Meeting with Alexei Navalny in Yekaterinburg. Part 1
A recording of the first part of Alexei’s meeting with residents of Yekaterinburg in December 2011—a historic moment immediately after the rigged State Duma elections, when a protest movement was beginning to emerge across the country. In his characteristically open and ironic style, Alexei shares his impressions of the people of the Urals, jokes about the snobbery of the capital, and expresses admiration for the strong local lawyers and independent politicians ready to fight the system. This trip effectively laid the groundwork for the future unification of regional supporters, showing that the demand for honest politics was strong far beyond Moscow.
Text version
0:00
modest enough to inspire some kind of
0:02
support. All of you are interested in
0:04
seeing me. And this really is already
0:07
the ninth meeting, so in advance, I
0:09
can see that I already recognize many of you by sight, and
0:11
I want to apologize in advance, uh, to those who have already
0:15
been to these meetings, because at
0:16
all of them I say more or less the same thing. And
0:18
many people by the end of the last meeting
0:19
were already rolling their eyes, doing this
0:21
kind of thing, because I keep repeating
0:23
more or less the same thing. And
0:26
my name is Alexei Navalny. The first thing I already
0:29
understood here is that I shouldn’t
0:30
introduce myself. I’m Alexei Navalny from
0:32
Moscow, because if you say “from Moscow” in
0:34
this city, you risk getting a few
0:35
rotten tomatoes thrown your way, since Moscow is very much
0:38
disliked in your city. Uh,
0:42
for various reasons, apparently. And as for
0:46
what I feel based on the
0:49
results of my two-day trip to
0:52
Yekaterinburg—by the way, what’s the proper
0:54
way to say it: Yoburg or
0:56
Yekat? Because opinions seem divided.
0:58
Some people think Yoburg is
0:59
offensive. Others say Yekat is
1:01
offensive. Yogurt.
1:02
Yoburg is improper. Offensive.
1:06
I see. Got it.
1:08
So that’s what this is called—
1:11
Ural tricks. Yes, yes, yes. Right. Coming from
1:14
a Muscovite, everything sounds offensive. Now we’ll tell you ourselves
1:16
about corruption.
1:19
You start saying, “I’m about to tell you
1:20
how we opened a criminal case there
1:22
against someone.” “Hold on, we’ve got one against the
1:24
governor. We’ll tell you
1:25
ourselves.” I start
1:27
talking about embezzlement. I say, with
1:30
pride, boasting about it. “Where do you think you’re going?” Right.
1:33
And I’m boasting that we managed to cancel something worth 264 million rubles
1:37
there. “Hold on, we’ve already, without any
1:39
embezzlement at all, canceled 400 million’s worth,” and so
1:42
on. So, uh, I feel that there’s
1:46
not much for me to teach here. If anything, it’s more that
1:49
you can share your experience with me and
1:51
my colleagues than I can stand there looking wise
1:53
and tell you something. I don’t know,
1:56
it seems to me that this was first and
1:57
foremost a very unifying exchange
2:00
of experience. At the previous meeting with
2:02
journalists, I said that the most
2:05
vivid impression I had over all
2:07
these past 24 hours was the morning meeting with
2:10
lawyers, when a very diverse group of
2:12
lawyers came—people I had, one way or another,
2:15
crossed paths with over the past few years
2:17
through various tenders,
2:19
public procurement cases, and analysis of various
2:20
regulations. They came to this
2:22
meeting, so to speak, each on their
2:23
own. But during the meeting, it turned out
2:26
that somehow, from Alexei,
2:29
they got energized by his energy, talked about
2:31
what could be done. And somehow there was already
2:33
a sense that this was now truly
2:35
a team or a group
2:36
that could jointly solve
2:38
certain tasks, act according to a plan,
2:41
in an organized way, and achieve something. In other words,
2:43
some new quality had emerged.
2:44
Well, here I found, uh, quite a large
2:47
number of independent politicians
2:49
who are doing quite well—Volkov is one of them, right?—uh,
2:53
quite successfully,
2:56
despite all the talk that
2:57
everything has been crushed and that everywhere there is some kind of
2:59
terrible bloody regime—in the conditions of this
3:01
bloody regime, they are quite effectively
3:03
and достойно standing up to this government, and
3:05
working honestly and on principle. I
3:07
saw, uh, a large number of very
3:10
advanced lawyers who don’t need
3:12
the basics of
3:14
antitrust law or
3:16
legislation in general explained to them in baby steps,
3:17
and who are absolutely ready tomorrow
3:21
to work very effectively and deliver
3:23
very effective, painful blows to
3:25
the authorities. And a huge number of
3:27
journalists—independent ones,
3:29
very professional—who ask
3:32
professional questions, and you can see that
3:33
they really understand the specifics.
3:36
So, uh, Yekaterinburg really is
3:38
a very advanced city, and
3:40
I’m very pleased to be here.
3:42
And