Alexei Navalny’s meeting with voters in Moscow’s Novogireyevo district

Hello.

Thank you very much. To be honest, when I was

walking here through the puddles just now, I was thinking to myself,

if I were a voter,

would I come to a meeting like this or not?

I really wondered about it. Thank you very much for coming.

This is very important to me. Our entire

election campaign is built around

meetings like this with voters, because

well, my team and I all

believe that this is the most genuine, the most

proper work for candidates:

to meet with voters.

I’m looking at you and thinking that I

really would not want tomorrow

to be blamed for an outbreak of

bronchitis or some other

illnesses. I’ll try not to speak for too long.

I’d just like to say very briefly,

very briefly, why I’m here,

tell you a little about myself, and then

move on to questions and answers. Does anyone have

any objections to that

format?

No.

Excellent. My name is Alexei Navalny.

I am 37 years old.

For the past 17 years I have lived in Moscow’s

Maryino district. I have a completely

standard, ordinary Moscow family,

a wife and two children. You can come

a little closer to me, probably. Yes, like that.

So, there comes

the first urge to jump back.

I have a completely standard

Moscow family: a wife and two children,

a son. My son is 5 years old; he goes to kindergarten.

My daughter—don’t climb on that thing. My daughter is 11

years old; she goes to school.

I come from a military family, and throughout my childhood and

youth I moved around military towns.

My parents still live in a military town outside Moscow.

By profession, I am a lawyer.

I have two university degrees. I graduated from

the Financial Academy under the

Government of the Russian Federation and the

law faculty of the Peoples’ Friendship University

of Russia.

Excuse me.

And by profession I’m a lawyer, as I already said,

I work as a practicing lawyer.

The Interregional Bar Association. Lawyers

have their own special legal form. That is,

lawyers work in bar

associations.

If you have followed my work

more or less over the past couple of years, what

do you know about me? Right.

Some people say everything, some say: "Well,

nothing." Most often, people hear about me as

someone who files lawsuits against

various corporations. And I begin all

my meetings by answering this question.

Why do I do this? Because, probably,

it will be easier for all of you to understand why I ultimately

ended up here. Yes, I sue all these

Gazproms, Rosnefts, and so on,

because they are corrupt. I

fight corruption in them. And for me,

fighting corruption in state corporations is

quite clearly, well, a way of defending my own

interests. After all, what does Russia live on?

What keeps Russia going?

The sale of oil and gas. Exactly. Over

15 years, we sold $3 trillion worth of oil and gas.

And I, as an ordinary

citizen of Russia, as a person

who may be somewhat idealistic

and believes that the natural resources

belong to the people, have serious

questions about where those very same $3

trillion went. In Brezhnev-era

times, we received fewer

petrodollars, but back then in the

Soviet Union we built factories,

plants, scientific centers, academic towns,

the military-industrial complex, and so

on and so forth. Those trillions of

dollars that the Soviet Union received

were invested, and you can see the results. But these

Putin-era petrodollars that we

received—where did they go?

The Ozero dacha cooperative (a well-known group linked to Putin’s inner circle).

The Ozero dacha cooperative. Well, maybe somewhere else

too, I don’t know. There are

maybe 100 of you here, perhaps a little

more. Can anyone remind me—maybe

perhaps you know of even one major

industrial enterprise that has been

built in Russia over the past 15 years?

Nord Stream is just a pipeline.

I ask this question at every meeting,

and I have never once received

an answer. Simply because we have not

built a single major industrial enterprise

in the past 15 years; we haven’t even

built an oil refinery.

There really is only

one pipeline. And for me this is a very concrete

problem, because this money

that Russia received should, it seems to me,

belong

to me, to my children, to you, and to your children. These are

our resources, right? But the only consequence I see

from the fact that

Russia sold $3 trillion worth of oil and

gas is that in 2000 we had six billionaires,

and now we have 131. That’s

all. That is the only ranking in which

we are, uh, moving upward.

There is nothing else. And I, like

an ordinary person, like you,

probably have neither another country nor

another life. I want the money

that comes into this country—the enormous

sums that exist—to solve my

problems. I know these problems can be

solved, and that is why I am going into politics,

because I want to solve these problems. I

am already standing here before you as

a candidate for mayor of Moscow, and I want to earn

your support so that I can solve the

problems that we can solve in

Moscow. Look, we have

a housing and utilities problem.

Of course there is.

There is. Do we pay a lot or a little? A lot.

We pay enormous sums. The

Moscow city government tells us that we

pay too little, but, for example, for the maintenance

of the building and the apartment, per square

meter we pay 25 rubles. In Kazan they pay

18. In Yaroslavl they pay 15, and in Astrakhan

they pay 12. We pay 25. And they tell us:

"Come on, pay more. Pay more."

The tariff goes up every year. Can any of

you Muscovites, any of us, actually

see what this tariff is made up of?

Absolutely everything is closed off. I want to become

mayor so I can audit these tariffs,

so I can strip out all these

nonexistent investment

components, so there is no

cross-subsidization, where some people

pay 50 rubles for cold water and others

pay 8. So that we are not supporting a huge

number of freeloaders, so that in the

housing and utilities system we do not have a situation

where the sons of district prefects own all the

management companies. I will become mayor,

I will conduct an audit, and we will lower utility tariffs,

because in Moscow we pay very

much. It is not just that it should not rise — it

should be going down.

I am running for mayor of Moscow because I want

to solve the migration problem. Are there migration

problems in Moscow? No?

You are all telling me in unison: "Yes." But the

Moscow city government tells me in unison:

"No." Because every year they

approve a migrant quota of 110,000

people a year. But all of us together

know that there are a million migrants in Moscow.

They tell me: "10,000 people.

It is all lies. And you and I know perfectly well

why migrants come to

Moscow. Not because there are jobs,

but because — well, let me

finish, and then I will answer the question. Not

because there are jobs, but

because people profit from these

migrants. How much do the janitors earn

who work in your building?

5–10.

5,000 to 10,000 here.

18,000. Yes.

There you go — you say, you

say 10, someone else says 12. But the

officially established minimum pay rate

for a janitor is 30,000 rubles. There should

not be janitors in Moscow who

earn less than 30,000 rubles. That is why they

bring in migrant laborers here,

because they are willing to kick back

10,000 to 15,000 rubles from their wages. They

live like slaves, in basements and

so on, because for our officials

in the management companies they

generate an entire river of money. But we

see the other side of that money

river. Crime is rising,

rising. Social tension is rising,

rising. In Moscow schools there are now

classes where more than half the children do not

speak Russian. This is a truly

enormous problem. I want to become

mayor in order to address this problem

now, rather than wait until in 10

years this problem becomes

completely unsolvable, when there is a huge

number of new Muscovites who do not

know how to speak Russian. At the same

time, they were born here, they grew up here, and they

are not going to leave for Uzbekistan. I

want to solve this problem because I

encounter it myself. I am running in this election because

I do not even need to ask. I

am sure that in your local clinic there are

enormous lines. Are there lines at the

clinic?

There are. But to be honest, I prepared for

this meeting here. So I read what people

write about your clinic. But even

without that, I know, because there is no

clinic in Moscow that does not have

lines. And yet, we all know

that for the healthcare of each Muscovite

four times more money is allocated

than for any other

citizen of Russia. For outpatient clinics alone,

20,000 rubles are allocated per person.

per month. Enormous money. We

have spent over the last two years on the

program to modernize Moscow

healthcare 100 billion rubles.

What is going on over there?

Some election passions? Let us

all keep ourselves under control. Just as

I was just now at the clinic

starting to talk about Moscow

healthcare.

Migrants got into a fight over migrants. But

you can see what a burning issue

migration is — people started fighting

right here.

All right, wait. Come on, come on. No one

is going to hit anyone. Our solution

to the migrant problem is that

we will introduce a visa regime. I started

talking about clinics. So, we

spent 100 billion rubles on the program

to modernize Moscow

healthcare, but none of us can

get

an ultrasound or MRI without waiting in line? Is it possible to get

an ultrasound examination at a clinic on the same day

appeals.

No.

No. Can you get a CT scan?

No. It's impossible to do that for free.

In general, it's practically impossible to do. And

we bought these scanners for 100

billion rubles. And at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF)

we can see that they were simply bought at a price

twice as high. That's why all this happens:

equipment is purchased

so that someone can profit from it. I want

to become mayor in order to invest in

doctors, not equipment. We need

internists, we need general

practitioners. We do not need to buy

equipment that nobody can

operate. I want to become the mayor who

will change everything. Moscow's budget is 1.6 trillion

rubles. In size, it is second only

to the budgets of New York and Shanghai. You and I live

in one of the richest cities

in the world. Third in terms of budget, but in terms of

quality of life, Moscow ranks 154th

place. That's the little imbalance:

we have enough money for third place, but we live like

we're in 154th.

That's it. Because we simply have no faith in

ourselves. We think that nothing can be changed.

We think that this government has already

decided everything anyway, which means mayors

cannot be voted out, nothing can

be changed, because through television,

through election fraud, they will decide

everything. I go to meetings like this because

I believe that the people are the source

of power. We can change everything. If we

have recognized our problems, if millions

of people experience these problems and know

that these problems can be solved, then we can

change everything. In order to elect

the mayor of Moscow—so that I win right

in the first round—all we need is 500,000

people. Out of 15.5 million people in a city where

15 million live, in Moscow there are 1.55 million

people who know everything, understand

everything, and are ready to come

to the polls and elect a normal government for themselves.

And I am sure that relying on you,

relying on people who, excuse me,

are standing in the pouring rain listening

to things that are fairly obvious to them,

I know that through you I will speak

to those hundreds of thousands, and to millions. I

am sure that on the sixth you will help me

bring people to the polling

stations. And I am absolutely sure that

on the sixth we will be able to change the government,

we will be able to win and build a normal

city for ourselves and for our children. Thank you

very much, dear rain-soaked residents.

I'm ready to answer your questions.

On the eighth.

On the eighth.

On the eighth, yes, sorry, on the eighth, but

the sixth too—well, yes, a question. Let me

repeat the question for everyone afterward.

We all know perfectly well that there is

a problem of this kind of crime. You know perfectly well

that

Let me give you the microphone, just

briefly then.

Yes,

you all know perfectly well what problems there are.

There is the problem

of ethnic crime, there is the problem that

affected the town of Udomlya, there is the problem that

affected the town of Pugachyov. And,

Alexei, why, exactly, did you

not go to these towns, and how do you

intend to solve these problems?

As for why I did not go to

certain towns, the thing is that I am

at least under a travel restriction

pending trial, so I cannot really travel

to other towns. But that's not the point,

that all of us together should, you know, in order

to solve the problem of Udomlya or

Kondopoga, pack up all of Moscow and go

to the town of Udomlya.

That is why I am running in this election: so that the authorities

and the state will function, so that the police

will function. The police in Udomlya should

be dealing with these problems. What we have

instead, you know, is that

wedding motorcades firing guns are stopped only

when people have already blocked the streets, that

the police hold ethnic gangsters accountable only

when 10,000

Spartak fans come out and stage

riots on Manezhnaya Square. I want

to become the mayor under whom the system will

work, so that the police do what

they are supposed to do under the rules, so that

people do not take justice into their own hands, and so that none of us

has to go out and catch some

Dagestani hooligans ourselves. The police must treat

people of any nationality

equally. If there are three hooligans:

Russian, Chechen, and Dagestani—if

they are causing trouble, all of them are locked up equally

for three days. They must not start asking the Chechen

whether he has relatives in

Chechnya, whether there will be any problems

if you jail him for 10 days. They must not

start asking the Dagestani whether

people will stand up for him, whether

black Mercedes cars will come from the

Dagestani representative office. I will be

a mayor who treats everyone

equally, and all hooligans of any

nationality will be detained

by a proper Moscow police force. When that

starts working, we will not need to go anywhere.

We pay taxes so that the police, the FSB (Russia's security service),

and law enforcement agencies solve these

problems. And that is exactly what

elections are for. We elect a different government, and it will

work for us. Next question.

What tool is there to make sure

the police actually work? What is that tool?

What will you do?

A tool. What do you mean, a tool to make sure

the police work? The police are supposed

to be working already. Look, one tool

that falls, for example, within the mayor's powers,

and that really affects the Moscow

police, is the justices of the peace. Under

the law, we can elect them ourselves. So

are we ready to elect a justice of the

peace for this district? Are we? Right now, they are

effectively appointed by the Presidential

Administration, which is why "telephone justice"

is what we have. That is why in any confrontation with

any police officer, we are bound

to lose, even if the officer is

obviously in the wrong. I will cut

those telephone lines, and the justices of the peace,

for example, will not be subordinate to me either

as mayor of Moscow. And I need that, because

that way it will be harder for my team

to become corrupt. I will not be able

to become corrupt if Moscow judges,

if at least the justices of the peace are not

subordinate to me. That is exactly how

we cut the corrupt and

improper ties between the authorities and

the judicial system, and in that way we will also

influence the police. Next question,

please.

All right, may I

let's have the microphone, but keep it brief.

Brief won't be possible. Alexei, I have

quite a complicated situation. And I am

a programmer, a very serious

programmer. I am known all over the world.

So, with you, everything... Excuse me.

Hello. No, really. I mean, this is

something you can check later. So, I came to your

campaign office and offered my help,

then went on to Krivokolenny Lane. So

what your team did there—no

anti-Sobyanin ad could have done more damage.

I have never seen such rudeness and the like

anywhere. And my question now is not even

about the rudeness itself, but rather

a suggestion for you. Right now, everything with you is

one-way. You identify the problems yourselves,

you decide how to solve them, you communicate them

to the public, but nowhere on your website

is there any feedback form where people could

file a complaint about someone and so on.

Do you understand? Yes. That's my question.

Well, you understand, right now our

team has 11,000 volunteers working in it.

Different people come in. Look,

you came in, and I can see that you are

a decent-looking young man with a can

of beer. You come in and say, "I'm the best

programmer in the world." Maybe you are

the best programmer in the world. Maybe

you're not the best programmer in the world.

Obviously, all kinds of

incidents happen. No one has ever

coordinated an election campaign the way

we have. No one has ever managed 11,000

volunteers. We ourselves don't really know how

to do that. No one has ever before managed

to raise 100 million. You know that we—or rather,

not we, but you—raised 100 million rubles for us

through small donations. So, naturally,

there are conflicts; there are a huge

number of people, someone misunderstands

someone else, people get offended. That is

normal, everyday life. It's just that

right now, since we have been given, perhaps,

a historic chance truly

to stand as a united front in this

election, I believe we need to forget

personal grievances and work for the common

cause. Of course, people are people,

conflicts and different situations happen,

but we must keep sight of the main goal. Our

main goal is to make the authorities answer to the people.

And that is the goal I will work toward.

Next question, please. There was no

conflict, but you

I represent the interests of people with disabilities. Thousands of elderly people

and people with disabilities will come to vote.

And of course, many of them may

vote for you. I would like

to ask this question. In our district of

Novogireyevo, the police work terribly

and do not protect the interests of people with disabilities.

So where can one find free

legal assistance? People go and ask for help, and

people with disabilities in particular are not helped legally

to defend their rights. Please tell us,

what kind of help will there be?

Well, look, when we say that

the police do not help people with disabilities—well, who

do the police help? There are people standing here,

and probably most of them are not

disabled. Do the police help you?

No.

Exactly. That is why we are running in this election, because

the police help no one. People with disabilities come and say,

"The police don't help us."

Chernobyl survivors (people affected by the Chernobyl disaster) come and say:

"The police don't help us." Large families come

and mothers with many children say: "The police don't

help us." This government

helps no one. And if I told you right now,

"My friends, I will make sure there is

separate legal assistance

for people with disabilities," then everyone else would say to me,

"Navalny, we don't want you

to solve only the problem of people with disabilities. We

want you to solve the problem of power itself."

It's just that right now everything is arranged in such

a way that those in power do not care. They

do not care about people with disabilities, about people without disabilities,

about pensioners—about anyone."

They believe

that

they can spit on the public, because

elections depend on television, and elections

depend on the election commissions. So,

on the eighth, we must show that

that is not the case. And then Moscow’s enormous budget

will also work for

people with disabilities. But look, 1.6

trillion—we give to people with disabilities, fine, legal

aid and the police, but we cannot buy medicines.

People with disabilities have to buy their own medicines.

Even though I can see that the Moscow budget has

enough money to

pay for proper prescription drug

insurance, so that a person with a disability could receive

medicine and the insurance

company would pay for it. We can do this. I know

how to do it. We wrote it into

our program, we understand it, but it is simply

something no one needs. That is why we need to go to

the polls and solve problems comprehensively. In our city, unfortunately, there is no such thing as

a separate issue of

people with disabilities or pensioners.

There is a broader problem: the authorities

do not care about any residents at all. So

on the eighth, let’s come out and show

that we do care. Please, let me

give you the microphone.

Alexei, good afternoon. My name is Grigory

I have a question about personnel, actually.

You constantly complain

that, so to speak, Putin’s friends are

pulled into positions of power, into the vertical of power, and so on.

And yet your campaign is headed by Volkov.

I follow his interviews and, in fact,

his statements, and in particular

even his comments about your business in Montenegro.

My question is this. He,

uh, let’s say, because

he is a programmer—maybe not of world-class

caliber, yes, but still a programmer—uh, his

answers are far removed from, let’s say,

diplomacy, from any kind of polished debate. Maybe

his responses should be adjusted a bit, and

in general, if these are the kinds of people you bring in, then

how exactly will your team be formed

going forward?

Well, you understand, I am also accused of

making harsh statements.

Sobyanin, for example, also wants

diplomacy from me. For example, he says to me:

"Why are you, Navalny, digging through my

dirty laundry? My daughter is being bought apartments for

100 million rubles, and you are making complaints:

‘Come on, be more diplomatic.’ I do not

know—do you want me to be more

diplomatic?

No,

I genuinely believe that it is my absolute

right, as a Muscovite, to know with what money

an official who has spent his whole life

as a bureaucrat bought one daughter

an apartment for 116 million rubles and another for 170 million.

If I am told, ‘Be more diplomatic,’ and

not to touch these issues, then I will not be

diplomatic. And so, of course, in

a situation where, you know, I have already received

three complaints just now

saying that the police are working poorly

in your district. Here

there are three police buses standing here. Your entire

district police force has come here to guard our

rally. What kind of, uh,

what words am I supposed to

find for that? Yes, I restrain my language

when I know the crime rate,

the rate of serious crimes, the rate of

rapes in the district, but the entire

district police force came here

to watch me speak here into

a microphone. That is why I will speak plainly

and say everything I think about this government,

and the members of my team will also speak

completely plainly.

May I ask a follow-up?

Yes, please. Go ahead.

Thank you, Alexei. My first question is:

At what moment did you clearly realize that

your calling was to be a politician?

I am just curious when that happened. And

my second question is about Moscow. It is

clearly expanding beyond the Moscow Ring Road now.

They have already added so-called New Moscow. Well,

the issue of merging federal subjects keeps coming up.

What is your position on that question?

The moment when I definitely felt that I wanted

to be a politician? Well, I have had many

such moments. I can tell you about

a recent one, one of the latest

moments when I absolutely, simply

felt something inside me—I do not know, everything

just boiled over—and I understood with complete certainty

that I had to run in the elections. It was when, once again,

I went, for example, to

Rosneft and confronted it with

complaints that they had stolen

everything there, and there sat this woman,

the vice president for legal affairs,

at the state-owned company Rosneft. So,

what do you think the salary might be

of a vice president at the state-owned

company Rosneft?

78,000

Well, a million rubles

a million rubles

less

per day

15 million

per day

10 million

30,000 rubles

30,000 rubles.

So, I heard the correct answer here:

880 million rubles a year.

A state-owned company. And I come in,

and when I make yet another complaint,

saying that you have stolen everything here, and

that yet another one of your construction projects costs 10 times

more than it should, they look at me and say:

‘What makes you think, Navalny, that

we owe you any explanation at all? Why on earth’

What makes you think that you, and people like you,

are owed anything by us? What makes you think that

we, these great statesmen,

have to explain ourselves to anyone? We don't owe

you any explanations. Get lost! And in court you'll

lose to me, because my husband

appoints these judges in the Presidential Administration

(the executive office of the Russian president), and court bailiffs won't get

near me. Even when I win a case

against Transneft, they don't let

the bailiffs through the door. So when

I come face to face with

these people, who are basically just

random con artists who have wormed their way in,

collecting official salaries of 1 billion rubles a year

(about $10 million) a year, looking me straight in the eye

and brazenly telling me that I have no

say here, and that people like me have no

say either, I understand that I have to run in

elections, because this government has to be changed

or else we'll be left with

nothing at all. Otherwise, they've already pumped out

$3 trillion worth of oil and sold

it. We got nothing. They'll extract another $3

trillion. I'm 37 years old now. And

when I'm 67, I'll still be

walking around telling my neighbors

that I was robbed. That's why

I'm running in this election now so that,

when I'm much older,

I'll know that I did everything I could

to change this government and

to make it answer to the people

and to people like me. And the second question

was about the federal subjects of Moscow and Moscow

Region.

Moscow Region is an excellent question.

It's a perfect example of how all sorts of

inexplicable things happen in the city.

Now remind me, please, who

made the decision to annex New

Moscow?

It's unclear.

Medvedev.

For what purpose?

Because the idea was to annex it, or rather,

to move the federal government bodies

there. Right?

They announced it, passed a law under which

in New Moscow land can be taken

away from residents. In fact,

it's now easier to seize land there

than it was from anyone in Sochi. Two months ago

they said, no, we're not moving government bodies

to New Moscow. Then Sobyanin said:

"We, we are moving City Hall." Then he said:

"No, we're not moving City Hall." It's complete

nonsense. There are no calculations, no analysis.

It's just that some people woke up one morning

and said, "Well, let's just

go ahead and annex New

Moscow." The investment in New Moscow's transport

infrastructure alone will cost

us $82 billion. And the population there is tiny.

If you take Novogireyevo and Ivanovskoye,

more people live here than in

all of New Moscow. And the residents of New

Moscow themselves don't need any of this. I want

to become the kind of mayor who calculates first

and spends money afterward. Because, you see,

the decision about New Moscow will determine

the city's development for decades. Why are

these important decisions, which affect

millions of people and the development

of the city far into the future, being made

by just two random people, with no

planning, without even the most basic calculations? And

as for moving federal government

bodies in connection with New

Moscow, we have a very good recent

example. Which government body was

moved out of Moscow?

The Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court. Where was it moved?

St. Petersburg.

To St. Petersburg.

So, in St. Petersburg they built a palace. Well,

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 (country house). And now

the Constitutional Court holds its sessions in

Moscow and calls it an off-site session

of the Constitutional Court.

It would be funny if we hadn't spent

hundreds of millions of dollars on it.

That's why I want to become a mayor

who does not make decisions

that way. First we calculate everything.

Maybe we spend years

working through and calculating such key decisions, and

only then do we start spending even a single kopeck

of money, because it's our money, and we have

plenty of places to spend it: education,

healthcare, raising pensions. So

first we calculate, then we spend.

Please.

A question about those years, actually. May I?

About what?

About the years.

Go ahead.

Moscow is a big city, with many problems, and as you

rightly said, solving them can take

years. We've also heard about your

presidential ambitions. Maybe you didn't

say it yourself, but we've heard it. And in

2018 there will be a presidential election,

possibly even earlier. So are you planning to stay

on as mayor of Moscow for long?

Five years.

Five years. Moscow.

First of all, Moscow is where I live.

I've lived here for 17 years already.

I'm not planning to go anywhere.

What is the mayor of Moscow? It's the third most

important political office in the country. And

if I, as a politician, set myself

the goal of changing life in the country for the better,

then I will fight for important

political offices and focus on

important elections that truly

change life in the country. That is why we

wrote on our poster: "Change

Russia, start with Moscow." Because, well,

the country is structured in such a way that any

political changes in Russia will happen or not

happen depending on whether Muscovites want them

or not. There is no other way.

The fight for the post of Mayor of Moscow is a fight

for Russia’s political future, in fact

perhaps no less important

than the presidential election. And that is exactly how I view

it.

That is why I will take part in any

important elections. In any case, my

work will serve the interests of

Muscovites and all residents of Russia,

because I am just as much a Muscovite and

just as much a resident of Russia. I simply

want to solve the problems that I know

how to solve, and I absolutely will solve them

if I win this election.

You are welcome,

My name is Sergei, I am 18 years old. I

wanted to ask about a problem like

beggars with animals, because

about 3 days ago I encountered this

problem. We went up to an elderly woman, um,

who had a miserable puppy with her. It is just,

you know, very painful to see these dogs,

and cats in such terrible condition,

they are not fed, no one really

looks after them. And

there is no law, right. And the question was this:

are you planning to do something

about this, maybe something regarding Article 245

and a second question.

Well, listen, beggars with animals are one thing,

but we also see the same kind of

beggars with children.

And it is not even clear where these children

come from. There is no need to invent

anything here. What is happening is

an administrative offense. Everything

we need to do in general regarding

begging is treat it as an administrative

offense. When I become mayor, I

will do one very simple thing: make sure that

your district police are not guarding, as

they are right now in full force at this rally,

not sitting in buses and not

bringing three police vans here, but instead

doing their job of stopping

administrative offenses. This

applies to everything, from

Dagestani weddings with celebratory gunfire

to those very same beggars.

Right now the police are simply performing the functions

of political surveillance, or else

they are busy falsifying

their statistics just to

secure themselves a comfortable

existence. What should the police do in a city?

Protect residents, maintain

public order. When I become mayor,

I will make them do what they are supposed

to do under the rules, because I will do

what I am supposed to do under the rules. It is my

direct duty, and I will make it happen.

Let us take a question from this side. Go ahead.

Good afternoon. My name is Tatyana. I have

a practical question. Entuziastov Highway

has been under repair for more than 4 years. We cannot, we

just cannot drive there. We have simply switched to

the metro. Will you oversee

road construction in Moscow, and Entuziastov Highway

in particular, first of all? Thank you.

This is some kind of construction nightmare.

Oh yes. The problem of roads in Moscow is a

colossal problem. Who is the main

road construction contractor in Moscow

right now?

Rotenberg. Exactly. These

rather dubious guys who in

Soviet times were Putin’s judo partners,

then somehow amazingly

ended up supplying large-diameter pipes

to Gazprom. Now they have dropped their pipes and

run to Moscow to build

roads for us. That is why it turns out that

something like the North-Western Chord costs

70 billion rubles, and all builders and

transport specialists say with one voice that

it is twice as expensive. In the construction of the

North-Western Chord

35 billion will be stolen. That is more than enough

to build outpatient clinics

and schools all across Moscow. That is why it is my

top priority to deal with

this entire construction mafia. In fact,

there are really three companies that have created

a monopoly and simply taken all the biggest

contracts: the North-Western Chord,

the North-Eastern Chord, the Southern Rokada,

the Alabyano-Baltiysky Tunnel,

the reconstruction of Leninsky Prospekt. These are

all absolutely mafia-style schemes. And the purpose

of these projects is one thing only: to siphon off money.

That is why it is my top priority,

as mayor, to deal with this mafia. I am

absolutely certain that my first

steps to destroy the monopoly and

restore competition will bring

road construction costs down to the pan-European

level, which means twice as cheap

as they are now in Moscow. And we will be able to build

much faster and much more with the same

money we already have. That is something I

will most definitely do.

Thank you.

You are welcome,

Alexei, hello. My question is this:

my vote is automatically in your piggy bank

simply because my heart is with you, but still, what will you

do if you do not get

a sufficient number of voters,

enough votes in these

elections?

Well, first of all, no pessimism. We are

a hair's breadth away from a runoff. If

each of us makes even a minimal effort,

persuades five people, comes

to the polling station, there will

definitely be a runoff, and in the runoff

we will win, because in the runoff

those who voted

for the Communists, for Yabloko, and so on, will vote for me, while

Sobyanin will not have that kind of mobilization in the runoff.

That is the first point. Second. What am I doing now?

I have an Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF).

Unfortunately, unfortunately,

the number of tasks facing the Foundation

for Fighting Corruption in Russia is so great

that I will not get through them all

in the foreseeable future. So I have plenty

to keep me busy. I will continue conducting my

investigations, and I will rely on you.

I will build a political force

that will rest on hundreds, thousands,

perhaps millions of people who, just like

me, want normal

change, who, just like me,

understand basic things, understand

that political competition is necessary,

that we need independent courts, we need free

media.

I plan to win this election. I

plan to stay involved in political

activity. I plan to fight for

the office of president. I plan to win. I

plan, together with you, to build a better

life, the kind of life all of us need. My friends,

I am very afraid that I will get fewer

votes in the Novogireyevo and

Ivanovskoye districts because you will all come down with

pneumonia.

From here on, I would like to answer

questions individually. I simply want

to thank you for standing here and listening to me for 40 minutes.

Thank you very much. I would very much like to have, in you,

the support of people who

will bring other people to the polling stations.

I am absolutely certain that we

will win. Thank you very much. Hooray!

Novogireyevo. Hooray!