Alexei Navalny’s meeting with voters in Moscow’s Aeroport District

Well, it doesn't matter how many people there are, this is

the duty of any candidate. You know,

you may have heard the news today that

the incumbent mayor, Sobyanin, refused

to take part in the debates.

Who could have doubted it,

and they said they are not at all

interested in it. They said that the debates

of the other candidates would not even be

recorded and would not be broadcast

live. In this way, they are

showing that they don't care about Muscovites.

I and the people who have rallied around me,

who support me—we do care about

Muscovites, because we are

Muscovites ourselves. It is our duty

to hold meetings like this, and we will

hold them.

First, I would like to say a few words about

myself, and then I will gladly answer

any of your questions.

My name is Alexei Navalny, I am 37

years old, I am a lawyer, and I live with my wife and two

children in Moscow, in the Maryino district. I have

two degrees. My law degree

is from the Peoples' Friendship University. And

my second degree is in finance; as it happens,

I also graduated from the Financial

Academy under the Government of the Russian

Federation.

And for the past several years I have been

investigating corruption in

the largest corporations. You know that

the largest—if the sun is shining, we can move over.

And do you know that the largest Russian

corporations—those companies under

state control—

control up to 80% of the economy. These are

huge monsters that are supposedly

both private companies and state companies, and

no one understands what is going on. But

after spending several years dealing with these

corporations, I understand what is

happening there. First and foremost,

there is monstrous corruption. I have spent 8 years

working on this, because for me it is

not just an empty phrase, when I know

that over the past 12 years, over the

past 13 years, Russia has received from the sale of

oil and gas 3 trillion

dollars, I have a question: where did

that money go? And I have been—and continue

to be—engaged in investigating

exactly how they spend our money. And my

answer to that question is: they are

stealing it. I think you also know perfectly well

that the answer to this

question is the same, because if each of us

takes those abstract 3 trillion dollars

and calculates our own share, we will see that over

these years, each of us, each

citizen of Russia, accounts for about

$50,000. That means for

a family of four, like mine,

for example, that is $200,000.

So where is that money? What has our

country received in recent years from all

that money? We do not see it. In the Brezhnev era

(the late Soviet period), in Soviet times, the money

may have been spent well or badly—that can be

debated—but at least we saw some

results. A space industry was built,

a huge army was built,

we fed Africa, we fed

Latin America. Now we have

nothing. What can we be proud of—that in

Russia we rank second in the number of

billionaires? That our officials

buy all the most expensive houses in

London? That we have the fastest growth

in the number of billionaire officials?

That openly, in our country,

officials simply are—and

they, their children, and their spouses are openly

dollar millionaires and

multibillionaires. We certainly do not want

to be proud of that. I do not. That is why

for all these years I have been

fighting corruption in companies. My

colleagues and I created the RosPil project,

which monitors corruption in

public procurement. And we stopped corrupt

tenders worth billions of rubles. Now when

we talk about billions of rubles,

corrupt tenders worth billions of

rubles, it sounds like something abstract.

But I always suggest

calculating it in personal terms.

If we are talking only about Moscow, then in

Moscow public procurement amounts to 600 billion rubles, of which

even by official estimates

150 billion rubles are stolen. For

each resident of Moscow, that is 30,000 rubles per

year. We all need to understand very clearly

that from each of us, they steal

30,000 rubles a year through public procurement alone.

Now let's calculate it again for a family. I have

four people in my family—that is 120,000 rubles per

year. That is how much is stolen from my family

through public procurement alone. I do not accept that. I am

fighting it. I urge you to fight

it together with me. Why am I running in the

Moscow mayoral election?

Because I am just like you. I am

an absolutely ordinary Muscovite who has lived for 15

years in an ordinary apartment and

faces all these problems

personally. And my family faces these

problems too. And so when I run in the

election and talk about housing and utilities problems, for

me this is not some abstract

issue. Opinion polls show that everyone is

concerned about housing and utilities. That is why I say it

really concerns me, because

for my 78 sq. m apartment in a prefabricated apartment block

I get a bill for 9,500 rubles.

I know that I am not receiving services worth that much.

amount. And I know that this price will

keep rising, because there is a monopoly of the DEZs (municipal housing maintenance offices),

because there is quite simply a real

mafia. You probably saw a couple of

weeks ago that they even showed it on TV,

how they removed the head of my

district administration where I live. He was removed because

his wife, driving an SUV, ran into

some pedestrians. You probably

saw it. Well, if you paid attention,

it was some Range Rover with the license plate 999,

the district head who before that had been

the district head in the Lebeno district, and before

that he had been the district head in

Nekrasovka. The man has spent his whole life in

municipal service. In principle, he simply cannot

afford to live such a

luxurious life as he lives, quite

openly. I know this perfectly well. I think

you all know too that he lives such a

luxurious life precisely because I

get a bill for my apartment in the amount of

9,500 rubles.

When I run in elections and talk about

the problems of migration, I talk about it not

because someone brought me a report,

as they did to Sobyanin, but because I know that

the women in my building are afraid

to go outside in the evening, because

this statistic that

50% of serious crimes in Moscow

are committed by migrants, including illegal

migrants. For me, this is not

just statistics; for me, it is

the people who live in my building, whose

bags were snatched. For me, it is

the head of my local police precinct in

the district, who says: "We do not even

register these crimes; they are

pointless to fight."

For me, the problem of education is

not some abstract thing,

measured in numbers of schools

or thousands of students. For me, the problem

of education is my wife, who

is on the school’s parent committee. And

our school is being merged with the neighboring school,

and then both of them together are being merged with a

kindergarten. I think practically everyone

has run into this problem. And no one

explains anything at all, not even remotely, about what

is happening to these schools and why it is

happening. We spend colossal amounts of

money on education, but quality

education cannot be obtained even in Moscow

by anyone.

When I look at Moscow’s budget and see

the amount, the figure that goes to

healthcare,

my eyes nearly pop out, because I,

just like you, go to the

local polyclinic, try to use the

famous electronic registration system,

which Sobyanin keeps praising to us, and realize

that it is practically impossible

to get an appointment with a doctor. But at the same time, I know for certain

that for every Muscovite, just for their

outpatient clinic care, per year

20,000 rubles are spent. Again, everyone can

calculate that for their own family. So,

for my family alone each year, just on

the polyclinic, 80,000 rubles are spent. Now

just raise your hands, those who in the

past year have gone to their local

polyclinic, right? And conversely, who

has not gone even once to the local

polyclinic? Yet 20,000 rubles were taken from each person.

There is a sea of money in Moscow. Moscow’s budget

is 1.6 trillion rubles. We have

an enormous amount of money, and with that

money Moscow and Muscovites can

truly build for themselves a better

quality of life. With that money, Moscow

could have roads without traffic jams. With

that money, Moscow could have public

transport. With that money, Moscow could

have one of the best healthcare systems in

the world. We could have excellent

education, but for some reason we have none of

it. Where does it all go? The paradox

is that we all

understand it perfectly well. I think the residents

of the Aeroport district understand it perhaps

even better than others, because you

have this being built nearby,

the Alabyano-Baltiysky Tunnel. A bottomless

pit into which 5 billion rubles have already been poured. And

its opening date keeps being pushed back and

pushed back and pushed back. And we all

understand perfectly well that on this

Alabyano-Baltiysky Tunnel alone, so much money has been stolen

that

it would be enough to build polyclinics in five

districts and eliminate queues throughout the entire

Northern Administrative Okrug (district).

I spoke yesterday in the Cheryomushki district.

Exactly the same situation. There, they

are building the Southern Rokada. They are building it for 7.9

billion rubles. And everyone knows perfectly well, and all

experts confirm, that this is roughly

three times more expensive than such a road

should cost to build.

All we get is additional traffic jams.

We get endless brainwashing on

television. And these people skim money off every

construction project on a truly

colossal scale. For us,

the construction of one polyclinic,

fully equipped, even at an

inflated price, costs

400 million rubles.

In the construction of the Alabyano-Baltiysky

Tunnel or the Southern Rokada, enough money has been stolen

to pay for 10 polyclinics. And this is happening

completely openly. My friends, I am running in the

Moscow mayoral election because I believe

that I am not the only one who has realized all this. I

believe that in Moscow there is a huge

the number of people who understand this

fully and who are not prepared to put up with it,

who do not want to accept that in

a very rich city we simply live with

a very low, have a very low

quality of life. In terms of hydrocarbon sales

we rank first

in the world. In terms of quality of life, we

rank sixty-ninth in

the world. But Moscow is not even the whole of

the rest of Russia. If I were standing here,

for example, and saying that I was

running for mayor of the city of Kostroma, you

would say to me: "Come on, Navalny, we

demand that you build us

a school or that you build us

a clinic." And I would tell you: "Folks, I

understand everything, but unfortunately we have no money in

the budget."

But here we are in a situation where

I can tell you: "Folks, there is a sea of money in the city

budget, we can build ourselves

anything we want, but we are not building any of it

at all." Why? Because the current

government is interested exclusively

in corruption. It is interested in personal

enrichment, it is interested in

having the higher Kremlin authorities

keep approving it endlessly.

There is an alternative path of development. And I,

and the people around me, do not believe that

Moscow or Russia are somehow

doomed places that will never

be able to do anything. We have written

a program — the best program,

written by the best experts. We are ready

and we have answers to all the urgent questions

facing Moscow. When we are

told that it is impossible to get rid in

Moscow of migrants, we say — and we

back this up with calculations — that this is complete nonsense,

that there cannot be such an

abnormal situation in Moscow and in Russia,

when, for example, 40% of all young

men living in Tajikistan are

now already living here, in Moscow. They

have simply all moved here.

We understand perfectly well that they come here

not because there are

jobs here or because it benefits us, but

because they are being exploited here. They live

like slaves. Half of

their wages can be taken from them, and that is why they

live here. Anyone can do this

experiment that I did: go out into

the courtyard, walk up to your Uzbek janitor and

ask him: "How much do you earn?"

He will tell you a figure of 18,000–25,000 rubles.

Then you can go and look at

the official documents and find out that in

fact he is being paid around 35,000–40,000 rubles.

It is just that every day, every month, he

pays 10,000–15,000 to his bosses. Under

these conditions, migrants are recruited, and

they will keep recruiting them endlessly. And they will

live 30 to an apartment, because

they are simply being fleeced. We have drafted

a bill that prohibits

the use of foreign labor

where city or

budget funds are used. We have drafted

a bill that disqualifies

any contracting organizations that

use illegal labor. These

measures could be working tomorrow. All our

proposals on transport, housing and utilities, and

healthcare could be working

tomorrow. And in fact, I would not even

tell you that we have invented something

new or unique. All of this already works in

other cities.

By budget size, Moscow is second only

to New York. To New York, and slightly

to Shanghai. It is one of the richest cities in

the world. We do not need to invent anything. We

already have everything. We have an advanced

population. We have an enormous

amount of money. We simply have

a disgusting government that

robs that population. My friends, I am

standing here before you because, as I

have already said, I am an ordinary Muscovite, just like

you. I do not have the ability to brainwash

people through television. I

do not have the ability to use district

newspapers that you and I pay for. I

do not have the ability to work with

oligarchs and plaster the whole

city with outdoor advertising. But I absolutely

believe that by holding meetings like these

— I hold three of them every weekday,

three such meetings every weekday, and every

weekend five such meetings — I will be able

to get my ideas across to you. I am sure that

I will find support among many of you.

For some reason, it seems to us that

nothing can ever be changed. But the election

in Moscow is only one and a half million

people, taking turnout into account, who will come out and

change this government — and can change it —

and will change it if they want to. In Moscow there are far

more people than half a million

who know what is happening, who

do not believe television, who can

put 2 + 2 together and can make sense of

basic things in the Moscow budget.

These people exist. We have only one

small problem. We do not quite believe in

ourselves. We do not believe that it is possible

to change things. But I believe that the real

source of power in Russia is not

television, it is not money, but those very

people with whom every candidate and

every politician must speak. That is why

I am here speaking with you. I urge you

to support me. I urge you to support

yourselves. On September 8, I urge you

to go out and vote, and to make sure that

Moscow’s enormous budget and enormous

opportunities have in fact

given us a European quality of life and

a great city both for us and for our

children. Thank you very much. And now I’m ready

to answer your questions.

Thank you.

Go ahead,

Yes. Your question, please.

Let me, purely

hypothetically, ask you to imagine this. It’s hard to imagine. I’m going to

vote for you. Simply because

there hasn’t been anyone like you in

Russian politics since 1917.

Well, imagine, purely hypothetically, that

you won the election, that the wizard Churov (former head of Russia’s Central Election Commission),

and his magic wand broke. Well,

just imagine that.

Right.

And now imagine that a day later,

after you see the scale

of the sabotage you’ll be facing.

How do you actually imagine

that you would cope with that scale

of sabotage, with that sabotage?

What exactly would you do with the officials? And

second, you won’t argue that fear is

the strongest human feeling,

stronger even than conscience.

Psychologists have proven that.

You’ve surely seen the Italian films

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and Confessions of a Police Captain.

You know, these people

stop at nothing. Aren’t you

afraid they’ll simply kill you? Those are my two

questions: sabotage, and that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I’ll start with the second question. I

speak publicly quite often, give interviews,

and so on. Believe it or not, the most

frequently asked question, going back to

the Committee for the Defense of Muscovites, which

I was involved with from 2005, when we were engaged in

blocking illegal construction projects and

fighting developers. That actually

was probably even more dangerous

than what I’m doing now. Developers

are straightforward people: for every day a construction site is shut down,

they might crack you over the head. And

I still get asked this often now. But,

my friends, here we all have to give

ourselves an answer. Why is it that we,

millions upon millions of us, are afraid of

what is literally a mafia of 100 families?

It’s not even just some kind of,

you know, clan or new aristocracy with

tens of thousands of people who

seized power. It is literally

200 or 300 people, their wives, their

children, their mistresses, who have

grabbed all of this for themselves. I’m not afraid of them. All sorts of

things can happen to any of us.

The risk of being hit by a car is very real.

A brick could fall on your head, and so on.

But in any case, no matter what

degree of risk we all face, I share that

risk together with everyone who

is here, in Moscow or anywhere else in the

country. Because this is simply my

country. I don’t have another one. Am I afraid? I

am concerned. Of course, the thought is unpleasant

that tomorrow they might, well, that something

could happen to me. It’s an

unpleasant thought, I won’t deny it, but that does not

mean that tomorrow I should give up and

let some gang of crooks rob us,

rob my children, and rob my grandchildren

as well. I will never allow that.

As for sabotage,

the special feature of Moscow is that,

as I’ve already said many times today,

there is simply a lot of money in Moscow,

so I’m not afraid of sabotage from the federal

authorities. And the budget process and

the tax code are structured in such a way

that the federal authorities cannot take money away from

Moscow. That is the main thing. So

the city can be governed. As for

sabotage by officials, here it is important

to understand that,

first of all, the city is run by

tens of thousands of people. Despite the fact that

I do like to talk about how everyone around us is

a crook, the truth is,

of course, that 85% of these people

are not corrupt, because they simply

have no opportunity to be corrupt,

there’s nowhere for them to steal from. They sit in positions

where there is simply nothing they can

steal.

Salaries at Moscow City Hall are

quite high. We do not have a situation

where I have to grab someone like you

and drag you in off the street: "Please,

please, come work at City Hall,

be an honest official." The salaries there are high,

and there are many people there

who are not involved in day-to-day

corruption. And the most important thing

that needs to be done is to create a City Hall leadership

that sends the right

political signals, that says

clearly that what is said will indeed

be the reality: that stealing

and being corrupt is genuinely

difficult and dangerous. And if you steal,

there will be inevitable accountability, and you

will be punished. Not like now, when you

see, yes, take Serdyukov (former Russian defense minister), our most famous

corruption case in Russia.

Serdyukov. Serdyukov has not even been

charged. The main defendant, Vasilyeva,

is sitting in a thirteen-room

apartment under house arrest. She is

regularly photographed as she

shops for jewelry in boutiques

and so on. That too is a signal

sent by the authorities. It is a signal

that if you steal, then steal. The main thing

Pay up. The main thing is to stay

politically loyal. Then everything will

be fine for you. Our task at City Hall, in

the country, anywhere, is to build everything

differently. And when the people in charge

are people about whom it is truly

known that they do not take a single kopeck,

people about whom it is truly

known that day after day they carry out

the instructions they are supposed to

carry out, instead of procuring

tomography scanners at ten times their

actual price. Then, relying on the 85%

who are not corrupt, we will crush the

15% who really are crooks, and

we will be able to change the situation. And this is

not something I just made up — not something I

scribbled on a piece of paper and decided

would work. It has worked in many

countries of the former Soviet

Union, in countries farther abroad, and so on,

including very corrupt Asian countries

like Singapore and Hong Kong — this has already

been done there. Are we really the stupidest or

most hopeless, the most useless, that

we cannot do it? We will do it. I am absolutely certain, and we

are ready to do it right now.

Next question.

Tell me, we don't have Russia anymore, we have a

multinational country. I served as security for

Brezhnev in Volochek, and nothing like this happened then. You could walk

around peacefully, but now you step out of your house

and someone says, "I'll stab you, I'll

stab you." An elderly woman made a remark, and he pulled a knife

and then blood was spurting from her like a fountain.

No one...

As I understand it, this is a question about migration.

Yes. No, in our country there is no connection between

Russia and crime, and so on.

They are threatening us.

You can't even go outside. I understand, I understand

the emotional reaction many people have. I

know that here in your district — I was simply

when preparing for this meeting — I

looked through, among other things, the crime reports

for the Aeroport District. I know that in

April several

people were detained — migrants, in fact — who,

threatening people with weapons, with knives, incidentally,

were snatching bags, and then even had the

audacity to state officially, on the record,

that they did it because they did not

like the local population.

No one

We have answers to all of this. We all

understand very well what to do

about it.

The situation really is absolutely

abnormal. It is not normal for whole

countries to simply up and move here.

As I already mentioned by way of example, 40% of young

Tajiks live in Moscow.

Moscow does not need that many

foreign workers.

What's more, we are constantly being fed the myth

that if tomorrow there are fewer

migrants, then there will be no one left to work

and we will all be buried in filth and everything

will fall apart. That is absolutely not true. In

Moscow, before 2003, there were practically no

migrants. There are a huge

number of cities in Russia that are quite

well maintained and rank first or

second in terms of urban upkeep,

like Cheboksary. Immaculate cities — there

is not a single migrant there. Once again,

this whole thing about migrants is just a big myth.

It is the Moscow mayor's office that draws migrants here. The mayor's office

of Moscow is the main employer

for these migrants, because they can be

kept in conditions like slaves, they can be

exploited in this situation. Just

imagine

a young man from Uzbekistan. He

came here to work construction. He

did not get the construction job. What is he going to

do here? He has no

guarantees, nothing. And what's more, suppose

he does get on a construction site and breaks his leg, and he has

no insurance, nothing. So

the only way for him to solve his

problems is to call his brother in

Tajikistan. His brother will bring him 300 grams of

heroin. He will sell those 300 grams of heroin

just to provide for his

survival. And I did not make this up. Here

official statistics show that

Russia is the number one consumer of

heroin in the world. In absolute heroin consumption

we are number one in the world. That is how it

works. Our solution to this problem

is as follows: as I already

said, first, if a company

that works with city money,

whether a state enterprise or a

private contractor, is caught

employing illegal

migrants, it is disqualified.

It will never again have access

to city money. Measure number two.

Within a year, we will ban the hiring of

foreign labor for those contracts and

jobs that are paid for with

city funds. If you have a private

business, then fine — if you want to hire

foreigners, migrants, or even

aliens, go ahead. That is your business, your

money. But with city money, we should not

be paying to create problems for ourselves. The third

measure, which of course can be adopted at the

federal level, but is absolutely

necessary, is of course the introduction of a visa

regime with the countries of Central Asia and

the South Caucasus. When we go to Germany, we

get a visa. We do not consider that

to be a humiliation, an insult, or that our

human dignity has somehow been destroyed.

No. If one of us goes to the United States, we

we’ll even have to submit fingerprints twice

— first at the embassy,

and then again at

the border. So why is it that any resident

of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, or Kyrgyzstan

can simply buy a ticket and come here? And

stay here for as long as they want.

Let’s at least introduce a visa regime.

It’s a common situation: when you

travel to the United States, they ask you, "Please show us

that you have $10,000 in your bank account

that will allow you to live

in the U.S. for a month," and you

obediently bring the statement and show it. So why

can’t we impose the same

perfectly legal, perfectly normal requirements

on our former neighbors in the

Soviet Union. We can and should

do this. These are normal, basic

measures; there is nothing fascist

or discriminatory about them. They

are reasonable, and they are used all over the world. And

we will apply them, and we will significantly

reduce the number of migrants here.

Next question.

Please, go ahead with the questions.

One at a time, please. There are a lot of people. What

should be done to bring in

tourism, to make the city more attractive to tourists, because

nobody comes to Moscow. I’ll explain why.

That was the first question. The second question.

Please tell us, what will you

do about homeless children, of whom there are a huge

number in the city of Moscow? And the third

question: the Mausoleum. Should he be buried?

First question: tourism. Second question:

homeless children. Third question: the Mausoleum.

As for tourism, the best answer right now is this:

just try going to Red Square.

It’s fenced off. And trying to get into

the Kremlin is practically impossible. Red Square

is regularly closed off. And

it’s simply painful to watch those

unfortunate foreigners who bought

tickets. They try to get onto Red

Square, and there are some police officers standing there,

those awful metal barriers, and

it’s impossible to get in. That’s how everything

is arranged here — the whole city. It’s unclear who

it is even for. The Kremlin is a medieval

fortress.

Nowhere else does a medieval

fortress serve, for some reason, as the seat of the country’s government.

country.

The Kremlin, of course, should be open.

Tourists come here because they want to see something.

They should have the opportunity

to see Red Square. They should

be able to go into the Kremlin. They

should be able to see

the wonderful mansions that we have

which, for some reason, have all now been leased out and

placed under this heritage protection authority.

At best, they house

embassies; more likely, some kind of

government agencies. It’s impossible to see

any of it. So those

wonderful sites, first and foremost

the cultural monuments that already exist, we

simply need to open them up. Because

if someone comes here, flies 900

and can get neither into the Kremlin nor onto Red

Square, they will write everywhere, they will tell

everyone: "Don’t come to Russia,

it’s a pointless waste of time. Everything costs twice

as much, and on top of that you can’t see

anything." As for

homeless children — well, I think it’s

of course an exaggeration to say that in

Moscow there are enormous numbers of them. We

do see that there are substantial statistics on

homeless children. But here again, everything

comes down to money. Moscow has money.

Look, our program includes

a breakdown of the budget for education and

social welfare.

The amount of money allocated to

education and related areas

is unmatched anywhere.

It’s not just that we could place these homeless children

somewhere.

If we wanted to, we could even buy each of them a car.

The real issue is that the problem

of homeless children, of course, cannot be solved

simply with money. It is a matter of social

welfare. It is a matter involving parents. Unfortunately,

if a child’s parents are

alcoholics in another city, then no amount of

money will solve that problem. What is needed here

is a functioning social

welfare system, and it has to be built properly.

We have the money, and we have the resources

for all of this. As for Lenin,

that is an excellent question. And, by the way,

it is also a question about how the city is governed.

In general, I believe that the current system

of city government is structured in an extremely

ugly way. All decisions are made by one, two,

or three people whom no one

elected at all. No one really knows who they are,

yet they make controversial, scandalous decisions. It is obvious

that if tomorrow they start removing

Lenin, there will be demonstrations across the city for three months.

There should be a referendum. We should

put more issues to a referendum.

In many cities, in all developed countries,

it is normal practice to

hold district, citywide,

and national referendums. Do you know of even

one referendum that has been held in

Moscow? No? That’s because not a single one

has ever been held. We have a law on

referendums, but holding one

is impossible. Why? Because

the mayor’s office is afraid of the residents’ opinion. They think

people might come out, cast their votes somehow — how terrible —

so it blocks all of it. There is no need

to be afraid. We need to make sure that the mayor

was supposed to decide everything, all issues.

The residents decided it themselves; they held a referendum.

Excellent. It's their decision. After all,

a mayor is the person who

is hired by the residents and works for them.

Next question. Yes,

Alexei. Yes, why am I addressing you this way? You're

not a young man anymore. And in our Russia,

things are such that unless people address you by your first name and patronymic,

they won't take you seriously. Putin is whatever he is, but he's

Vladimir Vladimirovich, and you're just Alexei.

When they address you, even

on TV programs, I noticed, they don't use

your patronymic. Adjust to that, because these are

Western habits. I studied at Harvard myself,

you know. Not all of that works here.

Try getting people to call you Alexei Anatolyevich.

Thank you very much. The question is—or rather, this is

more of a suggestion—that for some reason

Alexei, you shouldn't just be Alexei. You

should be Alexei Anatolyevich.

Because there's Putin, Vladimir

Vladimirovich, while you're just Alexei

Anatolyevich.

Ah, well, listen, I guess there's probably

some truth to that, but honestly,

if I came out here in front of you and said:

"Well, hello, my name is Alexei

Navalny." But if I said, "Hello, my name is

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny," that just

feels so unnatural to me I can barely

bring myself to say it.

Yes, please, your question.

Why don't you say

we've been hearing this kind of information, that

when will we finally begin? Are we Russians or are we

Armenians—for me, for our own...

Listen to me. You know, here in Moscow we have

an enormous number of problems,

real problems that need to be solved

every single day. We have a dreadful situation with

housing and коммунal services. In healthcare, for example,

in terms of the number of scanners, we rank

among the top in the world, ahead of London

and so on—one of the leading places.

And yet, in terms of the number of

cancer cases detected, and in terms of

successful treatment rates, we're in absolutely

ridiculous positions. So

let's discuss real problems. We have

this interesting thing going on: at

every meeting I hold,

people show up who have been sent by the district

administrations. That's Sobyanin's style of work. And

at every meeting, the supposedly most

pressing questions come from these

Sobyanin people: about gay parades, about all that

stuff. Folks, in our city we want

to solve problems that affect millions. I'm concerned about

public safety,

because my wife is afraid to go out

in the evening. And you're asking about gay parades.

Next question.

I

am one of those opposition supporters

who is on your side.

And of all the opposition figures who, yes,

speak out, my personal

sympathy is with you, because you

speak more clearly. And it seems to me

that, as they said, Alexei, you're closer

to us. At least, that's how

I feel. But the one thing

I want to say is: what do you think about

this system we have? You

are part of this system, well,

part of the opposition side of it—whoever you listen to,

Sobyanin too, everyone too. Everyone says nice

words, everyone says: "We'll build, we'll

do everything, there will be democracy." No one

comes out and says: "Elect me, I'll

steal, I'll line my own pockets." No one says that.

But in the end, it turns out that everyone says:

"Fine, Alexei, what do you

think too?" I honestly think that you are a very

honest person, but I have one

example in mind: my son was applying

to the Interior Ministry, uh, the police, and there,

to get in, he had to go through, three times, uh,

a psychology exam, and then other

tests. And I asked the psychologist a question. I

said: "It's very hard to get in there,

so how is it that after going through so many

trials, people later end up with stripes on their shoulders and...

how does that happen?" She said: "This system

breaks people." I'm simply asking you: are you

not afraid that once you become part of this

system, the system will break you too,

and you'll become the same kind of, well, representative

of this system in the future, because

the system is stronger, I think,

than individual people.

Thank you very much. But first, let me start with this: when

you tell me, "You seem closer

to us," to be honest, that actually

offends me a little. It's not that I'm closer to you—I

am exactly the same as you."

I mean, I'm not like Sobyanin,

who talks about various

Moscow problems while living on Rublyovka (an elite suburb outside Moscow)

and came to Moscow already as an official,

living on Rublyovka. I actually

have lived for 15 years in an 80-square-meter apartment in Maryino. My

daughter goes to the local school, my

son goes to the local kindergarten.

My neighbors, by the way,

state money. Thousands of people

send us anywhere from 500 to 200,000 rubles. You can

go to our website and see who earns what,

who does what. It's completely

transparent. No one has ever been able

to reproach me for somehow

spending money improperly. That is precisely

why, incidentally, the sponsors

of our election campaign, in effect,

are simply ordinary people. As of today,

I can tell you that we

have raised 20 million rubles. Those 20 million rubles are—

These are 10,000 people who

sent us small donations.

The same 200, 300, 500 rubles (about $2 to $5). And they

send this money because they

know that we won’t steal it, we won’t

skim it off, and so on. That’s why I believe

that I have the right to stand here before you

and make promises, perhaps even

more so than other candidates. And the most

important part of your question about

whether the system will break someone or not. Yes,

the current system will break anyone.

Absolutely. That is why the task of any

mayor is precisely to change the system. Right now

we have a disgusting and ugly system in which

two or three people control

a budget of 15 trillion rubles (about $150 billion); it is

not normal. You know, out of

Moscow’s 1.6 trillion ruble budget (about $16 billion),

how much money is allocated by local

deputies? The ones who were actually elected.

What do you think? Any guesses?

What percentage?

0.1.

But how much is that?

Five. Five.

5? 20? How much? 1%? 1% of 1.6 trillion is 16 billion.

That is what local deputies control. There is nothing like this

anywhere at all. It is an anomaly. It is

absurd. Moscow has 15 million residents, and

Moscow’s population is larger than that of the

average country. And when the system is set up

so that a handful of people

make daily decisions about

how to spend trillions. Well,

naturally, this system is prone to

corruption. That is why we believe that

power needs to be devolved downward.

People are normal, people are smart, they are

perfectly capable of

solving these problems themselves. So we must

create a system in which I am not the

only candidate who goes

to meetings like this in residential courtyards, so that any

incumbent mayor, or anyone

running for office, understands that if he

does not meet with people like this, and

if he wants to remain in office tomorrow, then he

must understand that if he can

really

be accused of corruption, then

zero people will come to his meeting, while

500 will come to someone else’s. He should fear

the residents. Our Constitution says many times

that the source of power is

the people of the Russian Federation. But we

ourselves do not believe it. When we change

the system in such a way that

it is truly the people who hand you your mayor’s credentials,

and you are obliged to run from meeting to meeting,

obliged to take part in debates—which

Sobyanin, as we know, refused to do today—and

so on. Then the system will be such

that it will not start pushing people into

corruption; on the contrary, it will

force candidates to be more

honest and more transparent. All that remains is,

Alexei. All that remains is to wish you luck.

Good health to you. But the police and the courts, where in the end everything is decided—

they are not under the mayor’s control, are they?

The police and the courts, where everything gets sorted out,

are not under the mayor’s authority. Correct.

The federal police and the federal courts

are not subordinate to the mayor. However, we

must remember, for example, that the system of

justices of the peace is subordinate to the mayor

of Moscow. And already at the level of the justices of the peace

a great deal can be done. In fact,

if we look at the statistics,

we will see that 85% of appeals—85%—

of cases involving ordinary people—not

criminals, just regular people going to court—these are

all handled by justices of the peace. Because what do

ordinary people go to court for?

Divorce, division of property, inheritance

cases, and so on. All of that goes through the justices of the peace.

And we can influence things so that these courts

are honest, so that judges are not appointed through connections

but are actually elected.

By the way, our program says

that they should be elected directly

by the public. That is possible. A judge accountable to you.

And most importantly, most importantly, that is why

it says right here:

"Change Russia, start with Moscow." We

understand that even at the Moscow level

it is impossible to solve all the problems

that have turned the country into

a space for making money

for a mafia-like group. But we know for certain

that if this government is challenged in Moscow

just once, then we will begin

to change the country.

You cannot change the country if tomorrow, with all

due respect to Vladivostok,

something changes in Vladivostok; the federal authorities will simply

crush anyone,

as is happening now in Yaroslavl.

But that will not work in Moscow. Moscow

is home to 15% of the country’s population. Moscow has

an enormous amount of money. All these

officials live in Moscow. Their families live

in Moscow. All the media are in Moscow. That is why

Moscow is politically the most important city.

If we push back against the mafia in Moscow,

if we show in Moscow that it is possible

to live normally, all of Russia will begin

to change. Next question. Yes.

What is your attitude toward inclusion and the merging of

schools?

Once again, your

your attitude toward inclusion and the merging of

schools, and education in general—what

is happening now.

I have cancer,

as I already said here. And for me,

for example, the merging of schools is not

an abstract issue. It is completely

a practical matter. My wife is on the

parent committee. Our school is being

merged with a neighboring school that has a

kindergarten.

Why are you filming? I say

at every meeting I get asked this

question, because everyone is dealing with exactly the same

thing. Yesterday evening at a meeting, people were

telling me: "Our school was merged with a

kindergarten, and the principal became the head of the

kindergarten."

Maybe in some cases that is

not so bad—extra funding and

so on—but no one even

explains it.

Education is the largest item in

Moscow's budget. We have the money

for truly top-quality schools. So Moscow

You know that Moscow teachers now

are paid quite well. School principals

in Moscow earn 200,000 rubles and

more. We absolutely do have the

money to pay for this. The only issue here

is explaining it to parents,

because, well, who is most

sincerely and genuinely interested in

making the school better? Parents. I

don't believe any parents would want

to steal from the school their children attend.

So we believe that things like this

simply need to be explained. Moscow has a sea of

money. We need to increase the role of

parent committees, we need to

publish all information on rankings,

assessments, and so on. What is needed here is simply

a little transparency and a great deal

of explanation as to why one thing or another is being done,

so that we can truly

improve education in Moscow.

You've had your hand up for a while, yes, with a question.

Can we get you a

microphone?

Go ahead.

Well, I don't really think that your actual

strategic goal is

to fight corruption. Yes, I think

that fighting corruption is,

most likely, the banner under which you're

running in the election. Well, that's something

everyone understands, all of us around here.

But what is the strategic goal for

Navalny, exactly? In other words, how do you

actually want to change Moscow and the country

politically?

My strategic goal is very simple.

It's actually very easy to explain. I

don't have another country. I live here; I don't have

another city. I live in Moscow, and my

children live here, and I plan to

keep living here. My strategic goal is

to create a city in which I, my

family, and my neighbors can live

decently—and a country where no one is

thrown in jail arbitrarily, where there is no lawlessness, where no one is dragged into the

police, where there is no situation in which

everyone knows that the boss is the chief thief

and everyone just puts up with it,

where there aren't so many migrants. I

genuinely want to make this happen, and I know that

we can achieve it.

That is the strategic goal. It

is very simple. Well, both simple and

complicated. Russia deserves a normal

life. Just think about this—especially those of you

from the older generation—think about this

terrifying figure. Thirty percent of young

Muscovites want to emigrate.

A third of young people want to leave for another

country. They say: "We don't want to live in

this country. We'll leave." This is

monstrous. It's a national catastrophe.

What's happening is a nightmare. That is why

my strategic goal is to live where I already

live. I'm happy with everything here. I'm

happy with the climate, I'm happy with the language,

I'm happy with the people. I feel perfectly

at home in this city. I simply want

to overcome the problems that really

exist, that get in my way, and for which

there is money to solve them, and

for which we know how to

solve them. That is my

strategic goal. Your question.

What is your position on self-defense? And

will anything be decided regarding

traumatic weapons and handguns?

Will they be allowed or not?

As for my position on self-defense, this is,

unfortunately or fortunately, a matter

that falls exclusively under federal jurisdiction. And

it has to be regulated by federal

laws. What does Moscow need?

It really needs greater

security. Here we run up against the

police. The police are federal. And these

police officers of ours, these rather

odd ones, cannot be changed

at the Moscow level. But many things can

be changed at the Moscow level. For example,

as I already said, the system of magistrate courts,

which constantly interacts with the

police. If magistrate judges

judge honestly and police officers know

that there is no such situation where you bring in

just any report and that's it—you've already won

right away. If our

operatives truly understand that they need to work

in court in a competitive environment, they will become

better. In fact, with

Moscow's enormous financial resources, we can very

effectively—I see you—very effectively

adopt the measures that are used

in countries all over the world. Look at London,

for example, or Singapore: through the use of

video cameras, they managed to

significantly reduce urban crime. And in

Moscow, what happened with the video cameras? In

our Rospil project, we looked into

cases. For several billion rubles,

they ordered video cameras. It turned out they were

all dummies. And they were broadcasting an empty

image. It was a huge scandal. The

newspapers wrote about it. So what? And no one

is in prison, no one was punished. It

keeps going. And why did this

happen? Because the tender, in

particular, the tender for these video cameras was

secret. So at the tender stage we

couldn’t get involved in any of it. So once again we

come back to the fact that corruption prevents

us from developing. If we installed a system

with the same number of

video cameras as in Singapore, the level of

street crime, at least in

Moscow, would drop significantly. That is something we

can do, and we absolutely will

do it. You’ve had your hand up for a while. We have

people working for us

I’m a lawyer by training. I have taken part in

commercial court cases. Have you had

any success in that? You can go

to, for example, the website. I also handle

commercial court cases. Unfortunately, when

we investigate corruption in

Gazprom, it is primarily connected with

criminal proceedings. If people commit

criminal offenses, then we proceed

through the criminal law route. And I am forced

to deal with these things. As for

successes, the numbers speak best. If you

go to the website of our project Rospil, we

have all the complaints listed there, all

the decisions of the antimonopoly authorities, and so

on. And there are figures listed there, specific

cases where we, for example, saved

billions of rubles of taxpayers’ money,

which were supposed to be squandered

through corrupt tenders. So

these cases exist, and the numbers speak better

than anything else, and the statistics speak best of all.

This is completely open information. I

am very proud that in this respect I

have something to show for it. Any more questions

at all? Go ahead, go ahead without the

microphone, yes, I’ll repeat it.

Ah, well, here are two questions for you. First,

is this a social problem or a family problem? Second

question, uh, touching on the political situation

altogether: United Russia forces people out,

makes them vote, and people

who don’t really agree with this, they

simply think that nothing can, that they can’t

change anything, so they still don’t

go.

The first question is about alcoholism. What

do you think should be done about it?

The second question: United Russia forces

people to attend rallies, while people think that

nothing can be done.

The problem of alcoholism and its causes are

best illustrated by

one simple figure, one simple example.

Do you know which product became the

cheapest and most accessible since the collapse of

the Soviet Union? Prices rose everywhere,

meat went up thousands of times,

bread and so on. Which product became

cheaper and more accessible? Only one:

vodka.

Only vodka. Vodka became the cheapest thing of all.

That is, if in the Soviet Union you

had to pay more in order

to get drunk and lie passed out on the ground,

now that is accessible to absolutely anyone.

That’s how I see it. I don’t want

to build any conspiracy theories here,

but this is a real strategy simply aimed at

getting the population drunk and stupefying them.

This government doesn’t need anything else. All it needs is

the oil pipeline. And let the population

drink itself into ruin, because the population is

nothing but expenses, nothing but pensions,

nothing but social benefits. Some people

go around demanding things. So, uh, in

the fight against alcoholism, we must

follow the path of many European

countries, including those that have successfully

fought this problem. Look at

Finland,

Finns are generally prone to alcoholism. And those of you,

probably, who have been abroad,

have seen how they let loose

when they get access to cheap

alcohol. There are mechanisms with which, with

which this must be fought, but first and

foremost we need to recognize the problem and start

doing something about it. Because if we

continue making vodka

the cheapest product of all,

we will never overcome this problem.

Your second question was about how United

Russia drives everyone to rallies, while we all

go to these rallies, people go to these rallies

without believing in themselves, and so on. Well,

my friends, that is exactly why I am

here.

And they have made us—not even that we don’t

believe, they have simply convinced us of it.

Through television, through these many years of

brainwashing, they have convinced us

that they are so formidable, so powerful, that they’ll

throw us all in jail, intimidate us,

repress us, and that we can’t do

anything. And so you get this situation: there stand

100,000 people who were herded to this

rally in support of Putin. They all stand there

cursing under their breath, shifting from foot to foot.

And who, really, is

forcing them? That is why I go around

courtyards and speak to people

just like me, ordinary people, because I

want to say that there is no force more

powerful than us. Tomorrow we

can change absolutely anything. We

just don’t quite believe in our own strength.

Everything can be changed. I’ve been put in jail.

and they released him the next day, because

people came out and demanded it. That had

never happened before. And it seemed that

something like that could never be done. And yet,

people did it—they came out,

they demanded it. There are also people sitting in the Kremlin

who worry about their own

safety, their families, their

money. If tomorrow they realize that

people pushed to the limit will

come out and say, "No," and then maybe

say something else too, then they

will immediately start changing the political

situation themselves. We simply allow ourselves to be pushed around.

It is unclear why—we have no reason

for it. Sooner or later, I

am sure, I will hold 50 of these meetings,

100, 150, and I will keep holding them as long as

I can. But I am sure that I

will be able to persuade many people. I will gain broad

support, and sooner or later we will believe

in ourselves. Your question. You have a pretty good

program. You have a pretty good program.

Thank you. [applause]

Thank you.

You have a pretty good program, but who is going to

carry it out? Who, for example, will become

the head of the Moscow city government

when you become mayor?

In other words, when you stop being

a lawyer and become a manager,

because running a city is above all about administration, about

the things you are talking about. First of all,

as for being a manager, this is

an important thing to understand: in fact,

the mayor of Moscow is a person who spends 85% of his

time cutting ribbons,

handing out certificates, and the rest of

the time he should use productively

to build

the right principles of governance. There are an enormous number of people in

Moscow. In a

city of 15 million people, there is

a sufficient number of decent,

competent people who can govern

and will not steal every day.

As I have already said, the salaries we offer are

quite high. And if right now around me

there is the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) working around me,

even though I have no

budget funding at all, and if right now in

our election campaign we have signed up

10,000 volunteers. These are people who

hand out leaflets like these every day—you have

probably seen them near the metro—standing there for 4

hours, and they do not receive a single kopeck.

More than that, they even pay for these

leaflets themselves, and pay for the election

campaign. We have thousands, tens of

thousands of people who are ready to work

honestly simply because they, just like

me and just like you, want to live in

a normal country. That is all. These

people exist, and we will rely on them, and everything will

be fine.

as for the question, the question...

well, I mean, for ordinary city residents, where

are the free areas in the city...

I just...

chose the wrong thing again...

so my question is that your program

and second, I was late...

On what principle? You used to get money from

new construction, specifically

infill development, until it was turned into this.

Where will the money come from?

The question of where the money will come from, and the question, uh,

regarding garages and all sorts of other

local problems that send us walking from office to office

to the district administration and still get nowhere—this is

once again simply an excellent illustration of what

I was talking about. When a city is organized

in such a way that any local

problems—and garages are a typical

local problem—mean that you have to go around

wearing out your shoes at city hall, the

prefecture, and so on, then nothing will ever

be resolved. Local deputies and local

authorities are fully capable of

resolving these problems. My

program in this respect is

that on such local matters—

garages, where to put a lawn, where to

build a playground—you should not even

have to try going to city hall,

because city hall should not be deciding these

issues. A person who

sits at 13 Tverskaya and lives on Rublyovka (an elite suburban area outside Moscow),

on Rublyovka, cannot decide what

my lawn or children's

playground should look like in Maryino or here in your neighborhood near

the Airport district. It cannot and should not be

organized this way. Nowhere—in no

country, in no major

city—is it organized this way. As for

where the money comes from—you say that

Luzhkov made money from infill

development, and that this brought money into

the budget. That is not true. It was specific people who made money from infill

development,

not the budget. You remember perfectly well

when Luzhkov was removed not long ago, and on every

TV channel they were saying: "We are removing Luzhkov

because of corruption." They said

he had such a corrupt rating, and

oh dear, now we are going to remove them all. Where

is Resin now? Resin is sitting in the State Duma as a deputy from

United Russia. Before that, Resin

was an adviser to Sobyanin himself.

This entire criminal system

that profited from infill

development has remained in place. But in fact, the city's

budget is funded by you and me.

The Moscow budget, which is reflected here as well

in various figures and

charts, is money

from taxpayers, it is money

from businesses, and of course it is also those

the oil and gas dollars that

come from here. So to say

that someone did us some favor

by doing this, by cramming in dense development,

by putting up a high-rise in our courtyard, and

that therefore we should thank him for

the money—this is completely wrong.

Our natural resources earn that money, and

our own hands earn that money. That money

belongs to us, and no one will ever take it from us.

No one will ever take it away.

Let's take a question from this—this side. Let's

hear your question,

Please, sit down.

Why not? And

My neighbor's girl was collecting 2,000

for your, well, for your thing. She

convinced me, and I came today to

listen to you speak.

I wasn't exactly thrilled by your speech,

the girl is young. She worked for a week

to put together those 2,000. But you, I'm sorry,

have disappointed me. First of all,

the institute you graduated from—I can tell

the teacher who taught you was named

Ivanov. Please sit down, this is a meeting.

Natalya Ivanovna. Frankly,

I even feel embarrassed for you, that you are forced

to earn money this way. It's embarrassing

in front of everyone. You see, my friends, at my

first meeting,

At the first meeting they even brought

a person who threw a tomato at me.

At every meeting we get these

two aunties who just stand there and shout.

Sir, this isn't the first auntie

who's been sent to heckle you now,

Please, speak

which janitor are you talking about

calmly, calm

25,000—in Moscow not a single janitor earns

that much, not even on Red Square.

In summer you—and you came prepared—more than

10,000

At best it's 18,000, that's the ceiling for people—why

are you lying

what are you even trying to explain, do you mean that

you've now started

that's all

No, you need to look at this, it's important

it's important that you look at this

please [laughter] sit down

please, this is important, my friends, so that you

can see this situation

Work? Civil servant? Where?

Oh, listen, where do you work? Where

do you work?

And why should I work? You're the one who came out

on stage. Where do you work?

Tell us, where do you work?

Well, friends, I'm sorry you had to see this.

This is an example of the unique

political technologies being used

by Moscow City Hall. A person comes out and says:

"I'm a civil servant, I know about janitors—where

do you work?" Unfortunately, I understand perfectly well.

These meetings, this event,

are open to everyone. Anyone can

come, anyone can say: [laughter]

"They threw tomatoes at me, they sent Tajiks

who stood there with some kind of

placards, they sent some fake

campaigners standing with a sign saying

'Navalny, give us back our money.'"

That's what this is.

First these people refuse

to debate, first they refuse

to answer questions, first even for

the debates they don't attend, they

record them in advance, and then they send

us these wonderful aunties,

who, well, quite simply—this is

also a humiliating situation for our

city, when people are forced

to earn their living in such a

way. Poor women from municipal services

and housing maintenance offices are made to go to rallies

so that here they can

disrupt things and shout.

We should treat this normally, with

understanding. Part of my job is

to argue here with such people and

prove to you that I am right. My friends, I

just once again want to thank you very much

for—You can't treat people like this.

Why do you do this? You deceive

people. 'I'll do everything.' No, you won't do

anything.

Thank you very much. Thank you

very much. I'll see you today at

the next rally. You keep showing up

at one rally, then another. I already

know all your faces.

I bear you no ill will, and I feel sorry for you. I

am sure that in our new, better city

you will all be able to earn an honest living,

instead of doing what you're doing now.

My friends, as I already said, I hold

I'm stepping down from

I hold three such meetings a day. My

next meeting is at the Polezhayevskaya metro station.

I am very

grateful to you for coming on a weekday

and spending a whole hour

to listen to me. I very much

hope that with your help and your

support I will be able to break through—we together

will be able to break through this wall

this fog of brainwashing from these

TV channels, this endless lying,

this endless propaganda, and so on.

I believe that even without television, and even

without a lot of money, I will be able

to communicate through you with millions of people.

Thank you very much for your support. I

hope that I was able to convince some of you.

I hope that some of you

will tell your neighbors that you were

on a normal front with a normal

candidate. Thank you very much. We will win.