You’ve all, of course, read Jack London’s famous story “The Mexican.” The guy got into the professional ring to earn money and buy weapons for the revolution. A big bruiser—the crowd favorite—was pounding him, and whenever it became almost unbearable, he would look out at the audience and imagine that all those spectators were rifles he would buy if he could just hold out. And he did: “He leaned back against the ropes and looked with hatred at the seconds, then shifted his gaze farther and farther until it took in all ten thousand gringos. His knees were shaking, and he was sobbing from exhaustion. The hateful faces swam and swayed before him. But suddenly he remembered: they were rifles! The rifles belonged to him! The revolution would go on!” The good news is that for now we don’t need rifles, and nobody gets punched in the face for fundraising (well, almost nobody). The plain news is that while leaflets aren’t rifles, they still cost money. Unlike the other candidates, we don’t have state funding:
Please give it to us. We’ll spend it on something worthwhile. You know that we are the only ones running a real election campaign. Sobyanin is relying on administrative resources and the zombie box (state-controlled television). He refuses to debate. The other candidates, to our great regret, are doing absolutely nothing. I say “to our regret” sincerely, because it will be extremely difficult for us to force a second round if the other candidates don’t fight but just lie on the stove (a Russian idiom meaning sit back and do nothing). Or fight—but against me, as some have already started doing. As for us, we’re doing what cannot be banned: speaking directly to voters where they live, where they walk down the street, where they ride in cars or on the metro.
Our advantage is that we have thousands of honest, sincere people ready to do this work—not always easy work—and who understand that first and foremost they are working for themselves and their own future, and only after that for “candidate Navalny.”
For example, here is a map of our campaign cubes for today:
http://cube.navalny.ru/#cubes/24-07-2013 And here is how many cubes there will be this coming Friday:
http://cube.navalny.ru/#cubes/26-07-2013 If you join us right now and sign up as the registered organizer of a campaign cube or as a participant, there will be even more of us, and we’ll be even better. Look what a great thing our cube is:
http://youtu.be/z9q94aKBefI That means every day we speak to hundreds of thousands of people. We need to put leaflets/booklets/newspapers into their hands. And printing leaflets/booklets/newspapers takes money. Money is also needed for many other things: - organizing meetings with voters (there will be hundreds of them); - door-to-door canvassing; - polling and sociology; - balcony banners;
- car stickers; - and of course media advertising on TV (if they let us) and on radio. and so on, and so forth You are already sending us money. Donations from individuals are currently coming into our account at a rate of 1 million rubles a day. So far we have already raised 11 million rubles. We need more. As is well known, Obama raised hundreds of millions of dollars through small donations. The average donation was $50. For us, the average donation so far is 4,900 rubles, and the median is 2,000 rubles.
Such a high average donation means we have enormous potential to expand the circle of donors. Unfortunately, Obama’s experience cannot be fully applied in Russia because of the underdevelopment of the banking payments system and, above all, the monstrously inconvenient system for collecting donations for election campaigns. It was deliberately designed so that no one could raise money and everyone would have to run to the Presidential Administration for it. But we will raise it, because we believe in you and know that you believe in us, and know that we don’t run to any administrations. Every 60–80 kopecks you send us turns into one contact with a voter. Send 500 rubles, and 625 people will hear something about our work, our struggle, and the fact that there is a better platform and a better alternative. Some of those 625 people will stop and think. Some of those who think will come out and vote. Are you speaking up already?
Bank transfer: Payment recipient: Navalny, Alexei Anatolyevich Account number: 40810810938040000005 (at Sberbank of Russia, Moscow Bank, branch office No. 9038/01827, Moscow, 17 Gazetny Lane, bldg. 2) BIC 044525225 Payment purpose (example): Voluntary donation to the election fund of candidate Navalny. A.A., Ivanov Pyotr Mikhailovich, passport 6501 123456, date of birth 10.11.1980, Tambov Region, Tambov, Montazhnikov 32A-128, citizen of the Russian Federation In the “payment purpose” line, as in the example, you must include an indication that the donation is voluntary, the donor’s full name, passport series and number, date of birth, registered address (including region), and citizenship; on top of that, some online banks also require you to add “No VAT” or “VAT exempt.” That is why it is important to abbreviate everything without losing the meaning—so that all the required information fits into the “Payment purpose” field, which is usually limited to 180 characters. If even one item does not fit, the donation is deemed anonymous and returned to the donor, while also creating serious problems for the candidate and campaign headquarters. Depending on the online bank you use, the following additional fields may also be required: Correspondent account: 30101810400000000225 Tax ID: leave blank or enter 12 zeros (000000000000) If the bank asks whether the payment is a transfer to an individual or a legal entity, choose “transfer to an individual.” Detailed instructions are here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_VQeHLcziV_MUwxSmpidUJ6TnM/edit I KNOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE HELL AND SATANISM. That’s because it is. Churov and Putin came up with it hoping you wouldn’t have the patience to send us money. But you do have the patience—I’m sure of it. ONLINE MONEY. We came up with, and had our lawyers approve, a scheme for collecting online donations. In short, an individual donates 1 million rubles to the account (the maximum allowed), and then we reimburse that person the same 1 million to their online wallet. The first million was successfully raised this way through Vladimir Ashurkov. Now we are raising money through Nikolai Lyaskin: just send money to this Yandex account: 410011270217317 There are a huge number of ways to transfer money to a Yandex Wallet, including from any bank card, from any bank, and from any electronic wallet. Unfortunately, for now these are all the legally permissible mechanisms available to us for raising money.
(This is yesterday’s training session for registered cube organizers. We hold one like this every evening.) People matter most. They are here, they are the best, and they are ready to work. Let’s raise the money to put rifles—, oops, sorry, leaflets—into these people’s hands. I’m asking very much for help promoting this post. The more people see it, the more we will raise. And please don’t be shy about posting on your own social media that you sent us money. Your friends will see it and send money too; their friends will see it and send money too. That’s how we’ll raise all the money in the world. Many thanks to everyone in advance.