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

Hello. Hello. Thank you very much.

I haven't earned applause yet, but in

any case, it's very nice to be mistaken

there's some kind of fountain here.

Although today I started speaking in

Zhulebino, and we even had a United Russia tent standing nearby there,

so after that, a fountain

is nothing. Thank you very much for coming. It's very important to us

that you come to meetings like these.

The campaign is built around them

to a large extent. Because when we

were planning all this, everything we were going

to do, people told us: what kind of strange

idea is this, these meetings with

voters? Nobody ever

does that. Nobody runs election campaigns

like that. But we simply sat down,

I sat down myself and thought: "What would

the ideal candidate for mayor of

Moscow look like to me? What would I want from him?" I

thought that I would want this person

not to rely on paid campaigners, but instead to have

volunteers working for him. And right now, on our

campaign, there are about

10,000 volunteers. Not one of them gets

a single kopek. Not because they love me,

but because they care about themselves. They are

working on this campaign. I thought that

I would want to see a mayoral candidate,

if I were an ordinary voter. I

would want the mayoral candidate to be

accessible, to come to my

courtyard or somewhere nearby, so I could ask him

maybe a tricky question. If I had

some uncomfortable question? I

think there are people here who have

a tricky question. You should be able to bring that question

and ask it, and see

how he wriggles out of it here in front of everyone,

how he answers, and so on. So I became

that kind of candidate myself and I hold these

meetings. Three every weekday.

Five meetings every weekend—it's not easy,

quite demanding work, but nevertheless it is

the job of a candidate. And if I am running on

a platform that says I will become an open and

accessible mayor of Moscow, I want to show everyone

already now that I am

an open and accessible candidate. So

thank you very much once again. I would start by

telling you a little about myself, and

then we'll move on to the most

uncomfortable questions that surely

some of you have. My name is Alexei

Navalny. Patronymic. Most of all

Anatolyevich. Anatolyevich. I am 37 years old. For the last

17 years I have lived in the Moscow

district of Maryino, not far

from here. I have a completely

standard Moscow family: a wife and

two children. My daughter is 11; she goes to

a regular school near our home. My son is 5

and goes to a regular kindergarten. My

parents—

my father is a military man, and I grew up in a

military family. So throughout my childhood I

moved from one military town

to another and was always on the move.

And my parents still live in

the Moscow region, in a military town. I

moved to Moscow. By profession I am

a lawyer. I have two university degrees.

I graduated from the law faculty

of the Peoples' Friendship University and from the Financial

Academy under the Government of the Russian

Federation.

If you have followed my activities more or less

over the past few years, what do you know

about me?

I know everything.

I know everything.

Everything? Even I myself don't know everything

about myself.

Well, you've probably heard that together with my

colleagues I created the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF).

We investigate

corruption in government procurement.

You've probably also heard that I'm that

scandalous minority shareholder

who is always going after Gazprom,

hounding VTB, making accusations

against this one and that one, constantly demanding that someone

be jailed, constantly accusing people, and

all that sort of thing.

And very often at meetings like this,

the first question I get is:

"Why are you always going after all of them?

Why can't you just calm down? Everyone

else lives like normal people. We all get upset about

corruption. It exists, doesn't it? We know that

there is corruption in Moscow, in Russia. We all,

well, know it and live with that knowledge. But why are you

going after them? Did they

personally steal from you or something?"

And I would like to begin our meeting precisely

by answering the question of why I go after them

and take it so personally, worry about it, and

spend so much time on it. Because I

truly believe that all these

Rosnefts, Gazproms, and VTBs have personally stolen from

me. They robbed me personally, my

family personally—not in some abstract sense, but in a completely

concrete one. And I have a calculation on this

that I present at every

rally. I think it will simply make it clearer to you

why I ended up here if

I explain it—this calculation.

But first, tell me: what does

Russia live on?

Oil and gas. Up to 80% of the budget comes from the sale

of oil and gas. We sell them, and unfortunately

we have to admit that in many ways we are

a raw-material appendage. We simply sell

raw materials and live off that money. A question for

everyone: over the last 15

years, during this Putin era, how much

oil and gas have we sold abroad for?

2 trillion

3 trillion

3 trillion dollars. Exactly right.

That was the correct answer. 3 trillion

dollars. Is that a lot or a little?

Well, it’s actually hard to say. Maybe it’s

a lot, maybe it’s a little. Raise your hand if you’ve

ever seen a stack of money worth 3 trillion.

I haven’t eith—oh, but there’s one hand up.

You probably work at the Finance Ministry.

No,

in my dreams.

Good dreams. In any case, it’s not

a nightmare. It’s unclear whether 3

trillion is a lot or a little, but we can make

a simple, rough calculation,

take the average across the board,

take those 3 trillion and divide them

by the number of Russian citizens. And

it turns out that each of us—you,

me, an infant, a hundred-year-old

person—comes out to 640,000 rubles from

this money that we received over

the last 15 years. So, if I calculate it for

myself—just over there, without you, I don’t remember,

you don’t exist for the moment, there’s only me—then

my family’s share comes to 2.5 million rubles. My

share from the sale of oil and gas over

the last 15 years. So I go from

Rosneft to Gazprom, from Gazprom to

Transneft, asking the same somewhat

odd question: "Guys, where did you

put my 2.5 million rubles?"

It sounds like a funny question, because

there’s no cashier’s window you can walk up to

and say, "Hello, my last name is

Navalnaya, here’s my tax ID, here’s my passport,

hand over my 2.5 million rubles." There’s no such

window, unfortunately—or fortunately. But

the oil was real. They pumped it out and

sold it.

And the money came here. I want to understand

what the money was actually spent on. But it

must have shown up somewhere,

right? There must be some visible traces

of that money. I see

a lot of older people here, and we all

remember very well how the Soviet Union

received a lot of money from selling oil and

gas.

We may agree or disagree

with how it was spent, but we

can absolutely see how it

was spent. There are the apartment blocks, the residential

neighborhoods all across the country. That’s what

was built with Brezhnev’s petrodollars (oil export revenues under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev), and

apartments were handed out for free. Back then

plants and factories were built

by the Soviet Union.

Whatever their quality, they were built, and sometimes

they were actually quite good. Science was developed,

the military-industrial complex was created.

That’s it. Brezhnev’s petrodollars built the space

industry too.

They built railways, they built ordinary roads,

all of it with Brezhnev-era

petrodollars—education,

healthcare—they did things with it,

well or badly, but at least

they invested those oil dollars. It’s clear where

they went.

Now here’s a question for everyone.

Who here—I don’t know how many people

are standing here, maybe 350. Well,

it doesn’t matter, there are people here, right? Not just 10 people.

Who can name for me any major

industrial enterprise built in

Russia over the last 15 years? Gazprom?

Gazprom was, after all, built in

Soviet times.

Not a single one.

Sometimes people mention Skolkovo,

sometimes they mention Rusnano.

At one meeting someone told me:

Rosoboronservice.

Also a fine sort of enterprise.

At every meeting I ask this question, and

no one has ever named a major

industrial enterprise built in

Russia—not even an oil refinery,

because none was

built. So we received these 3 trillion

dollars. That’s more than the Soviet Union received in the Brezhnev

years. So

the question is: where are those plants? Where are

the factories? Where is the healthcare system? Where are

the roads? Where are the railways? Do you know

how much railway Russia builds in

a year? As much as China builds in

one week. And China has neither oil nor gas.

So where is all of it? Where is what was

built with my 2.5 million rubles and with

the 640,000 rubles of every person standing here? And

when I come with these funny questions

to Rosneft, for example, yet again,

and say that they’re crooks

and have looted everything,

and ask, "Where did my money go?"

There’s this woman sitting there, a vice president,

the vice president for legal affairs. She

works

as the chief lawyer of the state oil

company Rosneft and officially earns

a salary of 880 million rubles a year. I’m not

exaggerating. You can check her disclosure

statement.

Modest,

very modest, right? So, 880 million

rubles a year. And she looks at me and

says: "What makes you think, exactly, that

any of this belongs to you? What makes you

think that you—or people like you, all of

you here—are entitled to anything at all from these

petrodollars?"

This is our job. We are people of the state,

people of the state,

the rulers, as they like to say. We

know ourselves how to dispose of it. If

you don’t understand something and ask a question:

"Then get out of here. Neither you nor people like

you own anything." And at that

moment, it's really insulting, actually,

a very painful moment. It all becomes deeply personal. I

can almost physically

feel a hand reaching into my pocket

and pulling out those 640,000 rubles. And from me,

and from my five-year-old son, and from my

eleven-year-old daughter, and from every

person standing here—a hand reaches into each of our pockets and

pulls out those 640,000 rubles.

And that is why I fight these people in precisely

this way, because they personally

stole from me. Because I, like

you, I think, have no other country, no

other oil, no other life.

It has already been spent, and it cannot be brought back.

And I am furious with all these

people who rob us like this

and then still tell us: "None of this is

yours." They say to me: "Come on, Navalny, why do

you keep making a fuss? Russia has good

rankings, after all. In what rankings

does Russia place well?

In defense capability,

third place.

Third place in defense capability.

Fine, let's be proud of that ranking. I, for

example, am told that the ranking in

which Russia is steadily climbing is

the ranking of billionaires. In

2000 we had six of them, and now

there are 121. Are we supposed to be proud of that?

And corruption too. According to official

data, most of the real estate,

or rather, most of the houses

worth more than £1 million in

London are bought by our officials. Let's

be proud of our officials. I don't want

to be proud of them. I—I have a clear

sense that Russia is climbing

the billionaire rankings, and houses in

London are being bought by officials because

some hand reached into my pocket and

pulled out my 640,000 rubles, plain and simple. And

I have come here to you now as a candidate

for mayor of Moscow

and I am counting on your support and

would very much like to have your support,

because

Hello?

these are just as concrete and

practical issues for me that I want

to fix. I simply deal with them

every day. They irritate me, and I

would like to fix them in our city, and

I know how to fix them.

On the right, on the right.

Are you concerned about housing and utilities services? Very much.

Very much.

Very much. No, it's not just you it's troubling, it

troubles me, because for my

apartment in a prefab panel building, I get

a utility bill for 9,500 rubles. Yes, I am furious

when I see that bill, because

through my work, I know what

Mosenergo is, I know what

Mosvodokanal is, I know that they stuff into

this bill things we should not

be paying for at all.

I want to become the first mayor who

will finally conduct an audit of housing and utilities tariffs,

to turn all of this inside out. And

then we will all see what we are paying for. And

we will all see how inflated

the prices are. Do you know how much we pay in Moscow

for housing maintenance? 25 rubles per

square meter.

Yes.

In Astrakhan, for example, it's 12. In Yaroslavl

15, in Kazan 18. In a wealthy city, we

pay 25. And they tell us it's not enough. They

tell us it's not enough. They constantly raise tariffs for both me and

you. But I know

that Mosvodokanal, for example, in

2011 made 3 billion rubles

in net profit. If our company,

supplying us with water, has already made 3

billion in net profit, why the hell,

I ask, is it raising our tariff in that same

year? How is that even possible? It's an

endless pit. Either Mosvodokanal

exists for us and for our city,

or all of us exist for the owners,

for the managers of Mosvodokanal, so they can

bleed this money out of us. I want to expose

this tariff. I want to remove from it

all sorts of unclear

investment components, fake

transfers, and all the rest that they create. We

have cold water tariffs ranging from 8 to 50

rubles. And nobody understands why some

pay 8 and others 50. And with every

payment for cold water, you and I are simply

supporting a huge number of

freeloaders who have been put on the

minimum tariff. And nobody can

explain why these people pay

such a tiny tariff. Some kind of

commercial outfit, some

departmental holiday resorts, and so on, and

so on. I don't want to pay for that. I

think you don't want to pay for that

either. I have a clear sense

that there are 2 million people in Moscow who

will say: "Navalny, we don't want to pay for

this. Go become mayor and change all

of it." I am running for mayor to change all

of this.

I am running for mayor.

Clearly, you don't want to pay. I know

which strings to pull in your soul.

Do you go to the clinic?

Do you go to the clinic? I go to the clinic too.

Unfortunately, as we can see, like

anyone else, the older I get, the more often I

have to go to the clinic.

I know that for every Muscovite, for

more money is allocated to healthcare

four times more than for any other

citizen of Russia. But then why do I have

such a huge line at the

local clinic? Do you have lines at your clinic?

A line?

I know, I know, because I carefully

looked at the district's population, the number of

clinics, and read reviews on your

forum about clinics.

I don't understand why my clinic in

Maryino or your clinic here is so

different from the clinic

they show on television. On

television, they tell us: electronic

registration. Sign up, and on the very day you apply

you can see any doctor. It works

a month later.

Exactly. That's how it goes.

For every Muscovite, just for

outpatient clinic care, there is an allocation of

20,000 rubles.

Just out of curiosity, please raise

your hands if you went to your local

clinic in the past year.

Everyone has.

So everyone's been sick. All right, thank you. And those

who haven't gone,

are clearly much healthier.

But here's the interesting thing: whether sick or

healthy, 20,000 rubles are budgeted for each person.

That's a huge amount of money. It turns out that just for

my family of four, 80,000 rubles

are allocated for clinic care.

Question: is it easy for you to get an ultrasound

at the clinic?

It's awful.

That can't be. I don't believe it's hard

to get an ultrasound.

I don't understand why so many people

came to this meeting and are brazenly lying

to my face. It can't be that it's difficult

to get diagnostic testing. I mean, excuse me,

I walk up to Sobyanin's campaign tent, and

it says there in black and white, for all to see,

that Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin gave

Muscovites 100 ultrasound machines.

You have to go beyond the ring road.

You have to go beyond the ring road.

And pay for it.

They merged several of our

clinics together.

I understand your outrage very well,

because, first of all, just like you, I can't

get an ultrasound at a regular clinic either, and

second, and most importantly, our Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF)

looked into this

program for modernizing Moscow's

healthcare system, on which

100 billion rubles were spent, and we know that all these

procurements are carried out simply to

buy CT scanners and ultrasound machines at

twice the real price. I want to become

the mayor who will finally use those

vast available funds to hire

enough general practitioners

and internists so that Muscovites

can receive care on the same day they seek it.

These are the doctors needed in 90%

of cases. We can hire them in Moscow.

We don't need endless capital spending. What's the point

of buying all this equipment?

We don't have enough doctors. Sobyanin likes

to talk about how, in terms of

the number of scanners per

capita, we've overtaken all European

countries.

Is it easy to get an MRI at a clinic?

Impossible.

Amazing, isn't it? We've overtaken Europe, yet getting an MRI

is impossible. There it stands, that

MRI scanner they bought for $3 million,

and at best it's sitting there covered with

a tarp. There's no one to operate it. They

buy the most expensive equipment,

endless capital spending. But there are no doctors. The day before yesterday I

met with chief physicians

and asked them, "So what is it, where exactly

is the problem, what needs

to be done?" They all say that our

medicine is 50 years behind. We need

to train doctors, we need to

take them by the thousands and send them abroad to study

so they can come back and, at least

in five years, if not treat us, then at least treat our

children, because right now

it's impossible to get that scan,

even if we've bought the machine. What do we need? Do we need

a piece of hardware in the clinic

or do we need actual imaging? I want to become

the mayor who will invest only

where all of this will actually work. I want

to become the mayor who will

hire doctors first and invest in people

because, after all, it is doctors who

heal people, not ultrasound machines. I

came here because, after looking at

the statistics—ah, I seem to have lost my paper

somewhere on the way—the statistics on

crimes committed by foreigners,

by migrants in your district,

I learned that the number of such

crimes here has risen by 77%. Did you know

that?

So I assume that the issue of migration

is something that concerns you here. Yes,

it concerns me very deeply as well,

because I live in the southeast, where

we have all this—Belaya Dacha, they moved the

Sadovod market there, they moved the Moskva market there, and so

on. And for me, these statistics

showing that many crimes

are committed by migrants are not just numbers.

These are women in our building who

are afraid to go outside in the evening. These are

women I personally know

whose bags these migrants snatch from them.

And I am running for mayor because I know for certain that

that migrants come here in huge

numbers. Not because there are

jobs here, but because people profit

from them — they are easy money.

Just for interest's sake, let's conduct

a poll right here. How much does the janitor

who cleans your courtyard earn?

12,000

12, 7

10, 15

18

earns 25.

But officially, on the payroll, they only show 15.

Now you see, that's an interesting

thing. Every time I ask this

question, people start saying: 5, 10,

15, 18, and then someone, like that man

in the crowd just now, says: "Officially on the payroll

or in reality?"

It's the kind of secret that, you know,

all of Moscow knows.

Because we look at it — we're not idiots,

we can read, we look at the calculation

of the minimum approved

rate for paying a janitor in Moscow, and from it

we can see that there should not

be a single janitor who

earns less than 30,000 rubles. He simply

cannot exist. But all the actual janitors

we talk to — ordinary, real people — they

tell us 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 rubles. These are hundreds

of thousands of people being dragged here by others,

housed in basements so that they

kick back from their wages those

5,000–10,000.

And this river of hundreds of millions of rubles

in cash just keeps flowing

through Moscow all day long. And just imagine

how many people are involved in

this

keeping this river of cash going. I

want to become mayor because this river

of cash — and I see only its reverse

side. I see crime, I see

tension, I see a problem in schools,

where in some classes as many as half

the children cannot speak Russian

properly. Russian is not their native language.

These children are not to blame for anything. But this is

a problem we need to address now,

because in five years it will become so

big that by then, in five years, it will

be practically impossible to solve. And

that could possibly lead to violence and other

consequences. I want to change all of this.

That's why I'm running. I came here because

well, I generally like digging into

numbers.

And I remember very clearly the size

of the Moscow budget. Remind me, who

knows — what is Moscow's annual budget? 12

1.63, to be precise,

1.63 trillion rubles a year.

By budget size, Moscow is behind only

New York and Shanghai. Paradoxical

as it may seem, we need to understand

that we live in one of the richest

cities in the world.

The richest cities in Europe and America

cannot even come close to comparing

with us.

London has a smaller budget, and Paris

has a much smaller one. And

as for Tokyo, only

New York and Shanghai surpass it. You

can go straight to the website, if you

don't believe me — the Moscow mayor's office website — it

has the same figures posted there. But now

a question for the audience. Attention. If we

rank third in the world by budget,

where do you think we rank

in quality of life among

the world's largest cities?

Listen, here's an interesting thing, right?

I ask this question often, and everyone

starts shouting: "Last place." So why don't you tell me

that? Third?

sev...

twenty-sixth

67.

You're saying 150th — I assume you're joking.

But the correct answer is 154th.

We are in 154th place in terms of quality

of life. And that's not a joke. It's a harsh

reality, unfortunately. With the money

that is currently in the Moscow

budget, Muscovites could already have

decent education, quality

healthcare, roads on which we

successfully fight traffic jams, and a small

number of migrants. We have everything

we need for that. We have a great city,

and fairly good infrastructure left over from

Soviet times, and

an educated population, which is very important.

Few places have such an educated

population. There's only one thing that you and I

lack: belief in ourselves. We

somehow think that

well, this is the right

system, the proper system we live in.

And if it's the wrong one, then changing

anything is impossible. After every

meeting, some

person comes up to me as I'm leaving, grabs

my hand and says: "Listen, you,

Navalny, what you said was all absolutely right,

well done, but admit it — right now, without

the cameras, without people around, nothing can

really be changed, you understand that."

Nothing can be changed. And this is

the kind of order of things that

has taken shape and is unchangeable. You know, like the fact that

the sun rises in the east and sets

in the west. We just shrug our shoulders

all the time. We know that Russia ranks first in the world

for oil and gas sales, while

for standard of living it is in sixtieth

ninth. We just compared

the city's position, yes, third place and

154th. Take any construction

project. Here, they’re building, uh, this

Northeast Chord highway. Well,

the nearest construction site to you, the nearest

interchange, it costs

we don’t need it.

We don’t need it.

You say it isn’t needed. Even, even,

yes, let’s set aside whether it is

needed or not. It costs 60 billion rubles. And

all transportation experts say in unison:

"It costs twice as much as it should

cost." You and I, the entire population

of Moscow, know that in the construction of this

Chord, 30 billion rubles will be stolen from us. That is

more than enough to

build outpatient clinics all across Moscow.

But we shrug our shoulders and say, "Well,

that’s just how it is, it’s the natural order of things.

That’s how it works." It works in such a way that all

our mayors privatize 308-square-meter apartments

for themselves. It works in such a way that some Yakunin

from Russian Railways built himself an offshore empire

worth billions of dollars. There’s nothing

to be done. We know it, we’re outraged, but

somehow we just shrug, because this is

for us the natural course of life, which

for some reason we consider impossible

to change.

And I came here for the most important

reason. I believe that this is not

the natural order of things. I consider it

perverse and unnatural. I do not

understand it—are we really the stupidest? Are we

the most hopeless? The most cursed?

Is there some kind of vortex of a curse hanging

over the city of Moscow that does not allow us to live

a normal life? Indifference.

I am sure we can change all of this.

Where, show me—I don’t know—are there

troops standing here forcing us

to do something? No, there isn’t even a police officer here

here. And if there is one, then he’s hidden

somewhere.

Indifference is the problem.

Indifference. Exactly. All this

power rests not on coercion, not on

deception, and not even on television. It

rests solely on the fact that we

shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, what can you do,

nothing can be changed."

And we don’t go vote. We don’t go to

the polls. We think, why even go to

the elections?

We go

At every meeting I’m asked: "Well

you understand, it’s all pointless.

We’ll come, they’ll rig it, and if they don’t

rig it, then they’ll brainwash

the pensioners so thoroughly that it’s

completely impossible. You can’t break through." But sooner or

later, we have to break through. Sooner or later

we have to understand that here, we are

the power, just as we shout at

rallies—and I do like shouting that

phrase. But it really is true. I go to

these meetings because I believe that right here

the source of power is standing in front of me.

The source of power is the people.

And yes, I have no opportunity on

television to address you. And you

probably, over the last 5 years, have hardly

seen me on television, on television,

except in a program called

Navalny Stole the Entire Forest.

But most importantly, no one can take away from me

the opportunity, through you,

to communicate, to reach out to you. I

have calculated everything. I told you that I

love numbers. I’ve calculated it all.

I calculated that if by September 8 I

hold 100 meetings like this, and this

meeting is already the fifty-seventh, so,

if I hold 100 such meetings and at the same time

don’t go insane in the process, then I will

have spoken more or less personally, like this,

as I am with you, to 1% of Moscow’s voters,

which is actually a lot. After all,

everyone has friends, acquaintances, neighbors on

the stairwell, and so on, and so

on. There are studies that

show that the strongest campaigner is

not television, not a TV host, but

a person. If any one of you talks to

ten acquaintances, he or she will convince six of them

for sure. Even if you yourselves

don’t seem persuasive to yourselves, it’s just that

statistics show people need

advice. They want to hear advice.

That is why I believe that through you I can

reach an enormous number of

people. To elect the mayor

of Moscow, you need half a million people. So,

for me simply to win in the first round,

you need half a million people in a city where

15 million live. Moscow absolutely has

those half a million people who know everything,

understand everything, know that Moscow’s problems

can be solved, understand that other

cities have solved the same problems,

understand that we have a sea of money

with which we can solve these problems.

We just need to believe in ourselves. We need to,

finally, stop shrugging our shoulders,

and realize that nothing is more

powerful than citizens. And I would like

to rely on this most powerful

weapon there can be—on

you, on the citizens. I am sure that if I

can persuade some of you today, you

will be able to persuade other people, and all

together we will win this election and will

definitely build a great city for

ourselves and for our children. Thank you very much.

Now I’m ready to answer questions. Even the

toughest ones, please. Let’s begin

The microphone, but please keep it brief.

Suppose you become mayor. Yes. Tell

me, please, what you will do about

the numerous horde of officials,

the departments, prefectures, the mayor’s office,

who sit there, steal money, and do nothing

at all? I know, I’ve been dealing with this for five years

question. I’ll repeat, in case someone didn’t

hear: what will you do about

the numerous horde of officials?

How many people run Moscow?

How many? Tens,

tens of thousands of people. A great many.

Tens of thousands. In fact,

the political leadership is the

government. But then there are

departments, state unitary enterprises, municipal unitary enterprises, prefectures,

district administrations—that’s tens of thousands of people.

That’s right, oddly enough. Now, if

we say, “Let’s take all the officials and

shoot them or throw them out,” well, that would be

nonsense. It’s impossible to just shoot them or

throw them all out. Though many people would like to, I understand,

sometimes. The White Sea Canal (a Stalin-era forced-labor canal).

Belomor

Canal.

What I want to say is, perhaps many

people expect me now to say

“White Sea Canal” and so on, but I will say

something for which many people even criticize me. I

genuinely believe that 85% of these people are not

corrupt simply because they do not have

the opportunity to steal. They are not

in positions where they can

pocket something. These are ordinary people

who perhaps would like to grab

something for themselves, but they live ordinary

lives and envy those who have

the chance to grab something. But what they really

want is one thing—the same thing we do:

an ordinary, stable life with a decent

salary. They have a decent salary,

they want to work normally. And my

task in dealing with officials is to

change the political leadership of City Hall,

rely on that 85% who are not

corrupt, and put pressure on—send to the

White Sea Canal, perhaps—the 15%

who apparently can no longer be reformed.

That is the only way. They are people, ordinary people,

and, as they say, you know, a person

gets used to anything. If right now the principle is

corruption and inefficiency, if they

see that the mayor of Moscow—

Navalny—is shouting from the stage on television

that he is not corrupt, and that

in fact everyone knows that you cannot

deliver a suitcase of money to him through a deputy.

If I can impose such a

system and they start working properly, that

has happened in other cities and it will certainly

happen in Moscow too, because, as I’ve

already said, we are no more foolish, no worse—everything

will work out.

Well, there are a lot of them.

Yes, please. And will you take part in

the election debates? I was just

walking by, just like that, you know.

Let’s pass the microphone, but please keep it brief.

Let’s keep it brief. Go ahead. So,

I’m interested in how, uh, your program, uh,

differs fundamentally from the programs

of all the other candidates, and what

specifically you can offer

Muscovites? Specifically.

It seemed to me I had just spoken about that

at length.

I said, I was walking by.

You were walking by. All right. How does, uh, my program

differ from the other candidates’? You

know, paradoxically, in many ways you are

right. If you take my program,

Melnikov’s, and Mitrokhin’s, there will be a great deal

that is similar. And even, oddly enough,

there will be many things that overlap with Sobyanin’s program

as well.

There is only one difference: who will

implement this program?

How will we implement it? I am talking

about introducing anti-corruption

mechanisms. That is the most important part, my

strong point and the main part of my program.

And with that money, I know where to find the funds to raise

social benefits. For example,

how much is the current Moscow supplement for

pensioners?

100 rubles.

No, come on, what 100 rubles?

4,000. Exactly. To raise

the pension to 12,000 rubles. Right. Yes,

despite Sobyanin and

the whole Moscow mayor’s office shouting that

it is impossible to raise pensions any further, I

have calculated everything. Our program includes

a provision that we will double the Moscow supplement

and make the minimum

Moscow pension standard 16,000 rubles.

That costs 138 billion rubles. That money exists

in the Moscow budget. More than that, I know

how to even double that amount. Who knows

how much is spent in Moscow each year on

public procurement?

A lot. A great deal—600 billion rubles,

to be precise. And the Moscow government

openly, without embarrassment, tells me, you,

and everyone else that 150 billion rubles a

year is stolen. But they admit

that these are, you know, “combat losses.”

150 billion. And 150 billion rubles, by the way,

is 30,000 rubles for each one of us. So for

every person standing here, just through

public procurement, 30,000 rubles a year is stolen. I

know exactly how to change that.

You’ve really made up your mind.

Let’s catch someone who stole.

Blog. I’ll post on my blog right now saying that here I am.

Well, excellent, give it some publicity, then I have

my own blogs. If we in our foundation

anti-corruption measures worth 59 billion rubles were scrapped

procurement, without having any

authority, if we have already written all the

laws, draft laws, decrees,

instructions—everything needed to

reduce corruption in public procurement, I

will come to City Hall and cut it down. If you

record this on video, I’ll look straight like this

and point like this to the readers of your blog

with my finger. We will save this

money and direct it, among other things, to

social benefits. So, despite the fact

that the candidates are running on similar

platforms, because Moscow’s problems

are known to everyone, choose the candidate

who has proven through his actions

that he himself can live by those

principles. Then everything will be wonderful.

Please.

All right, hello. I have a somewhat more

everyday question. What

are you going to do with the city’s

parks as mayor? This is not really

a question about fighting corruption and all that,

but I like going for walks in Sokolniki

Park. It’s actually more or less

pretty good there. Nice, in fact. As a family

man, you probably know that too. And

a lot of serious money is being spent on it,

really a great deal of money.

What is your position specifically on

all this? Well, you don’t believe me?

My position on Moscow’s parks? What

should be done with the parks, and what is my view of

what is happening in Gorky Park, in

Sokolniki, and so on? Well, it would be

foolish to deny that in Gorky Park and

Sokolniki, good work has been done. These

parks have finally started to look like

parks. That’s great. I support

all of that. However, as mayor,

let’s say I am mayor. I look at Moscow’s budget

and I have a question: “Why is the park

near my home in Maryino not like that?”

Why is there, here in Vykhino-Zhulebino,

a dump in the Zhulebino forest? Why is it

being cut down? We have enough money

to establish a standard for parks,

so that it is not only affluent residents or

trendy young people in Gorky Park who get

beautiful bike paths built for them. We

need a standard for everyone, so that

any pensioner has, within walking

distance—not just a pensioner, but a young

mother, a young father, I don’t know, whoever

it may be. Maybe a person who,

well, since you can’t drink beer on the street, is walking with

a soda instead, could go

and have, within walking distance of home,

a park or recreation area

that meets proper standards. There is no need

to pour all the money into Gorky Park. We

have enough money to ensure that

Moscow’s parks are no different from

European ones. And we will do that. We just do not

need to. Who has read my investigation into

landscaping in Moscow?

I have.

Well, many have. Anyone who has been on

Tverskaya Street has seen this

marble planter with

a little tree and two bushes sticking out of it—it costs 8 million rubles. But

as long as this is how beautification and

landscaping are carried out, we

will never have enough money. With the money

we do have, we will improve things. Not

luxuriously, but well, and we will introduce a standard for

all Moscow parks. That is my

strategy. There was a question here a while ago. Yes,

please.

Briefly, please.

Engineers.

An engineer today is like a slave. He

an engineer is like a slave these days. He has no

opportunity to work effectively. He is being

crushed from all sides. There are taxes,

customs duties, and so on. I can explain in more detail.

That is, the work of an engineer—how

do you envision making it

more effective, so that a highly qualified specialist

like him has the opportunity

to work transpa—

How do I want to improve the work of engineers?

An unusual question, but again, as mayor,

I want to say that for me, the issue is not

the work of engineers specifically, but the work of any

person.

Everyone should be able to work normally, and

everyone should have a proper right to

work. As for me, for example,

if we are talking about engineers

working in the sphere of municipal

services, my key task is

to raise labor productivity in

the areas under my authority. If we

look, for example, at the housing and utilities system in

Russia and the utilities system in the United States, we

will see that our labor

productivity is 10 times lower. Where they

have one person working, we

have 10, which means 10

salaries are being paid. So my task, from the standpoint

of all these engineering-related issues,

is to increase labor productivity, so that

machinery is used, and so on,

because we are operating somewhere at the level

of the 10th century, and it is long past time to move into the

21st. Please,

the innovator, the engineer.

For a long time, the construction of a clinic in

Veshnyaki has been postponed.

They said the documents were still being prepared.

Now it is no longer in the plan. There are two clinics.

The population has grown significantly. There was space,

but they built a garage instead. Near Hospital No. 15

there is still some space off to the side. I understand

the question.

And one more small question.

Let’s start with the first one. For a long

time, the construction of a

clinic in Veshnyaki has been postponed.

They promised it, but they are not building it. The land was there, but it was handed over

for garages, for commercial development, and

so on. This is the standard pattern across

all of Moscow. Did you know that the last

major hospital in Moscow, and the last

decent clinic, were built back in

the 1980s.

Nothing is being built. And back then, all

those hospitals and everything else were

built for the size of Moscow’s population

at the time, and that population has now grown by nearly

double. That is why we have insane lines everywhere,

overcrowding, and so on. As I already said,

I find it ridiculous to hear that Moscow

does not have enough money to build a

clinic. On the North-Western Chord highway project,

30 billion rubles will be stolen. On your North-Eastern

Chord, about 30 billion as well. On the Southern Rokada

at least 10 billion has been stolen. Look

at who is now the contractor for road construction

in Moscow. Who is the main contractor

for road construction in Moscow?

Nberg.

Rotenberg. These guys were Putin’s friends in Soviet times

and his judo coaches, and now they are

building Moscow’s roads for us.

And all of this

— all of it, the Ozero dacha cooperative (a well-known circle of Putin associates). And all of it

is built at twice the proper price. My job

as mayor is to make sure that roads

are built by actual road builders at a normal

price. We will free up, we will free up a huge

amount of money that needs to be directed toward

the construction of urban

infrastructure. I myself live in a district with

a population of 250,000 and only two

clinics. It is impossible to get an appointment there. In

Veshnyaki there is a problem. And can you imagine

how bad it is? In Zhulebino, there are 220,000

people living there. In any district, really. As I

already said, this is my fifty-eighth

meeting. And every time, when I ask,

“Do you have lines at the

clinic?” they tell me, “Oh,

what a question.”

But the money is there: on one large construction project

they siphon off more money

than—well, one clinic in our case,

serving a large district, costs

about 500 million rubles fully equipped.

Now look: the 30 billion rubles

that Rotenberg siphons off from one project—that is

how many clinics?

Sixty. Did I do the math right? Right.

That is why I want to become mayor: so that this

kind of accurate arithmetic is no longer necessary,

so that allocated funds are actually used

properly. Then you will get your clinic in

Veshnyaki. That is all. You should have it

in the first place. It is your budget and your taxes.

A few more short ones.

Yes, a few more, but keep them brief.

May I ask one on behalf of the Veterans’ Council?

Wait, a question from the Veterans’ Council.

Yes,

many of the display stands are already outdated. Would you be able

to help with upgrading them?

The question is: would you be able to help with

the purchase of museum equipment

for the veterans? I am pleased that you are asking me

this question as if I were already practically

the elected mayor. And

I think I will be able to, of course. But first

let’s all come out and vote first,

please.

I have a question. Many people vote for

Sobyanin because they are afraid things will get

worse. Simply that under another mayor it will be worse.

You are not planning to cancel,

for example, travel benefits for pensioners

and students, are you? That is the first question. Second,

the only more or less sensible

transport idea is

to make the Little Ring railway work properly.

Will you, with

your oppositional stance, be able later

to negotiate with such a fine

man as...?

Excellent question. The question was that many

people are afraid,

many vote for Sobyanin because

they fear things will get worse, that social

benefits will be canceled, and so on. And the

second question was that Sobyanin’s good idea—

though in fact it is not Sobyanin’s, it was

already an idea from the Luzhkov era—to build

the rail ring. And how will you

negotiate with Yakunin if you

need to deal with that? First of all, in

our program we state absolutely

clearly that there will be no cuts to social

payments. More than that, as I already said

regarding pensioners, our position is

very clear: we will double

the Moscow supplement. With the money

we save by fighting

corruption, we can increase a great many things.

Do you know how much a family with

four children currently receives in benefits

as a large family?

800

3,000 rubles.

And as I already said, 30,000 rubles are stolen from

each person through public procurement alone. Here is

a family with six people in it. From them

they first steal 30,000 rubles from each person through public procurement alone,

and then give back to them:

“Here are 3,000 rubles for your large

family. Be grateful.” The money exists

to do all of this. As for

Yakunin and Putin, I am often asked

the question: “How are you going to interact with Putin?”

I will interact with him normally

according to the rules. How?

I have my powers, and they have theirs.

I have the authority. Within the limits of that authority, I

will act if necessary. I am not

going to start a war with them. I am not

going to send street-washing trucks into the streets

and storm the Russian Railways building or

lead them to the Kremlin or send armies

of street cleaners anywhere. No. Within the

rules, when they ask me for

something illegal, like giving contracts to our

guys, I say: "Sorry, no, I

don’t have that kind of authority. Even if I

wanted to, I no longer could. I came in and

changed the system of power so that I could not

be corrupt myself. I will

work with them within the limits of my authority.

It will all work out.

Please.

Please, if you become

Wait, let’s hear from this woman now, and

then I promise I’ll come to you. Yes,

over the past two years, Sobyanin has practically destroyed in

Moscow almost all small business. So

what will your attitude be, if you become mayor,

what is your attitude toward entrepreneurs

and small business in Moscow?

My attitude toward small business and

entrepreneurship in Moscow? My

position is very simple. I am not going to

interfere in the affairs of small business and

entrepreneurship. For me, small

business and entrepreneurship mean

jobs for Muscovites and their

ability to support their families. Therefore

I will do everything to make it easier for them

to support their families. Right now, one of the

biggest problems for small business,

which a mayor can solve, is that it is impossible

to rent premises. The cost of renting

space in Moscow is insane.

That is why prices in Moscow

stores are insane too, because everyone has to raise prices.

But look at how property is actually being leased out.

Everything is municipal or

state-owned, and they lease it to their

relatives for 100 rubles, and the relatives

sublease it for $500 a month. Here I have

a very simple solution. I will open up all

these registries, and you will be able to go online

and find out who is paying what,

at what rate, and when they pay rent. And

when you see it plainly on paper, you

will see that a huge building has all been leased

to some offshore company,

which belongs to the director’s wife, and

then all of it is subleased. And

that is when the prosecutor’s office goes there immediately and

sorts the whole thing out. Then we

immediately terminate the contract and throw them out.

A huge number of premises should

be handed over to small business, because

even for the city this is less a way

to make money. It is much more

about giving residents, for me as mayor, the opportunity

to earn a living. And that is the mayor’s job.

Yes. The question I promised to take.

What about Udaltsov? As you

know, he is under house

arrest. Against him

a criminal case has been fabricated. He

is under house arrest. There are also

other people under house arrest. We have 12

people imprisoned in the Bolotnaya case (the prosecutions following the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protest). We,

unfortunately, all these cases,

fabricated after May 6 and so on,

are continuing. We know that

there is one lucky

person who was released. And here I

want once again to say thank you all very

much for getting me released. I am

the only person who got out

thanks to you.

The only person on whom

this system stumbled—a system for which

the most important right they believe they have

is the right, the ability, to jail

the innocent and not jail the guilty. On me,

thanks to you, that system stumbled.

Our task is to build pressure on

this government, including by coming to

the elections and voting so that everyone

who has been illegally detained or imprisoned

is released—Udaltsov and all

the others, everyone in the Bolotnaya case,

everyone imprisoned in Moscow and everyone

imprisoned in other cities.

We were there,

let’s do one person, one question. There are a lot of us here,

after all. Please.

And will you pay attention to people’s

concerns about sports? Right now I’m interested in

Krylia Sovetov at least on the legendary—

and Krylia Sovetov has already for four years—

Will I pay attention to the problems of

sports? Well, apparently the question here is not

whether I will go jogging, but what

I will do for sports in Moscow. Here

the most important thing that needs to be done is

to finally separate this

endless mix of commercial and social

functions. Look at any major

construction project—the Dynamo stadium, who is building it for us?

VTB, with some kind of murky scheme

—and in Mitino they are building something together with

an administrative complex. Take any

stadium. Usually inside that

stadium there is some kind of, who knows what,

administrative building, some nonsense,

residents are up in arms, and so on, and so

forth. I have a clear view on this

issue. So: city budgets,

city facilities, social facilities,

stadiums—we build them separately with

city funds that we have. We

do not drag in any investors,

no strange schemes, no shady

businessmen hanging around stadium projects.

We have budgets, separate funds for

building construction

facilities. And anyone who wants to make money

for themselves from office buildings, from

luxury housing, and so on, should go and

separately, under a commercial model, build

their own office buildings, residential buildings, and

so on. There’s no need to mix these things up.

Then there will be enough money for everything, and then

there won’t be any scandals with residents.

That is my basic position on urban

development. Alexei, please, go ahead,

please.

Actually, my name is Alexei. I have two

questions. One is from local residents; I’m the last

person. One person. Fine. Okay.

A question from local residents. Yesterday I

and today invited people to this meeting, and

I very often asked myself this question.

So, Navalny comes to power,

why wouldn’t Navalny become just like

everyone else? Why, once Navalny comes in,

wouldn’t he change his policies and start

pulling money for himself and become corrupt?

Why couldn’t Navalny change?

The question of why Navalny couldn’t

change for the worse. Why is it that he

now—this is a fair question, thank you

very much. Right now you’re standing here making promises,

telling us you’re honest, decent,

uncorrupt, but how exactly are you

going to guarantee to us that you won’t

change? Everyone else, unfortunately,

does change. Yes, at least there are far more

examples of that.

There are two things I want to say, the most

important ones. First, as I already said, I would

never have stepped onto this stage or taken

the liberty of standing here before you

and speaking if my previous

work over many years had not proved that I

myself can live by the principles that I

demand of others. My Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF)

is funded by 1,000 people,

sending 100, 200, or 500 rubles (about $1–$5). For every

person, you can see what

salary they receive, what they do, what

their work efficiency is, their performance indicators, and

so on. Everything about me is known. Where I

live, who my family is, who my

relatives are. Raise your hand if you’ve

seen my wife. Well, a photo of my wife.

A beauty.

Well, thank you very much. And who has seen

a photo of Sobyanin’s wife?

No one.

Well, they’ve started showing her from time to time, but

it’s not about a photo of someone’s wife. But you’ve probably

seen a photo of Sobyanin’s daughter in

Pomology. But that’s not the point,

that you absolutely have to show your wife to

all of us. The point is that a politician must

take on obligations. And if we

elect a mayor, we want to know who

he is; we want to be sure that his

relatives are not involved in some kind of

shady dealings. We must be sure that

his children are not taking part in

some murky schemes and so

on. This is a normal system

of restrictions. My daughter is 11 years old,

and she wants to get a VKontakte account (a Russian social network).

That’s a normal wish for a child. We don’t

allow it, because, well, people will start bothering her,

some people will harass her, and it’s very

upsetting for her, and everyone worries. But this

is a natural restriction that

a politician takes on. You want to gain

power? Then you have to accept these

restrictions. Sometimes it is painful and hurtful for the family,

but that is the only way to earn

people’s trust. That’s the first thing. Second,

the main reason why I should not go bad.

And I often think: “How can I make sure

to guarantee to everyone, and to myself, that I

won’t go bad later?” And there is only one answer here:

“I will change the system of power.” Right now all

power is concentrated in one office.

With a single decision, Sobyanin can hand out

contracts to anyone, can alter things, can

award them without a tender, can

throw billions around here and there. I will create

a system of government under which I will not be able

to do that. Not a single construction project

costing more than 1 billion rubles (about $10 million)

will be carried out without international

expert review and without public

discussion. I will not have the final

say.

Power will be transferred to the districts

in terms of authority. That is exactly what I need—

authority

and land will be given over to the residents of each district. I

will not have the ability, you know, even if

I’m mayor ten times over, even if

a million people voted for me. I will not

have the ability to go somewhere over there

and build a tower here in a public square

fifteen stories high. I simply will not

have those powers. They will all be

down here, at the local level. The main guarantee I

will create for myself is this fence,

which I will no longer be able to climb over,

in order to become corrupt. I will

know with absolute certainty: if I become

bad, you will find out about it immediately.

Independent media, which I will all set free and

will not keep on the public payroll, will

tear me to pieces. Opposition

deputies sitting in the Moscow City Duma, rather than

my own controlled ones, will pass a vote

of no confidence in me, and you will come to the polls and

throw me out of Tverskaya 13 (Moscow City Hall). And with

me, and with any other mayor, that is exactly what

must be done if he goes bad.

That is the only way, and that is exactly how I will change power.

Alexei, there’s another request.

Yes, please.

[applause]

At one time, probably about 15 years ago,

...back then, the SPAG company, don’t you remember? Which

company?

Putin’s company in St. Petersburg under

Sobchak (Anatoly Sobchak, former mayor of St. Petersburg). And when Kudrin was skimming off

the cemetery. Why am I saying this? When I

heard Putin being asked here

to describe you, he said that

they had jailed his associate there. Well, in

the SPAG company that existed, where

Putin worked, his associate was jailed abroad,

and at that very moment we elected him

president.

We didn’t elec...

We elected him president, and our and our

parliament at the time asked

for it to be investigated. They never investigated it. I’m

just saying this because no one was ever held accountable.

Thank you very much. Unfortunately, unfortunately,

to our great regret, we live

indeed in a country and in a city where

each of us knows plenty of quite

credible stories about corruption involving

Putin, where everyone knows, well, plenty of

credible stories about corruption involving

Sobyanin, Luzhkov, Serdyukov, and so

on, and so on. This is a kind of common

well-known, common knowledge, but it depends only on

us. Whether we will continue to live in

a country where we will simply

tell each other, as if it were some ordinary, not even

a joke, but a routine story

about the corruption of the people who

run the country—the largest country in

the world, where we live, where our

children live. It depends only on us, and it is in

our power to change all of this. My friends,

I have one more meeting like this

ahead of me. I’m very grateful to you for

coming and listening to me for a whole hour.

Thank you so much. I’m sorry that I won’t

be able to answer all the questions. I really

need your support. I would very much like to

have it, and together we will definitely

win. Hooray! Vyshniki!

Thank you very much.