Russia is a conservative country, and there is no need to pretend to be the Netherlands

I repeated a common mistake, speaking with Alexei Navalny as a “young politician.” Of course, he is not young at all, but quite seasoned — a politician, a public figure, and a publicist.

Such a stereotype has formed in Russia in recent times: if you are a politician, you must have a big pink face, a lot of fleshy body, a lot of composure, a lot of seemingly reasonable, but in fact meaningless words, behind which the personality, the position, the intellect are not discernible... What can I tell you — you watch TV yourself, you have seen these “politicians.”

A new generation of living and real politicians has already formed; they exist. They are different, and often occupy diametrically opposite ideological positions: for example, national-bolsheviks and Maria Gaidar or Shargunov and Yashin.

They are all united by one thing: they clearly represent a type of people organically alien to “politicians on television.” For a variety of reasons. The simplest and most obvious: representatives of the new generation have personal, definite views (therefore most of them are writers, publicists — as it was a hundred years ago, for example), while people on television have no views, but have functions (therefore none of them write anything, there are speechwriters for that).

Alexei Navalny, forgive my sincere pathos; he has long been at the political forefront, and I sincerely hope that in the near and foreseeable future the phrase “young politician” will become a synonym in Russia for the phrase “real politician.” And may what is called by this word today disappear as soon as possible; twenty years of looking at the same faces is simply unbearable.

— You have surely been asked about forty thousand times, but I will ask again. What happened at Maria Gaidar's debate? Do you think you acted correctly? (I think yes, but this is your interview).

— It is really hard — the forty-thousandth time to answer without repeating. If it's simple and in plain language: our debate project is strongly disliked by the Administration. I don't know what they got so worked up about it — it seems like a standard LiveJournal crowd. Already a second time they send a group of provocateurs. This time they started a fight in the hall; at my attempts to calm them down, of course the reply was: “Come here!” So I went after the debate was over. It's not that I heroically went to kill everyone, it's just that I promised I would go out. Most of the provocateurs left, but one, due to the fact that his level of intoxication had become excessive, attacked me. For which he got what he deserved. Traumatica, by the way, fully confirmed its bad reputation — the shots had no effect on him at all.

— After this curious introduction, let's talk about you. Who are you, Alexei Navalny? It is known that you were among the top three most popular young politicians in Russia. I have read your articles and your comments. But let's start at the beginning. Where are you from, who are your parents, what did you do, and so on...

— I'm terribly tired of being labeled a young politician. It's kind of silly when you're 31 and you're a young politician...

My father is a serviceman, my mother an economist. We lived in different military towns, in the Moscow region in the last years — where the Taman division is stationed. My parents still live there. I finished school there, and I, a fool, decided to apply to Moscow State University for law. Of course, I didn't get in — I was one point short. But with those points they enrolled me in the Peoples' Friendship University. My time there completely dispelled all my illusions about the existence of friendship between peoples, but it gave me many friends and a legal education. After that I did many things — mostly business. I didn't work much in my field — it was boring. The work of a lawyer, especially a solicitor, is endless waiting: you sit in court and wait for it to start, then it starts, but immediately postponed and so on to infinity. For me it was unbearable.

For a while I was drawn to the stock market; I even finished — as a second higher education — Financial Academy with the specialty “Stock Market” (Brokerage). Studied and traded on RTS (Russian trading system) and MICE (Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange) simultaneously. It was a strange education: most teachers knew far less than the students. Well, and then I gradually moved into politics.

— And now about your political career, so to speak. When did all this begin? What feelings did the teenager Navalny have in the early and mid-1990s, and have his views changed since then?

— Navalny as a teenager was a mega-liberal. He wanted a market economy in the most vicious form — only the strong survive, others are not needed. Yeltsin forward, the communist — to crush. Before finishing his studies at the University, he was like that; then, as any person who has gained life experience, he realized that the world is not black-and-white. I have always been interested in politics. Honestly, I don't understand how one can not be interested in it. Nevertheless, there are tons of people around us who don't even know the Prime Minister's surname. I don't understand how they manage that. In my opinion, living without trying to influence the government, without even voting in elections, is like turning into cattle. Although I may be too radical on this issue.

My wife, by the way, is also very knowledgeable about politics. I remember she impressed me at our first meetings: a blond, beautiful, and she even knows the surnames of all ministers. And our daughter is growing up — also a blonde, goes to kindergarten, but already distinguishes many politicians. Although when choosing between Putin on TV and SpongeBob, she prefers SpongeBob.

When in 1999 Putin came to power, and talks about the seven-percent barrier began, I realized that the democrats would go nowhere, and I decided, as a principle, to join Yabloko. I joined. For a year I attended meetings. I realized that there was complete organizational dysfunction and gradually I got involved in the work myself. It's good that at the first stage I encountered Daniil Meshcheriakov, he worked at Yabloko and the Helsinki Group. With him, it was possible to do something interesting without having to look back at the party leadership. Then, until I finished my professional work at Yabloko, I worked with Sergei Mitrokhin. He is a man of tremendous energy. Of course, he gets on everyone's nerves, but Yabloko is held together by him. I say this with full responsibility. He is the most capable of all the party leaders. We have now diverged somewhat in our views, but I respect him.

— I recently asked Konstantin Krylov this question, using his own quote, and now I repeat the question to you: “Will we ever have a third generation of power, not corrupted and not cowardly?” I have a bad feeling that those in power today have no chance to become the state's elite, and those in opposition have no chance to become the power. What do you think?

— The new generation will come. But it scares me. Look for yourself: first there were the KGB nomenclature. They were crooks, of course, but they had some sense of right and wrong. Sometimes they could tell good from bad. And they didn't always go along with outright lawlessness.

Now the Komsomol members have arrived. In politics and in business. They are terrible scoundrels. Completely unprincipled, they have taken all the worst from the USSR and from the new opportunities. It is the Komsomol members who are now in power, not the security forces.

And who is coming to replace them? I call them "managers". I'm afraid it will be very bad. They don't even engage in false talk about principles and morality, as the Komsomol members do. They want to be effective and are convinced that the end justifies any means. It was the generation of “managers” that staged the provocation at the last debates. The Komsomol members set the task, but it was these people who carried it out, which is why everything turned out so cynical, brazen, but effective.

— How do you assess the current political situation? And how do you personally feel about the current Russian government?

— I would say that I hate it. But it is those who allowed them to come to power who should be hated. No one but the democrats themselves are to blame for the fact that ghouls have come to power. Someone had to come. Now I sit in endless organizing committees, listen to endless bickering, and realize that Putin and whoever comes after him should bow down to such oppositionists. They have done much more for him than the FSB. I understand perfectly well that Putin is better for the country at the moment than the opposition coming to power in its current form. It seems that we created “NAROD” with you in order to change the situation.

— I read your excellent analysis of Yabloko's pre-election "trio". Do they really have no chance of getting into parliament?

— Well, of course not. And even in the fairest elections, a liberal party cannot get more than 2% in Russia. We are still a conservative country. Yabloko needs reforming, turning from a liberal party into a democratic one, then it will have success. And Yavlinsky, in principle, is not a bad guy. He speaks well in public. He really has that magnetism that is so necessary for politicians. The only thing is his character is extremely tough. And I think he is already very tired. He is carrying this burden... It is clear that there is nowhere left to go, but it is difficult to give up: he has accumulated assistants, an entourage, an apparatus. And these are real people, how can you just abandon them? It is unclear. Voluntarily stepping down from leadership is probably more difficult than becoming a leader.

And it's already hard for me to talk with him; there are some personal contradictions. People often say that there can be no personal in politics — that's nonsense: all politics is based on personal relationships. Look at Putin: he built the whole country on personal connections and backroom deals.

— The project to unite "Drugaya Rossia" and the "Russkii Marsh" initially had no prospects? How did you relate to this project? Will these pieces ever fit together?

— It's difficult. They should work out. But it turned out that the most totalitarian thinking is found among “professional liberals.” They have the most double standards, they are terribly hypocritical. And it's difficult to criticize them because they “suffered under the Soviet regime,” and this is like an indulgence for the liberal political elite.

There are very few true, consistent liberals, such as Zhenya Albats. They are willing to talk about any topic. Nothing is taboo for them; for example, their eyes don't glaze over at the word “nationalism.” But for every Zhenya, there are a dozen half-crazy but well-deserved ones. Actually, they should be kicked out, but there would be an uproar...

— Which ideology, in your view, is most relevant for modern Russia? Will you formulate the main points?

— National-democratic. The one professed by the movement "NAROD".

We need democracy. The European path of development. But at the same time we are, first, a conservative country and there is no need to pretend to be Holland, and second, a large country and we want to dominate, if not in the world, then in our region. We have every right to do so, there is nothing to be ashamed of. We must establish our own rules, but they should not be cannibalistic.

— Which Russian outlets do you read and respect? Which essayists do you read consistently and with pleasure? With what feeling do you watch RPT (Russian Public Television) and RTR? — if you watch them, of course.

— To know what's going on in the country, you need to read Kommersant and Vedomosti. Plus blogs: they've become an excellent source of information. That's more than enough. I read journalism less often, although there are a lot of good authors now. I read you regularly, Zakhar, write more, you're too stingy, you don't spoil us often enough. I definitely watch RPT, you have to know what's going on in the country. A couple of years ago, I sat there and got angry — it was disgusting. But now I admire it more and more — you have to be so good at lying! And people aren't even ashamed!

— Can you give any political predictions? Are you generally an optimist or a pessimist by nature? What does the future hold for Russia, I ask you — both as an optimist and as a pessimist?

— I am an optimist, but I try to think realistically. So I will answer this: unlikely that anything good will happen in the near future, but we will do everything to bring changes for the better as soon as possible. And they will surely come.

— Do you have any dreams? Not as a politician, but as a person, Alexei Navalny? And, by the way, if you weren't a politician, what would you be? Or maybe you still will be. Or is politics for life?

— I've been many things, but I went into politics. I'll stay in it as long as I can. Right now, I dream that politicians in Russia can influence the country and make our lives, the lives of all Russian people, better. Once we achieve that, then I'll dream about something else, something more interesting.