“Flight Debrief” from August 19, 2013.

Good evening. Today our guest in our series of programs with candidates for the post of mayor of Moscow is Alexei Navalny. Good evening.

Good evening.

We have a traditional question with which we open the program. The question is about the most difficult, hardest decision you have had to make in life. One that concerned not only you personally, but also the people around you.

In life?

Precisely in life.

In life, it’s hard to say; every age has its own difficult decisions. I look at my son’s face when I ask him: one more ice cream or one more ride on the carousel. And I see such a range of emotions there. Probably, for his age, that is a difficult decision. In recent years, for me, of course, it was not even one decision, but a chain of decisions and discussions connected with the fate of other people, first and foremost Ofitserov and Kirovles. Because all these questions—will they jail us, won’t they jail us, should we leave, should we not leave, should we stay, should we not stay—were discussed in my family several years ago, and neither I nor my family had any doubts. It is quite hard to advise another person when someone comes up to you and says: everyone is advising me to leave, you understand, they’ll put me in jail. Ofitserov says this. It is hard to give advice in such a situation, when you understand that if they jail me, I understand what they’ll jail me for, I understand that, frankly speaking, everyone will love me after that, they will help my family. But he has five children, he is really not guilty of anything, and it is unknown how much people will love him after that, how much they’ll be running after him six months later. It is entirely possible that everyone will forget. Those were, let’s put it this way, rather difficult discussions, because it’s not your own family, it’s someone else’s family, someone else’s five children, someone else’s wife. I know them all very well. And looking them in the eye, of course you can explain as much as you want that, guys, they just happened to get caught up with me by accident, but giving any advice is extremely difficult.

So we are talking specifically about the decision to give advice, that is, to choose what to say.

To choose what to say, what to advise—leave, not leave, what to do in this situation. It was all very difficult. T. FELGENHAUER – So this was a decision connected, in fact, with responsibility for someone else’s family. For his fate.

For a person who simply got caught up in it, became a victim of circumstances, but those circumstances tied him to you for good, and it turns out that his family was tied to you as well. It was not easy.

Then what was the hardest decision you had to make about your own life? Maybe one after which everything changed, the one you thought about most, doubted most, agonized over.

Not the hardest, but the most important decision. The one that concerned my life was when I finally decided to strike out on my own, so to speak, when I left the Yabloko party and started creating the Anti-Corruption Foundation. I began independently pursuing some kind of political activity, because before that, generally speaking, I was that kind of political activist who worked for someone else; I always wanted to work honestly, properly, and very diligently for someone. I worked for Yabloko, which I do not regret. And I wanted to achieve something together with other people, being more on other people’s team. At some point I realized that it was probably time to do everything myself. Although it was scary, because there is party structure there, some people, there you can delegate responsibility. If there is a failure, you are kind of part of a common failure, but if you act alone, independently, then everything is on you. The whole failure is your failure. You leave, you take people with you, you have to pay them salaries. In two months no one cares that you haven’t found the money—go and find it. And so on. So my decision to begin fully independent, completely autonomous political activity was not made easily, and I am very glad that I made it, and I regret only one thing: that I did not make it two years earlier. T. FELGENHAUER – And what became the decisive argument? If you were moving toward this decision for some time, was there some moment when you understood: that’s it, yes.

Maybe this will sound immodest, but I realized that no one would do it better than I would. I was waiting for such a candidate, such a politician, the kind I am now trying to be, someone who would simply go out to meetings in courtyards, would speak, would conduct independent investigations. Someone who would not look back at anyone at all. Who would be absolutely completely independent. Who would do all sorts of interesting things, would engage in fundraising, crowdsourcing, would launch interesting projects online and offline, and would attract tens and thousands of people to his side. What I started doing many years ago, when together with me the first thousands of people wrote a complaint against Gazprom. All of this is very interesting, captivating. I wanted such a person to come, and I would do this together with him. But he did not come, and I realized that he never would. Until I myself became that person.

Since we started talking about Yabloko, let’s roll back 13 years, to 2000, when Yabloko happened. We were just asking about the hardest decision, but that is, in principle, a life decision. And what was the very first political decision?

Back in 1999, when Putin came and the first talks began that they would raise the electoral threshold for parties—they didn’t raise it then, but the first talks began—I was terribly outraged by this. It was clear that they were raising the threshold so that the opposition would not get into the Duma. I said to myself: I’ll simply take a political position, state it clearly, I’ll go and join Yabloko. So I went and joined Yabloko.

Why Yabloko?

Some time later, by the way, that’s where I met you. Because at that moment Yabloko was undoubtedly the most principled party, the one that acted as independently as possible. Of course, it did not live in outer space and faced a huge number of constraints, many of which I learned about later, but nevertheless, at that time it was the most honest, the most proper party. T. FELGENHAUER – But besides Yabloko, there were other political organizations in your life as well.

All the others I largely created myself. T. FELGENHAUER – Yes, but nevertheless, you took a very active part in creating them, in their life. By what principle do you generally choose whom to unite with, whom not to unite with, whether to create an organization or not? How are these decisions made?

I like interacting with people who are principled, honest, but at the same time organizationally capable. I have always created things with people who know how to do something. People to whom responsibility can be delegated. I like delegating responsibility; I do not like doing everything myself. I’m not the kind who sits in an office and not a single paper gets past me. I like interacting with people to whom you explain the idea and they go and do it themselves. Right now elections are underway; I haven’t shown up at the Anti-Corruption Foundation for weeks, I dropped by this evening, and all the work is proceeding perfectly well without me. T. FELGENHAUER – So it turns out to be independent of the idea’s content, is that right? Sometimes it seems a little inconsistent.

Even if you look at the résumés I post on my blog when I am looking for people, the first item for us is still commitment to the idea. Not even professionalism, but commitment to the idea. That is the most important thing. No highly qualified professional can work with me if he does not share the basic principles of the approach. We have plenty of professionals—for example, PR people—they are very professional, but like any PR people, they’re hellish rogues. I cannot work with them, for example. I will never work with them. Because they do not care whom they work for—United Russia, the opposition, anyone at all—but they will perform their functions very professionally. I cannot work with such people, do not want to work with them. It does not interest me.

If we are talking about commitment to the idea, when “Narod” and all those organizations of what I cannot help calling a nationalist kind were being created…

National-democratic, conservative—let’s call it that.

No, let’s say national-democratic, since the phrase has already been used. There were people there with rather questionable reputations. If we are talking about commitment to the idea, what about reputation?

That depends on which side you look from. When they look, they say: you were in Yabloko for many years, there were so many people there with questionable reputations. From any ideological flank there are accusations against opponents or adversaries that your side has some kind of questionable reputation. People are different. And I never tried to create an organization where everyone was one hundred percent loyal. Besides, the “Narod” organization was, after all, a collective organization. At that time we were creating a real, genuine organization. I was not handpicking people there. Different people ended up there, including some with whom I had conflicts, but then they left. That is normal; in any political organization this is inevitable.

All right, then what should a person do if, as you said, you will not work with someone with such a reputation, with such a past in life? Should he be in United Russia…

No, he should simply be some kind of crook and swindler. If a person has been in United Russia, then for me he is already, in advance, a crook and a swindler. And for me not to work with someone, he simply has to be dishonest—personally, politically, however you like. I will not work with such people. It seems to me this is not even some special principle of mine; it is a normal attitude for any person. You see some slippery guy. He worked here, then worked there.

One for whom, for example, there is a court decision in the Kirovles case, and according to that court decision he should be in prison for several years.

If there is some decision in the Kirovles case, then you can read that decision and form your own opinion about it. A lot of people come to me and work with me who, one way or another, have been subjected to repression by the law enforcement system. These people are often simply wonderful. T. FELGENHAUER – If we are not talking about organizations but about events. Also with different ideological content—how are decisions made there, by the same principles?

I try to make all decisions of that kind by checking them against some inner compass of my own. That is, the categorical imperative inside Alexei Navalny tells me what Alexei Navalny should do at this particular moment in time. And if I believe that there is a mass event that has complications—with its history, with the participants, and so on—but that it is necessary to participate in it because it is right from a political point of view, from a human point of view, from a strategic point of view, then I participate in it. You probably mean the “Russian March,” for example. I believe that one should participate in such events so that nationalism and the conservative current do not become marginalized. Because if normal people ignore all this, then of course only some psychos or people inclined to violence will remain there. T. FELGENHAUER – Participation in mass actions—another major action, May 6, the decision you made then to sit down on the asphalt. Just to sit down. Was that a spontaneous decision, or what about the imperative there?

It was a spontaneous decision. It happened simply because we approached the site of the rally and saw that the deployment of police forces, the placement of barriers, the setup of the stage did not at all correspond to what had been approved on the plan, which, by the way, is still hanging on the Petrovka 38 website. You can go there and see that Bolotnaya Square park was supposed to be without barriers and so on; we could perfectly well have accommodated everyone. Therefore, when we saw that we could not bring the entire huge crowd, the huge column, onto Bolotnaya Embankment, we demanded that they remove the cordon from Bolotny Square park. As had been provided for by the plan. And even now, during the Bolotnaya case, representatives of the Moscow police and city hall say directly, on the record: yes, we changed everything, we cordoned off the square, and at the same time we decided not to inform the organizers about it. They simply decided to drive everyone into such a terrible mousetrap. In order for people to stop moving, to stand still for a while, and not be pressed from behind, it was decided to try sitting down on the asphalt so that everyone could clearly see what was happening. Unfortunately, that did not work. Simply because then the police began to push a little, and as often happens in a crowd, some crushes arose and everyone had to stand up. T. FELGENHAUER – Let’s change the subject completely now. And go all the way back. Not to childhood, of course, but a little later. How did you decide to choose your path? Why am I using the formal “you” while you use the informal—this is wrong. How did you decide to choose your path? You have a legal education. Why did you decide that you wanted to be a lawyer, and then even become an advocate?

I was born in 1976. When I was finishing school, in 1992–93, everyone wanted to become either lawyers or economists. And then all universities admitted only lawyers and economists. And given that my father is a lawyer, my aunt is a lawyer, it was completely obvious that I would become a lawyer. Lawyers, as everyone thought in 1992—you simply had to become a lawyer. A year later you would become a millionaire, and then somehow also an economist. And the country would flourish. Everyone was like that, and in my class too, since I studied in a military town, a significant number of boys went to military schools, and everyone else went into law or economics. And back then everyone went into law and economics. T. FELGENHAUER – And legal practice as an advocate?

I decided to become an advocate relatively recently, simply because an advocate is a very convenient organizational and legal form for a lawyer who acts independently, as I do. You pay fewer taxes, you have a special status, it is very convenient for you to interact, and the possibilities for some kind of legal lawlessness against you are limited. My situation showed that it didn’t stop some people much, but nevertheless, you cannot simply search an advocate just like that. An advocate can make an attorney’s request; for me that is very important. When you send a request to some Rosneft, they throw it in the trash. But if you make an attorney’s request, they still throw it in the trash, but they think about it for a while first. A special status, a special position. A special ability to manage your finances—it is quite convenient. T. FELGENHAUER – But still, there must have been some turning point when you said to yourself: well, all this is of course great, but now I am an independent politician, and now I have my own life. Then we saw many things and various videos, speeches, different organizations, and we discussed how Alexei Navalny’s evolution could be traced through public appearances. And it is noticeable that your rhetoric, for example regarding migrants, has softened considerably. Was that change a decision that was made because your status changed, or because your views changed?

What exactly do you mean by softening of rhetoric?

For example, earlier there were videos with cockroaches and various words that were not even fit for broadcast. And later you apologized for them, and the videos stopped.

First of all, there were never any unbroadcastable words. That is the first thing. Second. Those videos that were released had the idea that the “Narod” movement should advocate the legalization of handguns. And a special video was made. I am not renouncing a single word I said before. It’s just that now, as a candidate for mayor of Moscow, I am working with a broader audience. Naturally, I orient myself toward the center. Not toward some narrow political groups; I orient myself simply toward citizens. Right now I hold meetings with voters three times a day, and you know who is mostly there? Pensioners. I talk to pensioners, and I try to find a language that will be understandable to them, and I want to speak with them in the same language, but at the same time I am certainly not changing any of my political views.

So that is a change of status.

It is a change of status, but if we are talking about migrants, as you said, about the problem of migration, among all the candidates for mayor of Moscow I undoubtedly have the toughest position on migrants. But at the same time it is absolutely legal, and I am ready to defend it before any audience. T. FELGENHAUER – But in general, did the change of status—the fact that Alexei Navalny now needs to be perceived not as a blogger but as a politician—somehow affect how you make decisions?

Of course it affected many things. At some stage you are an ordinary political activist, you can write any nonsense in your blog and on your Twitter. T. FELGENHAUER – We reread your LiveJournal for 2007.

They send me some comments that I left for someone. Now, first of all, when you get older, when you have two children, by the way, there are some things you would not want your children to read. You watch your mouth, so to speak, you watch your statements. And all the more so when you are already in the status of a fairly well-known politician, whom many see as a politician leading them somewhere forward. Of course, that naturally imposes a large number of obligations and limitations on you.

By the way, I can’t remember the moment when Alexei Navalny was first Yabloko, then all that, then free flight, and then Alexei Navalny needed a press secretary. That is, the number of journalists’ requests suddenly increased. So where was that moment after which you became a well-known politician—at what point did that happen?

I myself don’t know. There were my first corporate lawsuits. I remember when I first sued Transneft and Rosneft, Vedomosti wrote about it, and everyone else ignored it. Therefore I am terribly grateful to Vedomosti, and now in any case, whenever they want my comment, I always give it. Because I remember the time when only Vedomosti wrote about me. And everyone else said: God, what nonsense, some lawsuits with Gazprom, completely uninteresting. And then gradually it came. It seems to me this is probably connected with the development of a new media environment. Up to a certain point, the media simply monopolized everything. The entire information space was monopolized by traditional media, and then blogs grew up, and now my blog, in terms of circulation as a media outlet, surpasses many of them. And it seems the media are no longer necessary for you; you can communicate directly with voters… T. FELGENHAUER – Sometimes we notice that the media are not necessary for you.

That does not apply to Echo of Moscow, of course. T. FELGENHAUER – Naturally. And the newspaper Vedomosti. Sorry, I interrupted.

Simply from a certain moment all these corporate lawsuits of mine made it clear to everyone that this was not just some eccentricity, but truly consistent, real work aimed at fighting corruption and increasing corporate transparency. People began to pay attention to it. This work really caused many problems for all those crooks, thieves, and corrupt officials in those state companies. Therefore people began to value this work more. Journalists—first from business publications and then from ordinary ones—became interested in writing about it, and they began to pay attention to me as some kind of new phenomenon. Here is a man who came from who knows where. T. FELGENHAUER – This was not politics in the usual form we observe. It was specifically loud exposés, bright headlines.

Exactly right. That is precisely why I began independent activity, because I understood that politics and those political parties that existed in that traditional form did not work. T. FELGENHAUER – By the way, about exposés and publications. How do you decide what to investigate, what not to investigate, what to publish, what to hold back for now?

Right now I decide it this way: when I come into the office, the employees of the Anti-Corruption Foundation simply grab me by the lapels and say: you have a queue of seven posts you need to write, we’ve already investigated everything, we’re ready, come on, publish it already. So I simply write about whatever I have enough time for. I look at resonance, at importance. Some things require additional verification; some are very clear. If you found Pekhtin’s apartment in Miami, that is very simple. If you found the offshore empire of Russian Railways head Yakunin, that is difficult, because it is a huge scheme, it requires evidence, a huge number of documents. In English. And so on. Therefore these things are important. T. FELGENHAUER – Now there is a whole RosPil for this. But when there was no such staff of talented employees.

I did it all myself. I did not have that amount of work, that number of investigations, but I did it myself. Back then I also had the Rosneft, Transneft, Gazprom cases, some cases I was handling. It’s just that now, as the Anti-Corruption Foundation has grown, there is the opportunity to handle many more cases.

For example, do people send some documents or text—here, look, pay attention, here is a crook, a thief—and send some documents? Can you somehow tell at first glance whether this is nonsense or…

Most often you can see it at first glance. You look and understand that either some madman sent it, or not a madman but a normal good person who sent you information he pulled from newspapers that you simply already know. Ninety-nine percent of letters are simply people sending me some media publication related to corruption, which I myself had already read before that. Because every day I start by carefully reading a large number of media outlets. If there is some worthwhile information and at some point I missed it, fine, then I forward it to one of the lawyers and say: please look at this, does it make sense to pursue it? Is there something there? And after some time he prepares an answer for me.

And accordingly, regarding the publication of this or that investigation—it is clear about relevance—but are there any investigations that you decided not to publish?

Only because they are not ready. In that sense we have a very clear approach: I publish everything that really concerns corruption. And I constantly explain this to RosPil employees who deal with public procurement: there are very often many formal violations there. A formal violation occurred—you can cancel a billion-ruble contract. But if this is not connected with corruption and is simply some kind of formalistic approach, then it is not so important. I write about things where I know one hundred percent that someone stole money there. That is what I write about.

And maybe there are people or companies or situations where you decided: well, I probably won’t do this.

No, that has never happened. I am often asked about this; it has never happened, such a thought has never even occurred to me. Well, after all, the uniqueness and wonderfulness of my situation is that I depend on absolutely no one. The Anti-Corruption Foundation is financed by 20 thousand people giving 300 rubles each. There is no sponsor I would want to please. Thanks to this, by the way, we have now also raised 39 million for our election campaign in exactly the same way—with small donations—so we are absolutely free, and I very much enjoy this position, that I can do whatever I want, what I want to do. Alexei Navalny’s inner compass tells Alexei Navalny where to go, and everything else is of no interest to me. T. FELGENHAUER – At that moment, when only Alexei Navalny’s inner imperative obviously does not say something else.

The categorical imperative and the compass are one and the same. At least I try to make them get along. T. FELGENHAUER – Doesn’t it happen that it is impossible to make a decision because there are some internal contradictions? Maybe you consult with someone.

I consult with a large number of people. But those consultations are always about whether we are ready to publish, whether it is convincing enough, whether we need to dig more, and never about whether it might turn out that we’re going to ruin some good person. No. If you are ruining someone, then he is already not a good person. T. FELGENHAUER – Maybe it will turn out that we are fools, checked nothing, and everything is completely different.

We think about that. By the time something is ready for publication, I see it myself, and we do not publish something where we are fools. T. FELGENHAUER – A wonderful ending to the first part.

All right. We will continue in just a few minutes. We will talk more about imperatives and compasses. Alexei Navalny is in the studio of the program “Debriefing”; we will continue in a few minutes. NEWS T. FELGENHAUER – 21:35. The program “Debriefing” continues. Today our guest is Alexei Navalny, candidate for mayor of Moscow. We have a series of programs with mayoral candidates.

I wanted to ask about this. Since we started talking about investigations and the Anti-Corruption Foundation, what about the people who work alongside you? How are people selected, what criteria are most important? Besides commitment to the idea—specifically in terms of work qualities. T. FELGENHAUER – How do you make professional staffing decisions?

This is a very important part of our work, and quite a long time ago we came to the principled position that I do not hire people myself. Practically no one who works at the Anti-Corruption Foundation did I know at all before they worked for me. Because I demand meritocracy from everyone—the rule of the best—and I myself try to implement it. We have a special personnel commission. I post the résumés people send me: we have money for a new lawyer, we need such-and-such a lawyer. I post the résumé, an email that is received by several people—our personnel commission, people who do not work in the foundation, our consultants. They meet with these people, conduct interviews in several stages. Everyone writes us an essay, does a test assignment; we take this seriously. Therefore our people are all so good, all with red diplomas, all work very hard. And it seems to me this is a very proper approach, when I try not to take acquaintances, I myself do not interview anyone, because otherwise you might just like his look and say, well, fine. And in fact he will turn out not to be a very good lawyer. T. FELGENHAUER – All right, then still remembering that before us is not just Alexei Navalny, but a candidate for mayor, a question you are asked very often: the decision about the possible team if you win these elections. Because everyone latched onto the phrase that you want to fire Kapkov. By what criteria will you recruit your team?

First of all, as for whom to fire. There is the political leadership of city hall. The most important figure, the one who determines policy and development strategy. Kapkov undoubtedly belongs to them. I have spoken with him a couple of times; he is a fairly pleasant person in communication. He is probably a professional, but he is part of this власти, its political part. He is a member of United Russia, a member of Sobyanin’s team, a member of Abramovich’s team. And so on. In that sense he is completely unacceptable to me, despite the fact that he is a pleasant person in communication. My task is to form a small political team on the principles of “do not lie and do not steal”—forgive me for the pathos—and all the other employees must be recruited through an open, understandable system. You know, for example, that now, theoretically, when civil servants are recruited, there are also personnel commissions, they also supposedly write essays in theory, but we cannot see any of this, we cannot understand why one person does or does not become a prefect, a district head. Why one person becomes deputy director of the transport department. I want to become a mayor under whom all this will be very understandable. And personnel commissions independent of me will recruit the best people. This system works in many places, and it will work in Moscow.

So you cannot say that you already have a decision at least on 2–3 people.

On 2–3 people, undoubtedly, of course, I do, and on a larger number as well. We are working after all; I have been working for a long time, I am surrounded by a large number of professionals, of very different levels and with enormous managerial experience. We will publish the team in detail during the second round, but if you ask me now whether I have a person who will become head of the Vostochnoye Degunino district administration, the answer is no, I do not have such a person. But I do have an understanding and principles that will allow me to ensure that the head of the district administration becomes a good, decent professional.

You understand, we are much more interested in whether you already have a decision about who could become head of the housing and utilities department.

I understand that this is very interesting to you.

Or the transport department.

I would like to whet your interest until the second round, where I will gladly bring these people here. They will tell everything, we will look at all the names. Of course there are decisions.

When this independent commission selects people, it can happen that you cannot work with them, that the person is unpleasant…

I still interview them afterward. Practice shows that if they have passed all stages, the personnel commission, then they are normal, that is, no terrible people appear. And this selection system is the right one, it works. Normal people come, I interview them, and if I do not have any disagreements with them, then normally they work with me. It’s just that after some time some of them may leave. We do, after all, have a fairly stressful job.

While the election campaign is underway, there are people who are closest to you—the campaign manager, the press secretary—how did they appear?

There are people who simply physically spend a lot of time with you. Right now I am constantly doing these courtyard meetings; there is a team for organizing the meetings. Those people simply physically spend many hours with me. There are people with whom you spend less time, like the campaign manager, but they have great political influence. Which people do you mean now?

For example, the campaign manager.

This is a person who occupies a key political and organizational position. Therefore for me that person became Leonid Volkov, about whom I know for certain that he is an honest and decent person and shares all my basic ideological and political principles. And second, I know him as a businessman, an organizer, a person who himself ran for the Yekaterinburg city duma and who can organize the management process of a large number of people. We now have about 14 thousand volunteers registered. This is a huge number of people working in compressed time, which naturally gives rise to conflicts, quarrels, disputes, lack of coordination, and so on.

Maxim Katz is constantly throwing everyone out.

We throw out many people, including many very good, ideologically correct and loyal people. We fired several people whom I know, who went through fire, water, and brass pipes with me. They went to every trial in Kirov, supported me. But we fired them from the campaign headquarters because in headquarters one must perform, including organizational functions. That is, I cannot appoint people to leadership positions simply because they are good people loyal to me. We need people there who can manage something.

But are decisions there made collectively in headquarters, or is your word decisive?

In headquarters there is a troika, as we call it—three people. In different areas there are different numbers of people; the decisions are collective. We hold a daily planning meeting. Some journalists came and even watched it, and now about 60 people attend the planning meeting, and I do not know two-thirds of them. And we make decisions collectively; I do not have some special veto right. Because the headquarters must be trusted: the headquarters works, and at the decision-making stage I can of course influence things very strongly, but if a decision has been made, then I do not have the authority to suddenly replay everything at the last moment. That is very harmful, destructive for any system. If the candidate starts acting capriciously. For example, now the headquarters is making me hold three meetings a day with voters, every weekday, and five meetings every weekend. It is hard.

And as a result we see an exhausted candidate…

Not quite exhausted; you see a tanned, wonderful candidate who spends a lot of time in the fresh air.

It is noticeable at the televised debates…

That was just makeup; they painted me that way and the lighting fell badly.

So the headquarters torments both the candidate, and the candidate can do nothing about it.

The headquarters sets the rules of work, we agree on them, and then I work, because among other things I must demonstrate to both headquarters and volunteers that I work no less than everyone else.

About how you hire people, how you make decisions about whom to work with—that is clear. But when you are invited somewhere, how was such a decision made—I mean the trip to Kirov and work on Nikita Belykh’s team. Was that a difficult decision?

It was not a difficult decision. As you remember, Belykh came to Kirov as a completely new person; he had never even been to Kirov before becoming governor. And naturally, in order to understand this completely new system, this new region, where there were various clans, systems, rivalries and friendships, he had to get a handle on many areas. And there was a very important area concerning the efficiency of property management—what was happening to these enterprises, and those ones. You look on paper and half the enterprises are bankrupt. When you start to figure it out, it turns out they are being deliberately pushed into bankruptcy in order to be sold. Belykh could not deal with this himself. The ability to trust local officials is naturally limited at first. Therefore he needed people who would dig into all of this, and he invited me because by that time I was already known as a professional who studies the efficiency of state enterprises. He invited me, offered me to become an official, I refused, and worked as an adviser.

And you do not regret the decision you made?

I do not regret the decision I made. Probably now, looking back from here, there are some things I would redo, some relationships I would build differently, but it was a very interesting and even invaluable experience—to see how this whole civil service system works from the inside. I understood that it works exactly as I had imagined. But it still needed to be verified empirically.

Now we will make a huge leap from the moment of departure to Kirov to the moment the verdict in the Kirovles case was announced. As I understand it, until the next morning, when you were taken out of the courtroom together with Ofitserov, you had no information that there would be any reconsideration, any prosecutor’s decision, and so on. So the night passed with the understanding that so many years of imprisonment lay ahead. What decisions were being made, or what decisions were you thinking about there, in the detention center?

What decisions were you running through in your head?

What would happen next.

They were all everyday decisions. There were lots of mosquitoes in the cell, and I was planning how I would fight them. And I realized that the main symbol of the detention center was not even bars, but a huge number of cellophane bags. They pour tea, coffee, everything into little bags, all the packages are torn open and everything is poured into little sacks, and you think where to put your things. Where to put these little sacks, how to drag them from cell to cell. Because at first you are in a quarantine cell. So all these everyday issues occupy you very strongly. You think, fool, I took the wrong shoes, I should have taken different ones, or I should have taken different sweatpants. Everyday life worries you at first, and besides, I tried not to focus on these things, because from literature and from the advice of experienced people I know that especially on the first day you should not take out a family photo and look at it, because then you will worry too much.

In general, have you often had to make decisions in stressful, almost extreme conditions? Because from what comes to mind—at debates, when there were fights and shots and so on—the decision to take and shoot.

Those are still not such stressful conditions. Stressful conditions are a cosmonaut in orbit. And he has broken away from the spacecraft…

A fire.

Or a fire. Something like that.

We had a cosmonaut here who was on fire in space. He had a double story.

Now that is a decision you make under stress. But an ordinary everyday situation? At every second rally some people come and make a scene. Provocateurs. They came to the debates exactly the same way. For radio listeners, let me explain that we held debates in one of the Moscow clubs; it was a very popular project, hundreds of people attended, it enjoyed great popularity. And our Kremlin “friends,” in quotation marks, decided to disrupt it and began regularly sending us various provocateurs. First some caricature fascists, then in the end they sent us football fans who started a fight, and we were forced to close the debates because we simply could not guarantee people’s safety. Well, that is such an ordinary life situation. A fight is a fight.

But to shoot is also a decision.

Well, what is there to shoot? It is not such a difficult decision as it may seem. Come on, Tanya, just give you a pistol and half the editorial office…

I very much doubt such a characterization of Tatyana. In any case, the situation is extreme. How is a decision made—quickly—and then only afterward do you rewind it: what did I do…

Of course in some absolutely adrenaline-filled situations, like right here and now someone is yelling at you or there is some kind of fight, you also just…

For example. When they were dragging you away from one of the rallies using a pain hold. That is a stressful situation. And what did you decide…

And what do you want to decide there? They are breaking your arm and leading you to the police van.

You say something like: I am going myself, I am doing nothing.

Or: don’t touch me, you’re breaking my arms.

Or I will stay silent, or I will shout. Or what?

It seems to me that any person does not make a decision there, but acts reflexively, based on previous experience, life experience. I have been detained many times, so I roughly understand what to do in a detention situation. For me, more important then, if you are holding that May 6 rally, was to shout to everyone that no one should disperse. There are many photographs on this subject, of six policemen dragging me somewhere while I am trying to shout something to the crowd. Because it was an important strategic decision that people should not become disoriented. But when they are dragging you, hauling you, you simply act reflexively, and that is all.

And now, when we see that the trial in the Bolotnaya case is underway, when people have been in pretrial detention for some incredible amount of time—and apparently these are not the last cases specifically related to May 6—do you have the feeling that wrong decisions were made? Or not?

I do not have the feeling that wrong decisions were made. There is, of course, a great burden of responsibility for these people. But they are absolutely random hostages. And when you talk with their parents, when you look at them—I cannot go into the courtroom for the Bolotnaya case myself, because my lawyers do not allow it, I am supposed to be questioned as a witness—but still you run into parents, acquaintances, and this is of course extremely difficult, because you talk to them, they seem to understand everything, they do not seem to blame you for anything, but there is still the feeling that someone is thinking: you are free, while they are sitting there. Although you are such an instigator and the main opposition figure, why is my son, who happened to be there by chance, already sitting for two years, while you walk around here with such a tanned face? There is, of course, a feeling of responsibility for everything that is happening. I certainly have it.

By the way, decisions are made—you see, for example, someone’s parents—and now I must definitely go talk to them, or no, I will not talk now.

Naturally I try to do that. These are all very difficult, hard conversations, because you approach parents—what are you going to say to them? Hang in there, guys. Well, you say it, but your “hang in there” is neither here nor there for them. You go up, you speak, that is normal. People need sympathy. On the one hand these are all very difficult things too, but you yourself feel some need to go up to people and talk. That is right. People should support one another.

At the very beginning of the program, when we asked about difficult decisions, you talked about your relationship with Pyotr Ofitserov. You said that advising him whether to leave or not was hard. Did you yourself ever have moments when you decided for yourself: I will not leave.

There was never anything like that. I am often asked about this too. But by the time these questions became truly relevant, it had been discussed for years that they would jail me. From my very first cases against Gazprom and Rosneft everyone always told me: they will jail you, they will force you to leave the country. Or something like that will happen. Therefore we discussed all these things in the family quite a long time ago. I am a very happy person in the sense that my family supports me. And we have an absolutely consolidated decision. It is of course impossible to do what I do if there is no support in the family. This is an important thing that everyone who wants to go into politics must understand. Therefore everything was completely clear to me. And already then, when I was returning from Yale University and two weeks before that they began leaking to the media that now we will open a case against him and then it started…

They warned you. A. NAVALNY – They warned me, and there was such nervousness that now you will get off the plane and they will put handcuffs on you. But nevertheless, we did not think for a second.

There is not much time left; I would like to talk about the election campaign. Literally a week before the Kirovles verdict you were here in the studio, and I asked about cultural figures who in any election end up, one way or another, as figures in different campaign headquarters supporting one or another candidate. You said then that cultural figures were not needed, that all this was unnecessary. Now I see on Navalny.ru cultural figures speaking in support of Alexei Navalny. Did you change the decision? Who makes such decisions, did the headquarters force it, how does all this happen?

We did not change any decisions. Cultural figures are not needed in the sense that you take these cultural figures, call them up, persuade them somehow, or as in Sobyanin’s case, bribe them one way or another, bring them in, and they sing and dance at your campaign concert. All the cultural figures who supported us—if they can be called “cultural figures”—are normal, honest, sincere people who most often came to us themselves and said that they wanted to support you. And their support is important to us, of course. We gladly and even proudly publish it. This story with Fateyeva—it brings tears to your eyes—when the famous actress, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation Natalya Fateyeva hung my banner on her balcony, and that banner was cut down twice, and she fought there with this guest-worker climber who was descending from the balcony. For us this is very important. I do not know her. I do not know her personally, but the fact that a famous person got the banner herself, hung it on the balcony herself, and for my sake, for the sake of our campaign, is fighting, waging war with this guest-worker climber—this is something I value very much, of course.

If we talk about participation in debates. There were three rounds on the Moscow-24 TV channel, after which you wrote that you were refusing further debates which the Moscow election commission was assigning and drawing lots for. What kind of decision was that, why so?

I am not refusing debates; I am refusing debates on the platforms that were offered to us. Listen, I do not want to offend anyone, but there was the platform of the radio station “Govorit Moskva.” That is the VHF band. No one listens to it at all. I do not know who can now listen to radio in the VHF band. Although probably some people do listen, and I do not want to offend them. But since campaign time is very compressed, I want to participate in debates and I will do so in those media outlets that are still watched by at least hundreds of thousands of people. And I would gladly accept, for example, Alexei Venediktov’s proposal that the debates be organized by Echo of Moscow radio station. If there are debates on Dozhd, I will participate in them. On any platforms, even those hostile to me, not especially friendly, I will participate in debates if there is really some kind of reach there.

About the debates on Moscow-24—my personal observation, I have already written and spoken about this—that there was a feeling that between Navalny, Mitrokhin, and Melnikov there was such mutual loyalty, and the questions were clearly completely…

More between Navalny and Mitrokhin. I. VOROBYOVA – Yes. How was that decision made? It was very noticeable, it was clear that you had a non-aggression pact.

There was no pact and no decision. I have known Mitrokhin for a long time; we worked together for many years, and despite the fact that I was expelled from the Yabloko party, I have good relations with him. I do not know everything about Mitrokhin, but I know very well what issues he understands, and in what issues maybe he understands worse. I simply have known him for a very long time. These debates were characterized first of all by the fact that the incumbent mayor did not come. Therefore the obvious strategy of every candidate, except the LDPR representative, was that the questions would be about how bad the current authorities are. And with the questions I asked and was asked, everyone wanted to draw out criticism of the current authorities as quickly as possible. That is a natural strategy in conditions when the incumbent mayor does not come.

Then what decisions should we expect in the near future from candidate for mayor Alexei Navalny?

From candidate for mayor Alexei Navalny one should expect more intensive work with voters. We are launching several important projects. Tomorrow we are holding a briefing at headquarters where I will talk about certain difficulties that have arisen in the election campaign. In the near future we simply see from our internal sociology that a second round is becoming almost inevitable. In this connection we of course feel very strong pressure from city hall, pressure on radio stations where we want to place advertising; they are trying to destroy the media component of our campaign. And to push us completely onto the street or onto the Internet. Therefore in this connection candidate Alexei Navalny and his headquarters will be making great efforts to resist this.

It is rather difficult to ask a person who literally very soon will be on voting day—but nevertheless, we also have…

Who you will vote for.

That is a question we do not ask. But nevertheless, there is some traditional question in this program. About the decision you doubt most right now. That is, somewhere there is some decision that must be made precisely now, and where you have strong doubts. What is it about?

There is no such decision. When I decided to participate in the campaign, then there were various doubts: will we raise money, will we not raise money, who will be campaign manager, will we be able to manage a huge number of volunteers. I did not doubt that there would be many of them; I only doubted whether we would be able to administer this huge number of people.

To collect signatures, not to collect signatures.

To collect signatures or not was less the issue. It was more whether to run through a party or as an independent. And so on. Right now we are at that stage of the election campaign where everything is sufficiently clear to me: our program is ready, written by the best specialists; we see people’s support; we know what to do; now we simply must apply maximum effort to bring the campaign to a high-quality finish.

Very briefly then, about whom to run through. To go independently or through a party. Somehow RPR-PARNAS, in my opinion, is not participating very actively in the campaign. Was that some kind of consolidated decision of yours?

It was a formal nomination. I am grateful to colleagues from RPR-PARNAS, whom I asked, and they nominated me. It was a formal nomination in order to comply with the election law. Otherwise I would have had to run as an independent. To collect 70 thousand signatures—and we know perfectly well how the Moscow election commission simply cuts everyone down on signatures. Instantly. It was simply a rational choice, and I thank RPR-PARNAS for supporting me at that moment.

One more traditional question in the series accordingly…

How many traditional questions you have.

We have a very traditional program, Alexei.

You are elected mayor of Moscow. The first decision in the post of mayor of Moscow.

The first decision in the post of mayor of Moscow is undoubtedly the formation of the team. That is not one decision; there will be several. A package of decisions concerning budget transparency, the cancellation of Sobyanin’s decision to raise tariffs from August 1. It is absolutely unjustified, and we will cancel it. And the decision to double the Moscow supplement to pensions in order to establish a social standard for a Moscow pension at 16 thousand rubles. We know that there are 138 billion rubles in the Moscow budget needed for this. We know where to get them. That will be our first decision.

So, not one, but a whole package of decisions.

But at least a prepared one, whereas last time they said that in accordance with the charter…

Thank you very much. Alexei Navalny…

Did I say that last time? Everything is very clear for me, I understand very clearly…

Why are you shouting at the hosts now? One of the candidates simply answered us very formally about what the mayor’s first decision should be. But now we know.

That’s all, now there is no need to list it all with commas; one can simply say: Alexei Navalny was on our air. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

See you.