Alexei Navalny’s meeting with voters in Zelenograd

I’m very pleased to be speaking here in

Zelenograd, which, well, probably, if

I told you directly, “I’m one of your own,”

that would be an exaggeration. But my mother is

from Zelenograd; she studied here at

School No. 842 and worked at various

research institutes. So, as you can see, I have lots of

relatives here. Two of my cousins

live here with their families. They graduated from MIET (Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology), and

my grandfather is buried near Zelenograd. In

fact, since I’m also

a guy from the Moscow suburbs and spent my whole life

living in military towns, ever since childhood,

uh, the phrase “go to Moscow” more often meant

first going to Zelenograd, because

we would go visit relatives in the big

city of Zelenograd. Thank you very much. It’s important to me

that you came to this meeting. And

when our campaign team was planning the election

campaign, there were a lot of doubts. Here—

right here. Yura, please. There’s

my cousin. And the second one too. Hooray.

Great to see you, guys. So I’m

not—so I’m not lying, right. Ivan too. That

I really do have lots of relatives here. It’s very

important that you come to meetings like this,

because there were a lot of doubts, and a lot of

people told us, “My God, what are you

thinking? Some kind of meetings. I can see

more friends, relatives, and

acquaintances here too. Hi, guys. So what is this all about?

These meetings with voters—what kind of

complete nonsense is that? No one

is going to come to meetings, and there’s no need

to hold any meetings at all. And no one

runs election campaigns like that.”

“Better to put videos online, let’s

do more television instead.” But I and the people

on my campaign simply tried

to imagine an ideal

candidate for ourselves. What kind of candidate would I

want to see? I said to myself, “I’d like

my candidate to come to my

courtyard, stand in front of me, so I could look at him

and ask him questions—pleasant ones,

unpleasant ones, any kind. He would answer

those questions for me, and after that I would decide

whether I wanted to vote for him or not.” I

became that kind of candidate myself. I hold

a lot of these meetings. Three meetings every

weekday and five meetings every

weekend. It’s a wonderful part of the

campaign, although it is fairly

exhausting. But at least people

can see me, and they can ask me

questions. I’d start by

telling you a little about myself, and then

we could move on to questions and answers.

No objections to that

format? Excellent.

Great. Super. Thank you very much. My name is

Alexei Navalny. I’m 37 years old.

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

Maryino district. It’s in the southeast of

Moscow.

I have a completely standard,

typical Moscow family: a wife and two

children. My daughter is 11 and goes to

school. My son is 5 and goes to

kindergarten. My wife was born and raised in Moscow, in

Olympic Village. That’s in the southwest of

Moscow.

All my life I moved around, as I already

said, between military towns, because

I come from a military family. And my parents still

live in one of the military towns outside Moscow

to this day. Professionally, I am

a lawyer. I have two university degrees.

I graduated from the law faculty of

the Peoples’ Friendship University and the Financial

Academy under the Government of the Russian

Federation.

If you’ve followed my work over

the past couple of years, what do you

know about me? That I’m great?

Well, that I’m great? Sometimes they also say I

get asked, and people tell me, “You stole

the whole forest.”

Some people think I’m great, some people

think I’m not. We believe you.

But most often people tell me, “You’re this

scandalous minority shareholder, you’re

always demanding something from someone,

making accusations, calling people

crooks and thieves left and right, and you’re constantly

dissatisfied and saying that something was

stolen from you.”

And very often these meetings actually

begin with people telling me, “Well,

you keep shouting that something was stolen from you. But nothing

was actually stolen from you personally.” Well, we

just can’t believe that Gazprom,

this huge giant Gazprom, which we

haven’t really even seen and can barely imagine—

has anyone here ever actually seen Gazprom?

Well, we’ve seen the building. How could Gazprom have

stolen something from you?

Do you think Gazprom stole something

from you?

Well then, I’ve ended up in the right

place, because I have a rather,

perhaps primitive, but I think effective

calculation that proves

that Gazprom—in the broad sense, Gazprom,

Rosneft, and all the rest—have stolen personally

from me. What does our country live on?

What do we exist on? Oil and gas.

That’s right. We sell oil and gas abroad

and use that money to fill the budget.

And that’s how we somehow get by.

Over the past 15 years, during this

Putin era, Russia has sold oil and

gas abroad worth $3 trillion.

Is that a lot or a little?

A lot.

A lot. Has anyone ever seen a stack of

$3 trillion?

No. It’s hard to tell whether that’s a lot or

small. We can simply take it and

calculate the average temperature across

the whole hospital, so to speak. Just

divide it up and we’ll find that each of us,

you, me, even infants,

gets this much from the oil rent:

640,000 rubles. For each person. That is our

share of the oil and gas sold to the West.

So for my family of four,

I calculated 2.5 million rubles. And I go to

Rosneft, Gazprom, VTB, and all the rest of them

with these simple, naive

questions. I ask: "Guys,

explain to me where you put my 2.5 million

rubles." Where exactly did they go?

You pumped the oil, sold it, and you didn’t

hand me the money. Fine, I get that. But

at least explain what you invested it in.

Because

I remember the Soviet Union. You remember,

and maybe some of you remember even

better than I do, that in the Brezhnev era

a huge amount of

petrodollars flowed in here. Right? Those petrodollars

were spent. We may agree or disagree with

how they were spent, but we

do know how they were spent. Just

look around and you will see a city

that was, in effect, built on

Brezhnev’s petrodollars. Right? Science,

industry — all of that was Brezhnev’s

petrodollars. Giant factories and

plants across the country. Brezhnev’s

petrodollars. Railways, roads,

space, healthcare, education —

all of that was those Brezhnev petrodollars. We

spent them, built an army. Remember,

there were the countries of the socialist bloc

(the Soviet-aligned states) — they were supported too. All of that came from those

funds.

But these Putin-era petrodollars are even

greater in volume than Brezhnev’s were.

There are probably, what, 250

or 300 people here. Can anyone

name even one major industrial

enterprise that has been built in

Russia over the past 15 years?

Sochi.

The Ozero dacha cooperative. What an

interesting idea you have of industrial

enterprises. Come on, can’t anyone

name even one?

Lkova,

Yes. They say that in Zelenograd your

zone was built, billions were buried there. Well,

that is, they sort of started building, spent the money,

but never actually built it. At every

rally I ask this question.

And every time people tell me: "The dacha

cooperative Ozero," they bring up

Skolkovo, they mention Rusnano." But

those are not industrial enterprises. And

the correct answer is that

in Russia over the past 15 years there has not been

a single major

industrial enterprise built — not even

one oil refinery,

we haven’t built a single one, just a pipeline and that’s it. Just

a straight pipe. And I go to all

these people and say: "Guys, where is my

education? Where is my healthcare?

Where is my space program? What have you

built for me with my money? Because, you

know, I have no other country and no

other life. And the money that

belongs to me and my children, I would like

it to work for my future and

the future of my children. And when I go, for example,

to Rosneft with questions like these,

the largest state-owned oil

company, there is this woman sitting there,

she is the vice president for legal

matters. How much do you think

she earns? A state-owned company.

1,300.

1,300

million.

Well, how much? More than that. How much?

A million.

A million.

10 million

$200,000. The correct answer is:

her salary is 880 million rubles a year.

You can look it up

simply in the income declaration. And

you see, she sits there, looks at me

and says: "Listen, what makes you think

that you and people like you are entitled to

anything at all? What makes you think that all of you

can demand something from us? We

are a state company here,

state power. We understand

state policy, and then you come along

asking us idiotic questions. You

have no such right. We owe you

nothing," Rosneft tells me.

And at that moment, coming back to

the question of why I believe that

I personally have been robbed, I literally

physically feel the hand of these

crooks slipping into my pocket and

pulling out my 640,000 rubles. And taking it from my whole

family too. And I have the feeling

that you feel it too, how they

take away your share of the oil money,

because it seems to me that you, just like

me, do not understand where it

was spent. And this problem is a very

big personal problem for me, because

I would like that oil rent that

our country has, and that we have been fortunate enough to have,

to be used to improve

my life and the life around me. This is a problem

that I know how to solve. After all, I have

submitted many proposals on how

to reduce corruption in state-owned companies, what

to do with them. We wrote draft

laws, bills, instructions, regulations, but

they are of no interest to anyone, because these

people only want to collect salaries of 880

million rubles and answer to no one. And

right here, right now, I am sitting, standing before you

as a candidate for mayor of Moscow

and I am counting on your support. And

I really need your support, because

I want to solve some problems

that have been tormenting me, that I have been

suffering from for all 17 years. And, probably, it seems to me

that my hypothesis is this:

you have these problems too.

Tell me, please, do you have a problem with housing and utilities services

?

Is housing and utilities a problem for you?

Do we pay too much or too little?

For my apartment in a prefabricated apartment block in

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

look at it, and I do not understand who

calculated this rate. Because as an

shareholder in a company that is constantly

suing Mosenergo and Mosvodokanal,

I know for a fact that they stuffed into the rate

all sorts of things that neither I nor you

should be paying for. When Mosenergo

pays a 300 million ruble donation to United Russia,

they include it in the rate. And we

when we pay for heating and electricity,

are paying for sponsorship of United

Russia. All these nonexistent

investment components are shoved into the

rate. So much, as if all of

the Moscow region were covered with new

power plants. New pipes everywhere. What

is happening to me here?

I see people have somehow lost interest

in me and are looking somewhere upward.

Anyway, I look at my bill and

remember that, for example, the company

Mosvodokanal,

made a profit of 3 billion rubles two years ago

— net profit. After that they

raised our rates again. This is our

company, existing for us,

they made 3 billion off us, sent it somewhere,

then went to the Moscow city government

and said: "Let's raise their rates again."

The Moscow city government says: "Let's

raise the rates."

This is absurd. And I want to become the mayor

who will finally conduct an audit of housing and utilities rates

and who will finally throw out

of those rates everything that should not

be there,

who will finally simply sort out

what is in them. We already pay

far too much. Who can tell me how much

we pay for housing stock maintenance in

Moscow?

25 rubles per square meter. Talk politics.

Housing and utilities — that is my politics. People tell me

to talk politics. This is politics

for me. Listen, when I pay

25 rubles, and all of you pay 25 rubles for

housing stock maintenance, and then I am told:

"Not enough." Excuse me, but politics

is the fact that in Astrakhan

they pay 12, in Yaroslavl 15, in Kazan 18,

while we pay 25. And we are told: "More,

more, more, more." I want to become the mayor

who will make sure that we pay

only what we are supposed to pay, because I myself do not

want to pay that much.

I came here, and you say politics,

right? But I came here because I go to the

clinic.

Wait, there will be a chance to answer

all the questions. This is an important question, and I

will definitely answer it. But right now we

are talking about politics, we will discuss everything,

and then I will go home and go

to the clinic.

I go to the clinic and see that my

clinic is very different from the

clinic they show me

on television. On television they

tell me that clinics have

electronic registration. You book an appointment

and see a doctor the same day. I

see people laughing who have apparently

tried to do that. Do you have lines

at the clinic

two weeks long?

I do not believe it, because on television

they say otherwise. Apparently, you and I

have the same kind of clinic,

while they, those people on television,

have a different clinic. But I do know that

for every Muscovite, spending on healthcare

is four times higher

than for any other resident of Russia. Four times more

money. For outpatient care alone

for each

Muscovite, 20,000 rubles a year are allocated.

For my family of four, that is

80,000 rubles. Now, just out of curiosity, for my trips to the

clinic, please raise your hands,

those of you who have gone to your

local clinic in the past year.

Looks like everyone in Zelenograd is sick.

All right, now please raise

your hands if you have not gone in the past year.

So, after all, there are many more healthy people.

Nevertheless, 20,000 rubles were taken

from each person. From each one. I want to become

the mayor who, with those enormous sums of money

that are being allocated, will finally hire

general practitioners, internists, the kind of doctors

who are needed in most

cases. When I see

huge sums in the Moscow budget, and at the same time

I am told that in Zelenograd

once again there is no money for the construction

of a children's hospital — you know it yourselves, they

keep postponing it, postponing it,

and now they say it will be built in 2025.

Yes, it is laughable to hear that.

Because for the modernization program

of Moscow healthcare

spent 100 billion rubles. And we at the Foundation

for Fighting Corruption (ACF) worked on this

program. And we can see that these 100 billion

rubles were spent in such a way as to

simply purchase all these scanners and

ultrasound machines at twice the price.

And now they are just sitting there covered with cloth,

because there is no one to operate these

ultrasound machines. Tell me, is it easy for you

to get an ultrasound exam in

Zelenograd?

Yes,

not at all.

They shut it down.

They shut it down.

No, but here’s something interesting. And

you probably have one of those

little campaign tents near the station for Sergei

Sobyanin, the candidate for mayor of Moscow. Go up to

it, and you’ll be surprised to

read under “Achievements”: “Bought

1,200 ultrasound machines for Muscovites.” So,

you see, that’s the kind of thing it is:

some generous man supposedly bought you, out of his own pocket,

1,200 ultrasound machines, but neither you

nor I can actually get an ultrasound exam. I

want to become the kind of mayor who will

invest in people, in doctors,

rather than just buying hardware. We can

buy the most expensive scanners, and that’s exactly what we

did. Russia, in terms of the number of scanners

per capita, surpasses all

European countries. Is it easy

for you to get an MRI?

No,

it’s impossible to get an MRI.

Simply impossible.

There’s no one to operate them.

There’s no one to operate them. That’s why I’m saying,

let’s stop buying scanners

at twice the price for billions. Better to

send these doctors abroad

for training there, so that in five years they can at least

treat our children properly. Our

medicine is still stuck at the level

of the 1950s. We need to invest in

human capital. What we need are doctors,

good doctors, not machines,

because without doctors, an ultrasound machine by itself

doesn’t heal anyone. I know this is

happening because they simply want

to make money off this program. They

set up a modernization program for

Moscow healthcare. 100 billion

rubles. They pocket 50 billion. I want to become

the mayor who changes that, because

I need an ultrasound, I need an MRI, and you do too,

presumably, right? I came here because

I don’t know what it’s like here in

Zelenograd, but I’m very concerned about

the issue of migration. Does it concern you?

No.

Wow.

What do you think? You do know that 50%

of crimes in your

district are committed by migrants. Not even in Zelenograd as a whole,

according to official statistics, 50. Maybe

maybe in reality it’s 80. But

official statistics say 50. In

your district, not even in Zelenograd overall, but

just in your district, has crime gone down

or gone up?

It’s gone down. Gone down. I prepared for this speech

in your district. Let me report to you,

dear residents.

residential burglaries are up 37%,

fraud 29%, drug-related crimes 22%, and

robberies are up 86%. And you understand, behind

these figures, it’s not just

statistics — it’s someone’s cracked

skull.

And what about ethnic Russians?

Two years ago, I didn’t know a single

person who had had their purse snatched.

Now I personally know three women living

in my building whose purses these migrants

snatched. And I know that migrants

come here in these numbers, hundreds of thousands

of people, not because there are

jobs here, but because money can be made

easily from them. Now, so that no one

can accuse me of

manipulating the numbers or bringing in

planted people, tell me,

please, yourselves, what is the salary of

your janitor?

11

11,000 3

35

35

that’s what they actually take home.

There. You see, this is an interesting

thing. It’s a secret the whole of

Moscow knows. Every time, every time I

ask this question, people first tell me

8, 10, 5, and then someone says to me:

“On paper or in reality?” Yes, 35.

Because when you say 30

or 35, you’re right. After all, the minimum

officially established pay rate

for a Moscow janitor tells us that there

cannot be a janitor who

earns less than 31,000 rubles. But all

the janitors we know, real ones, yes,

not the janitors from television, but real

janitors, they all get 8, 10–15,000.

They are dragged here, housed in basements, 20

people to a room, in buildings slated for demolition,

because they are willing to kick back

10–15,000 rubles from their wages. And this is a river

of cash that feeds district administrations,

housing maintenance offices, prefectures, and so on, and so

on. Hundreds of millions of rubles a month.

But you and I see the other side

of that river. I want to become mayor because

for me, the other side of this

river of money is crime, it is

social tension. These are classrooms in

Moscow schools that have begun

to appear, where the number of children

who do not speak Russian exceeds the

number of children who do speak Russian.

These children are not to blame for anything. In their

families, Uzbek or

Tajik is spoken. They have never even seen Uzbekistan or

Tajikistan. They

were born here. But that is exactly how they speak.

And I want to become mayor because I

want to solve this problem now, not

wait 10 years until my children

are faced with a situation in which Moscow has

hundreds of thousands of people who were

born and raised here, do not know the language,

do not understand anything, cannot find

work. They do not want to work as janitors

either. They are ordinary Muscovites, exactly

the same as us. But at the same time they have

no prospects and no future.

And in order to survive, they will

commit crimes. I do not want to

wait for that. I want to solve this problem

now. And I know how to solve it.

I can answer that question right

that question, how

away. All right.

First, please tell me: who has been

to any European country? Any one at all.

Raise your hand.

Good. Now another question. Raise your hand,

those of you who got into any European

country without a visa.

Uh-huh. And how did you get there?

Across the border illegally?

No. No. With a visa, of course,

with a visa. No, sometimes at rallies I

ask this, someone raises

their hand, and I say, "How did you get in?" And he

says, "I drove in there on a tank while serving in the army

(a joke about military service)." Well, that is possible. But most often

we are forced to acknowledge that, as far as

you, me, and everyone gathered here are

concerned, there is a visa regime with every

European country. If we want to go to the United States,

we have to give fingerprints

twice at the embassy, and then again at the

border. So please explain to me,

if a visa regime applies to us,

why can any citizen

of Uzbekistan or Tajikistan, even without

an international passport, come here with

a one-way ticket and stay for any

length of time? Is that right?

It is not right. So the first measure

that needs to be taken is to demand

the introduction of a visa regime with the countries of

Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Second, we need to

disqualify all contractors

who hire undocumented workers. Not

fine them, but bar them from government contracts

forever. Third, what we will do within

a year, and for which we already have a

draft law,

is make sure that companies working

with municipal money cannot

hire foreigners. There are

shopping malls. That is private business. It is

none of our business whom they hire.

They can hire whomever they want. But if it is a

company working with city funds, with

our money, they should not be creating

problems for us using our own money. They

have enough money to hire

Russian citizens, and even Muscovites. There are a great

many myths going around about this. You have heard

this one, right? If all the Uzbeks leave Moscow,

the city will be buried in filth. You have heard that?

Is that true?

Of course not. We have not been living in Moscow

for just one day. We know that before 2003

there were no migrants in Moscow. In

most Russian cities there are no

migrants. In no city with

a population under 500,000 are there any

migrants. There are no migrants in Belarus. In

2008, when there was a crisis, migrants were leaving Russia

by the millions. There was no

work here, and we did not even

notice it. So there is no need to listen to these

myths. We need to introduce three simple things. I will

do them when I become mayor. And within 2

years I will reduce the number of migrants by

70%. I will do it. That is why I am

standing here. I am standing here because I know

the size of Moscow’s budget. Remind me,

who knows Moscow’s budget? What is it?

Half a trillion—1.6, 1.63 trillion to be exact. And then,

for example, next year, in

2015, it will already be 2 trillion rubles.

In terms of budget size, Moscow is second only

to New York and Shanghai.

Do you like that?

Third in the world. We live, paradoxical as it may seem,

in one of the

richest cities in the world. The richest

cities in Europe and the United States cannot even

compare with us in terms of

budget size. And here is a trick question

for the audience: if we are third in the world by

budget size, where do you think we rank

among the world’s largest cities in terms of

quality

of life?

Last.

Second to last. And why do you not

think it should be third?

Well, if it is third by budget, then here

it ought to be third too. See?

You said 156, apparently as a joke, right? But

the correct answer is 154.

We are in 154th place in terms of quality

of life, while by budget we are

in third place.

I know for certain that with the money

Moscow already has, we can have

a good quality of life. We can have

excellent education, high-quality

healthcare, roads where we

successfully fight traffic jams, a small

number of migrants. In order to

do this, we have everything: a city,

infrastructure, a very well-educated

population. In Zelenograd, it is

super-educated, excessively

educated, but even in the rest of

Moscow it is quite educated. We

are missing only one most important thing, you and I.

We have no faith in ourselves. We believe that

the life we are living, it

is natural. It cannot be changed.

Well, there are certain facts that make us

outraged.

Here we are in first place in oil

and gas sales, but in terms of quality of life, standard of

living, we are sixty-ninth. Budget

third place, quality of life 154th.

Take any major construction project in Moscow.

The North-Western Chord, a single

large construction site. 70 billion

rubles. And all the builders, transport specialists,

experts say: "It costs twice

what it should cost".

Newspapers write about it, it is openly

discussed. No one is ashamed of it. We

know that in the construction of just one

North-Western Chord, you and I will have

stolen from us

30 billion rubles.

That is enough to

build clinics and schools all across

Moscow. Right now, if you need to take a child to a

children's hospital, where do you take them? To

Mitino, 30 km away. Right? You could build 20

such hospitals with just the money

that will be stolen from a single

project. But we shrug our shoulders

and say: "Yes, they'll steal it, it's outrageous,

but there's nothing that can be done. Nothing

can be changed. They'll lie to us on

television, brainwash us, rig the elections,

rob us, and yet

nothing can be done." Something like that. That's just,

well, how life works. After every meeting

someone comes up to me and says: "You

said everything absolutely right, well done,

I support you, here, let me even shake your

hand." But tell me,

please, honestly, right now

without microphones, without cameras, you

understand that nothing

can really be changed.

I came here to you with the most important

idea, the one thing that I

truly and honestly believe: everything

can be changed. I truly and honestly

believe that the system we live in,

is not natural; it is perverted,

it is unnatural. But why should we

have to live like this? Are we really the most

foolish people in the world? The most hopeless, the most

somehow cursed in the world? Is there some kind of vortex, the most

patient one—though no, we don't seem especially

patient. Some terrible vortex hangs over Moscow

that suppresses us. Are we really being

forced by someone? Where are

the troops, OMON (Russian riot police), or tanks here that

are making us hand over to some crooks

30 billion rubles on the North-Western Chord instead

of building you in Zelenograd a

children's hospital? Who is imposing this?

Here, among all the law enforcement forces, I see

three police officers, and judging by their look they

seem quite in agreement with what I

am saying. No one is forcing us to do anything.

This crooked government stays in power

for one reason—not because of violence, not because of repression, and

not even because of television. It survives because

we shrug our shoulders and say

that nothing can be changed. I go to

meetings like this,

maybe some people treat them ironically,

but I know that everything

can be changed. I know that, relying on

you, I can change everything. How many people does it take

to elect the mayor

of Moscow? 1.5 million people. For me

to win triumphantly in the first round,

I need 1.5 million people

to vote for me. In a city where 15 million

people live, there are absolutely

1.5 million people in Moscow who know everything,

understand everything, read my platform,

know that I exist, despite the fact

that over the past five years on television

I was shown only in reports about

how I stole the entire forest. They know

everything, they understand everything. They understand that

the problems Moscow faces,

those problems have been solved in other

major cities, and we can solve them too.

We only need to realize our own

strength and power. We must

realize that this is the true source of power.

As it is written in the Constitution: the people

are the source of power. There is nothing more

powerful than us. Because right here

with me, in front of me, there are not 400

people. In fact, if I am

convincing enough and can persuade some of

you, then standing before me here are

50,000,

because each of you has friends,

acquaintances, relatives, neighbors on your

landing. And studies even

show that each person's power of persuasion

is enormous. If you speak

to ten people, you will definitely

persuade six of them. People

can be persuaded. We can do

anything. We can make sure that any

person is thrown out of Tverskaya 13 (Moscow City Hall),

send someone to Tverskaya 13 and throw them out again

if we do not like them. We only

need to realize how many of us there are

in fact, that we can do anything. And

I am convinced that through you I will be able to

speak to thousands, to hundreds of thousands, and

even to millions, that we can come

to the polls and, sooner or later, show that

we exist and that we are the power here, elect the

mayor we want, who will

serve our interests, not the interests

of the Ozero dacha cooperative (a group tied to Putin's inner circle). And that from September 8

we will win, whether in the second or in the

first round, but we will win for sure and

finally begin building a city for

ourselves, for our children. Thank you

very much. I'm ready to take questions.

[applause]

What is the siz

I'll repeat it for everyone afterward, yes.

How large is the team that

stands behind you?

How large is the team that

stands behind you?

How many people run the city of Moscow?

Tens of thousands. Tens of thousands of people,

because there are district administrations, prefectures,

municipal and state enterprises, housing maintenance offices, and everything else. Do I need

to replace them, to recruit 10,000 new

people?

That is impossible to do. And there is no

need for it, because the truth

is that 85% of these

people are not corrupt,

because they don't even have any position

where they could steal. They would like to sit

in a more comfortable post, but they are ordinary

people earning a decent salary,

who only want to have

a normal, stable life. Therefore

my task is not to bring in

a team of 10,000 people—that is impossible

to do—but to impose

the right principles of public service. I need

to bring with me the key 20 people. I have

them, and we will publish their names in the

second round.

And these people will enforce the right principles.

When I talk about principles at meetings like this,

someone in the crowd often

says: "What nonsense, principles,

we don't even understand what that means."

Give us names." Let me explain with a simple example

how important principles are.

I'm speaking with a pers,

what is the main corruption case in Russia

right now,

apart from Navalny's case?

Serdyukov,

Right? They talk about Serdyukov on television and

so on. Remind me, please, because

I've forgotten. Was Serdyukov jailed? No.

He was charged.

The last charge was recently dropped. More than that,

Serdyukov still has a Mercedes from the

Ministry of Defense and a flashing beacon on its

roof issued by the Ministry of

Defense.

His girlfriend Vasilyeva is serving time.

Well, she is under house arrest

in a thirteen-room apartment.

You're right about the boutiques. She has

3 hours a day for walks. And regularly

during those walks she is photographed

buying various pieces of jewelry

with honestly looted money.

As a lawyer, I can add that her

house arrest is a formal

restriction on liberty that will be credited to her

at a rate of one for two, a day counting as two. And when she

gets, for example, a 2-year prison sentence, she will

be released immediately, because she has already

served her time, already suffered. This

information is not new to you. The whole

country knows about it. And if you conduct

a poll, then 99% of the country's residents

are simply enraged by what is happening. Just

absolutely enraged. It would seem that

Putin should jail

Serdyukov immediately, and his approval rating would

rise at once. But that will never

happen, because this is precisely a principle,

the most important personnel principle, which

shows both us and officials how

everything works: that even if you are

a useless, incompetent former

furniture store manager who

wrecked everything and stole everything, nothing

will happen to you as long as you keep quiet

and pay your cut. And nothing happens to Serdyukov.

And this principle works; it is

the practice. Have you heard of the case of Ilya

Farber?

Keep it short: question, answer. Two minutes.

One second.

Well, excuse me if I'm taking more than 2

minutes to answer. This is an important point about

the team. The case of Ilya Farber. A teacher

was sentenced to 7 years and 1 month in a maximum-security penal colony for

embezzling 130,000 rubles (about $4,000 at the time). A dubious

embezzlement charge. And 2 months ago there was a trial

of the former deputy prefect of the Eastern District,

Reykhanov.

Proven and admitted embezzlement of 360 million

rubles (about $11 million at the time). What did he get? A 4-year suspended sentence, and

no fine at all. Those are the principles that

have been established and are being demonstrated.

And my task is to make sure that I, and you, and every

official of mine who works under

me, knows for certain that if he is

suspected, he will be fired; if he is

caught, he will be jailed. I will do this. This was

done in Singapore, it was done in South

Korea, it was done in Hong Kong, despite the fact

that these were very

corrupt countries. And I will do it.

But sooner or later, there must appear in

Russia a person who will not steal himself

and will forbid others from stealing. I want to be

that person. I will become him.

All right, let me answer your questions,

so that you don't embarrass us.

I won't hear the answer. The size of your

team.

We need to rotate the first 20. Yes, please.

What is your question?

Your attitude toward Yeltsin, toward his policies. Toward

Yeltsin.

Your attitude toward Yeltsin, toward his policies.

Listen, I came here. Who here cares about

my attitude toward Yeltsin?

Who here cares about my attitude toward Julius

Caesar?

Who here cares about my attitude toward housing and коммунal services?

The main issue.

What concerns you is migration,

healthcare. I came here

to talk about the problems that concern me

and concern you. You can ask me about

Yeltsin, about a gay pride parade, I don't know, about

something else, about aliens. I can talk about that

for a long time, but I came here to talk

about the issues that concern you.

Please,

let me give you the microphone, just

briefly.

Suppose you were elected mayor. What would you

start with? What would you

do for Moscow

first?

Suppose you were elected mayor. What would you

do first of all? Well, we have

this spelled out very clearly in our

platform. Decision number one: we

repeal Sobyanin's order raising

housing and utility rates as of August 1, because it is

unjustified, it's nonsense. We will conduct

a tariff review first. Decision number two: we

allocate the 138 billion rubles already in the budget

to double

the Moscow pension supplement. How much is

the Moscow pension top-up now?

4,000-4,500, so that the standard would be

12,000. We know for certain that the Moscow

budget has the money to raise

the Moscow rate. And the minimum

standard would be 16,000. Life in Moscow

is expensive even for someone who

has a job. So we know that this

138 billion exists. We know where to put it, where to

take it from. That's the second point. And the third is,

of course, personnel decisions that need to

be made. Fourth, I can name

a review of all those contracts

and procurement deals. If, if I am mayor and

half the money is being stolen from every construction contract

under my watch, well, I am obliged to

deal with it. And those billions

that we save through basic and

urgent anti-corruption

measures, we will direct, among other things, toward

social support. Next question,

please.

Let's do one person, one question. There are

quite a lot of us after all. Then over here,

yes?

Yes, go ahead, talk all day.

Ah, yes, in fact, the news just came in

that I may be removed from the election, not even on

August 30, but literally this evening.

Well, listen, they're worried. They can see

that this Navalny has entered

the race. At first they laughed and said, "Come on,

some blogger from the internet will get 3%."

Then, for some reason, around this blogger

from the internet, 14,000 volunteers appeared. Then

the poll numbers started to rise. Then they

saw that people were, one way or another,

supporting me. Now it has become obvious to them

that a runoff is practically inevitable.

For them, naturally, a runoff is

a catastrophe. They are not defending power in general,

but very specific

financial interests. Just understand this:

if I become mayor, then Timchenko

loses metro contracts—that's billions

of dollars. All these Rotenbergs and the endless

other friends of Putin, they lose

specific contracts, specific billions,

literally, that they would otherwise receive tomorrow.

That's why they are resisting. That's why they

spend all day making up

some stories about me—about how my wife is in a

mental hospital, that I have

property in Barcelona, that I have

property in Montenegro, and so

on. But even that isn't working. They

are afraid of a runoff, so now they are

seriously considering

removing me from the election altogether. But if

they remove me from the election, then I will

appeal to you directly and ask you

to come to the Moscow City Election Commission so that

I can be reinstated on the ballot. That's our right.

Whether you like me or you don't like me—do you

believe that I have the right to take

part in the election? Well,

in any case, I will do everything I can to

stay in this election and win it.

Please.

I believe that you have the right to take

part in the election, but anyway I have one

question—one person, one question. Are you

against Putin's police?

The question for me is: are you against Putin's

policies?

Well, listen, I don't know, maybe I

haven't been expressing myself clearly enough

or strongly enough. It seemed to me

that if there is, say, a line of

people—140 million of them—

then among those who like

Putin's policies, I would probably be

closer to the very end of those 140 million,

because as for getting along,

because the question is how I will

get along with it, because Putin's policies

are policies built on corruption.

They are policies built on enrichment

specific people—simply those in his inner circle.

His circle. It is literally 50 families who

have taken all the nation’s wealth. How

am I supposed to coexist with him? Excellent question.

Really, say you become mayor, and

there is Putin, and your relationship with

him is not exactly great, right? What should you do? Maybe

send street-cleaning trucks out into the streets and

drive them toward the Kremlin, or gather an army

of janitors and march them on the Kremlin? No, I

will do something very simple. I will

follow the rules. If the rules say

I am not supposed to hand all the metro contracts to

Timchenko, then I will have

fair tenders, and everything will work

normally. If someone calls me and

says, "Alexei, please, we

want our friends to build the roads in Moscow—

the Rotenbergs." I will say:

"Sorry, I do not even have the authority

to do that." I changed the system of government so that not a single

contract worth more than 1 billion rubles

is awarded at all without

an international review. I simply cannot

do it. And most importantly, we did not

put this on the poster for nothing—you can

see it here: "Change Russia, start with Moscow."

The country is structured in such a way that all

political change in the country

will happen—or will not happen—depending on whether

Muscovites want it or do not want it.

That is how it will happen. And I am absolutely

certain that if, in Russia’s main city,

where 15% of the population lives, there is

a mayor elected not by election commissions and not by

television, but by the people—a mayor

who relies on the people, serves

the people, and is supported by

the people—then nothing can be done to that mayor,

and Russia will change seriously

the very next day. Next

question, please.

today you were also asked by a Communist

Party

whether you are afraid that your support will once again somehow

be split—the question about the Communists

who are also running, and Yabloko is running too. Am I afraid

that the votes will be split? Well, look, in

the first round, I am not afraid, because right now

what I need in the first round is for

the Communists to get more votes.

Paradoxical as it may sound, I do not want them sitting at

their current 2–3% rating. That does not make me

happy. The fact that I have, you know, 21%

or 24% in various polls, while they have

three—this gives me no

sense of happiness, because I would prefer

them to have 7–8%, because that

brings the second round closer. And in the second round,

I know for certain that all those votes

will come to me, whether they endorse me

or not—those votes

will come to me. So I would prefer

for the Communists, Yabloko, and all

the others not to withdraw in my favor,

but instead to campaign more actively.

Their election campaign. Exactly the same way

I am speaking to you now, they should be out there speaking too.

The more they get, the closer the second

round. In the second round, everything is structured

differently. There it becomes a contest

of negative ratings. I know for certain that everyone

who supports me will show up in the second round.

But as for those who support Sobyanin,

it is unclear why they would. Please.

What is your specific attitude toward Russian

nationalism.

My specific attitude toward Russian

nationalism.

My specific attitude

depends on what problems I, what problems I encounter

in life.

Frankly, you see,

ideological clichés, ideological

labels—they concern me much less.

Many call me a nationalist,

others call me a liberal, and both

sides are very dissatisfied. The truth

is that I am probably

the only politician in Russia—or at least one

of the few—who can

find common ground with both

sides. Simply because I do not

stick labels on people, and I do not try to place myself

somewhere on an ideological spectrum. I

talk about problems. When I talk about

migration, everyone knows that I have the toughest

position on migration. But not because

I am a nationalist or not a

nationalist. It is simply a problem

that I want to solve in that way.

When I talk about housing and utilities, my positions

closely align with those of the liberal Mitrokhin.

When I talk about reducing corruption and

so on, some of my positions are close to

those of the Communists. I am simply trying

to be a person who

wants to solve problems. And it seems to me that this is what you

expect from me. You do not want

me to define myself right now on this

stage—whether I am a conservative,

a socialist, more left-wing, more right-wing. No, you

want me to come and build a hospital for you

here. So my task is not

to define myself right now, but to come in,

save money by cutting corruption, and build you

a children’s hospital here, among other things.

Next question, please. Alexei,

please tell us how you plan

to support small businesses,

entrepreneurs, young people who

are starting

how small businesses should be supported.

In my view, small businesses

need support of the following kind:

first and foremost, that no one interferes with them. These

endless regulations,

fire inspectors who show up with

sanitary and epidemiological inspections, licenses, and so on,

that is the thing that worries people the most.

And the second thing, without which

small businesses simply cannot develop

in Moscow, is extremely high rent.

It is impossible to find premises for yourself, simply

impossible. At the same time, in Zelenograd

this is especially obvious: you have

a huge number of former facilities that

are not being used for anything now. And what has happened to

them? They have been leased out. The directors and

owners are the state or

the city, and they lease them to their

relatives for, say, I don't know, 100

rubles per square meter, and then sublease them

for $300 per square meter.

I have a very simple

solution here. I will make sure that within

a month after I become mayor, all

this data will be completely open. You

will simply be able to see who is paying how much,

which company it is, who the beneficiary of that company is,

and which owner is renting the premises. If we

see that some huge property has been leased

to some Cypriot offshore company and everything

is being subleased, then that is simply grounds

for you and me to demand, and for me

to cancel and terminate that lease agreement

and rent it out at a normal price. I will

do that, and I will most definitely significantly

lower rental rates for Moscow-owned

property. That, it seems to me, is the most important

support for small business

that people expect from me: so that people

who want to run a small business

can find premises, settle in, and

start working. Please,

Alexei.

Your opponents very often use

the Yale University card. Could you

explain why, after all,

you studied there? Why does Fyodor consider you

an American plant?

A question about Yale University. Your

opponents constantly bring up

Yale University and criticize you for

Yale University. But probably here in

Zelenograd it is easiest for me to answer

this question, because I am in

a city where education has always been valued.

A question for everyone: do you value education?

Yes,

I value education too. I spent a huge amount

of time getting into Yale

University. I spent an extra year studying

English. It is hard to get in there.

I am very proud that I

got in. It is the best university in the world

for legal education. It is one of the best

universities in the world overall. So, after going through

a fairly difficult testing system,

which is actually available on the website—you

can look it up—I got in there and studied there.

Mainly, first and foremost, at the

law school. And I am very pleased

that I got in. By the way,

it was a revelation to me that 60%

of Yale University students are

Chinese. The Chinese understood long ago how

important education is. Every year, in the hundreds of thousands,

they take their students,

send them abroad, and pay for it themselves. They study

in America and then return. That is the right

approach. I want to become a mayor who values

education, who is not ashamed of the fact

that he had the chance, the good fortune,

to study at one of the best universities.

I want Muscovites to study at the best

universities, both in Russia and abroad, and

I want Moscow's universities to become

better. That is all. Education is our

everything. Next question, please.

Please tell me, our courts have basically become

a separate branch of the Investigative Committee.

What do you think we should

do about that? You have faced it yourself. The question is

that the courts have become a separate

subdivision of the Investigative Committee,

so to speak. Oh yes, I know that.

Many people do. Indeed, our courts

are basically just an office. We have

the Investigative Committee, the prosecutor's office,

and next door the courts. A few phone calls are made,

papers are stamped out, people are locked up,

and so on.

The mayor of Moscow cannot do anything about

the federal courts, unfortunately. Here, in fact,

we need to push for changes in the country

in order to change the system of

federal courts. And first and foremost,

the appointment procedure. Who becomes

judges first and foremost in our system now?

No. The main кадровый source

for judges is court clerks; in

second place are prosecutors; in third place

are police officers, and everyone else comes after them.

So naturally, these

young women who came straight from university to

work as court clerks in the evening program system,

having been trained for five years

to obey, then become exactly the same kind of

judge. At the federal level, we

must first of all change this

personnel recruitment system. But what can

the mayor of Moscow definitely do? He can

influence the system of justices of the peace. You

know that these are the courts

that ordinary people turn to in 90%

of cases. What kinds of cases are these? License suspension,

traffic accidents, divorce, division of property.

These are the issues ordinary people

deal with. And the justices of the peace are within

our jurisdiction. And our program

includes a provision to introduce elections for

justices of the peace. That is permitted by law.

Right now they are elected by the Moscow City Duma, which

is basically telling us, "You are all too stupid

to elect your own justice of the peace."

But that's nonsense. All over the world, they are

elected. In countries far less developed,

justices of the peace are elected. Are you really

not capable here of electing

a justice of the peace for yourselves? Of course you are. And for me,

it's important that you elect

a justice of the peace yourselves, so that he is not

subordinate to me, because for me and for

the members of my team, that would be one more

anti-corruption safeguard. If I know

that I can't call from city hall over here to

Zelenograd and tell the justice of the peace, "

Come on, make sure that I,

that everyone is afraid of me, that I beat everyone or

strip everyone of their rights or take away everyone's

land plots'—that won't be possible,

because you elect him in fair

elections." This is one of the most important things in

the political system. We will fix it.

Thank you so much for coming. For

me, it's very important that you came. I really

want to earn your support. Come

to the election on the eighth. Bring your families, your friends,

bring everyone—we will definitely win.

Hooray! Zelenograd!