The Aggrieved Russian. Why Alexei Navalny Doesn’t Want to Keep Feeding the Caucasus

Lenta.ru: Alexei, why are you going to the “Russian March”? Alexei Navalny: This will be my fourth time going to the “Russian March,” and every year I get this rather strange question. Every year I explain in detail that my position is quite simple: there are certain political facts, or just facts in general. The sun exists, the sky exists, the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea, hipsters like wearing plastic-framed glasses, and the “Russian March” exists in Russia.

In other words, the “Russian March” exists regardless of how we feel about it. It is a visible and significant fact of political life. All kinds of people go to the “Russian March,” and some of them may be unappealing to others. The only way to make the “Russian March” look better is to go there ourselves. That’s why I go.

What is the point of a march of Russians? Why is it needed at all? The “Russian March” emerged as a result of the evolution of the nationalist movement in Russia. I see that evolution as entirely positive, because even now, when we talk about nationalists, people still think of the kinds of figures Yeltsin was fighting in the early 1990s. But they were not really nationalists; more often than not, they were some sort of Soviet patriots. It was a complete mixed bag.

Unfortunately, for historical reasons, the nationalist movement has always existed in a kind of semi-underground state and has been unable to legalize itself; for a long time, it simply could not become legitimate. That is one of the main reasons why many leaders of the nationalist movement appear quite marginal. They live under constant pressure, and other kinds of leaders simply could not emerge—and still cannot emerge.

Nevertheless, the mainstream of the nationalist movement is becoming, in many ways, national-democratic, and one expression of that movement has been the “Russian March”—a legal, generally accepted, entirely appropriate, and completely non-dangerous form.

There is a specific agenda that concerns people. It includes the large number of undocumented migrants. It is a fact that by this measure Russia ranks second after the United States. It is a fact that we have problems in the Caucasus. A fact? A fact. Is it a fact that the Caucasus—and Chechnya in particular—has turned into a political, legal, and financial offshore zone? A fact? A fact. The huge number of Russians left outside Russia’s borders is also a fact. Russians are the largest divided people in Europe; that is generally accepted and obvious to everyone. And so on. These are concrete problems. Unfortunately, they are treated as taboo by certain establishment politicians, who believe they should not be discussed because it is supposedly too dangerous. The idea is that no matter how you discuss Russian issues or Chechnya, it will all end in a pogrom. But the issue exists.

The Volga still flows into the Caspian Sea. Trying to forget that will not make it stop. The only difference is that this is not an urgent political issue, whereas the Chechnya problem is. People are going to discuss it anyway. So either that discussion is conducted normally, responsibly, and in a reasonable way, or it will take place in forms that may be unacceptable, with calls for violence.

Right, and there was that old video from the “Narod” movement—I sometimes rewatch it so I don’t get too comfortable...

“Become a Nationalist” or the one about guns?

The one where you compare nationalists to cavity monsters...

That’s an important video...

You don’t consider the people you share a platform with—at those Caucasus rallies and at the “Russian March”—to be cavity monsters?

I certainly do not consider the people who take the stage to be that. There are all kinds of people. As I said, the large number of marginal figures and people running around with those notorious Sieg Heil salutes is a direct consequence of the nationalist movement being unable to exist legally. Where a large, established ideology—let me stress, a peaceful and normal one—is suppressed, radicals and fringe figures naturally rise to the top, because only they can survive. If someone wants to seriously discuss budget allocation and the anti-extremism police, Center E, starts showing up at his home, he’ll spit on the whole thing and quit. But if someone sees a Jewish conspiracy everywhere, then when Center E comes after him, he’ll only become more convinced that the Jewish conspiracy is real and will start organizing some group around himself that eventually goes out and attacks people. Deliberate state policy in this area has produced exactly these results. The movement has been marginalized for a long time. That is why I see part of my task as explaining my position, isolating the reasonable leaders within the nationalist movement, and working with them.

Wait, have you listened to or read the speeches of Alexander Belov? His latest one may have been fairly restrained, but earlier he said all sorts of other things that were far less harmless.

You see, I look at what people are saying now. I’ve spoken with Belov a million times. Every time I’ve spoken with him, he has said absolutely sensible things. I’ve heard his public appearances on Echo of Moscow and at rallies, and so on. Different people say foolish things at different points in their lives. I’ve said foolish things too. Belov and I organized the conference “The New Political Nationalism.” It adopted a political declaration that contained entirely proper, acceptable ideas—acceptable to me, and I think absolutely acceptable to you and to any other normal person.

So there are two approaches here: either I discuss things with Belov, along with everyone else, listen to what they are saying now and what their political declarations are now, and make my judgment on that basis—or I drop all of that and start digging through Google’s cache to find out what Belov said God knows where and God knows when.

But he was convicted of extremism.

I can see what kind of criminal case they have now opened against Demushkin. You know, the same kind of criminal case could be opened against me over something I said on Echo of Moscow or over the interview I’m giving you right now. Demushkin may have whatever biography he has, but I can see that these criminal cases are fabricated in no time at all.

Yes, but people don’t change. If someone used to shout...

Why wouldn’t they change, for God’s sake? Everything my political experience tells me is that people change completely. Look at Yabloko when I joined it in 1999 and look at Yabloko now. Have people not changed? The membership has changed, and the people themselves have changed. Half the Yabloko people are now in United Russia, and vice versa. Or look at the “I Think” movement. Have those people not changed? Of course they have.

People absolutely do change. Take Europe. The current mayor of Rome is a former neo-fascist. Fact? Fact. Well, there you have it: the man changed, and now he is part of the ruling coalition with Berlusconi. That is why I am not going to dig through Belov’s biography or anyone else’s. I am not joining the same movement as they are, and I am not building parties with them. They do not need me to act as their lawyer. Let them defend themselves. What I am saying is that these issues concern millions of people. Thousands come out for the “Russian March.”

I invest this “Russian March” with my own meaning. When I go, it is my personal “Russian March.” I think a great many people share that meaning. So that’s fine, and I will keep going. If I don’t go, and one person doesn’t go, and another doesn’t go, then only skinheads will be left. Would that be good? It would be bad.

You say that it is precisely the marginalization of nationalists that creates skinheads and more radical nationalists. But if the movement is legalized, those people will not disappear. And you will serve as a cover for them.

Wait a second. In any liberal party, if we wanted to find some specific lunatics who eat children, don’t doubt for a moment that we could find them. And what would that mean? It would mean nothing. It would mean that in any large group of people, there are all kinds: pleasant people and unpleasant people. So this large group of people—any large movement—must be given the chance to develop, to choose its own leaders, to vote. Different factions are always competing within a movement.

I am sure that in any more or less sizable nationalist organization in Russia, if it is allowed to develop legally, leaders will emerge, and the current leaders will evolve in such a way that they will look no more radical than any right-wing politicians in Europe. But where the Sieg Heil crowd wins out, everything will slide into small semi-legal groups of, I don’t know, 30 people.

In Switzerland, the People’s Party won the election. It got slightly fewer votes than last time, but it still won. Its rhetoric is far harsher and more aggressive than that of DPNI, which is banned in Russia. Nothing terrible happened, and Gunvor, Gennady Timchenko’s company, is clearly not afraid of those dreadful Swiss nationalists, a worsening investment climate, or pogroms. It sits there quite happily siphoning off our money.

But Switzerland has a somewhat different history. What, did Russia have a Hitler? I don’t understand. Russia defeated fascism. Of course Switzerland has a different history. Ours is much better. We defeated fascism; we have a powerful historical inoculation against it, everyone understands that perfectly well, and nobody here needs anything proved to them on that score. Hitler killed millions of Russians.

Then why is everyone at the “Russian March” throwing up Nazi salutes? I am sure that, unfortunately, at this “Russian March” there will be some group of people doing that. But if we are being objective, first of all we will see that out of five or ten thousand people present, it is only certain groups of maybe a hundred people each who are raising their arms. They are aggressive, more photogenic, and they attract attention. So everyone looks at them. Yes, they raised their arms. But that is exactly why our task—mine, yours too, by the way, and that of any normal person—is to come to the “Russian March” as well, so that the arm-raisers remain an absolute minority. That’s all.

My task? The task of any normal citizen who shares certain views and perhaps holds conservative beliefs on some issues. The task of such people is to come to the “Russian March.”

I do not really understand the point of the march at all. I often hear nationalist leaders saying things like, “we are being discriminated against, we do not feel like masters in our own land.” Your old video is also telling in that respect. At the end it has the slogan: “We have the right to be Russian in Russia.”

We do have that right. What’s the problem?

So is someone taking that right away from you?

No one is taking it away, but...

Where is the discrimination? I do not see it. How does it manifest itself? What exactly is wrong for Russians? Back to square one. Do you agree or not that Russians—Russians specifically—have particular, specific problems? There are many such problems. Some they share with other peoples of Russia—for example, alcoholism. Russians are being degraded by it, just as, for example, the peoples of the North are. But there are also specifically Russian problems: for example, the millions of Russians left outside Russia’s borders.

The fact that there are huge numbers of ethnic Russians in Turkmenistan, whom Putin effectively traded away for gas contracts and who are completely rightless there—that is a concrete problem, and it is specifically a Russian problem. I am repeating things here that, it seems to me, are important and necessary to acknowledge. Unfortunately, as part of state and media policy, and because of history, the word “Russian” itself is treated as taboo and considered somehow offensive or dangerous. Wherever the word “Russian” appears, some kind of fuss immediately starts around it, and I think that is wrong.

It is a fact that Russians—Russians specifically—were driven out of the North Caucasus republics. Do you acknowledge that fact or not?

I do.

Well then, you ask what makes life bad. That is exactly what does. On the one hand, people were driven out; on the other, we see that any conflict that arises, even an everyday one, is immediately turned by the authorities of the North Caucasus republics into an interethnic conflict. The Agafonov case illustrates this perfectly. As soon as that killing happened, the State Council of Dagestan rushed off for some absurd reason and signed a letter supporting Mirzaev. In doing so, they instantly turned the confrontation not only into an ethnic one, but into something with this broader meaning: Dagestan versus the rest of Russia. They themselves impose that agenda.

But the Caucasus is not really Russian land. The complaint is that in Russia, on Russian land, Russians do not feel like masters in their own home.

What do you mean, the Caucasus is not Russian land? Fine then—whose land is it? A great many people lived in Grozny; in Soviet times, 400,000 people lived in Chechnya. They were driven out, and you are telling me it was not Russian land. So was it right to drive them out? By your logic, then, let’s drive Chinese people out of Smolensk.

I am not proposing driving anyone out. They were driven out, and that’s that. What is the problem now? “We do not feel like masters in our own land”—that is a slogan, isn’t it? Or is it not?

You should not think that everyone at the “Russian March” is completely uniform. The organizing committee of the “Russian March” consists of different organizations that in fact march under different slogans. As I understand it, that will even be reflected organizationally at the march.

There is one column that I march with. Its slogans are precisely about budget equality: stop feeding some regions at the expense of others, down with the “party of crooks and thieves.” I support those slogans one hundred percent. Those are the slogans I march under. If you go to a liberal rally, you will definitely find some guy standing there with a sign saying, “Immediately divide Russia into seven parts; only that way can we overcome Russian fascism.” And 99 percent of the people at that rally do not support that slogan. So what? For me, the “Russian March” is about specific problems, specific political content, and my own views on those problems.

So you do not agree that Russians are discriminated against in Russia? A lot of people are discriminated against in Russia, including Russians. Russians in Russia have specific problems. Russians were driven out of the North Caucasus republics and became refugees. Most of them received no compensation at all. And then, a week or two ago, the human rights ombudsman once again comes out and says that Russia must pay Chechnya’s residents large compensation for lost housing and additional compensation for deportations from God knows how many decades ago.

And this is against the backdrop of the fact that out of those 400,000 who fled Chechnya or were forced to leave, not one received any compensation at all. So yes, I say Russians are discriminated against; it is obvious that they are discriminated against in this matter. All right, let’s not talk about Chechnya. There is a totalitarian and criminal Kadyrov regime there. And the discrimination is specifically ethnic. Because there is not a single person lobbying for their interests, not a single person who stands up and says: “We want this too! Fine, you are speaking up for Chechens so they get money back or additional compensation. Let’s discuss that!” But who are the people who will come out and say, “Give money back to these people too! Let’s discuss that as well”? There is no such person. There is no such group.

So you are saying that young people come to the “Russian March” demanding compensation for Russians driven out of Chechnya? Ilya, what I am saying is that most people who respond emotionally to these issues cannot formulate them the way I can, for example. That is a feature of any rally. That is why I come. I believe that this is among the political reasons for holding the “Russian March.” And yes, of course there are teenagers there, 15-year-old football fans running around shouting “Sieg Heil!” Of course there are. Ask them about anything and they will not be able to formulate a thing. But they are children; they need to be disciplined or talked to and educated.

At the last rally, on October 22, you shouted to those kids: “We are the majority.” What does that mean? It means that the majority of Russian citizens share my views on these problems. And the majority of Russian citizens will say with me that there is no need to pour that kind of money into Dagestan and Chechnya if we get no results. The majority of Russian citizens will say with me: we do not want to finance the construction of a sharia army in Chechnya. The majority of Russian citizens will say: we want a visa regime with the Central Asian republics. The whole country discusses this, but the government does not discuss it and the Duma does not discuss it. So then the issue gets discussed in the street, and in the street, of course, it tends to be discussed in terms of “Let’s beat the hell out of everyone.”

Do you think a visa regime should be introduced with the countries of Central Asia? Yes. And I see nothing radical in that proposal. Americans voted for a wall with Mexico. Obama voted for building a wall with Mexico. And we are afraid even to introduce visas.

A representative of the Federal Migration Service just said that Russia needs nearly twice as many migrants as it has now. The FMS position swings wildly depending on Putin’s political line. Putin says, “I’m a Russian nationalist,” and the FMS—and Luzhkov after him—repeat that everyone should be kicked out and jobs should go to Muscovites. Then at the next event Putin says, “I’m an internationalist,” and they come out and say no, we need more migrants. The fact is that when asked how many migrants there are in Russia, legal and illegal, the FMS answers: between 5 and 10 million. And then another question arises: are you out of your minds?! How can a country with a total population of 140 million have a margin of error of plus or minus 5 million people walking around in it? Do they have no records at all? The United States has more undocumented migrants than Russia, but America is the richest country in the world, it attracts huge numbers of people, and yet they at least have some kind of accounting. We have none. Plus or minus 5 million people!

And we are now—again, this is a fact—the number one country in the world in heroin consumption. In part because heroin trafficking has become completely uncontrolled. It is as easy to transport heroin as it is to transport candy. People come here because life is still easier here than in Central Asia, than in Tajikistan. They will come whether there are jobs or not. And if they arrive and do not find work, then in order to pay the person who recruited them and cover the cost of the trip—the plane ticket—they will bring a little heroin with them. Simply to survive. Not to build a mafia here, just to survive. That is how we end up with whole settlements in the Urals destroyed by heroin addiction. So these are absolutely real problems.

What I am saying now—is it a problem, or is it incitement of ethnic hatred? It is a problem. So let’s discuss it. Let the Duma hold hearings, let the government discuss it, let Channel One discuss it. They do not discuss it at all, so naturally tens of thousands of people say: “Oh, you won’t discuss it? Then we’ll go to the ‘Russian March.’” And out of those ten thousand, three hundred say: “Oh, you won’t discuss it? Then we’ll go to the ‘Russian March’ with ‘Sieg Heil!’ slogans.” That’s all.

As for the slogan “Stop Feeding the Caucasus,” you are protesting the fact that revenues are taken from Russian regions, sent to the center, and then redistributed to Chechnya, without anything coming back. But if you look at the top ten subsidized regions for 2010, the Caucasus is not in first place—Yakutia is.

Those are federal budget subsidies per capita, right?

Yes.

I have seen that article a million times. But here is the thing: it is not just Russian regions that are being robbed—every region is being robbed. Tatars are robbed just like Russians are, and Tatars are just as unhappy about it. Russia is a huge country, and there will inevitably be some degree of budget inequality. There has to be regional policy: some get more, some get less. Yes, the Far East gets a lot, but there the issue is simple: either we help those people, or no one will live in those territories at all. And here the question is: if we want to discuss this seriously and calculate it, then let’s calculate it. Yes, according to the table you are looking at, the Far East or Chukotka outranks Chechnya.

But those figures are very misleading. You have to add the spending of state monopolies, special investment programs allocated by Gazprom, Rosneft, and so on—none of that is reflected in your table. Three weeks ago, Vnesheconombank issued state guarantees for a 9 billion ruble loan to build North Caucasus resorts. That 9 billion rubles is not in your numbers.

If you go to Yakutia, to the city of Mirny, you will still see a certain average level of healthcare, law enforcement, and the judicial system that corresponds to the rest of Russia. It is just as bad as in the rest of Russia, but it is roughly on the same level.

If you go to Ingushetia or Dagestan, you will find nothing of the sort. For any citizen of the country—Russian, Tatar, or Yakut—a trip to Chechnya or Ingushetia looks like a dangerous undertaking. A trip to the Far East does not. Look at what is happening in Chechnya. They are literally building a sharia army there with this money. So if the money were going toward something normal, and we could see what it was actually being spent on, these questions would not arise. But when we see money being poured in there, and then Hillary Swank and other Hollywood stars are invited to Kadyrov’s birthday party, then of course we do not like it at all.

So what was it that Demushkin and Belov liked so much there?

Ask Demushkin and Belov. I do not like it there.

Let’s not talk about Chechnya. At least Chechnya got some money, and we can physically see the buildings they constructed. Dagestan receives comparable sums, and they have absolutely nothing to show for it. Everything was simply stolen. Money is sunk into the place, yet we see tensions rising, a civil war gradually spreading, no real authority, some local boss sitting in every village, and nothing built at all. It is a pure black hole. Of course we do not like that.

So the issue is not fighting the allocation of money, but making sure it is not stolen.

Well, that is exactly what we are talking about.

No, you are proposing to stop allocating money to the Caucasus. We are proposing not to allocate money right now, until there are rules in place for how that money is distributed. We are proposing oversight over how these funds are spent. We are proposing that there be explanations of what the money is for. I would like someone to explain to me who decided, and on what basis, that anyone is going to go to North Caucasus resorts. And before the state-owned Vnesheconombank issues state guarantees for loans to those North Caucasus resorts, I would like to see the economic rationale for those projects, who will build them, and who these people are.

Because I know how this will go: they will allocate the money now, steal most of it, build some ski lifts of their own, and then force Gazprom and Rosneft to finance trips to those resorts for their employees, while subsidizing vacation packages for police officers, FSB officers, and state employees. In other words, we will first build these resorts with public money, and then we will pay extra to persuade people to go there. Right now, I do not agree with that. Do not give them the money. I want someone to explain to me how all this is supposed to work. They do not explain it, and that is why people go to rallies. That seems entirely appropriate to me. I do not understand why this does not bother you the way it bothers me.

Then go to a rally and shout, “Stop Feeding Kadyrov.” Come on. Were you at the rally? That was being said every other sentence—Milov said it, I said it, everyone said it. If you look at all my comments and speeches on this subject, that is exactly what they are about. You just do not want to hear what I am saying.

I hear all of that, but the main slogan is different. “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” is, in my view, just a civilized version of the old slogan “Beat the Caucasus.”

There is a group of people who organized the “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” campaign. If you look at the substantive content behind that slogan, you will see that it is exactly what I am talking about. I was not the author of the slogan, but I think the campaign should be supported, and it should be explained what we mean by it. In any case, you have to admit that the campaign has provoked the right and necessary discussion. Here we are discussing it now—everyone is putting their numbers on the table. Notice that wherever this is discussed, the discussion is not conducted in xenophobic rhetoric; everyone puts out their tables—you have yours, I have mine—and then people start discussing it. Is that not right? It is. But for some reason, that does not happen in the Duma. Or on television.

But in the end, young people will still come out to Manezhnaya Square and shout “F* the Caucasus.”** Ilya, why make things up? There was a rally, a fairly small one, on Bolotnaya Square. Who shouted that there? I did not hear a single such chant.

I think that is precisely because it was small.

All right. But did it happen? It did. Did it raise the right issues? It did. Did anyone shout anything illegal there? No. So that means this is the direction we need to move in. We need to develop this and explain it to people. But if we refuse to make any attempt at substantive discussion because we say in advance, “This will lead to fascism anyway,” then the end result will be that someone will indeed be shouting on Manezhnaya Square.

But they were already shouting on Manezhnaya Square. There was Manezh, and before “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” there was Kondopoga, and so on. And all of this will keep happening. But it happens not because these things are being discussed, but because they are not being discussed. And because the cops, the FSB, and the rest are busy with bullshit: letting murderers go, as in the Sviridov case, covering for all these Kadyrovs and everyone else.

Ten thousand people came out to Manezhnaya Square, while the “Stop Feeding the Caucasus” rally drew 600 or fewer. Doesn’t that suggest that this campaign simply does not interest people on a mass scale?

People came out to Manezhnaya Square because someone had been killed and the killer was released. Obviously the emotional force of the two events is somewhat different.

Several more people have been killed since then, there was a legal reason to gather, but for some reason they did not come.

Do you think it would be better for there to be another Manezh every time? If these problems continue to be ignored, then that is exactly what will happen every time.

So you do not support Manezh?

No, it is not something you either support or do not support. It happened because a man was killed. His killers were released by a crooked cop. They were released because of some phone calls from above. Naturally, outraged people took to the streets. Of course I support that. What else were outraged people supposed to do?

I regret that people are not taking to the streets in the same way now because that young man was arrested for splashing water on a prosecutor. Thankfully, no one was killed. But it is still an absolutely outrageous event. And we can see that over Manezh they convicted three National Bolsheviks. They simply picked out some people who were involved in politics.

“Manezhes” happen because of lawless abuses by the authorities. And there is an endless Manezh going on somewhere in the forests of Ingushetia, because there too one local boss keeps taking vodka factories away from another local boss, and they wage endless war and shootouts. Manezhes and riots like the one in Kondopoga happen because of real problems. Someone gets stabbed, or some horror occurs, people rush out, and a pogrom happens. Unfortunately, it will not be otherwise. If the courts do not work, if the police do not work or work in some bizarre way, then this is what will keep happening.

Surely you agree that if tomorrow, God forbid, some Chechen official runs someone over on the streets of Moscow, then for the police that will mean they do not need to handle the case according to the criminal procedure code. Instead, they will start making calls and figuring out whether they are allowed to proceed, whose relative this is, who is backing whom, and a convoy of black Mercedeses will immediately set out from Chechnya to come here and “resolve the matter,” and so on. It is precisely this kind of justice that infuriates everyone.

If a Russian official runs over a Russian, the same thing will happen if he has money.

Money decides everything. But excuse me: when some Russian kills someone, the State Duma does not collectively sign a letter on his behalf and take him under its protection. That does not happen. Nor does it happen in the Far East that, right in front of the governor, a bodyguard shoots the editor-in-chief of an opposition website in the face and then no investigation follows. In the Far East, in Yakutia, or in Moscow, that is unimaginable. But in Ingushetia, it happened.

So what should be done about the Caucasus at all? Let’s say we stop feeding it—what happens next?

What do you mean, stop feeding it? All budget funds should be distributed fairly. And the Caucasus republics should receive budget funds based on real needs and on their capacity to make use of them. First and foremost, the law needs to be obeyed. What do you mean, what should be done? Do what the rules already say.

The problems you have described will not be solved simply by distributing money properly. The solution to any problem begins with discussion. In our current political situation, none of these things are even considered problems. The authorities do not think this is a problem; I do, and I go to the “Russian March” to say that it is a problem and that I demand a solution. I demand that it be discussed and resolved. There are different views: some people agree with me, some disagree, and they write articles about it. But everyone recognizes it as a problem.

The only people who do not see it as a problem are the crooks sitting in the Kremlin and the White House (the Russian government building). What do you expect—that at the “Russian March” a 50-page report will be drafted on paper laying out what to do about the Caucasus? No, that will not happen. Democratic rallies do not write national development programs either.

Only 600 people came to your rally, even though you invited everyone through your blog. Did that not disappoint you?

No. First of all, this strange legend has appeared from somewhere that if I invite people through my blog, a billion people will respond. Basically, my LiveJournal is just a way of conveying information. The fact that I post something there does not mean huge numbers of people will come out, and that is not even the goal. Of course, more people would have been better. But I had no romantic illusion that a blog is a tool for bringing thousands of people into the streets. As many came out as came out.

Are you not troubled by the disappointment and dissatisfaction of the more liberal part of your supporters, the ones who liked RosPil’s work?

When I went to my first “Russian March,” RosPil did not even exist yet. I am talking about problems. And my political views are what they are. I am not going to change them because some wonderful people from Mayak think RosPil is good and nationalism is bad. If someone disagrees with me—like you, for example—I will patiently explain my position, which is what I am doing.

You periodically cite Le Pen as an example.

I cite Le Pen as an example of the fact that there is a perfectly respectable and legal politician in Europe whose rhetoric, again, is much harsher than DPNI’s on some issues. And nothing terrible happened in France because of it.

You consider him respectable?

Excuse me, but he exists legally, he made it to the second round. Yes, of course he is a respectable politician. Huge numbers of people vote for him. He is a real political figure there. Why would I not consider him respectable?

Would it be fair to say that you see Le Pen as a role model?

I do not see Le Pen as a role model, because Le Pen is not applicable to the Russian context. Let’s put it this way: it is an irrelevant example to transplant onto Russian soil.

It just seems to me that in Europe you do not get gangs like the Skachevsky-Ryno gang, killing 30 people.

What do you mean, they do not? Are there neo-fascists in Germany? There are, and they are arrested there regularly. Go online and google far-right groups in America. They are absolute freak shows. The Michigan Militia, for God’s sake. These are armed groups numbering in the thousands, regularly carrying out killings. That is a completely mistaken view. Every country has radical groups, ethnic and religious ones. Russia does too.

Returning to the Caucasus, do you think it might be better to separate it? Do you think Chechnya is currently part of Russia? I think it is.

I do not think it is. Legally, it is.

De jure, yes—but de facto, is it part of Russia? Do Russian courts function there? Do Russian laws apply there? Right now, the only thing linking us with Chechnya is a common currency, which we cart over there for them and will soon probably send through a pipeline—that’s all. What we should really be talking about now is making Chechnya and the Caucasus republics not only formally but actually part of Russia. The issue is that we need to put our relationship in order, and there must be one law there, one attitude toward people of any nationality—not the construction of some strange ethnic authoritarian state, which is what is happening in Chechnya now.

So separation is not what you are talking about? I do not know where this idea comes from. What, do we have only two options—either keep showering them with money and enriching all those local feudal bosses forever, or separate them immediately? No, that is not the choice. With the North Caucasus republics, it is apparently necessary to introduce certain additional administrative controls—especially if the situation there worsens as the civil war develops—even though some such controls already exist. There are checkpoints everywhere there, aren’t there? There are. I would just like it if certain strange armed men who roam from Chechnya into Stavropol because they are somehow considered Chechen police rather than simply bandits, which is what they are, stopped roaming around. So let there be controls at the administrative border over the movement of people and goods to regulate all of this.

The Caucasus already exists as something separate anyway. It is no longer really part of the country. Let’s just say it plainly—that is how it is, it is not part of the country. There is this problem: some guys with guns come running out of there, show up in Pyatigorsk to hang out and shoot at the ceiling. If in Pyatigorsk they officially create a police unit to combat police officers arriving from Chechnya—well then, excuse me, how much further does this need to go?

The root of most of the problems you describe is not even really the Caucasus, but the current authorities, who enable all this... The solution to the Caucasus problem lies in the Kremlin, of course.

Then why keep pushing the Caucasus theme specifically rather than the Kremlin one? There is no need for any restrictions here, especially hypocritical ones. There is Putin, and there is Kadyrov. We should discuss both Putin and Kadyrov. Kadyrov is a man who commits offenses and crimes on a daily basis and behaves in a completely unacceptable way. So of course he too must be discussed.

You complain that there is no platform for discussing these problems, that the Duma does not discuss them. But didn’t A Just Russia invite you onto its party list? No one held any talks with me... I’m just curious.

Gennady Gudkov personally told me that.

I have never negotiated with Gennady Gudkov; I have never seen him in my life. I have seen his son Dima, but he never held any such talks with me either. No one invited me, and I think everyone understands my position on joining party lists. I think my campaign—waged in guerrilla fashion for any party against United Russia—helps all the smaller parties. So I think I am much more useful to all parties in that capacity than I would be on their lists. And why would sensible people negotiate with me? They do not want to hear me say no.