Alexei Navalny’s speech at a rally in Moscow against the Yarovaya package
Text version
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Without further introduction. Alexei
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Navalny.
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>> Hi, everyone. Welcome to the first,
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in my experience, rally in a forest.
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The weather is not bad, but since we are in a
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forest, that probably means
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something not very good is happening overall in our
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country.
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>> Can you hear me okay?
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>> Yes. And can you see me,
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>> right?
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>> Well
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>> want me to climb up on the fence?
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>> I really hope I do not fall into it,
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>> but if that happens, it will be the first
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casualty of the Yarovaya law.
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>> First, I have a question for you. Who
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among you even knows Yarovaya? Who is familiar with
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her, has seen her in person? Anyone?
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>> Well, I see a couple of people. Has anyone
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spoken with her?
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>> I know her very well. For many years I was with her
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in the same party. It was called
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the Russian
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United Democratic Party Yabloko. I was
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in the same party as her, and I remember very well
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the congress at which she was elected
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deputy to Yavlinsky. Yarovaya would come up
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to the podium and say: "I hate
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Putin. I hate United Russia." And the hall
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and I would say: "Well done, well done, our united
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Irina Yarovaya." She would say: "United Russia
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invited me to join them, but I did not
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go." And I told her: "My God, what a
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blessing. Irina Yarovaya, we will elect you
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deputy chair of the party." And
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we did, because she was the kind of
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woman who was, well, at that
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congress,
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very strongly anti-Putin. She
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hated Putin, she hated United
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Russia.
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>> Now she hates us, but it turns out
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she loves only one thing. What is it?
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>> Money.
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>> Money.
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>> What happened to Yarovaya
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>> is an act of what? An act of political...
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>> Exactly. But what is remarkable about
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this act of political prostitution is that
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there is the woman, there are
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the clients, but for all of it
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for some reason, we are the ones who pay.
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>> Do we want to pay for this political
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prostitution?
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>> No.
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>> Are we going to pay for this political
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prostitution?
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>> No.
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>> And today, in the post where I invited people
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to this rally, I posted photos from
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similar rallies in Hungary. And there, people
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came out several times and forced
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the government to repeal such a law. There
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they had a great slogan: "We do not
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earn as much as you
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steal."
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>> The same can be said to Yarovaya and
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to everyone in United Russia: "We will never earn
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enough to satisfy your appetites.
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No amount of money will ever be enough
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for that.
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>> Anton Nosik spoke here about the figures,
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about the sums of money that this law
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will bring to certain people. It is 5 to 7 trillion
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rubles. So what do you think, will these people
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give up their money, these 5 to 7
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trillion rubles? No. Will this
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rally in the forest stop them?
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>> No. So far, everything we have done is not even
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enough to amuse Shuvalov's dogs, who fly
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on a private jet. They will not even give that up
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for now. But the thing is
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that
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life does not end tomorrow.
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And I want to, well, I do not know, upset you,
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to tell you,
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to say something important for many
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of those who, after every rally,
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after every setback, get discouraged,
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worry, or start writing: "Everyone
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is scattering, everyone is leaving, the country
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has no future," and so on. Well, my friends,
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you can write whatever you want, but you
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are not going anywhere.
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You will stay here anyway, and all of us
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will become gray-haired old people. And still we
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will remain here, in our country, because
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we do not have another one. And in fact, we
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do not want another country. So there is no
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point at which we have lost.
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We lose only when
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we stop our struggle.
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On my way here,
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I went on Wikipedia and read the article
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"Protest movement in Russia."
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Officially, the article is called
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the Wikipedia article "Protest movement of 2011-2013
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in Russia." Do you understand? That is it, the protest
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movement no longer exists. But you are here. I have not
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stopped my protest movement. So
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I have a question for you. Have you
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stopped your protest movement?
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>> No,
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>> we have not even started yet. There. That is the right
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answer. My protest movement is always with
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me. And this protest movement will not
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end until the country
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lives normally and justly, the way
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it is meant to live, the way we all deserve.
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>> In that same Wikipedia article, it says,
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it simply lists the rallies. So
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tell me, who knows how many rallies there were
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in total during the protest
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movement in Moscow and other major cities?
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How many?
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>> 100
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>> 1,000? No, 20 rallies. We held 20 rallies
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we've only held a few, and already everyone is acting like it's the end of the world.
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They write things like: "My God, we haven't
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achieved anything." But what do you think,
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will Rotenberg give up a trillion rubles
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because of twenty rallies?
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>> And will Kirill Shamalov, Putin's son-in-law, the
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youngest billionaire in Russia, give up
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his status as the youngest billionaire in
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Russia because of twenty rallies?
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I'm ready to hold 20; I'm ready to hold
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200. As I said at one of the
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rallies, I haven't changed my position. I
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am ready to go to them as if it were my job.
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And, my friends, this may not sound very
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encouraging, but the old cliché remains
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true: "Freedom never comes
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for free." So far, you and I can't exactly say
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that we've overworked ourselves.
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Yes, many of us—some of us—
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have paid for these rallies with our freedom,
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some have paid with their lives, but for the
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most part, the majority of us have simply come
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to rallies 20 times.
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It seems to me that this is not enough
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to win freedom in this country.
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It is not enough
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to defeat a real mafia. And I mean that
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not figuratively. I'm not using the word
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loosely here. Mafia. Our Prosecutor General's Office
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is tied to the Tsapok gang. Our
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Investigative Committee covers for Shakro
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Molodoy (a Russian crime boss). In our Central Bank, as we
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learned today, there are people from
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the Tambov gang. Our country's president
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has ties to the Taganskaya gang—let me correct myself.
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Sorry, I got that wrong. The Taganskaya
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gang. Putin is connected to
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Kumarin. These are genuine bandits in
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the literal sense of the word. Fighting
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them will be hard. Quite possibly, it
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will take a long time, but we have no other country and
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no other place to go.
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>> Therefore,
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>> we must return to the streets. One way or
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another, whether there are many of us or few.
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If there are many of us, it will go faster.
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If there are few of us, it will take much longer
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and be much scarier.
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But everything depends on us alone. I
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am ready to return to the streets. Tell me,
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are you ready? Yes.
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>> Well, that's all. And, honestly, I
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have spent most of my... People think that I
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mostly spoke in front of crowds of
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thousands. But for most
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of my political life—and
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the journalists who have known me for many
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years know this very well—I spoke
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at rallies where there were 17 people, 12
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people, 20 people; there were pickets with
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four people. First of all, in 2007, 2008,
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and 2009, the political climate for the
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opposition movement was
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far worse than it is now. I couldn't even
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dream of a rally this large. Everything
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depends on us. There is nothing that will return
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to our pockets the money they have stolen
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from us except ourselves. In closing, I want
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to say: we have a popular slogan:
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"Russia will be free." Today,
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let's say instead: "We will make
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Russia free." Thank you very much. We
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will win.
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I will not do it
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do it.