fulfilled two. The previous one maybe

fulfilled only one, and this one started

fulfilling two—am I supposed to praise him? I

want him to fulfill all 100, or at least

to start fulfilling more and more of them.

I see the trend, and I see that

Resin, the embodiment of corruption

and the construction mafia, was an adviser to

Sobyanin and now sits in the State Duma

representing United Russia, and the same

very influential mafia from Kazan

—the construction mafia that was simply

brought here by Sobyanin and his hometown mafia network—

headed by Kusnirovich... these are the same

con artists who are handed the same

suitcases of money, just through a different entrance.

You wrote about Kusnirovich, and your position on that is

clear. What interests me is something else. All right,

instead of these people, let’s imagine

a situation in which Alexei Navalny

wins the Moscow mayoral election—what kind of

purge will there be at City Hall? Who will be the people

who come in with you, and whom will you remove?

Who will stay? You mention Sharonov; I know

that you have also spoken very

positively about Pechatnikov. I don’t know

whether Kapkov will stay, whether others will stay...

Positively about Pechatnikov—you’re mistaken.

There are people who represent

the political leadership of City Hall—those are

the people who really

determine policy. As for those now sitting

in City Hall, some are better, some are

worse; some fulfill zero

points of their job

descriptions. From the current leadership of the mayor’s office,

of course, no one would stay. But that is inevitable when

a new mayor comes in through an election:

naturally, the political team

running the city has to change.

Otherwise, none of it makes any sense. It’s very important

to understand that the city is not run by these

20 people, but by tens of thousands of people.

The prefectures, district administrations, and so on.

It’s impossible to replace them all in a single day,

and there’s no need to. You simply need

to put in place different political

leadership so that these

people develop the right priorities,

the right messages. Alexei Navalny:

What will this political

leadership look like? At least a few names—and

where will you get these people? How

will you hire them?

There are a great many people around me,

starting with municipal deputies

who have served as municipal deputies for many years

and understand urban problems extremely well

at the grassroots level and at the middle

level of the prefectures, and at the level of city

services. Around me there are people who

have run huge corporations, like

Vladimir Ashurkov. Around me there are people

who are involved in governance in one way or

another, in representative and legislative institutions,

in cities—for example, Volkov,

Leonid, who serves in the city

assembly of Yekaterinburg, a city of over one million people.

But are there any major political

figures? You see, major

political figures—I need people

who—you can smirk sarcastically here if you like,

or not—but who will live by the principle of

not lying and not stealing,

and who will also carry out their official

duties. What to do with city

government in general is fairly clear; it’s been

discussed so much and so much has already been

written into various programs. It’s very good that

so many people have this worked out, which is why you say that

the programs of many candidates are very

similar. The only difference is that some people

will carry them out and implement them,

and some won’t. Someone writes a healthcare

program and allocates

for it, as Sobyanin does, an increase in material

resources of 100 billion rubles (about $1 billion USD), of which

30% will be skimmed off, while someone else won’t

do that. That’s all. Yes, someone writes about

a different structure for choosing outpatient clinics, and

I hope we’ll discuss all of that as well.

Look, still, about the team. I know

this question gets asked often, and it’s asked

rhetorically as well—and directly to you—

about who exactly the people on

Sobyanin’s team and Navalny’s team are.

Look, each

candidate, under the new legislation,

was required to nominate three

candidates for appointment to the Federation

Council (the upper house of Russia’s parliament). From these three candidates,

one will later be chosen. To explain it

to our viewers, it’s roughly like

the vice-presidential choice in American elections—these are

people

who are, roughly speaking, supposed to

strengthen the figure of the elected

president, or in our case, the

candidate. Usually they are chosen according to the principle that, well,

if there are pensioners, you need

to put forward someone who will

represent the interests of pensioners; if

there is, I don’t know,

a Black male candidate, or

conversely a white male candidate, then ideally

a Black woman should be

vice president in that situation. In other words,

you need to appeal to the maximum

number of people from different voter groups.

As far as I know, you put forward three

candidates. They are all familiar to me and

respected people, but one could say they are

technical figures: Mr. Ashurkov, and

Bezkaravainy and Lyaskin are still people

from your team who do not have that kind of

major political weight. Was that a deliberate

and intentional

choice? Please don’t be offended, but this

is what’s called “hearing the bell but not knowing where it is” (a Russian expression meaning to have only a vague idea of the facts).

Nothing of what you’ve just

said is true—from the parallels, the parallels with

America, to the fact that for some reason

you called these wonderful people

technical figures. No. The point is, there are

requirements—requirements of this idiotic

legislation—that when

a candidacy is put forward, at registration,

you have to choose three people, one of whom

will later go to the Federation Council, a useless

body that it’s not even clear what it does.

Those are the legal requirements. Nevertheless, among these three people

I included people

about whom I can say that they are

wonderful people. Technical figures?

Why not people who would strengthen you,

for example? Do you mean taking some kind of

idler who is a political figure

just because of their image? For example, Sobyanin has

Shvetsova. People may feel differently about her,

but she is unquestionably someone who

for a long time

has prepared falsifications and ensured

inequality among candidates, for example in the media.

Who has prepared falsifications? Do you

have something specific in mind? I know that

Moscow elections have never been

honest, and your beloved Shvetsova as well

Shvetsova is not my favorite; I brought her up as

an example. She was always involved

in organizing and facilitating these

falsifications through the social sector

through healthcare institutions and

education. It was she who made it so that

despite the fact that for each Muscovite

healthcare spending is

four times higher than for any other

citizen of Russia, in Moscow it is impossible

to get good healthcare. So

you are suggesting that I simply take

some former idiot and

a corrupt loafer and go around with him

simply because he has some kind of

hairstyle and says, "I spent 100 years

working in government bodies." Well,

as a rule, people want to strengthen

themselves. I have a different rule: I

choose the people I believe in and who

have proven themselves through decent work,

people whom I know will not

deceive anyone, will not steal,

they will not

behave in a corrupt way,

and will strengthen me by making other people, looking at their

work, support me even

more strongly. That is what I need.

Can you name the people who will

work at City Hall if you become mayor

of Moscow? Specific names,

specific positions. Well, I don't know, for example,

the Department of Culture will no longer be

headed by Sergei Kapkov, and instead it will be hea...

Sergei Kapkov definitely will not

head the Department of Culture. He

I think does not head the Department of Culture now,

but he heads it because

Sergei Kapkov is a member of United Russia

and Sergei Kapkov, despite the fact that in

personal communication he is quite a pleasant person,

is a representative of this very government. For

me, he represents Sobyanin, Putin,

Abramovich, and United Russia, just so I can be clear.

So that I understand correctly: any person

regardless of whether he made a good park

or built a bike lane or

did something good in healthcare,

if he is connected with the system of power and was

at some point, or is, a member of United

Russia, will not have the opportunity

to work at the level of the political

leadership of the mayor's office? Of course not. Unfortunately, our

system is structured in such a way

that they forced a huge number of people to join United

Russia—I don't know, there are

teachers, doctors, and so on. In a specific

example, who could be better than—well,

let's say now, if you want me to—

All right, who will head the prefecture

of the Southern District, who will head it, who

will—are there people who will take these

political positions? Ksenia, this is all

we still have many days left before the election.

We will still have our

program—it is a living thing

that will be written down,

reworked. We also still have

presentation meetings planned

at which we will talk about, for now,

the people and say what they will do. All of

this will come—please be patient.

There has to be a certain

dramatic structure to it, so of course we cannot

reveal everything now and spell out

everything down to the district administrations. But it will be

detailed at the level of the political

leadership, at the level of the political

leadership. Well, at least maybe

could you name a couple of people? It feels like

you are demanding that I

appoint you somewhere immediately. With all

my affection for you, I definitely cannot

appoint you anywhere, sorry. Let's

talk also about your recent promise

to include environmental points in your

program. First, were you offended

that she nevertheless brought some

criticism of your program into the public sphere, and

second, which specific environmental

points will be included? Well, of course I was not

offended at all, because this is

a normal political process: people

evaluate programs,

they like some things, they do not like others,

it is in fact an endless

process. First, it is impossible to make

a perfect program that appeals

to everyone; the program has to appeal to me. In

any case, there was no separate section on ecology,

and that was what Zhenya Cheirikova's complaints were connected with,

and we discussed all of this with her. We

will spell it out.

The issue is not about including in the program a point saying

"let's plant a million new

trees." It is really about points concerning

compliance with the law. In Moscow they cut off

pieces of land under the pretext of changing their boundaries

and build housing on them. Not because

the program is somehow bad, but because of

corruption—because a contractor comes

and says, "Cut me off a piece of Losiny Ostrov (Elk Island National Park)

and I'll put up a residential complex there." That is what we have to fight.

In your program, in what

way? Law and order are already spelled out in our program.

There must be a master plan, there must be

development plans, and there must be clear

boundaries. If Losiny Ostrov (Elk Island National Park) has boundaries,

then those boundaries cannot be redrawn.

You can’t, as they call it at City Hall, slice off

little pieces from it. There must be a development plan for Moscow.

Here’s a very recent and very

telling example of what is happening right now

in one of Moscow’s main squares, on

Triumfalnaya Square. Today there stands

an enormous ugly tent that has been put up there,

simply a disgrace and an eyesore on

the face of the city.

so that he couldn’t come out there on the thirty-first.

We will not have this kind of nonsense,

when some kind of business

or corrupt interests, or political

interests, dictate, among other things,

the city’s architecture and outward appearance.

Let’s put up any monstrosity at all, so long as

Limonov (Eduard Limonov, opposition politician and writer) doesn’t come here—that’s all. There is no other way

to fight this except by observing the law.

You simply cannot combat this any other way. We’ll

break for a few minutes. Stay

with us. Sobchak live.