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

Hello. Thank you very much. I really didn't even

expect to be greeted right away with

applause. Thank you very much for

coming. I hope the weather cooperates and

we manage to hold our meeting. I used to

have my own idea of the ideal

candidate. I told myself that my

ideal candidate is someone who

comes to the courtyard next to my

building, stands in front of me, answers

all my questions, gives a speech, and then I

decide whether to vote for him or not

vote for him. And now I myself have become that kind of

candidate. And I hold a great many such meetings

myself. Three meetings every weekday,

five meetings every weekend. This is, by the way,

my milestone eightieth meeting.

Honestly, when I held the first one,

if someone had told me that I would be able to

hold 80 of them, I would have said, "No,

that's impossible." But all the same,

I keep doing them, because that is the job of a

candidate. If I am running in an election and promise

you to be an open mayor, then that means I

must be open and accessible as a

candidate too. You can find me three times a day

in one part of Moscow or another and

ask questions. I would start by

telling you a little about myself and about

why I do what I do, and then

answer your questions afterward. Any objections

to that format?

Excellent. My name is Alexei Navalny.

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

the Maryino district of Moscow. It's fairly

close to here. I have a completely

ordinary family by Moscow standards.

A wife and two children. My daughter is 11; she

goes to school. My son is 5; he goes to

kindergarten. Just like everyone else.

I'll answer all questions a little later.

I come from a military family and, excuse me, spent my entire

childhood living in various military

towns, moving from one place to

another. My parents still live in

the Moscow region, in a military town. I

moved here to Moscow. By profession I am a

lawyer. I have two university degrees.

I graduated from the law faculty of

Peoples' Friendship University and the Financial

Academy under the Government of the Russian

Federation.

If you have followed my activities more or less

over the past couple of years or

perhaps a bit longer, what do you

know about me?

Kirovles. He stole the whole forest.

Yale University.

Yale University. Fighting

corruption. Most often, of course, the first

question I am asked is the question of

why I do all this. Why are you

spending years going after all these

Gazproms, Rosnefts, and everyone else?

Why do you think this needs to

be done? I begin every meeting by answering

that question, because it explains

why I am standing on this stage. I

am constantly suing all these

state corporations, fighting

corruption, and conducting investigations for

one simple reason: I

truly, personally believe that the current

system for managing resources,

is robbing me personally. It is robbing you

just the same, but first and foremost I am concerned

that it is robbing

me. Look, my math is

very simple, and perhaps it will

resonate with you too. What does Russia

live on?

Oil and gas. We sell oil and gas, and

that is how we make money. Over the past 15 years

we have sold $3 trillion worth of oil and gas.

That is more than the Soviet Union received in

the Soviet era, in the Brezhnev years.

Now, with those

Brezhnev petrodollars, the Soviet Union built

factories and plants, and supported a huge army.

It created a scientific and military-industrial

complex, a scientific base. Everything, everything

we built then is basically what we still have

and use to this day. In the Brezhnev years

Russia received $3 trillion in petrodollars,

and over the past 15 years Putin-era

petrodollars have brought in even more than in Brezhnev's time.

Do you have any idea where that money

was spent? I personally do not. There are

maybe 300 people standing here.

Can anyone remind me, recall whether

there is even one major industrial

enterprise in Russia that

was built over the last 15 years? The result

of your work in recent years?

I'll answer questions a little later.

Can anyone remind me of such an

enterprise, a major industrial one?

There isn't one. There isn't one.

I ask this question at every meeting, and

no one has ever answered me, because

the truth is that over

the past 15 years, not a single

major industrial enterprise has been built in Russia. We have not even

built an oil refinery.

There is only a pipeline through which

we sell oil and gas. And that is why, when

I think about Gazprom and Rosneft, I

think about corruption, about the theft of those

billions, and I understand that they were stolen

from me personally. That is my education, my

healthcare, infrastructure, roads,

railways. None of it is there.

Where did all that money go? I see

only one result of what

is happening in our corporations: the fact that

in Russia, in 2000, there were six

dollar billionaires, and now there are

121.

This is the only ranking. 131

I misspoke. The only ranking in which

Russia is rising—or rather, there are two.

The first is the corruption ranking: we have more and more of it.

The second is the ranking

for the number of dollar billionaires.

That is why, for me, fighting corruption in

Gazprom, VTB, Rosneft, and Transneft

is an entirely practical matter. And

what is more, I’ll tell you something quite

offensive that I always feel

firsthand. I come, for example,

to Rosneft and once again start proving to them

that they stole a huge amount of

money on construction projects, and there sits a woman,

the vice president for legal affairs. Well,

by the way, a question for everyone. What do you

think the salary might be for

an official at a state-owned oil

company? A million

A million.

That would be nice. There it’s 11.2

11 million.

11.2

11.2 million.

Any other ideas?

No, that’s in rubles, Rosneft per month.

Here’s the correct answer: 880 million rubles a

year.

The state-owned company Rosneft. When I

said this figure at a meeting in Zelenograd

a woman in the front row

felt faint. But it’s true. And not only that,

not only do they make that kind of money, but when I

come and present them with well-founded

complaints, they say to me: "Listen,

Navalny, what makes you think

that anything belongs to you and people like you?"

What makes you think that all of you can

come to us, the powerful employees of

Rosneft, people of the state,

with your pathetic complaints and

ask where we put our oil

rents. It’s none of your business, and

don’t stick your nose in here. And at that moment I

realize that this is something deeply personal.

There is some kind of mafia that is robbing me,

and apparently it is robbing you in exactly the same way

as well. That is why this mafia

must be fought. I am proposing a completely

concrete solution to all this. I write

draft laws, regulations, and frameworks

for how state corporations should operate

so that corruption is reduced. But they are

not interested in any of this. They are not interested

in solving the problems I am trying

to address. So I am taking another

route now—the political one. That is why

I have come here to you as a

candidate for mayor of Moscow.

And I am asking for your support. I very much

want to receive that support because

it seems to me that together we can solve

the problems that poison life in

our wonderful city. Well, it seems to me

that these are all the same problems.

Tell me, please, when it comes to housing and коммунal services, do you

pay a lot or a little?

A lot.

We pay a lot. And I have the feeling

that I pay a lot. I look at my

bill—9,500 rubles for an apartment in a

panel building. I simply do not understand

where all of this comes from. I want to become

the mayor who will audit housing utility

tariffs so that we can finally see what

we are paying for. Here, by the way, in

the Novoye Kaseno district, this sounds especially

remarkable. Your local head, Dza,

was disqualified because he

simply failed to disclose the required information.

That is, he was barred from this

profession. The only head of a district housing office

in all of Moscow. If we now

try to figure out the tariff, what

we are paying for, we will see nothing at all. We are

constantly told: "You pay too little,

Muscovites." How is it too little? Right now, for

housing maintenance, we pay 25 rubles

per square meter. How is that possible? In Kazan,

for example, they pay 18; in Yaroslavl they pay

15; in Astrakhan, 12. We pay 25, and we are

told to pay even more. We are constantly, we are

every year, having our water tariff raised,

for example by Mosvodokanal. I am constantly

dealing with Mosvodokanal. I

know that they make 3 billion rubles in net

profit. That net profit goes

who knows where. And then at the end of the year

they say: "Let’s raise the tariff again." Well,

how can this be? Where are you putting

this money? Mosvodokanal exists for

us—for me, for you, for everyone.

I will become the mayor who

will disclose the full tariff structure,

throw out the nonexistent so-called

investment programs, which in fact do not

exist, even though their cost is included. And then

we will see that in Moscow tariffs not only should not

be rising, but can actually

be lowered, because we already pay

far more than anyone else. I came here

because I am very seriously

concerned by the issue of migration. I don’t know if

it concerns you,

does it?

There are migration problems,

there are.

You know, for me it is a problem too. I

go out into the street and I can see that there are clearly

migration problems in Moscow. I want to become

mayor because the current authorities

tell me, entirely unconvincingly,

that we set an annual quota for migrants of

110,000 people. And that this solves the problem.

It solves nothing. After all, I

know, and we all know, that migrants in

There are between 1 and 3 million in Moscow. And we are told that

a quota of 110,000 people is somehow working. And I

am running for mayor because I know for a fact that

migrants come here not because there are

jobs available, but because people profit

from them. So that no one can say that

I am manipulating the numbers or

distorting the facts, tell me yourselves:

how much does the migrant janitor in your

building, in your yard, earn?

In our building, just 10,000.

10,000

unbelievable

they get 10,000

4,000 a month.

4,000

Absolutely. Who here has asked their

janitor?

101

6,500, 10,000-12,000. You see,

what an astonishing thing this is.

If we look at the officially

approved minimum pay standard

for a janitor, how much money the city

allocates for it, we will see that a janitor

cannot be paid less than 31,000 rubles. But all

the actual janitors, the migrant workers we

spoke to, gave us

different figures: 10,000, 15,000, 12,000, at most

18,000 rubles. It is an open secret throughout

Moscow that all these people are deliberately

brought here and housed in basements, in

buildings slated for demolition. In your district they live

in buildings slated for demolition. When I was preparing, I

read the materials; I know this for certain.

They cram 20 people into apartments simply

because they live here in conditions

close to slavery, and each of them kicks back

10,000-15,000 rubles from their wages. They bring them

here because it is a river of

cash. Hundreds of millions of rubles a

month are distributed through management

companies, district maintenance offices, and local district administrations.

But, excuse me, I want to become mayor

because I see the other side of this

river of money. I see rising crime.

Do you see it?

Yes,

and I see it too. I see rising social

tension. I see that Moscow

ranks first in the world in terms of

the number of undocumented migrants. I

find that unacceptable. I see Moscow schools

where classes have begun to appear

in which children who do not speak

Russian have become the majority. You

know all about this, don't you?

It does happen. Well then, I suppose this needs to

start being addressed now, because in

10 years, when all these children grow up,

it will be very difficult to deal with. Just

imagine it: in Moscow there will be

hundreds of thousands of people who were

born and raised here. They have never

laid eyes on Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.

They will never go back there.

Naturally, they will not want to work as

janitors. They are Muscovites too, but they

barely made it through school. They could not get into

anywhere. They have no prospects in life

at all. How are they going to

earn a living? How will they live here?

We saw this in Paris; they went through all this

5 years ago. Those unemployed

teenagers who are supposedly French, but

who are in fact descendants

of immigrants from Algeria, were burning

cars and rioting there. So

I want to become mayor in order to solve this

problem now, because in 10 years

it will be very difficult for my children and your children

to solve it. I came here to you

because

I know exactly the size of Moscow's budget.

It is 1.6 trillion rubles a year. Moscow's budget

is smaller only than the budgets of

New York and Shanghai. You and I,

as astonishing as it may sound, live in

one of the richest cities in the world.

The wealthiest cities in Europe and the United States

do not even come close. But here is

a question for the audience in that regard. What

do you think: if we rank

third by budget, then what place

do we hold in the ranking for quality

of life among the world's largest cities?

Third as well.

[laughter]

Fortieth

One hundredth. The correct answer is 154th.

In the ranking of the largest cities by

quality of life, we are in 154th

place. I do not like this disparity.

It is dubious, you know: third by budget,

but 154th by quality of life. We

have everything we need to— excuse me,

please, yesterday I spoke three, three times

out in the rain and caught a cold.

I do not like any of this, because we

have the money to change

everything. We have the city, we have

the infrastructure, we have educated

residents, and yet somehow nothing

seems to work out for one reason that, I think,

is the most important of all. We do not believe in

ourselves.

In reality, we simply think that

nothing can be changed. We listen

to all these outrageous facts that I

am talking about. I am sure you already knew

about them without me. But we shrug our shoulders and

decide that changing anything is impossible.

Well, that is just how life turned out. Somehow we

were just unlucky. So we live like this,

badly, grumbling.

We discuss it in our kitchens. We hear the fact that

Russia ranks first

in oil and gas sales, and by

69th in terms of standard of living. Yet when it comes to

city budgets, we rank third, while in terms of

quality of life we are 154th. Corruption here is

so blatant that we no longer

notice it, the way we fail to notice some enormous

elephant in the room. Take any

construction project, say

the North-Western Chord (a major Moscow highway project), just one of the projects

alone costs 70 billion rubles. And all

the builders say with one voice: "It is

twice as expensive as it should

be."

They discuss it on television, they

write about it in the newspapers. You and I know that

during the construction of the North-Western

Chord, 35 billion will be stolen from us, which

would be enough to build

outpatient clinics all across Moscow. But we

shrug our shoulders and say that nothing

can be changed. That is just how life

has turned out for us. That is just how our life

is arranged, as if this were its natural course.

We are deceived. We are robbed, then

deceived again and robbed again. I came

here to speak to you

with one main idea. I do not believe that

this is the natural course of life. I believe

that it is an unnatural and

perverse one. And most importantly, I

truly believe that we can change

everything. I hold meetings like this with

residents, and many people react to this ironically

for one reason: because I

believe that the source of power is standing

right in front of me. You can do anything.

You can elect anyone or

vote anyone out. Nothing is more powerful

than people. Yes, of course, the

authorities have television, they have the

election commission. I do not have the

ability to address people through television.

If you have seen me on television at all in the last five years,

it was probably in

reports about how I supposedly stole the entire forest.

Why?

Today on TV Rain (an independent Russian channel), on Dozhd.

But today on TV Rain, quite rightly,

I did appear.

But they cannot take these meetings away from me. Right now

there are already a lot of people standing here

as it is. I do not know, maybe

500 people, but to me this is not 500 people, it is

50,000. Because everyone has

friends, acquaintances, relatives, neighbors

on the landing. If we ourselves

realize our enormous potential, then we

can do anything. Just

think about it, consider the fact that no one

ever actually forces us or

compels us.

Where are those terrible troops or villains

who have surrounded us on all sides and

are forcing us, Muscovites, to hand over

35 billion to some crooks for the

North-Western Chord, money that we know for certain

will be stolen from us? It is all already

built into the system—they will steal it. Who forced us

to do this? No one. We simply shrugged

our shoulders and decided that this was the natural

order of things. When we realize our own strength,

when we understand how many of us there are, when we

take three simple steps to

bring our friends and relatives to the

polling stations, then we will understand

that we can elect anyone and

vote anyone out.

That is when a different life will begin, when

we bring the authorities under our control and finally

start building a city in which

both we and our

children will be happy to live. Thank you very much. I am ready to answer

your questions.

Thank you. Any questions?

May I,

please. And

do you agree with this

I will repeat it for everyone afterward.

wording?

It does not matter how people vote; what matters is how

the votes are counted.

The question is whether I agree with the

wording: it does not matter how people vote,

what matters is how the votes are counted. Well, I do not

agree with it. I simply see that it

works. Unfortunately, that formula does.

I am 37 years old, as I already said, and I have never once

seen free elections, but I would

very much like to see them.

We understand that every vote must be

fought for, and we will fight for every

vote we receive. Every vote

comes through hard work. We have already

appointed 2,500 commission members with

full voting rights. We are mobilizing

11,000 observers. And here, of course,

we need your help, because these are

our shared votes. Just think: in

Novokosino, 110,000 people live there. They

come and vote, and then three women

at the district administration office simply rewrite

the tally sheets for all 110,000 of them. But

is that normal? It is not normal. As long as we

tolerate it, that is what will keep happening. But when

a significant number of people sign up

as observers, when every polling station

has 10 observers present—and in this

election we will make that happen—then we will protect our

votes. That is the only way.

No one else is going to save our votes

for us.

And in connection with that,

will there be a rally?

Sorry, what?

There will be a rally on the sixth.

We have been granted approval for a rally on the sixth.

It will be a large rally. Apparently,

the rally-concert will take place on

Sakharov Avenue. Come, everyone,

I invite everyone and would be very glad to see you there.

What time?

Ah, at 5:00 p.m. I can't give the exact time right now

I can't say. Please.

I was asked, knowing that I would be here at the

meeting, to pass a question on to you.

How are you going to address the issue of

stray animals?

The issue of stray animals. It may seem like a narrow

issue, but in fact at a significant number of

meetings I get asked this

question. It really is a problem. Every year in

Moscow, there are recorded cases when

stray animals

attack adults and children and maul them

to death. The authorities' current policy

amounts to having animal catchers

capture these animals and either kill them

or sterilize them. Experience has shown that

this does not work. And that's not even my

personal theory. It's simply the long-standing

experience of European cities. The population of

stray animals rebounds

fully within two years. It does not

work. We do not need these animal abusers

at all. First, we need to build more

shelters for stray animals. Second,

we need to work with Muscovites so that they do not

get little dogs for their children and then

throw those dogs out onto the street. These

measures can partially reduce the number of

stray animals, and that is the direction

we need to move in. Next question.

There is a question here—simply a practical

proposal: simply raise housing fees

for people who keep dogs. I don't think

everyone will agree with that. There should simply be

responsibility on the part of those who

own them—people should clean up as well. I

used to have a dog; it died. We need

to introduce rules so that people go out

and clean up after their dogs, as

is done in European cities. Yes.

The question is about rules.

Hello?

is now asking a question

After the age of 50, it has become very hard to find

a job. If you become mayor, in this

area, what will you do?

After the age of 50, native Muscovites have found it

difficult to find work. What needs to be

done about this? But this concerns not only

native Muscovites; in principle, it concerns

the rather ugly and

opaque labor market in Moscow. We

officially have virtually no unemployment in

Moscow, but unofficially we understand that

unemployment is enormous. It is simply

very difficult, for example, for certain

categories of people to get jobs. After

50 it is hard in general. For women over 50,

it is practically impossible.

For people with disabilities, it is practically impossible

to get a job. So here we need to start by

acknowledging the problem. Instead of

simply hiding this unemployment in

statistics somewhere, we need to take stock of

how many such people there are. We need

to understand what jobs are available, and we need to protect

the labor market, including from migrant labor, so that

fewer people are pushed out. Of course,

people over fifty want very different kinds of

jobs. If you

want to become a designer after 50,

yes, it will probably be very hard to find that,

but jobs, for example, in housing and коммунal services,

public utilities, and so on, we can

provide if we take some

initial steps to prevent

millions of migrants, among others, from

flooding these sectors. If we protect

our labor market, more jobs will appear

for Muscovites. This is how it is done all

over the world. That is how we will do it too.

May I, Alexei,

please. Yes, go ahead.

In Moscow, plans are currently being made in the near

future to cut 20,000 hospital beds.

Hospitals have already been given plans showing

how many hundreds of beds in each hospital

will be cut. What do you think

about this?

A question about healthcare, specifically

about the reduction of so-called hospital bed capacity.

But this concerns more than just hospitals. Do you

know that there is an ongoing process of merging

outpatient clinics?

Tell me, do you have lines at your

local district clinic?

Yes,

Huge ones. Yes. So I needn't even have

asked. I have exactly the same kind of

clinic and exactly the same huge

lines. The problem with Moscow's

healthcare system is that

very large sums of money are allocated, but

they go toward fairly pointless

capital expenditures. Did you know, by the way,

that for the healthcare of each

Muscovite—every person here

present, every one of you—

four times more money is allocated

than for the healthcare of any other

citizen of Russia. For outpatient clinics alone,

for all of us, for an ordinary local clinic,

20,000 rubles a year are allocated (about the equivalent of a modest annual public healthcare allotment). In my

family there are four people. Just for my

family, 80,000 rubles are charged on paper to the clinic budget

(about four times that amount). Just out of curiosity, please

raise your hands if you have been to your

local district clinic in the past year.

Looks like everyone is healthy, more or less.

All right. And who has not been to a clinic in

the past year? You see, and yet for each person

20,000 rubles are written off. Enormous sums of money

and nothing works. You come to

the clinic, and this electronic

registration system does not work. What is needed there

get a ticket from one window and carry it to

another. You have to get in to see a general practitioner,

who isn’t even seeing patients, just to make an appointment with

some other doctor.

Nothing works. For example, when I was at the

Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), I analyzed the

program for modernizing Moscow’s

healthcare system. They allocated 100 billion rubles

and there was no effect at all. And I know why.

Because all that money was spent

on buying equipment at prices

two or three times above market rates. It was spent on

completely thoughtless procurement. Tell me this:

is it easy to get an ultrasound

at your local clinic?

It’s okay.

So is it easy or not?

You have to book it. How long do you wait for an ultrasound

appointment in line? Roughly

weeks.

All right. Is it easy to get an MRI? A scanner?

practically impossible. You see,

that’s the amazing part. Sobyanin, if

you even find one of his little campaign

tents, it says: "Bought

1,200 ultrasound machines for Muscovites." In every

interview they tell us: "In terms of

the number of scanners per capita, we’ve surpassed

every European country, but

it’s impossible to get either an ultrasound, let alone

a scan. There are no

doctors who know how to use this equipment.

They bought scanners for $3 million apiece.

It sits there covered with a towel. There’s no one

to operate it." The task of Moscow’s

healthcare system—my task as mayor—

is to

invest in people, so that there are more doctors—

general practitioners, family doctors,

doctors who know how to work

with medical equipment. There are too few of them in Moscow; in fact,

we should be sending them abroad by the thousands

so that maybe in five

years they’ll be able to treat not us, but at least our children

properly. These current mindless

capital investments in all this stuff,

in scanners and equipment, make

no sense except to enrich the people

who are procuring this

equipment. My strategy in healthcare is to

put an end to these stupid

clinic mergers. And second—

invest in doctors, so that there are

doctors who know how to treat people, so that doctors

are closer to patients. We can, in fact,

with Moscow’s budget, we can

for every 100 people in a neighborhood

rent an office where there will be

a general practitioner with an ultrasound machine who will

carry out primary examinations. There is enough money for

that, but as usual we have

a mania for gigantism. So instead, let’s take three

clinics and make one super-clinic out of them, and

buy it 10 scanners. And we’ll

still be standing in line, unable

to get either to a general practitioner or in for

that scan.

And are you going to close hospitals or what? How

can anyone close hospitals in Moscow? Look,

the last major

hospital here was built in 1980.

Our infrastructure—look, in

this district alone there are 110,000 people. They’re

building a second district, Novokosino-2. Here

the entire infrastructure is going to collapse—

transport, education,

and healthcare. How can you close

Moscow hospitals when their number was

planned for the city’s 1980 population?

Moscow’s population has doubled

since then. Why would we do that? What we need here is simply to

develop normal infrastructure. Not endless amounts of

equipment, but a system where

doctors are closer to people every day.

Next question.

Yes,

a question about how I plan to fight

United Russia. Well, you know, [laughter], my

relationship with United

Russia isn’t exactly great, but there’s one simple way

to fight United Russia. Tell

me, please, do you

support United Russia?

No.

Good. I assume that since you came

to meet with me, you were already somewhat

negatively inclined. But let’s just

look at the Moscow City Duma. United

Russia holds 95% of the seats there.

Does that reflect the political views

of Muscovites? No. How much support should United Russia

honestly have?

Well, 20%. Fine, let’s say 35%. My task as

mayor of Moscow is to hold free

and proper elections to the Moscow City Duma

next year. United Russia will take

the place it deserves and get 25%.

There will be an opposition to me as mayor. They

will constantly attack me. And

that’s very good. City Hall should be under

pressure. But it should not be

a political force that blocks

everything, simply because it does not

have the support of Muscovites. Fair

elections are the main remedy in

the fight against United Russia.

Please,

Anatolyevich, after you become

mayor, will you stop fighting

corruption on a broader scale,

Transneft, Gazprom, and so on? How

will that work?

Will I stop fighting some kind of

large-scale corruption after

I become mayor? Gazprom, Rosneft, Transneft,

and so on? Of course not. In fact, I’ll

tell you this: corruption right now in Moscow’s

construction sector, for example, is absolutely

no less large-scale than at Gazprom or

at Transneft. Look, as I already

mentioned, the biggest construction projects here are

interchanges. Billions are involved. Why have all these

Putin friends, these oligarchs,

Timchenko, who used to trade

oil, suddenly rushed into building the Moscow

metro and roads? The Rotenbergs, who

used to make money off Gazprom,

also rushed in to build roads? The margins are

bigger. Here you can absolutely

stuff yourself on any contract. And if on

just one interchange on the North-Western Chord (a major Moscow highway),

35 billion rubles are being stolen,

then there’s the North-Eastern Chord, the Southern Rokada,

the reconstruction of Leninsky Prospekt, and

the Alabyano-Baltiysky tunnels — all of this is

large-scale corruption. My task as

mayor, my top priority, is to restore

basic order. Just look,

who is now the main contractor for

building the Moscow metro.

Timchenko. This friend of Putin,

who gave up Russian citizenship,

who traded oil. If two years

ago 1 km (0.6 miles) of the Moscow metro cost 6

billion rubles, then after

Timchenko came in, it now costs 9 billion rubles. They

aren’t even embarrassed for a second —

they slap an extra 3 billion rubles onto every kilometer

— $100 million.

What’s needed here is simply some

basic things: break up the monopoly,

hold proper tenders,

bring in foreign contractors and

clients. That will reduce the cost of

both roads and the metro by half immediately.

Naturally, I will do that. For me, this is

a fight against large-scale corruption, because

all these major corrupt figures,

the Gazprom and Transneft ones,

have all latched onto

our budget here in Moscow and are siphoning money out of it.

So fighting them is my

top priority. Please,

Drugs. Will you shut down

the kiosks selling spice and so on?

Look, this is not even a question — it’s about whether

you will do what you are required

to do by law. The police should shut these kiosks

down. This is a basic matter where

the authorities simply must

put pressure on law enforcement agencies,

and law enforcement agencies

must deal with all of this. When here

in your Novokosino district, you are dealing, mainly, with

we mainly,

I know you were in Perovo too. Look,

your police are not fighting spice,

but when one of the activists

here in Novokosino hung a Navalny banner

on his balcony, the police came to him three times,

and three times they sent

Tajik industrial climbers to him, and they

cut down that banner. So their

priorities are different. Right here

half of your local police precinct is standing around

in plain clothes and in uniform guarding

the rally. Let them go fight these

spice dealers. When I become mayor,

my police will not be occupied with solving

political issues and fighting

political opponents, but with what

they are supposed to do. In particular,

shut down these kiosks selling

drugs.

Alexei, an umbrella. Take an umbrella, there is

an umbrella? Yes.

We need you healthy.

Yes, please.

The police are a federal service and have nothing to do

with local authorities

with any of that.

What are you talking about? A federal

service — with the first order, the prosecutor’s office and

the top bosses come running. Come on,

what are you telling me? You’ve spent your whole life

working with the police.

I’ll repeat the question for everyone. Dafika

I’m telling you, in local government. Not

for local government to send them. It’s just that

A question about the People’s Garages program. They were built in

Prilushkovo. Now they are standing abandoned,

and nobody is dealing with them. Well, listen,

the problem is this. The People’s Garage

program was never really a people’s

garage program. In my neighborhood, for example,

near my house they were building a People’s

Garage. I asked how much it

cost. One parking space there cost

$23,000. What kind of “people’s”

garage is that? That’s why they ended up abandoned.

So this problem needs to be reframed

in such a way that no one should be making money

off it. The city’s task is not

to profit from People’s Garages. The money involved is

tiny. So all the land and this

remaining unfinished construction

should be handed over to the districts. All

taxes there should be removed, all encumbrances

removed, and utilities connected at the city’s expense,

so that people can finally

finish building their garages and use

them. Because, after all,

who does the Novokosino district exist for? It

doesn’t exist for the mayor,

it exists for you. And the land around your buildings

belongs to you. And these People’s Garages

should belong to you. Everything here

belongs here. That is why we included in our

program a provision stating that

I, as mayor, must transfer both powers,

and land, and money here to the grassroots

level, because it is unnecessary and harmful

for everything to be run from Tverskaya 13 (Moscow City Hall). Well,

it is impossible, impossible to solve local

issues in Novokosino

for the mayor of Moscow. You must have both the money,

and the authority to resolve all these

issues. It works in all major

prosperous cities. There is not a single

city that did not have local

self-government. And in Moscow it will

work too. We are no less intelligent than

everyone else. Next question,

please.

No, he already said that all of this

has already been covered.

He has already mentioned a lot of it, and he has

programs on his website.

A question about migration. How would you

do that? You cannot ban everything with a single decision,

that will not work. Not with one decision.

That would all be too harsh. I believe that

it should not be done with one decision. I have three

measures that, I think, would quite

work. Are you really still ready to

sit here and listen?

Yes. Yes,

Are you sure? I do not want anyone

to get sick afterward.

Honestly.

So, before I give my three

solutions regarding illegal migrants, I

have a question for all of you. Please raise

your hands, those of you who have been to any

European country. Any one.

Excellent. Thank you. And who entered any of those

European countries without a visa?

How?

Montenegro.

Ah, Montenegro. Montenegro. Without

Belarus. At one of the meetings, a man

raised his hand and said: "I went to Germany

without a visa." I asked: "How?" He

said: "I was in the army, I went in on

a tank." [laughter] Well, that is not exactly

the right kind of example, is it? Still, we are

ordinary, normal, law-abiding

people, but you and I would not be allowed in without a visa

to France, Germany, or the United States.

Therefore, the first sensible and effective

measure would be to secure the introduction of a visa

regime with the countries of Central Asia and

the South Caucasus. Without this measure, nothing

will work. If the current head of our

Federal Migration Service says

that there are between 5

and 10 million illegal migrants in Russia, what kind of country is this

where 5 to 10 million people are simply wandering around,

and we do not even know how many there are, 5 or 10

million? The second measure is to introduce

disqualification for hiring illegal migrants, so that

instead of just a fine, contractors would be permanently

barred from city contracts. And the third

measure: within two years, even within one year,

we will make sure that enterprises

that receive municipal funds

do not use those municipal funds to hire

foreigners. They have the means

to hire Russian citizens and Muscovites. And

there is no need to believe these endless

stories that, you know, if all the

Uzbeks leave Moscow, all Muscovites will

be buried in filth. Have you heard that one?

Well, that is true. Obviously, it is not true.

After all, before 2003 there were no

migrants in Moscow. In most Russian cities there are no

migrants. There are no

migrants in Belarus. In no city with

a population under 500,000 are there migrants.

It is all a lie. And the measures I

have named will reduce the number of

migrants here by 70%. We do not need that many

migrants in Moscow.

We cannot support them all. Just look,

even here in your Novokosino. This is the most densely

populated district in Moscow. Here you have

the maximum population density. People

already barely fit here. So what

additional migrants could there be? No. And

that is why I say no to additional

migrants. These three measures really

will work. Next question.

Yes.

The pension issue is this. It is

important and very simple. People

ask me: "What are you proposing

for pensioners?" We have calculated everything

very clearly. So, the Moscow pension supplement

right now is how much?

4,500.

In order for the social standard

to be 12,000 rubles in pension payments.

An additional 138 billion rubles are needed

to raise the Moscow-funded portion

of the pension twofold. And for the minimum

social standard to be 16,000. This

money exists. We will use it. We

know where to get it. We will stop

the adoption of the budget for 2013

until we raise this

pension. We will definitely achieve this.

My friends, I admire your

heroism, but nevertheless, since I

do not want there to be an outbreak of

bronchitis and pneumonia in Novokosino tomorrow, I

thank you very much for coming,

for listening to me for a full 45 minutes under the pouring

rain. Thank you so much. I would very much

like to have your support and, through you,

to reach other residents. On the eighth,

we come to the polls, bring

our friends and acquaintances, and we will

definitely win. Hooray for Novokosino.

Victory, Alexei, good luck!