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

Hello. Thank you very much for

coming. Thank you very much for these, so far,

undeserved applause. I’m very

glad that you come to these meetings. And

for us, for our entire campaign team, this is very important

that these meetings are taking place, because

people are coming to them. And we have disproved

those predictions by cynics who

said: "What kind of strange

election campaign is this, one that

is built around meetings with voters?"

No one had ever done anything like that before.

And it all seemed like nonsense. Neither

do candidates go out to meetings, nor

do voters come to them. But we

were right when we planned all of this.

And I hold three such meetings every

weekday, and five meetings every

weekend, because this is the work

of a candidate. And if I am running now

in this election saying that I want

to be an open mayor, a mayor with an open

government, an accessible mayor, then I

must also be that kind of candidate

and I believe it is my job to go out and meet

people. I imagined for myself a kind of

ideal candidate, you know.

What would I want my candidate

to do? And I answered myself: "I want

my candidate to come near my

home," set up a stage there or simply

climb onto a chair and answer my

questions, so that I could look at him,

and decide whether to vote or not. And I

became that kind of candidate. I go around and answer

questions. Three times a day you can

find me in some district

of Moscow and ask pleasant, unpleasant,

any kind of questions. If there are no objections, I would

structure our meeting today like this:

first I’ll tell you a little about myself,

why I ended up here, and then I’ll

answer questions. Any objections

to that format?

Excellent, thank you very much. My name is

Alexei Navalny.

I am 37 years old. For the last 17 years I have lived in

the Maryino district of Moscow. Quite

not far from you. In a sense, I am your

neighbor, at least within the same

administrative district. I have

a completely standard, by

Moscow standards, family. I live with my wife

and two children. My daughter is 11 years old, and she

goes to a regular school. My son is 5 years old,

and he goes to a regular kindergarten. 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 the Moscow region,

in a military town.

By profession, I am a lawyer. I have two

higher education degrees. I graduated from the law

faculty of the Peoples' Friendship University and

the Financial Academy under the Government

of the Russian Federation.

If you have followed my work over

the last couple of years, more or less,

what do you know about me?

Against crooks and thieves.

Fighting corruption and embezzlement. Very often

the first response is: "You stole the whole

forest." We know about that. We watched

TV and we know everything. And indeed,

most often I am known as

a person who is constantly making

accusations against someone. There he is, unhappy with

Gazprom, unhappy with Rosneft,

running around and trying to prove that something

was stolen from him there, that he was somehow

wronged, robbed, and so on. And most often

they won’t let me through right now. Honestly, I

Do you want to go right up on stage?

No, I just want to shake your hand.

Oh, thank you very much. Let’s, let’s

finish now. Well, at least,

I’ll come over after

Thank you very much. It’s only 8:00

p.m. You’re in such a good mood. Let’s

wait a little. Quite a lot of

people have gathered here. I’m a veteran,

we have a large number of police here,

so right now you could leave here and end up detained for three days.

Yes, I,

so, as I was saying, most often what people hear about me is

that I’m a person who makes

accusations against someone. And one of the first

questions at meetings like this, the question

I want to begin my

remarks with, is the answer to this question:

"Listen, Navalny, do you really

seriously, truly

think that Gazprom

stole something from you, that you personally were wronged by someone,

that you’re running around outraged, but what are

you compared to Gazprom? Nothing can be

stolen from you. You’re just promoting yourself that way."

I don’t know. Do you think Gazprom stole something from you?

Well, then it will probably be easier for me

to explain. I make accusations against all these people.

I go around accusing them of corruption,

proving that corruption, because I

personally truly believe that something was stolen from

me, from me and from my children. This

is not some abstract matter. This is not

a struggle for a bright future or against

some abstract windmills.

Nothing of the sort. It is an entirely

concrete matter. What does Russia live on?

Oil and gas. Unfortunately, we have

turned into a raw-materials appendage.

We sell oil and gas and live off that money.

Over the last 15 years, we have sold oil and

gas abroad worth $3 trillion.

That is an enormous sum. A very large

sum. And for some reason I do not have any

inner sense of understanding as to why,

where it all went, I mean,

it was a huge sum, where was it invested? We can

compare it with the Soviet era.

The Soviet Union under Brezhnev also

received a large amount of

petrodollars. Whether they were spent wisely

or poorly is debatable, but we

know exactly where they

were spent. We can see it. We see here

residential neighborhoods that were built with

Brezhnev's petrodollars, and apartments in them were

given out for free. That's right.

Factories and plants were built with

Brezhnev's petrodol-

built. The military-industrial complex was built, science was

built. Academic science towns are scattered across the country

everywhere. Railways were laid out,

as were regular roads. The largest army in the world

was built. It was built.

All of that was Brezhnev's petrodollars. Over the

past 15 years, we received more money

than in Brezhnev's time. And there are probably

about 400 people standing here. So

I have a question for everyone. Can

anyone name even one major

industrial enterprise that was built in the

last 15 years?

Which one?

Mobile operators.

A mobile operator is a private business.

That's not state money. It was

indeed private business that built

the mobile operators. It's true, we

do have retail chains, and there are some

things that emerged that didn't exist

in Soviet times. But that's not

state money. I'm asking about something

built with state investment.

Respublika.

Gazprom was still built in Soviet

times. That's the Soviet Union. The legacy

of the Soviet Union.

Rostelecom.

Ah, Skolkovo.

Skolkovo?

Well, I suppose you could call it, with some stretching,

an industrial enterprise. People often mention

Rosnano to me. Even more often they mention

the Ozero dacha cooperative (an association linked to Putin's inner circle), or something else along

those lines. But the truth is that

we really have not built, over the

past 15 years, a single major

industrial enterprise. Not one,

we haven't even built a single oil refinery

— just a pipeline, that's all. That's what

we keep making bigger and bigger and bigger.

And I go to all these people and say:

"Guys, explain to me: where is my money, where is

my share of those $3 trillion?"

Just explain where you invested it. You're

not giving it to me in cash, that's

impossible. Explain what you built

with it — where is my healthcare, where is

my education, where is all of it? After all,

these are supposed to be the money of

me, my children, your money. And I

go, for example,

to Rosneft, and there's a woman sitting there,

the vice president for legal affairs,

at the state company Rosneft. What

do you think her official salary

might be?

250 million.

You're saying a billion. Are you joking?

No, Novaya Gazeta.

Yes, it's true. So the answer "a billion" is

not a joke. Her official salary is

880 million rubles a year in the state

company Rosneft. In Zelenograd,

when I said this to a woman in the front row,

an elderly woman nearly felt faint.

And that's just this vice president for

legal affairs. Today there were reports about Sechin,

that Sechin, who

heads Rosneft and who has spent his whole life

in government service, not having worked a single day

in the commercial sector except for

Rosneft itself, bought Rosneft shares worth

2 billion rubles. Just like that, perfectly normally,

he somehow just came up with 2 billion.

So when I go to these people,

knowing their enormous salaries, and ask them

these questions, they look at me and

say: "Listen, Navalny, why on earth do you think

anyone here owes you

anything? What makes you think that to you, people

like you — all of you — we owe any

explanations? We are statesmen here,

we've got it all made. We are not

going to answer to anyone."

That's our country. And at that moment I

realize that this is all very personal,

that they have absolutely stolen it all from me

and clearly have no intention of

giving anything back. So right at

the moment when they tell me that they

are not obliged to answer to me, I

understand that they stole personally from me, personally

from my wife, from my child. And I

actually think that every one of

you should understand that too,

that the same is true for you as well, absolutely, absolutely

right. This is real money. This is

not some abstract thing. These are

unfinished railways. These are

unbuilt clinics. These are the factories

we never got. This is a real

problem, one that concerns me very

deeply. And I am trying to solve it, by the

way, constructively. They keep

telling me: "All you do is criticize." I

constructively draft bills on

combating corruption in state companies. I

constructively propose various

amendments to them. I constructively come in,

and prove corruption. But they look at

me with blank incomprehension and do not want to

answer for anything. They only want to receive

their enormous salaries.

That is why I am here before you today

already as a candidate for Mayor of Moscow,

who wants to earn your support and

is counting very much on your support,

because I want to solve some

real problems that I

encounter, which, it seems to me,

you encounter as well, and which we

can solve, but they are not being solved. So

tell me, please: in Moscow, do we pay a lot

or a little for housing and utilities? A lot.

A lot. And when I receive

a utility bill for an apartment in a panel building for

9,500 rubles, I also get the feeling

that it is too much.

And that feeling really

troubles me, because as a shareholder

in, for example, Mosenergo, or as someone

who is suing Mosvodokanal, I

know how everything works there. I

know that Mosenergo makes a donation

of 300 million rubles to United Russia and builds it into

our tariff. Do you want to pay for that?

I do not. I know these inflated

investment programs, where they write that

supposedly they have built all sorts of

power plants, new wires, and new

pipes everywhere. But I know that none of this exists. It is

a complete sham. I know that right now we

are paying far too much. We are told

by Moscow City Hall: "You know, Muscovites, you

do not pay much for housing and utilities." But excuse me, we

currently pay for housing maintenance

25 rubles per square meter. In Kazan it is 18, in

Yaroslavl 15, in Astrakhan 12. And we are

told: "That is not enough, pay more." More for what?

We are told to pay even

more for water. Well, Mosvodokanal

made, for example, in 2011

a net profit of 3 billion rubles. It took that

profit God knows where and then said again:

"Let us raise the tariff, let them pay

more." I am not going to pay for

that. You all know our wonderful

prefect of the South-Eastern District. What is his

last name?

His son is officially

a shareholder and founder of a huge

number of management companies that

manage our apartment buildings. We pay him

this money. The only reason our

utility bills are so high is that the prefect's son

is providing us with housing and utility services. We all

know this. I want to become mayor in order

to finally conduct an audit of housing and utility

tariffs, an audit of management companies, so that

we can throw out everything we should not

be paying for: inflated investment programs,

hidden profits, various

donations, departmental vacation

resorts, cross-subsidization. Our

cold water tariff ranges from 8 to 50.

Why do some pay 8 and others 50? Why

are those who pay 50 subsidizing those who

pay 8? I want to change all of this,

and then we will all see, when I carry out

a tariff review and conduct an independent, conduct

an independent audit, analyze the tariff,

we will see that in Moscow it is possible not just

to avoid raising the tariff, but to lower it,

because so much is included in it

that we should not be paying for, that there is

plenty to cut out. I came here because

we live in the same district.

In my part of the South-Eastern District there is

a migration problem. In your part, is there

one too?

Yes.

There is a migration problem in Moscow.

I would very much like to solve it. It

concerns me deeply. And I hear

all sorts of fairy tales, you know. The

Moscow government officially tells me:

"We do not have that many migrants." Do

you know, by the way, what

our official quota is for the number of

migrants from the CIS countries in Moscow?

110,000 people.

Are there 110,000 migrants in Moscow, or

more?

More. Millions.

Nobody knows the real number here. From 1 to 3 million. And

they tell me stories that this

quota is what we officially admit. But I

know why migrants come here. I

am running for mayor because I understand perfectly well,

probably just like you do, that hundreds of

thousands and millions of migrants come here not

because there are jobs here, but

because it is easy to make money off them.

So that no one can say that I am

manipulating figures, juggling numbers, or

brought in planted people, tell me,

please, yourselves: how much does

a migrant janitor in your courtyard earn?

10, 8.

18.

Depends on how much area he cleans. 5,000.

You know, this is one of those remarkable

secrets known to all of Moscow. After all, we

can look at the official minimum

approved pay standard for a Moscow

janitor, from which it clearly follows that

there cannot be a janitor in Moscow with

a salary of less than 30,000 rubles. But all

the real, ordinary janitors we

speak to name completely different

amounts. We know perfectly well that they are brought here

to be kept in conditions like slaves,

because each of them is ready

to kick back from his salary 5,

10,000-15,000 rubles. They are housed in buildings slated for

demolition, in basements, in apartments

with 20 people to a unit, because it is easy

to make money off them, and people make hundreds of

millions of rubles every month from each

district administration. It is a river of money,

the management company, the district administration,

the prefecture, housing and utilities services. This is a well-established

chain for skimming off cash that

migrants pay. But you and I see

the other side of this river of money. We

see rising crime. That's right. We

understand that more than half of

all crimes are committed by newcomers.

A significant number of crimes

are committed by migrants.

You and I know that in Moscow schools

there are now classes where more than half

the children no longer speak Russian.

We know about this, don't we?

We do know about it. I want to become mayor

now, because this problem needs

to start being addressed now. Because in 10 years

my children, your children, and your grandchildren

will face things that

will be practically impossible to solve. When

hundreds of thousands of people appear in Moscow

who were born and raised here. We will never

send them back to Uzbekistan

or anywhere else. They have never

even seen Uzbekistan in their lives. And yet

they will not want to work as street cleaners,

for that matter. They

will technically be Muscovites, but their Russian

will be poor. They will barely finish school.

They will have no chance of getting into university,

and they will not be able to get into vocational college

either. How are they supposed to live

and survive?

They will not pay taxes. And so

on and so forth. This is a huge number

of antisocial people who are not

integrated into our way of life. We saw how

this happened in Paris a few years

ago. I do not want this to happen

in Moscow. That is why I am running for mayor now,

to start solving this problem, so that

we stop feeding each other nonsense. You know

what? We supposedly have only 110,000 migrants.

We have set a quota, they say. But that is a lie,

and we all know it. I want to become

a mayor who will not lie to everyone about

obvious things that everybody already knows. I

am running for mayor of Moscow because I really

love digging into numbers,

tracking all kinds of processes. And I know exactly

what the size of Moscow's budget is: 1.6

trillion rubles a year. Moscow's budget

is smaller only than the budgets of

New York and Shanghai. You and I live in

one of the richest cities in the world.

We rank third by budget. And

here is a question for everyone present. What

do you think: given that Moscow

ranks third in terms of budget size,

what place do we hold in the

quality-of-life ranking among the world's largest

cities?

Why is nobody saying third as well, or

something like that, I don't know, maybe second,

perhaps, I don't know. Well, at least

tenth. Why does everyone immediately shout

that we're near the bottom?

in the second hundred

The correct answer is 154.

In reality, in the ranking of the largest cities by

quality of life, we are in 154th

place. A slight disproportion there, right:

third by money, but by quality of life

154th.

That is something strange, because we

seem to have everything needed for a normal

life. We have a city, we have

infrastructure, we have a very large

budget, we have a highly educated

population, but somehow it just does not

work, in my view, because

we lack one very important thing. We

do not have faith in ourselves, because

somehow we have been convinced, or rather we convinced ourselves,

that nothing

can be changed. Yes, we live

rather mediocre lives, but that is just how life

turns out. After every rally, someone

comes up to me and says: "Listen,

Navalny, everything you said was absolutely right,

I support you, well done. But now

without the microphone and without the camera, tell me:

you do understand that nothing can

be changed. Nothing can be changed. That is

just how life works. Yes, we all know

that Russia ranks first in

oil and gas sales, and 69th in terms of living standards.

Yes, Moscow is

third by budget, and by quality

of life 154th. Yes, take any

construction project in Moscow, any major one.

The North-Western Chord, 70 billion rubles. And

all the builders tell us in one voice

that it costs twice as much as it

should. Newspapers write about it, it is

discussed in expert circles. We

all simply know that on the construction of

the North-Western Chord

alone, 30 billion rubles will be stolen,

which would be enough to build schools and

outpatient clinics across the entire South-Eastern

district. But we shrug our shoulders and say:

"What a terrible outrage, but apparently

nothing can be changed." About

this, about this prefect of ours whose

son owns management companies,

we have all known it for

many, many years. But somehow, well, why

get upset? That is just how life works. I

came here with one main idea:

this is not the natural order of life.

Life is not meant to work this way. This is an

unnatural and perverse

system.

And I do not believe that there is nothing we can

change. On the contrary, I believe that we can change

everything. I come to meetings like this,

despite the fact that many people so

smile ironically when I say

the phrase that this is the source of power. I

truly believe that the source

of power in Russia is the people. And the people

can change everything. They can elect anyone,

re-elect anyone, then

elect them again, and then throw them out of

their offices, because we can do all of that.

This corrupt,

inefficient, disgusting government,

does not rest on violence.

Well, there are six

OMON riot police officers here guarding us, maybe eight.

Are they forcing us to do anything? No,

they themselves completely agree with everything

I’m saying. And who is forcing us,

think about it, to hand over

30 billion rubles to some crooks for

the North-Western Chord highway? Who? No one

is forcing us. All of this exists simply

because we shrug our shoulders and

say: "Well, there’s no point in fighting. We

don’t decide anything." Up at the top, everything has already been

decided. The election results have already been

determined. It’s all useless. On

television, they’ll brainwash everyone.

Brainwashed pensioners will come and

vote. Nothing of the sort is true.

In order to elect the mayor of Moscow,

for me to win outright in the first round,

it takes half a million people. In a city where

15 million live. In Moscow there are half a million

people who know everything, understand everything,

each of whom could come out here

and say exactly the same things I’m

saying. Each of them can

read my platform and see that

it was written by the best experts,

see that it contains solutions to all

these problems, that other major cities

have solved these problems, that we have

the money needed to solve all these

problems. Those half a million people exist.

The question is how to get them to the polls.

I truly cannot reach them

through television. And if I have

been shown on TV over the last five years,

it has only been on programs about

how I supposedly stole the entire forest.

But fine, I don’t have television, I don’t have

billboards, but the main thing they cannot take from me is

the opportunity for meetings like this.

There are probably already 500 people standing here,

but to me this is not 500 people, it is no fewer than

50,000, because each of you has

friends, acquaintances, neighbors in your apartment building

and so on, and so on.

Research shows that

the persuasive power of each person is

remarkable. If you speak with

ten people, you are guaranteed to persuade

six of them. People need

advice. We ourselves must realize

just how much we Muscovites are

a huge campaigning machine. We must

understand how much power we truly

possess. We must understand

how many of us there are. We simply must believe

in ourselves that we can elect

anyone. If we like Navalny,

we’ll elect Navalny. If we stop liking

Navalny, we’ll throw Navalny out. This

government can be changed easily. But only if

we believe that we can

do it. Everyone can spend 15

minutes of their time a day, and the government

will change on the eighth. I came here

because I believe that through you I will

speak to those hundreds, thousands,

millions. I believe that on the eighth

we can bring our 155,000 and

win. And I believe that after the eighth

we can build an excellent city

for ourselves and for our children. Thank you

very much. I’m ready to answer questions.

[applause]

Thank you. Please.

On

About housing prices in Moscow. What do you?

I’ll repeat it for everyone afterward.

Housing prices make it impossible to buy a home.

Housing is impossible to buy. High

housing prices in Moscow.

Yes.

Insanely high, yes. Our average price now

is $6,000 per square meter. That is completely

out of line with living standards, with rental

levels, out of line with the quality of life

in the city. It’s absurd. At the same time, we

all know that the cost price of one square

meter is about $1,600 to $1,700. There is

a study showing that

30%

of the cost of any product in Moscow—in

Russia, actually, and especially in Moscow—

whether it’s a carton of milk, a kilogram of meat,

or a square meter of housing—is corruption. In

the housing sector, apparently, it’s even higher.

My task as mayor is simply, at long last,

to eliminate these endless

administrative barriers. My task as

mayor is to eliminate opacity. My

task as mayor is to eliminate the corruption

that has already become almost a myth

in the construction sector. It has

simply—rather, not a myth, but a legend.

A great many things can be done here. For example,

we have a draft law under which,

we have already even written it as

a bill, under which all

construction documentation must

be published on the day it is prepared. That is,

you and I together should be able to

go online, point to any

site, any plot of land, and see

everything, starting from pre-design

documentation and design documents, all the way to

working drawings and records

migrants who have the right to work there.

I am absolutely convinced that

basic measures to bring

transparency, basic measures to ensure that

land is allocated properly,

basic measures to ensure that

contractors handling utility connections are not

monopolies, but that there is real

competition there, will significantly

reduce the cost

of housing in Moscow. Right now it is abnormal, and

it is being kept at that level in an entirely artificial

way. It is being kept there because the mafia is holding

housing prices up. I am coming in order

to fight this mafia. I am convinced

that within 2 years, the price per square

meter in Moscow will

drop significantly.

Please,

if you want to change Russia, then you need

to start with Moscow. What does that mean?

It will be presidential.

Why did I write on my slogan:

"Change Russia, start with Moscow?"

We all understand that there is no such

magic position that you can be elected to as

mayor, and then tomorrow something

will happen across all of Russia. We understand that

many problems, including when we

talk about construction and

corruption, are tied to federal

issues, to the judicial system, to the

education system. In general, if

we are talking about raw-material sectors related to the export of

natural resources, that is all federal. But that is exactly why

we wrote it that way, because I know very well

the peculiarity of our country, which

is that any

political changes in Russia

will either happen or not happen depending on whether

Muscovites want them or not.

With all due respect to

the wonderful Russian cities

across the country, nothing will happen just because the mayor of

Yaroslavl, Vladivostok, or Ryazan is re-elected.

Nothing will change. Moscow is home to 15%

of the country's population. Moscow has an enormous

budget. All political change is made by

Muscovites. And if Moscow finally

elects a mayor who relies on

the citizens, serves the citizens, and the citizens

know that the mayor serves them, I am convinced that

this will simply lead to a radical

change. The federal government in the

form in which we know it, this

entire corrupt Putin gang,

will cease to exist, and without

any revolution at all. They will simply realize

that yes, here is the city, our main

city, where 15% of the population lives, and it

has voted differently; it wants change. After all,

it will be impossible to turn back, because

Muscovites came out and said: "No, they do not

like the Rotenbergs, they do not like

Timchenko, they do not like the way contracts are

being distributed. They do not like that

the metro is being built at twice the cost. They

do not like that all contracts for

construction and for supplying school

breakfasts and lunches have been taken over by one

company belonging to some friend of Putin's."

Muscovites came out and said: "No,

it is perfectly clear that this cannot

be done." And they will stop doing it, and the whole

country will begin to change. And change can

begin only with Moscow. Please,

Alexei Anatolyevich, let me tell you, we had

our representative here

say, Lyusiko Alexeyevich, many people know,

managed all the schools

A question

existed for a long time

a question of authority. Look, right now we are

loading

all schools into restructuring.

The merging of schools, right?

The merging of schools, hospitals, and so on.

There is a problem with school mergers.

There is a problem.

I can tell you that I feel it firsthand.

The school my

daughter attends is being merged with the neighboring school and

with a kindergarten. I spoke

in a district where a

school was being merged with a technical college. This is happening here,

and there is nothing funny about it. It is a nightmare. It is

a tragedy for parents. They are all

up in arms. There is a school that

is being merged with five or seven other schools and

several kindergartens. And the principal

of the school becomes the head of a kindergarten.

This is an absurd and inexplicable system. Well,

or rather, at city hall, if you talk to a

city official, they will tell you informally

exactly that. But, you know, Sobyanin in

Tyumen merged schools, and he is doing the same in Moscow.

Underlying all of this is

this nice-sounding idea that you take

one strong school, add two

weak schools to it, and you get one big

strong school. Well, does that work or not?

You take a Mercedes, you take two carts,

wrap it all together with tape, and you get

one big Mercedes. But we know that

that does not work. It is nonsense, and it will not

work. And all of this is being done under

the pretext that we are cutting

some costs,

but there is already

a huge amount of money in education now. By the way, who knows

what the salary of a school principal

in Moscow is?

Fifty thousand.

Fifty grand.

A school principal's salary ranges from 150,000 to 300,000 rubles

in Moscow. We allocate

colossal sums to education and

then start merging a school with

kindergartens just to save money

somewhere.

In our program, on this issue,

there is a very clear provision:

we say that mergers must be

stopped if they are not

agreed with parents, local

deputies, and the local community as a whole.

Schools and school mergers are

a typical local issue.

Tverskaya 13 (Moscow City Hall headquarters) should not be interfering here at all.

It should simply

allocate the money. We cannot allow—nor can

some mayor, whether Navalny or Sobyanin or

whoever else, sitting there at Tverskaya 13,

to think: "Why don't I merge the schools in

the Lefortovo district?"

Why is that necessary? If the residents of Lefortovo

and the parents in Lefortovo do not want

school mergers, then why merge them? We

are allocating enough money as it is.

If the budget were bursting at the seams,

that would be one thing. But there is plenty of money. I

am convinced that schools are a matter of local

concern. All decisions about schools should

be made by parents. The mayor's job is to allocate

the necessary amount of money. And the mayor's job is also

to make sure there is none of the shady dealing I

already mentioned, like what is happening now with

the supply of food to schools. You know,

they used to cook everywhere on site, but now

they bring in this airline-style food,

just packed in little boxes.

And all the food for all Moscow schools

was won by one company. By an amazing

coincidence, it is from St. Petersburg, and by another amazing

coincidence, it belongs to yet another friend of Vladimir

Putin. But surely you will agree that this is, let's say,

a highly competitive market. Plenty of

companies can provide decent school

meals, right? This is not exactly

synchrotrons. And yet everything

was handed to one company. My job as

mayor is to pass funding for schools and authority over them

down to the local level and make sure there is no

funny business in procurement. That is what I

should be doing as mayor. Please,

Please tell us,

what is your attitude toward—what do you think of Yegor

Gaidar? I know he is an authority for you.

As for Yegor Gaidar, well, I do not

know—I honestly came here

to talk about Moscow

problems. And I think that right now

first and foremost

Young man, look, you asked

a question, you asked a question, so please,

let me—let's show respect

for those gathered here, I am answering you. As for

Yegor Gaidar, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris

Yeltsin, I don't know, Mahatma Gandhi—I can

tell you about them, if that is really

what interests you?

I think it is much more important now

to talk about Moscow's actual problems.

I heard mention of healthcare,

education, housing and utilities. Let me speak on those

topics, please.

What minimum—what do you see as the minimum

minimum pension

for Muscovites?

Pension for Muscovites

the minimum one.

The minimum pension for Muscovites. What

is the current minimum pension in Moscow?

5,500 rubles.

No, no, no, no. Look,

right now the so-called Moscow

pension supplement is 4,000-4,500

rubles. In order for the minimum pension

to reach the standard of 12,000 rubles. Our

program states this very clearly. We

know that 138 billion rubles are needed

to double the Moscow pension

supplement. And for the minimum social

standard to be 16,000 rubles.

We know where to get those 138 billion rubles.

They are in the Moscow budget. And if

I become mayor, I will halt

the adoption of the 2013 budget

until we double this

Moscow supplement. And honestly,

I find it ridiculous to hear

the current city administration say: "You

know, we do not have the money." Well, first of all,

the money is there if we simply look at

the budget. Second, I say to City Hall:

"Come on, you yourselves admit that out of

the 600 billion rubles that

are allocated, for example, to Moscow

public procurement, 150 billion are stolen every year.

That is 30,000 rubles per Muscovite. From

you, from you, from me. 30,000 rubles are stolen

per year just through procurement. I will explain

how to save that money.

At the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), we have canceled

corrupt procurement contracts worth 59 billion rubles,

without having any official powers.

So I know exactly what

needs to be done at City Hall to save

those 150 billion rubles a year. I simply

know it precisely, down to the instructions,

the draft laws, the regulations—how to

do it step by step. We have been working on this for years,

so to finish answering

this question: at a minimum, double

the Moscow portion of the pension. In the Moscow

budget there is money for that, there is money

to increase support for large families,

there is money to give large families

the land plots they were promised long

ago. We have money

to insure access to medication

so that people with disabilities and pensioners

do not have to go around begging for substitute

drugs, but instead the insurance company

would pay for the medicine they actually

need. The Moscow budget can cover all of this.

allow ourselves. So I,

you know, forgive me for taking so long

to answer this question. It’s an important one. If

I were simply running here for mayor

of Kostroma, for example, you might say to me:

"Navalny,

we have lines at the

clinic, you know?"

We do. We want you to build us

a new clinic. And I would say to you,

dear residents of Kostroma, I’m not going to make

promises I can’t keep. There is no money in our

budget for a clinic, because

it costs 400 million rubles. But I’m running

for mayor of Moscow, so I’m telling you,

dear residents of Lefortovo,

there is a sea of money in Moscow’s budget for everything. If on

just one construction project, on that wretched

Northwestern Chord (a major Moscow highway project), 30 billion

rubles are being stolen, is there really no 500 million

rubles to build a clinic? Is there really no

money for medicines?

The Northwestern Chord, the Southern Rocade,

the Northeastern Chord, the reconstruction

of Leninsky Prospekt — they are openly siphoning

off tens of billions of rubles from all of that. There,

just basic anti-corruption measures,

basic measures to promote

competition and break up monopolies,

would free up billions. And those

billions we would direct toward solving

social problems, and we will do it

without fail.

They’ll steal under you too. There will be stealing under your administration too.

They’ll steal under me too.

Good question. There will be stealing under you too,

but let’s probably sharpen

your question even more. We could put it this way: "You

yourself will be stealing in two years,

right?"

Well, that’s a fair way to put the question. In

principle, all the others also promised

that they wouldn’t steal. Right? I

don’t think any

mayoral candidate has come here. Well, I think

of course none has come at all, but

if all the others had come, they wouldn’t have told me:

"You know, most likely,

to be honest, in two years we’ll be

stealing." Everyone says they won’t.

But

that probably won’t be enough for you

if I tell you, resident of Lefortovo,

I give you my word, I won’t steal,

that’s not enough.

That’s why in our program we have

included important measures — simply

the decentralization of power. I myself do not want

to become a corrupt mayor. I don’t want

my team to become corrupt either.

So from day one I will start building

a fence between myself and corruption. Right now

the mayor of Moscow can hand out billion-ruble contracts

left and right, just like that, as

they do now — to their Putin-linked friends,

the Rotenbergs. I will make a decision under which

not a single — please hear me out —

not a single construction project costing

more than 1 billion rubles will

be carried out without an international

expert review. I will make a decision under which

a significant amount of money and

authority will be transferred down here. I

will make a decision under which all

decisions of the Moscow government will be completely

transparent to you. Just try

an experiment right now. Try to find

the minutes of even one government meeting

where a decision was made about

some giant construction project, or

the annexation of New Moscow, or anything

else. You won’t find anything.

Hundreds of billions move back and forth. You won’t

find anything about how they voted, how

they decided, who lobbied, who proposed

one thing, who proposed another. None of that

exists. So I will create for myself a very

uncomfortable environment, in which you will

be able to see through my entire

government as if with an X-ray, in which my

powers will be limited, in which a large

share of authority on the ground will be in your

hands. That is the biggest

guarantee for me that my people will not

start stealing, because, well, maybe,

forgive the grand words, but my

main ambition, perhaps, is

that many years from now you

will remember: yes, I was at

that meeting in Lefortovo with that same

Navalny, who became the first mayor

who didn’t steal. Sooner or later there has

to appear a mayor

who will not steal. That is the kind of mayor I want

to become, and I will become one.

An honest, honest word alone

is not enough here, but I give you my honest word

as well. Please,

Pension: 12,000 rubles, please.

No, salary.

Salary.

All right, what’s the question?

Where is a salary like that?

At the Moscow Marketing Institute.

Well, it’s a federal institution. But I

agree that, you understand, living in

Moscow is a separate issue — it

The issue is that salaries are low

and it is expensive to live. It is expensive to live in Moscow.

Yes,

it is expensive to live in Moscow. I actually

really felt just how expensive it is to live in

Moscow after spending half a year living in

America. Everything there is twice as cheap. There,

food is twice as cheap, and

clothes are twice as cheap. There, gasoline at a

Lukoil gas station in the U.S. costs

less than gasoline at a Lukoil station

at a gas station in Russia, in Moscow. But once again we

come back to the fact that 30% of the price

of any product is corruption. Here, you

know, markets are being demolished all across Moscow. Here

they are also setting up these

weekend fairs. You know the ones, right?

Well, they’re not demolishing you, but weekend

fairs are being set up all over Moscow. When I

was preparing to speak here, I looked up

how much, do you think, a spot costs

in this part of Moscow for a vendor at a

weekend fair? We don’t have this fair here

fai

200 rubles in theory

200 rubles. In practice, they all write 2,000

rubles. The question is: who pays the 1,800-ruble difference?

We do. The high cost of living comes from

corruption, so first and foremost we need

to fight corruption. Maybe

I sound like a parrot repeating the same thing:

corruption, corruption, corruption. But I

am absolutely certain that corruption

breeds inefficiency. Corruption

drives up costs. Corruption

creates a low quality of life. But

the one good thing about corruption is that we

understand how to fight it. If

all these problems were connected to

some metaphysical flaw in the way our brains

are wired, that would be

a problem. I don’t know how to fix people’s

brains, but I know exactly how to fight

corruption. So the measures

aimed at this will

work. Next question, please.

The thing is, you talk a lot

about rubles, corruption, and so on, but there are

problems that go beyond that,

moral problems. So. Today you are speaking

in Kalinin Park.

Behind you stands a monument to Kalinin,

who was a criminal, though on a lesser scale than Stalin. My

attempt to come to an agreement with

the prefect was: let’s put it where all the others stand,

where they all stand. And what happened?

The question.

The question is: will you deal with the issue

of eliminating these remnants

of totalitarianism or not? The question of whether

I will work on eliminating

the remnants of totalitarianism, specifically

whether I would remove the Kalinin monument. Look,

I assume that here,

well, there are probably already more

than 500 people standing here. Some are in favor of

the Kalinin monument, some are against

the Kalinin monument, some are against

Kalinin as a historical figure, but

not against the monument itself. My job as mayor

is one thing only: to give you the power to decide for yourselves.

I’m not going to—there will be nothing like this:

you know, Navalny came here and

looked around and thought, “Oh yes, something

seems spiritually lacking about you,

residents of Lefortovo. Let me build you a circus

or a church, or something is wrong with you,

so let’s skip the clinic and instead

I’ll build three schools.” That is not my

job at all. When I become mayor, the question of

the Kalinin monument—you will not have to stand before the mayor or

the prefect over it. It is a matter

for your district head, who will be

elected. It’s your choice. If you convince

half the residents of the district that the monument

is not needed, it will not be here. And

no Navalny, no prefect,

no one else will interfere with

their own advice. What is this district

for, after all? Well, it exists for

you. You live here. This

park exists for you.

That’s all. My approach to this is very simple.

There is no need to try to solve every

problem from a single office. There is not

a single prosperous

city in the world without local

self-government. There are people, and they can

decide the pressing issues of their own lives themselves.

So, sorry, but as for Kalinin,

decide for yourselves. Next question.

Alexei, how do we beat the traffic jams? Or

will you be able to?

How do we beat traffic jams? This is very relevant

for your district. Your district here is

a typical example: it is surrounded on three sides

by railway lines. It is very hard to get out of here,

and very hard to get in as well.

What is the current Moscow mayor’s office offering us

in terms of solving traffic jams? It is allocating

huge amounts of money for these

mega-projects,

interchanges, and so on and so forth.

Truly unimaginable amounts

of money for these interchanges, which are being built

at twice the proper cost. Who can remind me

right now who the main road construction contractor in

Moscow is?

The Rotenbergs. Exactly. Those are the very

same guys who in Soviet times

were Putin’s judo partners,

and then somehow, quite miraculously,

became billionaires by

supplying large-diameter pipes to

Gazprom, and now they are building roads for us in

Moscow, interchanges at twice

the cost. Your case, your district, is a typical

example showing that this urban planning

policy is mistaken. What we need instead

is to eliminate bottlenecks and increase

connectivity between districts. I live not far from here

in Maryino, but getting in here

is practically impossible because of

the railways. We need underpasses beneath

the railway lines; we need a so-called

capillary network. And none of these

giant projects, tunnels, and everything

else will solve the problem.

What’s needed is to spend less money, but

into places where there is at least some kind of calculation behind it. Well,

just do it again: when you get back,

go online at home and run

a simple experiment. Try

to find even a single urban-planning justification

for any one of these massive construction projects, each

of which costs 70 billion rubles. There’s nothing,

nothing at all. The biggest decisions on

construction projects are made like this:

Rotenberg comes to Sobyanin and says:

"Listen, Sobyanin, your budget

looks a little too big. Let’s

cook something up. For 80 billion or so. And

that’s what happens. It sounds absurd, but

there’s a section of this

Fourth Ring right near you. Right?

Yes.

Do you remember that it was the most expensive

road in the world? Right? Back then everyone

laughed and compared it to the Large Hadron

Collider, saying it was even more expensive. They

built it, and now Sobyanin says

it was, excuse me, an urban-planning mistake.

Hold on, we poured a trillion rubles into it. And

who is going to answer for this urban-planning

mistake? Why are the very same people now,

the ones who made the decision to build

the most expensive road in

Moscow, still the ones planning

new construction projects for us? Let’s hold someone

criminally liable. Let’s

at least fire someone. Let’s at least

draw conclusions and stop dumping

billions into things without calculations. But it still

goes on. Absolutely.

Maybe it looks like this, you know:

Navalny is oversimplifying here. I am not

oversimplifying anything. There is not a single calculation.

Look at what’s happening with

the reconstruction of Leninsky Prospekt.

First they were proving to us that it was necessary,

then the local residents raised hell. They

say: "No, it’s not necessary anymore. We’ve

changed our minds."

That’s no way to do things. What’s more, I was given

absolutely brilliant confirmation of what I’m

saying by Sobyanin himself, who recently

gave an interview to the newspaper Vedomosti. And there

he was asked: "Sergei Semyonovich, what is

your greatest achievement in your time as

Mayor of Moscow?" He says: "My greatest

achievement as Mayor of Moscow

is that we launched the three most expensive

road projects in the world. And it was very

hard to launch them because we were doing it

under conditions where there was no

strategy, plan, or calculation."

I’m not joking. Just read that

interview. I want to become a mayor who

has strategy, planning, and calculations,

so that we calculate things first and only then

start pouring money into them. That’s what needs to be done.

And it can be done. There are

urban planners, there are urbanists, there are, after

all, international experts

who can come and do the calculations. This isn’t

some uniquely Moscow problem. Roads and interchanges

are built everywhere. And here we will build them at

a normal European price. And then we will have

a huge amount of money left.

We’ll have enough left over to build twice as

many roads, and there will still be money for

social projects. Next question.

Please.

Alexei, what will you do if you run into

resistance from the central authorities

over that same trillion rubles?

What will I do if I run into

resistance from the central authorities? Well,

I’ve already run into a bit of

resistance from the central authorities, as you

know. I will overcome the resistance of those

central authorities with

the help of the most powerful, invincible, yet

for me the only weapon there is: with the help of

you. If Moscow elects a mayor

who relies on the people, then nothing

can be done to him, and it will be impossible

to take the money away from here.

They won’t be able to do anything. If I

become mayor, it will be in only one way.

You know I have no

election commissions on my side, no media on my side, and so

on. If I become mayor, it will only be with

your help. But once I become mayor with

your help, they won’t be able to do anything

to me. They won’t be able to open a case, they won’t

be able to jail me. On the contrary, we ourselves, together

with you, will put them all behind bars. Please, something

from a slightly different area. Does your

program include reviving such areas of

culture and the arts in our capital? What

is happening in Moscow now,

for example, is the closure of music schools.

Out of more than 100 music schools in Moscow,

they plan to leave no more than ten. Free

municipal education for children will

disappear. That means

many parents will not be able to send their

children.

I understand the question. The closure of music schools.

The same thing is happening with clubs and extracurricular activities, and so

on. This is really just

a disguised shift of education onto

a paid basis. You know how

things are arranged in schools now: you can attend

two activities for free, but the third one

already costs money. And what is an

eleven-year-old child, after all? Mine, for

example, goes to one today, then tomorrow

to another, the day after tomorrow to a third,

signs up for five activities at once,

then drops them. That’s normal for

a child, right? So what

is happening now is simply

the gradual introduction of paid

education, which is completely unacceptable,

because, once again, Moscow has

the funds for all of this, and we will absolutely put a stop to these things.

We know how to handle all of this.

And this is not the kind of money

that should be saved, because who exactly

are we building this school for?

For our own children. This is not the kind of

place where you should cut costs. This is not the kind of

amount of spending where we would really

free something up and put it to serious use elsewhere.

This creates enormous social tension.

And closing the music school produces no economic effect

whatsoever.

That is why all of this needs to be

stopped. All of this needs to be properly

funded. The scale of the problem there is not such

that it would really prevent us from doing anything.

Please.

Alexei, please tell us, if you

become mayor now, but you have rather large ambitions,

and then you want

to become president. And what would you say

to people in three years who ask:

Today you want to become mayor, tomorrow

you will want to become president, and so

on. Well, let’s first elect me

mayor, and then we can think about

how to make sure I do not move from mayor

to president. I...

The whole question is: how long

do you intend to remain mayor, if you are...

I am entering this election in order to win it,

to become mayor and

to work for our city. But at the same time, I

am a political figure who

has set himself the main task of

changing life in this country for the better. I

will take part in those elections in which

one must participate in order

to change life in Moscow for the better.

Mayoral elections, Moscow City Duma elections,

presidential elections, if necessary. They are

actually still quite far off

for us. In any case, we need

to use every political

opportunity available to change

life. The post of mayor is the post of the third most important

person in the country. From that post, one can

change a great deal. And that is why I am running now

to change everything from that position.

There was a question here about dilapidated housing stock.

Yes.

Five-story apartment blocks, communal apartments.

Five-story apartment blocks, communal apartments. Five-story apartment blocks. As for

them, for me everything about five-story apartment blocks

is quite clear. When were they built? From

1962 to 1968.

That is when they were built.

What? Well, usually not. These are still not

the standard five-story buildings. Ordinary

standard five-story buildings of the demolition-designated series.

They were built from sixty-

two to sixty-eight. For how long

were they designed to last?

For 25 years. That is it, they have outlived their service life.

The city does not need them. Both

the demolition-designated ones and the so-called non-demolition series should be torn down,

because in fact they are very

expensive. If I were a mayor

who cannot see beyond the end of his nose, I would say:

"I will not demolish the five-story blocks,

I will save money." But if I am a mayor who

looks ten years ahead, I understand that

the five-story blocks need to be demolished. Utilities and housing services there are very

expensive, major repairs are very

expensive, and people are dissatisfied with everything.

It is an endless black hole that

devours the city budget. My position

is unequivocal. All five-story apartment blocks must be

demolished, and people must be rehoused within

the same municipal district where

they live, and there is both money and

space for this. Please, a question about... What do you

think about registration?

A question about out-of-town residents? What do I think about

out-of-town residents? Look, here we need

to distinguish between things. There are Russian citizens from other regions

who in fact

do not have problems with medical care, for example. They

can receive it here under their own insurance policy as well.

In practice, this does not always

work as it should, because an insurance policy means money.

You are simply bringing money into the clinic.

Another issue concerns migration.

So let me say a few words about

migration, because when we talk about

out-of-town residents, this is usually what we mean.

Moscow ranks first in the world

in the number of illegal migrants. Is that

a normal situation?

No,

It is not a normal situation. I have

three solutions to this problem, and I think they are

quite clear and straightforward. Before I

name these three solutions, I have a question for

everyone. Please, raise your hand,

those of you who have been to any European

country. Any one at all. Aha, thank you. And who has

slipped into or traveled to any European

country without a visa?

How would that even be possible?

It has happened, but apparently that was some kind of

secret spy story. At one of

my meetings, a man there raised his hand very

confidently. I said, "And how did you get into

Germany without a visa?" "Well, in the army,

I drove in on a tank."

Those are extraordinary cases, of course,

but you and I are, it seems, normal,

law-abiding people, not

bandits of any kind, and if we want to enter

Germany, France, or the United States, will they let us in

without a visa? They will not. So why then

can any citizen of Uzbekistan or

Tajikistan come here without

an international passport, even for any length

of time, and stay here for any

length of time? Is that normal?

That is not normal.

France as well

Like, like, what?

Algerians used to go to France back in the day.

Just as Algerians used to go to France back in the

day. Right.

But now it's a different time.

So they likewise...

All right then, please tell me, are you

ready to let citizens of Uzbekistan

and Tajikistan come here, the same way Algerians came to

France?

No.

Does this example of Algeria and

France convince you? No. It convinces me of exactly the

opposite, because I can see what

happened with Algeria and with France. With

France. I see how a huge

number of these migrants' children

rioted in France. If

you want to tell me that, you

know, these are former Soviet

countries, and that we should

strengthen unity with them—do we have a visa regime with Georgia?

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

We do. Did anyone die because of

that? In what way are Uzbekistan or

Tajikistan closer or dearer to us than Georgia and

Turkmenistan? In no way at all. So we need to start

by introducing a visa regime

with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

This is the most important measure that we must

adopt at the federal level. Without it,

nothing will work. Measure number two

is disqualifying all contractors

who hire undocumented workers. Right now

it's profitable to hire them. A small

fine or a small bribe. I have

a bill under which

a company would be disqualified and would no longer have

any access to government

contracts—no major repairs, no

beautification projects, nothing at all. And

the third measure: within a year, we must ensure that

enterprises that

receive municipal funds do not have

the right to use those municipal funds to

hire foreigners. They have

more than enough resources to

hire Russian citizens, and even

Muscovites. There are

a great many myths on this subject. At the previous

meeting, a woman quite literally

repeated one of them. She came up and said: "Well,

you Muscovites, if all the Tajiks leave

Moscow, you do understand that you'll

be buried in filth."

Have you heard that one? Yes.

But is it true or not?

No.

No, of course not. Because before 2003

there were no migrants in Moscow. We

all remember that.

In most Russian cities there are no

migrants. In no city with

a population under 500,000 are there any migrants

at all. There are no migrants in Belarus. In

2008, when the crisis hit, migrants were leaving

Moscow and Russia

by the millions. We didn't even notice it

at all. It's all nonsense and myths. People come here

because, first, as we've already

said, people profit from their

near-slave labor, and second, in Uzbekistan and

Tajikistan there is simply poverty. There is no

education, no healthcare, there are no

jobs—there is nothing there. That is why they

will always come here, because

life there is simply bad, while here

it's decent. That is exactly why right now

50% of Tajikistan's GDP consists of

migrants' remittances sent back home.

Is that normal? No, it isn't, because they

of course have all sorts of difficulties. But

let's deal with our own problems

first. These three measures that I

would introduce will limit the number of

migrants and reduce the number of migrants

in Moscow by 70% over the next two years. I am

sure of it. Next question.

Decide among yourselves who—yes.

May I ask a question? One moment. The young woman

there, go ahead. In

New Moscow.

New Moscow. Excellent. New Moscow. Who

made the decision about creating

and annexing New Moscow to Moscow?

Medvedev.

Medvedev. For what purpose?

In order to move

the federal government bodies there. Correct.

Three months ago, Putin said that

we are not moving the federal government bodies

to New Moscow. Then Sobyanin

said, "We will move City Hall." Then he

said, "No, we will not move City Hall."

Then they said they would move

the municipal and state unitary enterprises. Now apparently not. Nevertheless,

they passed a law there under which in

New Moscow it is very easy to rezone and seize

land, and you can take land away from

whoever you want. There is one question: did anyone

do any calculations at all? What is

all this even for? New Moscow has

250,000 residents. The transport

infrastructure for New Moscow—just the transport

infrastructure alone—will cost $82 billion.

What is this for? I spoke

at a similar meeting in Troitsk, in New

Moscow. The residents of Troitsk are absolutely not

happy that they were annexed to

Moscow. They do not like it at all. This is

yet another strange, completely inexplicable

voluntarist decision. What's more, we have

a perfect example of how

one federal body was moved out of Moscow

quite recently. Which body was moved out of Moscow?

Which body was moved out of Moscow?

The Constitutional Court. Where was it moved to?

In St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, they renovated

a palace for the Constitutional Court. In

St. Petersburg, every judge of the Constitutional

Court was bought an apartment. Every judge

of the Constitutional Court was bought a dacha in

the city center, a very expensive one. And now

the Constitutional Court is holding a session in

Moscow, calling it an off-site session

of the Constitutional Court.

It would be funny if all of this didn’t

cost hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s why

I believe that New Moscow is

an absurd project with no

justification behind it at all; it simply isn’t

needed. And any decision to invest

even a single kopek here, well, apart from

some current funding,

any additional extraordinary sums

should be approved only after calculations. Let’s

do the math; after all, this is

a decision that will determine the development

of the city for decades. What’s the rush?

Let’s spend a year calculating it.

Then everyone who wants to criticize

the project can do so. We’ll see how much

public transportation will cost, who

will move there, and so on. And only then will we

spend money on it.

That’s the only way it can be. And I want

to become the kind of mayor who once again first

calculates and only then acts. Alexei, and what about

the idea of doing the opposite and holding

a referendum on this issue? As should have been

hold a referendum on this issue? But

in fact, under the law, in New Moscow they should

have held a referendum first. And

look, I want

to hold referendums in Moscow. This is

part of our program, because, once

again, there is not a single city

of this size that can function without

local self-government. Moscow has 15 million

people—that’s more than the average

country by population. And yet, you know that in

Moscow, not a single referendum has ever been held

at any level—not local, not

regional, not citywide.

We must use this mechanism,

because residents themselves should

decide. Look, there are plenty of contentious

issues, the kind that are generally very

hard to resolve. For example, the program for 200

churches in Moscow. There is a large

Orthodox community that wants

churches. There are people who say, "We

don’t need churches; give us clinics instead."

This is a very difficult issue even politically.

I believe it can be resolved

in only one way: by holding

a referendum. And the residents decide for themselves. The same

should have been done in New Moscow. It should

have been done in New Moscow. Now it has

been annexed; it is already legally part

of Moscow. If I become mayor, it is still

part of my city. But any decision about

additional investment there must

be made only after we have calculated

something. Please.

Louder, please. What is the status

of the criminal case, the so-called

Kirovles case?

What is the status of the criminal

case involving Kirovles? Well, you know, it was

in such a state that they

put me in prison.

And every time, when people

ask me about it, the first thing I say

to everyone is: "Thank you, my dear friends, for

getting me released." Because it was you

who got me out. The people who

were outraged, who took to the streets—they

made it happen that for the first time in all of modern

Russian history, the federal authorities

violated their own sacred and

untouchable right

to jail the innocent and not jail the guilty.

They did it because you forced them to,

I’m sure.

That’s right. That’s exactly how it worked. I

am sure that if I become mayor and do not

lose your support—and I will do everything

to make sure I do not lose your support—

I am sure that you will always

protect me from any criminal cases. And

the criminal cases that we do open,

real criminal cases, in which

through proper adversarial proceedings we

will imprison the people who ought to be

imprisoned—those criminal cases

will truly work, and we will,

at last, begin to fight

corruption. We will finally begin building

a normal city. We will finally begin

living in a city where the authorities work

for us and the money works for us. My friends,

I’ve been speaking to you for a whole hour,

and it’s time for me to head back to headquarters. Thank you

so much for coming. Thank you

very much. I would very much like to have your

support. I hope I managed to convince

some of you today. On the 8th, let’s come to

the polls and bring our friends and acquaintances. We

will bring in five million people. We

will definitely win. Hooray for Lefortovo!