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

Hello. Wow! You have so much

energy in this heat?

We’ll have to roast a little. As

you can see from the tan on my face,

our rallies regularly take place

out in the sun. But in any case, that’s much

better than some

rallies in pouring rain. Thank you

very much for coming. It’s very

important to us that you come to meetings like this.

When all this was being planned and we were putting together

our election campaign,

planning how to spend our money and

what to focus on most, there was

a lot of skepticism. People said, "Come on,

what kind of nonsense is this, meetings with

voters? Nobody ever

does that. Let’s make videos instead,

let’s spread more things on the internet

or something." But we, and I personally, simply

tried to imagine, for ourselves,

you know, the ideal candidate. And what

should a candidate I would actually

like do? I would want my

candidate to

rely not mainly on paid campaigners

but on volunteers, so that his

supporters would work for free. I would

personally want my candidate to come

right into my courtyard and stand there

speaking in front of me. What happened?

Let’s all be friendly, everyone.

Thank you very much. And I tried to become

exactly that kind of candidate, one who

comes out, attends meetings like this,

answers residents’ questions. I hold

three such meetings every weekday and

five every weekend. And this is,

of course, not easy work, but this personal

contact is a wonderful part of an election

campaign. If I myself say that I

want Moscow to have transparent

government and accessible government, then

I have to be the kind of candidate whom

you can find on the streets of

Moscow three times a day and ask pleasant,

unpleasant, any kind of questions, look at him,

and listen to his answers.

If there are no objections, I’d like to start

by saying a little about myself, about

why I ended up here at all, and then

answer your questions. All right.

All right, then let’s begin. My name is Alexei

Navalny. I

have lived in Moscow’s Maryino district

for the past 17 years. I’m 37 years old, and I have

a completely ordinary, standard

Moscow family. There’s nothing unusual about

it. Just a typical wife and two

children. My son is five years old. He goes to

a regular kindergarten. My daughter is 11; she

goes to a regular school.

I come from

a military family, and throughout my childhood and

youth I moved from one military

town to another. And my

parents still live in one of the

military towns outside Moscow. By

profession, I am a lawyer

and I graduated from the Peoples’ Friendship University,

Faculty of Law, and from the Financial

Academy under the Government of the Russian

Federation, specializing in securities

and stock exchange business.

That’s absolutely right.

If you’ve followed what I’ve been doing over

the past few years, what do you know about me?

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Well then, I’ll tell you. I do have

something to tell. You’ve probably heard

that I’m this scandalous

minority shareholder who sues everyone,

always making some kind of complaint,

demanding that these people be jailed, demanding

that those people be jailed. I say that Gazprom

is full of swindlers, that VTB has the wrong

kind of people, and so on. I don’t like any of it, and

I want them all in jail.

Uh-huh,

good for you. [laughter] Yes,

I’m glad that’s your attitude, but

people often tell me, "Good for you," but at the

same time they still ask, "Listen,

why do you get so worked up about this?

Why do you go after them so

aggressively? It’s as if

they stole all this from you personally and took it

away from you personally."

Why? It’s not as if it was taken from you personally. It was

all siphoned off somewhere out there,

at Gazprom or wherever. Who here has even seen the

Gazprom building, even in a picture? Not many

people. Still, it all seems like it’s on

another planet—this mysterious Gazprom,

something totally remote—why

bother with it? It has nothing to do with us.

I’d like to begin our meeting by answering

that question, because I think

it will make it much clearer to everyone why I’m

here.

I go after them—all these Gazproms,

Rosnefts, and all the rest—because I

truly believe that it wasn’t some abstract

theft from me in theory, but a very

concrete theft from me and my family. I even have

the numbers to show it. But first, tell me:

what does Russia actually live on?

What is Russia’s economy based on?

On—on the oil pipeline.

On the oil pipeline, on oil and

gas. Unfortunately, Russia has turned into

a kind of raw-material appendage. Not just now—this happened

many, many years ago. And it lives

by selling oil and gas. That’s

what it lives on.

And who knows how much, over the past

Over these 15 years, during Putin's years, Russia

sold how much oil and gas to the West?

Does anyone know? Who doesn't know?

We don't know.

Approximately $15 billion.

You think it's $15 billion?

Trillion—something like that.

$3 trillion. So over 15 years we

sold $3 trillion worth of oil and gas.

That money came into our country.

Is that a large sum or a small one?

Very large.

Very large. How do you know? Have you ever seen

a stack of money worth $3 trillion?

Can you picture what

a trillion is? I can't, but it's

much easier for me to imagine if I take it

and simply divide it among every citizen

of Russia. It turns out that each of us

— from infants to centenarians — would get

640,000 rubles. We've sold so much oil

that each one of us is entitled to

640,000 rubles. So for my

family of four, I calculated, that comes to

2.5 million rubles. Right? I go to

Rosneft, I go to Gazprom, I go to all of them

and ask just one question.

Maybe it's naive, but: guys, where are my

2.5 million rubles? Where did you put them? Well,

just explain it to me. Obviously, you're not

handing it out in cash, but if my share

of the oil and gas was sold, explain where you

invested that money.

There are older people here.

You remember that in Soviet times,

during the Brezhnev era, the Soviet Union

also received a huge amount of

petrodollars. We know how they were

spent. You can argue whether that was good or

bad, but we know exactly. All these

apartment blocks and residential districts were built

with Brezhnev's petrodollars, and apartments

were given out for free.

Huge plants and factories were built across

the entire country. They were built. Scientific

capacity was created. They created

the military-industrial complex;

it was built on those Brezhnev petrodollars.

Railroads were built, too.

The space industry was being developed,

money was being invested,

money was being invested—well, we know how

all of it was spent. The largest

army in the world existed. Remember there were

those so-called socialist-oriented countries?

We were subsidizing them all over the world—in

Africa, Asia, Latin America,

everywhere.

Right. Yes. Well then here's the question: if we know how those

Brezhnev petrodollars were

spent, then how were Putin's

petrodollars spent—especially since there were actually even

more of them? There are about 150 of you standing here,

I suppose. Tell me, please,

can you name even one major

industrial enterprise built in

Russia over the last 15 years?

No.

Sochi.

Sochi.

That's a pretty questionable industrial enterprise,

to put it bluntly.

The Zenit stadium. Well yes, an expensive, very expensive

thing.

Sick and tired of these Olympics.

The Olympics. People also often mention Skolkovo,

sometimes Rosnano.

The Ozero cooperative?

Ozero? The Ozero cooperative. I ask this question at every

meeting.

At not a single meeting has anyone given

an answer. What industrial enterprise?

Simply because not a single

industrial enterprise has been built in

Russia—not even an oil refinery

has been built over the last 15

years. So I ask all of them: "Well then,

where are my factories? Where are my plants? Where is my

new Russian science? Where is healthcare?

Where is education? Where are the railroads?

Russia builds as much railway in a year

as China builds in a week.

And China has neither oil nor gas. Where did all of it

go? What was all of it poured into?

I don't understand. And when I go

and ask questions like this, for example at

Rosneft, Russia's largest oil

company, which I am constantly suing

over lack of transparency, corruption, and

so on, there's this woman sitting there,

a vice president in charge of

legal matters. While working at

the state-owned company Rosneft, she has

an official annual income of 880 million rubles.

This is not an exaggeration; you can all

look it up. A state oil

company. And she looks at me when I

ask these questions and says, "What makes

you think that anything here belongs

to you at all?"

What makes you think that people like you

are entitled to any share of this oil

rent? Why did you even decide to come

bother us?"

We're one thing, and you're another. We are

the state, and you're just some people out there

who simply don't understand how serious

this business is. And so, going back to the beginning

of our conversation and the question of why I take

all this so personally—this is

exactly the moment when I understand that it is

very personal, because I can almost

physically feel their hand

going into my pocket and pulling out those

very 640,000 rubles that belong

to me.

At that same moment, a hand is shoved into my son's

pocket too, and pulls out his 640,000 rubles.

rubles. And probably 640,000 rubles for each of you,

because, just like me,

you probably cannot find in

Russia where exactly your share of

that oil money was invested.

They tell all of us, and they tell me: "Well,

Alexei, it’s not all that bad. There are

some rankings where Russia is moving

forward successfully." In what rankings is

Russia moving forward successfully?

Corruption.

Corruption. Are we supposed to be proud of that ranking?

Well, it’s not exactly something to be

proud of. What else?

In sports.

In sports. Well, it doesn’t really look like we’re

making huge progress, but in sports

we’re doing fine.

Well, there’s also a ranking, for example,

of billionaires. In 2000, we had

six dollar billionaires in the

country, and now there are 121. Let’s

be proud. Here we are, standing and sitting

in Bibirevo (a district in Moscow). Let’s be proud of how many

billionaires Russia has. Somehow I

don’t feel like being proud of that. I don’t

want to be proud of the fact that houses

in London worth more than a million

pounds are mostly bought by Russian

officials. That doesn’t really seem like a reason for

pride, does it, from where we’re standing

here.

And that is why, again, I take all of this very personally,

because I have

a strong feeling that we are moving so fast in the

billionaire rankings. And that

our officials are buying houses in London

because someone’s hand reached into

my pocket and took my 640,000 rubles—my share of

those very oil revenues.

And here before you I stand as a

candidate for mayor of Moscow, and I very much want

to earn your support, and I need

that support, because

I want to solve in Moscow the problems

that worry me, irritate me,

that I know about, that I want to, that I

understand how to solve.

And they concern me no less than

they concern you—perhaps even more. For example,

I think that if I were to ask you right now

what problems worry you, you

would say housing and utilities. Housing and utilities,

yes, yes,

worry me even more, because

for my apartment in a prefabricated apartment block

I get a bill for 9,500 rubles. And I,

as someone who has endlessly sued

all these Mosenergo and Mosvodokanal companies and

so on, simply know that into our

housing and utilities rates they cram things

we should not be paying for.

I want to become the mayor who finally

conducts an audit of housing and utilities rates so that all of us

can see how much there is in them that can be

thrown out, and that would reduce what we pay. Do you

know, for example, that when you paid last

year for electricity and

heating, all of us together paid for

300 million rubles in sponsorship for United Russia

(the ruling political party). It was included in our rates, and we

paid it.

Mosvodokanal, which exists for

us, for our city, in 2011

made a net profit of 3 billion rubles.

It sends that profit off somewhere, nobody knows

where, and then comes back demanding:

"Let’s raise the rates for Muscovites."

So why the hell should I be paying

so much for cold water?

I can see that this is our city

company. It has already made 3 billion off me and

off you. I am not going to pay

more, yet every year they still

raise the rates. I see very strange

things with the cold water tariff. It ranges

from 8 rubles to 50 rubles. And why is it that, in some

unclear and strange way, some people

pay 80, others 50, and we are subsidizing

someone else—but who is paying for whom?

I want an explanation. I want to become

the mayor who finally creates

a normal, transparent system in which

we will not be paying for cheap housing and utilities

for some ведомственные houses (agency-owned residential buildings),

holiday facilities, and so on. I want to become the mayor

who throws out of these

investment programs

all the nonexistent construction projects, all these

corrupt components. Then we

will see that in Moscow, housing and utilities rates should not merely

stop rising—they

should be going down. So when I

say that in my program

there is a repeal of Sobyanin’s decision to

raise housing and utilities rates from August 1—that is

not just a political gesture, it is

simply a calculation showing that

this rate hike is unjustified.

I want to do this because I simply

want to pay less. You probably

want to pay less too,

naturally.

Well, then I suppose I represent your

interests. I came here because it is

very expensive to live in Moscow. Is it expensive to live in

Moscow? It is.

Moscow is an expensive city.

I lived in the United States for half a year when I was studying

there. I can say that everything there is twice

as cheap, without exaggeration. Anyone who has been

to America knows it. Groceries there are

literally twice as cheap. Clothes there are

twice as cheap. Gas at a Lukoil

station in the U.S. costs less than gas at a

Lukoil station in

Russia. It is expensive to live here. And when they tell me that, well, for Moscow

resident, well...

A pensioner gets a pension of 12,000 rubles, and this

is considered normal, that you can live on that in Moscow, right,

it makes me laugh. I have a fairly decent

salary myself, and even so I know how hard and

expensive it is to live in Moscow. And I can see that in

the Moscow budget there is money available

to increase social payments. And we

can raise, for example, the Moscow

pension supplement. How much is the

Moscow supplement now?

3,700

from 4 to 4.5, bringing the social minimum to

12,000.

up to 12,000. I look at the Moscow budget and

together with our specialists, with our financial experts, I

see that it is possible to raise the Moscow

pension supplement twofold and thereby

set the minimum social standard

for pensions at 16,000 rubles. We calculated that

this would require 138 billion rubles a year. That kind of money

exists in the Moscow budget. I know where

to get it. I even know where to double

that money. Do you know, for example, how much

is spent in Moscow every year on

public procurement?

600 billion rubles. And the Moscow city government

quite openly, without any embarrassment, tells us:

"You know, out of 600 billion rubles

a year in public procurement, about 150 billion

gets stolen." As if, well, those are unavoidable

losses. And what is 150 billion? That's 30,000

rubles per Muscovite. So for you, for

you, and for me, 30,000 rubles are stolen

from us every year just through public procurement. For my

family of four, that's 120,000

rubles a year. I know exactly how

to fight this. At our Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF),

despite having no official powers,

we got corrupt tenders

worth 59 billion canceled. Even though we have absolutely

no authority. I'm not the mayor now. I

just have ordinary lawyers working for me,

digging through paperwork, exposing

corruption and getting corrupt

tenders canceled. We've already drafted bills,

a resolution, and instructions. I know exactly

how to save those 150 billion. And I

know for certain that in the Moscow budget

there is money to make these

payments. And once again, it just makes me laugh

when people say there isn't enough. Do you know

how much a large family receives in benefits, a family

with four children in Moscow? Who

knows?

About 3,000 rubles. Now look, there are

six people in that large family.

From each of them, just through public procurement, as I

said, 30,000 rubles are stolen. And in return they are told:

"Here, for your large family

3,000." I know how to change that.

That is why I am running for mayor of Moscow. I came here

because I personally,

living in the southeast, am very seriously

concerned by the issue of migration. Do you here

have a migration problem?

Yes. So I wasn't mistaken. So I

wasn't mistaken, including because

when I was preparing to speak here, I

looked at the crime statistics brief

for your district and I see that

it confirms that 50% of crimes

are committed by migrants.

Even more.

Well, even by official figures it's 50%.

How much it really is, we don't know; we

can only guess. And we

do guess, because for us these are not

abstract numbers. For me, this

migrant crime means the women in

my building who are afraid

to go outside in the evening. For me, these crime

figures about migrants mean

people, women I know, whose

bags were snatched on the street. I think

almost everyone has acquaintances like that.

I am running for mayor because I know very well

that migrants come here in huge numbers

not because there are jobs for them here,

but because

they are an easy source of profit.

People simply make money off them. Let's

do a quick little survey right here

right now. How much does the janitor in

your courtyard earn? Who knows what the salary of

a Moscow janitor is? 12

10, 18

15

15

15, 12

12

Amazing, isn't it? Because we can take

the official calculation of the minimum rate

for janitors in Moscow and see that there is no

janitor in Moscow who

would be paid less than 30,000 rubles. But all

the janitors you talk to, just like the ones

I talk to, tell us different amounts.

They say 10, 15, 12. Where does the

difference go?

It's a kind of secret flowing into people's pockets. A secret

all of Moscow knows: that

these migrants are brought here, kept in

slave-like conditions, housed in basements, in

buildings slated for demolition, and so on, 20

people in one room, because

the migrants kick back from their wages

10,000 to 15,000 rubles. And this is simply a huge

stream of cash that pours

every day. A river, really. Hundreds

of millions flowing from the management company to the DEZ (district housing maintenance office)

from the DEZ to the district administration and so on.

I am running for mayor because what I see

is only the other side of that river. I

see violence, I see crime, I

see Moscow schools where in

some classes already more than half of the

children have a native language other than

Russian. These children are not to blame for anything

are to blame.

But in five years we will face very

serious problems, because they have already

grown up as Muscovites, more or less. Naturally, they

do not want to work anywhere. As

usual, you cannot just place them in the role of slaves who

hand over half their salary. They

are supposedly Muscovites, but they have no footing in

life. They speak Russian poorly. They

have no prospects at all. What are they

going to do in our city? They are not going back to any

Uzbekistan.

Many of them have never even been there once.

I want to address this problem now,

because I am afraid that when my daughter

turns 18, she will face

much more serious problems

that will be practically

impossible to solve. This worries me. I do not

know why this does not worry the future

authorities. I think the current

authorities are to blame. I think this worries you

just as much as it worries me.

I came here because over the past

few years I have devoted a great deal of time to

watching the Moscow budget, and I

know very well the size of Moscow’s

budget. Maybe someone can tell me,

how much is Moscow’s annual budget?

Half a trillion.

Six hundred; more precisely, 1.63 trillion rubles a

year.

In size, it is second only to the budgets of

New York and Shanghai. Paradoxical as it may

seem, you and I live in one

of the richest cities in the world.

The richest cities in Europe and the United States do not even

come close to comparing

with Moscow in terms of wealth. Now then,

a question for the audience.

By budget size, we are in third place. But in

what place, do you think, does Moscow rank

among the largest cities in terms of

quality of life? What do you think?

Tenth.

Eighth.

And last. That is the interesting thing.

Last. At every meeting I ask this

question, and not once has anyone said:

third as well. No, everyone says it is

last.

169th.

169th. Any other ideas?

99th, 99th.

You said 169th, probably

as a joke, but the correct answer is 154th,

very close. 154th place.

In terms of budget size, we are in

third place, but in terms of quality of life we are

154th.

Is that a normal situation? Moscow

has enough money to provide

excellent education, quality

healthcare, roads where we successfully

fight traffic jams, and a small number of

migrants on the streets. We have everything:

a city, infrastructure, an educated

population—which is actually rare

for large cities, to have that level of education.

What you and I lack

is only one

important thing: belief in ourselves. We simply

do not really believe that everything can be changed.

We think this is some kind of

proper system. Well, of course we do not

like it, but changing it

is impossible. After every meeting, someone

comes up to me and says, "Everything you said

was absolutely right, I really

liked it all, but admit it—right now,

without cameras, without people, without a microphone, you

understand that nothing can

be changed."

And all of this rests on the fact that

there are people who believe that

nothing can be changed. Russia ranks

first in the world in oil and gas sales,

but in terms of living standards it is in

69th place. We shrug our shoulders

and say, "But nothing can be changed."

As I said, Moscow’s budget is in

third place, while in terms of quality

of life we are 154th. Nothing can

be changed. Take any construction

project in Moscow, any road—what is

the nearest one here, the Northeastern Chord (a major highway project),

probably the closest construction site to you—it

costs 60 billion rubles.

And all transport experts, with one

voice, say that this is twice

as expensive as it should be. That means

we all know that on the construction of the

Northeastern Chord alone

30 billion rubles will be stolen. With that money,

60 outpatient clinics could have been built in Moscow.

We shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, yes,

it is lawlessness." But how is it that nothing can be done?

Lawlessness, right? Well, that is just how life works. For some reason we

believe that we will always be

deceived, robbed, lied to on television,

brainwashed.

All of this is rather unpleasant. We

discuss it in our kitchens, but we shrug

our shoulders, because nothing can

be changed.

But I came here because I believe

that everything can be changed. I believe that

this is the wrong system. It is

wrong, it is perverse. It

does not rest on violence or on

the police, but on the fact that we shrug

our shoulders. Where, show me—right here—

are the soldiers surrounding us? Where are the people

who are forcing us to give up our 30

billion rubles that will be stolen on the

Northeastern Chord? They are not here. I do not even

see an ordinary local police officer here. If

there is one, he is hiding.

Everywhere

everything rests on the fact that we shrug

our shoulders. It's a corrupt gang.

No,

its foundation is not power, not intimidation, nor

soldiers, nor the police. Its foundation is the fact

that we shrug our shoulders and think that

nothing can be changed. And we think

that power doesn't even come from us, but from

the election commissions. They'll count everything

wrong anyway, and they'll still deceive us,

rob us. I came here because I

truly believe that the source of power

is standing right in front of me. Maybe

[clears throat] it's easier to tell everyone something

on television? Which of you has seen me on

television in the last 5 years, other than

in a program about how I stole the entire forest?

[laughter]

So you have seen me after all? Well, the debates, the debates,

yes. But on the big federal TV channels

it's hard to see me. Even so, at

a trial—well, that's also a good place

at a trial to explain how I'm going to

change the government here. But I believe in the most

important thing: that through you, through people like

you, I can speak to hundreds and

thousands. I even calculated

it quite simply, and my campaign team calculated that

if

by the end, by September 8, by election day, I

hold 100 meetings like this, and if I

don't go insane in the process, then I will have spoken

more or less personally with 1% of the voters.

That's a lot. I've already held 57 meetings; this is

the fifty-eighth. That's a lot, really,

because each of you has

friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighbors

on your landing, and so on.

How many people do we need to bring together

in Moscow? In order to elect the mayor

of Moscow and win in the first round, I

need 1.5 million people. In Moscow there are

absolutely certainly 1.5 million people

who know everything and understand everything. There are

15 million people living here. There are 1.5 million who

know everything, understand everything, and each of them

could be brought here and would say exactly

the same thing. We simply need to work with these

one and a half million people.

Finally convince them that we are the power, that

we can change everything. We can

make anyone do it. We can make sure

that in the next election, in

the next election, I won't be the only

candidate running around

Moscow courtyards giving speeches. All

the candidates should do that, because people

want it. They want to see candidates

in person. That's right. There should be

discussion. We have to make it happen. We can

make it so that a candidate who

refuses to take part in debates is

immediately thrown out. All of this is within our power,

it all belongs to us. So we must not

shrug our shoulders, but remember

that when, for example, I like to

shout from the stage, at

rallies, 'We are the power here,' that's exactly

what it is. We are the power here. And I am sure that

if today, specifically at

this meeting, I can persuade someone, then through

you, through your friends, through your

acquaintances, I will find a huge number of

people. I will find those we can

rely on. Together with you, we will begin

changing power in the city of Moscow and will return

that power to ourselves. Thank you very much. I'm ready

to answer your questions. Thank you.

Please.

Early voting. What do you mean

by early vot-?

You can vote earlier in advance, right?

You can go to the territorial

election commission, say that I

am leaving town, and they should allow you

to vote early. Yes,

exactly. Well, it should be, exactly.

Please. What program do you

propose for pensioners?

What program am I proposing for pensioners?

As I was just saying, the main thing with regard to

pensioners is to raise the Moscow

supplement by two times. There is

money for that. It would require 138 billion

rubles. We calculated it. In order to

do this with the Moscow supplement, there are

2.8 million pensioners in Moscow. That works. In

the budget, there is money for it. And we

believe that the budget, the adoption of the budget

already for the thirteenth year, should be

halted until we increase

the Moscow supplement twofold. The money for this

exists, and it needs to be done. It will be

good for the city, because pensioners

will spend more, there will be more

demand generated. We will do it.

Please.

Do you think there is a situation in

Russia where those at the top can no longer govern

in the old way? They

has existed for a long time? No, for a long time

the question is whether I think there is

such a situation where those at the top cannot—or rather

do not want to. A classic revolutionary

situation, because that's how Lenin described

a revolutionary situation. Well, I wouldn't

say that it exists in that sense, because they

still can, for now. Just look at what

this power means in the literal

sense of the word. It's not some kind of tsarist

power. When Russia had absolute

monarchy, those people didn't even

engage in this kind of excessive consumption,

they just rode around, took parades

and built their estate-based state.

Now, for these people, power is

concrete billions of dollars and rubles,

that they siphon out of the Moscow

budget. Who is the main contractor for

road construction in Moscow right now?

Armenians.

Rotenberg. But that may be who

actually does the building directly. Well,

it’s true that many people from the Armenian diaspora

are involved in road repairs, but

the direct builder and client

are the Rotenbergs. The very same guys

who back in Soviet times were

Putin’s judo coach, and now they are

the builders of Moscow’s roads, and all

the roads cost two to three times more. For

them, losing power means losing

literal billions on every single project.

That’s why they will cling to it. I wouldn’t

say they can’t. They can.

They are robbing us. Look,

the North-Western Chord, the North-Eastern

Chord, the Southern Rook Road, the reconstruction of

Leninsky Prospekt. About every one of these

projects, everyone openly says:

"Billions will be stolen, but they’ll keep doing it until

we throw them out." That’s why

the top can’t rule when the bottom refuses.

That’s why I came here: to make sure

to motivate those at the bottom.

Please,

just very briefly. All right, easy.

Ah, [clears throat] Alexei, look,

my son got married, he’s a Muscovite

and he got married. If you were, say,

mayor,

what kind of apartment will my son live in,

a young guy?

That’s my first question.

Well said.

And the second question. We’d like it if right

here

they built a fountain.

[laughter]

Start digging.

Everything needed to build a fountain is already there

there, including the sewer lines. So, in short,

we’ll have to dig.

Do it. [laughter]

[clears throat]

questions.

Ah, well, I wouldn’t say no to a fountain right

now, because it is rather hot

indeed. [laughter]

As for the apartment, let’s start with

the apartment. So, have you read

my investigation into Sobyanin’s daughters?

It’s an astonishing thing. Look,

I live in my own apartment, it’s 73 square meters. I

wouldn’t say I earn a lot,

but I earn enough that in any

normal country I could improve

my housing situation through a mortgage

loan. In Moscow, it is possible to take out a

mortgage [laughter]

loan. Well, taking one out is possible,

but paying it back is impossible. The interest rates

are absolutely insane.

Exactly right, it’s impossible. But

for some amazing reason, our

authorities somehow have the ability to privatize

a 308-square-meter apartment, then buy one

of their daughters an apartment of 100—well, however many—

200 square meters in St. Petersburg, then 105 square meters on

Kosygin Street, and so on and so on.

So my task as mayor of Moscow here

comes down to two things. As for

free apartments, there will be

an absolutely strict and clear rule. Here it is:

I myself, as mayor,

if I become mayor, I will come to Tverskaya

13 from my apartment in Maryino and go back

to that same apartment. Why? For

a very simple reason. I am not entitled to

improved housing conditions. I have

four people and 70 square meters. And we know

what the standard allocation per

person is, don’t we?

18. And in a situation where Sobyanin

received a 308-square-meter apartment, how many

family members should he have?

About 50 people.

I will forbid this for myself, and I will forbid it

for everyone. And I will finally open up this

waiting list. Do you know how many people are on it

in the city? Nearly 400,000 people.

And can any of us do the simple thing of

going to some website

and looking at that list? Who is first,

who is second, who is four-hundred-thousandth? Can

you see that?

No.

Right, it’s impossible. Everything is closed off so that

they can keep squeezing in and squeezing in and squeezing in

their own people. That’s why whenever you look

at a Moscow official, he has just arrived

from Tyumen, and the next year he already has

a 200-square-meter apartment. And somehow that’s how the people on the waiting list,

the neediest ones, are supposedly getting housing. I will open

that list so that neither I myself nor

anyone who comes with me will have

the opportunity to cut into it. And all of this

will be absolutely transparent. And so that

your son can leave here as a man with a son and a

fountain, yes, yes, [laughter]

so that he can buy himself

an apartment, I will work to ensure

that our construction costs

go down, so that Moscow does not have

insane housing prices. Right now it costs

$8,000 per square meter there, with the Moscow average at

$6,000. But that is madness. Apartments in

Moscow cannot cost that much. [laughter]

It’s absurd.

How much?

What was that?

What do they cost to build?

Their construction cost is around

$1,000 to $1,200 per square meter. At most.

And they sell them for six. Plus

Mortgage lending is completely insane. It

doesn't work. It shouldn't work. Well,

of all places, Moscow has plenty of land.

We don't live in Hong Kong or

Singapore. We definitely have enough land. And

the workers we employ aren't

some kind of workers from Switzerland, but usually

ordinary laborers, at best not migrants.

So we need to reduce the cost of

housing and create a normal mortgage

system so that any person, any

family, as everywhere else in the world, if a family

has two people, each of whom

has a stable job, can take out

a mortgage and buy themselves an apartment.

That's what we should be aiming for.

Please,

tell me, about 30 years ago people came to us from

Mikolko, and there were janitors, and

there were construction workers. Why the hell do we need these

gastarbeiters (migrant laborers)? Where are we living, anyway?

We come up to a bus stop, for example. You can't even

fit onto a single bus. You walk around, and

there they are, these blacks, just standing there like this. You just

live with it.

When I was preparing to speak here, I

read a lot about how here you really do have

just one single office in Moscow

of the Federal Migration Service for migrants. How many

migrants are there in Moscow?

Almost 2 million people. And all of them, or even

if not all of them, of course, they

register, but if we assume

that 30% of them come here to this

single office, they will turn life

into hell. Right? That's absurd in itself. And

let's actually take a look

at what we should do about migration in Moscow. In

Moscow, Moscow ranks first

in legal migrants. Correct?

That's the right situation.

That's the wrong situation. I [laughter] have

three clear and simple solutions. What

should we do about migration? But first, a question for

everyone,

those gathered here: please raise

your hand if you've been to any

European country. Any one at all.

A lot of people. Thank you. Now raise your hand

if you sneaked into any of those

European countries without a visa.

How would you do that? By crossing the border illegally.

You didn't happen to cross the border

Well, in Soviet times you could get as far as Brest (a city in Belarus near the Polish border).

Sure, and on a tank you could make it all the way to

Paris, but under normal

circumstances, none of us can enter

a European country without a visa. Right?

Well, that's normal. We accept that; as far as

we are concerned, a visa regime applies.

If we travel to America, it's not just

a visa regime. We give fingerprints

first at the embassy, then at the

border. It's not a very pleasant

procedure. But we didn't die from it,

did we? Then explain to me,

please: if we ourselves go through

a visa procedure, why can any resident

of Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, even without

an international passport, come here with

a one-way ticket and stay here

for any length of time? Is this

situation right,

wrong. I'm often told in response

to this: "Well, these are former republics

of the Soviet Union, we need to pursue integration with

them." First of all, I don't

understand why we need integration,

especially now, under current conditions. And

secondly,

we have a visa regime with Georgia. We do.

Do we have a visa regime with Turkmenistan? We do.

Nobody died from that. So why are

Georgia and Turkmenistan

or rather, why are Uzbekistan and Tajikistan

[laughter] somehow closer to us than Georgia and Turkmenistan?

They're not. So the main thing we need to

start with is introducing a visa regime with

these countries at the federal level.

Nothing else will work. You can

build whatever kind of camps you want here,

all these camps.

That doesn't work, because in the end, if

we want to shove all illegal migrants into that

camp, then all the illegal migrants

will be sitting there: 2 million

people. And it would take 3 million people to

guard them. We need to make sure that

half of them leave. At least

half.

[inaudible],

well, it wouldn't fit into an embassy anyway.

Still, that's the first measure. The second measure is

that we must introduce disqualification for

those contractors who hire

migrants. Right now it's profitable for everyone to hire

migrants. The fine is small, and the savings are

very good. I would introduce

disqualification. And any company that

is caught employing illegal migrants

will be disqualified forever. And

the third measure is that we must ban our

organizations that work with budget

funds from hiring, with public money,

foreigners. As you rightly said,

there are a lot of myths on this subject. People often

say things like this—you've surely heard it:

"If all the Uzbeks leave Moscow, we'll

be buried in filth." Have you heard that?

They say that. Nonsense. I say,

utter nonsense. After all, we know that before

2003 there were no migrants in Moscow

to speak of. In most Russian cities

there are no migrants at all. In no Russian city

with a population under 500,000 are there

any migrants. There are no migrants in Belarus.

During the last financial crisis,

migrants were leaving Russia by the millions,

because there was no work. And we didn’t even

feel it. So there’s no need

to listen to these fairy tales. We need to introduce a visa

regime. We need to ban the hiring of

foreigners with public funds, we need

to introduce disqualifications. I will do this and

reduce the number of migrants in Moscow by

70% right away. Please,

just briefly.

I have a question. Uh, you have a daughter,

a son—starting this year, is it true that school

will be paid? And a second question. I’m

from Altai Krai myself.

When Yevdokimov was

governor of Altai Krai, he was

removed,

because he started putting things in order. Aren’t you

afraid of that? No offense meant,

but compared to all this, you seem like a tiny flea

against Sobyanin and United Russia

like a flea against an elephant.

First, about schools.

This is, once again, about the authorities deceiving people.

They say everything is free,

but you have to pay for extracurricular clubs. There are

surely people here whose children are

school-age, like mine.

Education is free under the Constitution.

Education is free under the Constitution. But

if you sign up for one club, then

a second, and then a third club, then

that one will be paid. Very often

children—say, a ten-year-old

girl or a ten-year-old boy—will,

naturally, sign up for 10 clubs,

and then drop half of them.

Well, kids are kids—let’s remember

ourselves—but the third club will already cost

money. And this is one of the things

that shows education

is gradually becoming paid, which in

Moscow is absolutely unacceptable given

how much money there is in Moscow. Does anyone know

how much a school principal in

Moscow earns?

80,000, 250,000—from 150,000 to 300,000.

Huge sums are allocated to

education in Moscow. Enormous sums. And with

that money, when they tell us

let’s introduce private paid classes for

parents, that is simply

completely unacceptable. We will, of course,

cancel it. So that’s what it comes to, you see? 19,000.

That’s it. There you go—

a professor gets 19,000. Meanwhile, janitors

core subjects are free.

Well, that’s a lie. They introduce what are also called

additional subjects. If you want

to study better, pay money. It’s nonsense.

It brings no savings to the budget

at all. It’s just a scheme, just like

this consolidation of

schools that is now happening all across

Moscow is a scheme. In your district too, they’re merging

schools. I know that my daughter’s school,

where she studies, is being merged with a neighboring school,

and merged with a kindergarten. All the moms

are up in arms; no one understands at all

why this is happening. My wife is on the

school parent committee, and no one can

explain it. Not the local deputies,

no one. That’s why in our platform we say—and

this demand of mine is based on

numerous meetings with teachers,

with school principals—we say that

it should be forbidden to merge a school if

parents and local deputies are against it,

because it’s absurd.

So you’ll separate them again or what? They’ve

already all been merged.

No, nothing of the sort. Not all of them

have been merged. We have only

successful merger decisions recognized only in Veshnyaki

as successful. A few [laughter]

schools.

They’re all in the process of being merged. I’m

talking about parents. Are you a parent?

A teacher. Well then, make the decision

together with the parents. You have a body

at the school that makes these decisions.

It should

they forbid us [laughter] to speak.

they forbid you to speak. And why do they forbid

you to speak? [laughter]

You see, otherwise—come on.

And tell me, please—you’re teachers, so

come up here. Can you explain

these school mergers—do you

understand the point of merging these schools?

Explain it

in order to reduce the number of

teachers in Russia; they say we have

200,000 surplus teachers. On this they want to

save money

for the state. That’s the point of the mergers.

And also, probably, to remove, to get rid

of older teachers.

Well, the teacher has just explained the reason. Do we

agree with that reason? Is it a reasonable

reason that teachers need to be cut?

Well, that’s nonsense. That cannot

possibly be a reason, especially in

Moscow. In Moscow, a sea of money

is allocated to education. And if

you talk to any official at City Hall and

ask them why schools are being merged—

and by the way, clinics are being merged too—

they’ll tell you one thing. Just

casually: well, Sobyanin in

Tyumen merged everything. He likes

merging things, so he’s merging things here too. It’s

all nonsense. I believe that this

concept—let’s attach a weak school

to a strong school and then the two schools

will both become strong—simply doesn’t work,

you must agree. It can’t work that

mechanically. If you have a Mercedes and

a horse-drawn cart, you can’t put them together

lump them together and say they’ll all go at the

same speed. Right? Because

a school is a very delicate working

collective. A lot depends on the individual

teacher, and a lot depends on the principal.

That’s why we run around different districts looking for

the best school, because we’ve heard, [laughter]

that it’s best to send your first-grader

to this particular teacher, because

they teach well. Right? Right. That’s how

it should work. So I believe

that these issues should be decided by

local deputies, the school’s teachers, and

parents. And right now, incidentally,

we do have a joint council. In theory,

they exist. Parents and teachers meet

together. But does this body actually work? No,

it doesn’t, because teachers have been silenced

and parents are afraid to speak up, because

afterward their child may be treated badly.

Yes,

right? That’s how it works. We need to

do everything differently, because in the

end, what do schools exist for?

For the district education office (RAONO), for Tverskaya 13 (the Moscow City Hall address)

do they exist? No, they exist for me and for you.

Take your family and [laughter] head

West.

Let’s answer the second question. Thank you

very much.

May I ask a question?

Well, yes, go ahead, ask your question.

Forgive me, it’s a bit of a tricky one, but

I’m interested in this as a history teacher.

Please tell me, after all, how are you

viewed in America? Do Americans

support you?

[laughter]

Would any Americans present please raise

their hands.

There is an American here.

That’s not what we mean.

What exactly do you mean?

Because America is always watching

our elections, our latest

developments.

America watches our elections, our

events. Well, to be honest with you,

I’ve been to America and studied in America, and

one of the biggest

disappointments for me was that absolutely no one

in America follows Russia at all. It’s

of no interest to anyone. What interests America

is China, Indonesia,

developing countries that

are actually doing something. With Russia, everything is clear.

Americans understand perfectly well that in

Russia, a corrupt leadership has come to power.

They know what to do with them.

They’ve all got them on the

hook. Now tell me, you’re

asking me how America

relates to me? That’s how I see it. But Deputy

Pekhtin, who owns real estate in

Miami, a member of United Russia, who is closer

to America? Me, standing here on this stage,

or the man who owns property there?

I don’t know.

You don’t know? I do. So when our

main seller of Russian oil,

that friend of Putin’s, Timchenko,

who gave up Russian citizenship,

a Finnish citizen, handling all that

Russian oil through his offshore

company in Switzerland,

these are people who were recruited long

ago. These are people who don’t even

remotely need Russia. People

who are on the hook. The problem is

that our officials really are

completely under the thumb of Western intelligence

services. It may sound strange coming

from me, but that’s how it works.

If he stole here and took it to

Switzerland, in Switzerland that is called

money laundering. It is a criminal

offense. And any one of these people

can be grabbed by the local intelligence services and

dragged off somewhere. So every one of these

people is completely subordinate to all

foreigners. I don’t know whether it’s

America or not, but I came here

to talk to you. And here I’m

not talking about America,

NATO bases, START II, and so on. I want

to solve housing and utilities problems. I want to solve the problems of

migration and your school as well. Do you think

someone in America is going to solve your school’s problems?

Hardly. So vote for me.

And you... come on, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. You,

you, you, you, you — briefly.

I’d like to ask this question. Are there many

native Muscovites here at all?

Wow.

Well, [laughter]

About 60%, right? So, Alexei, please tell

me, if you raise

social benefits for Muscovites, while

the rest of Russia, as I understand it, is not

going to do the same, and the governors

of our other regions won’t either, aren’t you afraid

that people from all over Russia will come flooding

into Moscow?

And please tell me how you

plan to solve that problem. Because

people will need somewhere to live, and

for the most part it will be young people.

What’s your name?

Tell me, Vika, right now aren’t people already

pouring into Moscow in huge numbers?

And what’s happening now that’s any different? We

already have 15% of the country’s population living in Moscow.

And unfortunately, until

the situation in the country as a whole changes, people

will keep coming to Moscow anyway, because

life across the country is simply

unbearable.

So, dear Vika, look,

Please, over here. Right here, you see,

it says: "Change Russia, start with

Moscow." That is exactly why we are running under this

slogan in our election

campaign, because we know that

the country is structured in such a way that any changes

in Russia will either happen or not happen

depending on whether Muscovites want them or not

want them. That is how everything works.

Fragmentation will not bring change. I’ll answer now.

Please listen. That is why

we are running this election campaign in order

to finally, excuse me, see in

Russia’s leading city a victory for

a normal mayor, one who relies on

the people, one who for the first time will

truly work without corruption,

who for the first time will work

genuinely in the interests of the residents and

with the support of millions of those residents. And

only when we win in Moscow will we

make sure that this

corrupt, insatiable government, in the form in which

it exists now, is weakened and

or ceases to exist, so that

change can begin in other cities as well

too. Why can’t people live

normally in Kazan, or why can’t they

live in Yaroslavl? People can live normally anywhere.

It’s just that both Kazan and Yaroslavl

need the same things that we

need in Moscow: a fight against

corruption, proper courts,

lower living costs, and so on,

and so on.

which will not make people

stop coming to Moscow. That is

impossible. But I want to make it so

that change starts in Moscow and

life in your hometown gets better, and

so that no one comes here because

they can live normally there. How long

are you planning to keep talking?

Do you believe in the courts? In real justice,

the way it ought to be?

Do I believe in the courts?

That’s a funny question. [laughter] Who here believes in

the courts? Raise your hand.

The main thing is, you got a sentence.

Well, I didn’t fall from the moon; I’m constantly in litigation, I

spend most of my

time in court. So I know what

Moscow courts, and courts in general, are:

they are people who serve those in power. They are

simply a branch of the Presidential Administration

(Russia’s executive office). That’s all. So, you

believe,

it’s not as if the Moscow region will be like that too

to blame. Amazing.

Will I forever be at the mercy of those

courts that are judging me? Good

question. Well, you know that I have already been tried

once, don’t you? Yes, you probably even know

that I was even jailed

once.

And every time, whenever I am

asked about it, I tell the people gathered here

first of all: thank you

for getting me released, because

I was released thanks to you, thanks

to the fact that people were outraged. And for the first time

this system, which believes that

its main advantage and defining trait is that

it can jail the innocent and release

the guilty, backed down. And I am sure that

if I become a mayor who relies on

millions of Muscovites, they will not be able

to do anything to me.

Neither the judicial system nor

law enforcement, nor that Czech

agent Bastrykin, no one will be able to do anything to me

as long as you stand behind me,

as long as I continue to justify your trust. I

am sure I can do that. I

am sure I can rely on you. I

will be able to prove that I work properly and honestly.

I will never lose your

support. My friends, I have three more

meetings like this. Thank you so much for coming.

I’m sorry I didn’t answer every question.

It was very important for me to speak with you.

I would very much like to have your

support. I am sure that together we

will definitely win. Hooray!