Alexei Navalny’s speech at the opening of the campaign headquarters in Kaluga

Ah, Hilton. And this is an interesting thing that

kind of brings me back to a conversation

about the fact that there are

regions like this, in particular Kaluga

Region, or Tyumen Region, or others,

where it will be very difficult for me. On the one

hand, I don’t know who has seen my

biography, but you may know that I lived for several years

in Kaluga Region, in a military

town, in Borovsky District, and my

brother was born in Obninsk. So,

in a way, you could say I’m

a local there, right? I mean, I

feel that it’s one of the places closest to my heart.

On the other hand, this

person—he likes Putin, United

Russia—said this to me.

All this stuff of yours, everything you

talk about, all your speeches about

ducks, about demons, all that stuff,

about how bad things are in Russia—it all

won’t work when you come to Kaluga.

It just won’t work.

It won’t work because everyone there is

very rich. And you

aren’t being taken seriously. You’ll go there

with all your little routines

about corruption and the impoverished population, and

they’ll film you on iPhone 7s, and

they’ll laugh at you and post it on

social media so all the other people in Kaluga

can laugh at you too. And I’m very

interested, because it really is true that

Kaluga Region is one of the most

developed regions in Russia, and ranks third in

investment appeal. And

it is believed that here, in Kaluga

Region, Putin’s Russia has, so to speak,

reached the peak of its

economic power and provided

the most comfortable and prosperous

standard of living possible. So here is my question to you.

Are you satisfied with that?

Are you satisfied with this standard of living or

not? I mean, I don’t know, but here

do conversations about corruption interest

anyone?

Yes.

Do you have the feeling that you too have been

robbed in exactly the same way?

Well, thank God, because despite

the predictions of this United Russia member in Tyumen and

in all the other cities that

are considered rich, it turns out they are only

considered rich. Well, let me ask you about

each city. I’ll ask you right at the

very beginning. Alexei, may I

have a second—a question. We’ll get to questions.

What is the average salary in the city of Kalu...?

15,000

No, higher. Higher. What, about 20,000?

I’ve heard 15,000. I’ve heard 20,000.

Now, if I were standing here as a representative

of United Russia, then of course

I would tell you that all of you here are

plants, that foreign agents have come here

in order to slander our

motherland, because the average—not

the maximum, but the average salary in the city of

Kaluga—is 35,000 rubles.

35,000 rubles. That’s the average. So somehow

everything revolves around that figure. So then

please tell me: you say

less, less. Actually, Alexei,

I’m from Obninsk, right? Well,

actually I’m from Moscow, but I’ve left

Moscow now—I got tired of it. Briefly, please, yes,

yes. We have a whole lot of newly built

enterprises now, all these Samsungs,

as you enter Kaluga Region,

yes, and it starts—so Artamonov did well, he

brought in Western business. At all these

enterprises, the workers are brought in from elsewhere.

Local people don’t go there.

About salaries—let me, let me finish, and

then you can speak. I’m just

interested in figuring out this

salary issue. Let’s do it. Here’s a kind of

improvised vote. I do this in

every region. Just a second. So,

please raise your hands, those who

know people—relatives, friends,

acquaintances. Wait, you know what I’m

going to ask, right? Who earns less than

35,000?

100% of the room. Okay, we’ve cast a little doubt on

that statistic. Next

question: who among you knows people—

relatives, friends, acquaintances—who

earn less than

30,000 for a full workday?

And once again, I, as it were, the United Russia guy

standing before you, take another

virtual blow. Something strange is going on. Then

raise your hands if you know people

who earn less than...

for a full workday.

All right, hands down. Less than 20,000.

Put them down. Not in order to play along with

me in this cheerful game, but in order

to establish the real truth.

Please tell me, who knows people

who, for a full workday, earn

less than 15,000?

Well, there we have it, and we’ve established

whether Alexei Navalny’s campaign—and our

election campaign in general—is even needed.

Because, well,

if it turns out that a giant

oil-producing country that has pumped

trillions of dollars’ worth of oil and gas out of the ground

and in one federal subject, where everyone

boasts: here, here are the richest people,

here are the most successful, here is all the

promise and opportunity—and it turns out that there are

people, and a significant number of

people at that, who for a full workday

earn less than $400 a month.

a month. This means that people here

are genuinely living in destitution. According to

these same official statistics, we can see

that 10% of the population earns less than

the subsistence minimum, and that is 8,000 rubles.

What is 8,000 rubles? Can anyone live on

8,000 rubles?

That's official destitution, right? I mean,

it's literally destitution. If you're

living on 8,000 rubles, how much do you need

to pay for utilities and housing services?

5-ish

5, 6, 7. How much do we pay?

Fine, let's say four, let's say 3,000

for utilities, but everything else—

you can't live on what's left. And then

the question arises: "Well, if we

built all this, if we achieved

something and worked for it and think that

we accomplished something, and yet

the population is living in destitution, then who is all this for?"

And who are the beneficiaries of all this?"

And the answer is simple. On the one hand, it's

our wonderful Dimon (a mocking nickname for Dmitry Medvedev) with his duckies.

On the other hand, it's our splendid Jaba

Alisher Usmanov, looking down at us.

So we ask a question. Listen, you are

ordinary citizens of the Russian

Federation, right? Everyone has a passport?

Well, if we have passports, then we do have

passports, so can we ask, politely

and civilly: "Hello there, Dmitry

Anatolyevich, please tell us,

where did the vineyards in Tuscany come from?" And

all we've earned—well, me on your behalf,

all of us together—is answer number

one: pfft, to hell with you. Answer number two:

one more time.

To hell with you. One more time. So then why

all of this? And it turns out there are no real prospects.

I mean, I came here from

Ryazan Region, and before that I was in

Tambov Region—things are much

poorer there. There's simply even more destitution. And

if this is supposed to be wealth, and that is destitution, then

it turns out our whole journey

lies somewhere here between

destitution and poverty. And most importantly,

there are no prospects at all.

If over 17 years, with monstrously high

oil prices, this is what they built

and they call this wealth—salaries of

15,000 to 20,000 rubles—then this regime

will never give us anything decent.

When oil was at $120 a barrel, everyone

was still left with nothing, and now it's 50. That's

still a lot, but it's obvious that they

can't improve anything. And the only thing they can

do is what?

Steal. That's the only thing they can do.

The whole system is geared only toward

things like that. But you can see it yourselves—even our small

investigations, like those little spoons

for 14,000 rubles. You saw that, right?

How can this be possible? I came from Ryazan—

there's an oil refinery there.

That oil refinery there

is poisoning everyone. It has no treatment

facilities. That's right. And the official

reason they give everyone there is: we

can't build treatment facilities.

The reason, they say, is that they have no money. Rosneft

says this. If you don't have money, then don't

buy, guys, spoons for 14,000 rubles,

right? Don't buy Medvedev a yacht,

don't spend money on all that. And at the very least,

we absolutely want to ask

questions about this. And our

election campaign is about the fact that

you and I represent people who

want to ask these kinds of questions, who

believe they have the right to ask them.

But this would happen in any normal

country. A state oil

company belongs to whom?

Well, to us. And we, as it were,

as citizens of Russia, say: "Guys,

you probably don't need a blanket for 126,000 rubles,

and you don't need that fork either

for 11,000. And how does Leontyev respond

to that? Navalny is probably used to eating

with his hands. Well, damn, great. I mean,

okay.

At the same time, they canceled all of it and still

keep saying that I

am lying about something, making things up, and so on. They do not want

to be accountable for anything, ever. They truly

don't give a damn about us. All their

wealth, everything they have, they are literally pulling

straight out of our pockets.

But no accountability at all.

Nothing happened. Did you see

the video? It's very popular right now

on the internet over the last day and a half

about that boy who was reciting Hamle

in Moscow? Yes.

The police are dragging him away, grabbing him,

drawing up reports. And, my God, everyone

is busy dealing with boys. But there's another

boy, about the same height—

Dmitry Anatolyevich.

And no one is interested in that

boy at all. And by this point I don't even know what

to do. Honestly, I'll tell you that. I

showed it all, damn it—we filmed these palaces,

we filmed these vineyards, we produced

the documents. Here is a document that says

Alisher Usmanov, it says, gave a house worth

5 billion rubles. What other proof

do you need? And they say: "Well, there is no

evidence, and we don't see any signs

of a crime here. You have nothing, and we'll still

sue you, Navalny, and you'll end up owing us."

And this just keeps going on

constantly. On the 26th, did you have

a rally here?

Yes.

There were a lot of people. It was a fairly

unauthorized

The rally on the twelfth was unauthorized too.

There will be a rally on the twelfth.

We’ll gather more people.

We have to gather people, because otherwise, well...

there will never be any answer at all.

You see, they no longer even comment on not just petty

corruption, or some kind of

hidden corruption either, well,

all right, they caught Putin over that

cellist — the cellist had $2 billion

in his accounts, but there really wasn’t

a piece of paper saying that this money

belonged to Putin. So Putin played

the fool and said: "It’s not mine."

All right, but when, sorry, when I mean you get

caught — there you are posting on Instagram

photos from a yacht, and you still keep

insisting that the yacht isn’t yours. When you hang out in

that palace, it’s guarded by the FSB (Russia’s security service),

with personnel stationed there, and still

they just don’t care about any of it. That’s

simply impossible. And, guys, the most important thing

to understand is that in our country

absolutely everyone is on our side on these questions. It’s just that

everyone is. You probably have, I don’t know,

some VKontakte (Russian social network) public page where

the most pro-Putin people hang out?

You probably do — go find it. And there

you can create a poll and ask,

well, whether Medvedev should answer

these questions. And you’ll see — of course there

will be lots of comments: "Navalny is a

damn American agent, he stole all the

timber," and all the rest of it. But most

people, of course, will say that yes, Medvedev

should answer these questions. That’s why

in this situation, and in all the others,

you and I are expressing the interests

of the majority.

It’s just that this majority is kind of

beaten down; it’s afraid to say anything, but

it definitely supports us. And on

every point of our program, of course,

it supports us. Even any old granny gets furious about this.

Go up to her and she’ll say:

"I’m for Putin," and all that. But

if you ask her: "Well, do you like it when

officials can’t explain

where they got all their

money, apartments, and everything else from?" Then

right away — she’ll understand everything. She’ll

say they should be shot, with her

tiny pension and all.

She’ll say they should be shot,

especially if you ask her about her pension."

There’s just one biggest problem

we have. What is this problem called? Who

is our main enemy?

Television.

Corruption. Yes, I see the regulars don’t

believe it — said the people who watched

the streams from my previous meetings.

Well, that’s right, that’s exactly how it is.

Everyone is for us, everyone supports us. Look,

there they are sitting in the center, uh, filming everyone on

little cameras. Go up to them. Yes, and

they’re sitting there too. They feel exactly the same way

against all this. They’ll say: "We watched

Solovyov, we’re against all this in general. None of

this is something we like at all, but in the end

they’ll обязательно add: "But what is your

Navalny doing there, shouting, stomping his feet

on the stage? You can’t change anything anyway."

And then you’ll start talking with

these people. You’ll hear all those

famous phrases about how everyone steals,

any government steals. Have you heard that?

Have people said that to you?

And then what else will they definitely tell you?

They’ll say: "If you don’t like Russia, go to Europe."

If you don’t like Russia, go to Europe. They’ll say that,

right? We’ll sort that out now. They’ll definitely

say: "Well, these ones — fine, they’ve already

stolen their fill, but new ones will come and they’ll

steal too." Heard that one? Yes. And

that is the main problem: that

many people in Russia are trying to convince

themselves that we are supposed to live

poorly, that we are doomed to poverty, and that we

have to come up with an excuse for ourselves

for why we lived in this poverty ourselves,

why our children will live in poverty, and

why nothing will work out for us. Meanwhile,

just a few hundred kilometers away,

there are former Soviet republics,

say Estonia, my favorite exam-

ple,

1,100 euros average

salary. Average salary. Do you understand?

Here, ours is officially 35,000 rubles, but at the same time

there’s engineering here, we’re an oil-producing country,

and so on. So tell me, please,

who here can name any natural

resources in Estonia?

Sprats. Well, what else? Is there oil in

Estonia?

No.

Estonian diamonds are famous all over

the world. Mineral resources. There’s nothing there

at all. There’s just no corruption there either.

That’s why people live much more prosperously. We

have to explain to everyone, believe it ourselves, and

explain to everyone else that there can be

a normal life in Russia right now.

Absolutely nothing is preventing us from

living much, much

more prosperously. The fact that our hospitals are like this,

well, monstrous. Though, really, you’re all young

here. I probably won’t ask you

whether it’s easy to get an ultrasound here

or something.

Well, has anyone tried recently?

Can you just walk in like that,

and get a free ultrasound?

And can you get an MRI? Impossible. You can’t

do any of this. You can’t, understand? And we

spend trillions on healthcare.

Trillions. I look at these procurements and I see

that of those trillions, most of the money is simply

being siphoned off. You know, I

recently went

to Barcelona for eye surgery.

A public hospital. I paid there,

because I’m a foreigner. But there,

just the same, elderly men and women sit in line,

but that hospital looks

cleaner than this hotel. People there are simply

walking around you, rushing about, doing everything.

And the locals don’t pay for any of it.

Either the insurance company pays for you,

or the state, or a fund. And we could have that too,

but I look at Russia’s budget

and it’s enormous. It’s simply

gigantic. But the corruption problem is just as

gigantic. You know how public procurement works.

And again, our favorite character, Dmitry

Anatolyevich Medvedev, not me, says

that out of 5 trillion rubles in public procurement each year,

1 trillion rubles is stolen. With 1 trillion rubles,

well, you could build a new country or

even buy one somewhere. You see, in

procurement by state-owned companies, between 3

and 5 trillion are stolen every year.

That is an enormous amount of money, enough to provide

both education and

healthcare right now. These are the

things people need to understand: Russia can live

a normal life. And wages could

and should be much higher,

given our level of development, given

what remains of our industry, given,

of course, our natural resources, given the level of

education of the population. A country like

Russia, just by the numbers,

should be living three times more prosperously. People’s

salaries should be, well, no lower than in

Estonia. That’s why

we must—here we all are gathered as

volunteers. Did you sign up

as volunteers? Or maybe not, maybe

some random people just wandered in by accident,

but our task is simply to spend at least 5

minutes a day campaigning. And you

won’t believe how quickly we will enter

this political space. There’s

nobody here. Who is running any kind of

campaign at all? Have you

noticed any campaigning in the last

years, in the last months? Can you?

No,

Yes, I was told as I was driving here that

NOD (National Liberation Movement) was standing with pickets on Kaluga Highway

and supposedly greeting me on the road.

But when I arrived, they had apparently already

run off into the woods—I didn’t see anyone. So,

in fact, there is a complete

political vacuum. No one is fighting

for the electorate, no one is doing anything.

I’ll move on to questions in a moment. And if we

step into this vacuum and spend

even a little time campaigning, we

will bring along a huge number of

people, truly a huge number. In Russia right now,

107,000 volunteers have signed up.

Closer to the election, there will be no fewer than

200,000. That is simply a gigantic force.

Can you imagine? 200,000 people—if for 5

minutes a day they are

spreading information, then the reach of

all this will be greater than that of Channel One

(Russia’s main state TV channel). Vladimir Solovyov will be sobbing

outright, crying like a little girl,

when he sees the kind of

media reach we’re getting. But we simply need

to believe in ourselves and do something,

to persuade people, and we will go in and get

as many votes as we want, not

as many as they allow us. My friends,

I know that here in this region we have

all the prerequisites needed to

run an election campaign. I

absolutely believe that we can

win votes and prevail even here

across the region in the first round,

getting more than 50%. Thank you very much.

I’m ready to take questions. On campaigning, I wanted

to add that quite recently, about

a month ago here—I came from the town of Zhukinicha

in the Kaluga region by train—

Zhirinovsky from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia)

was handing out money at the station. That’s what he usually

does. Cigarettes, take some,

have some tea, that sort of thing. In other words, the man

is just stuck in the 1990s, used to handling all these

issues that way. I just wanted to add that.

Well, that really is an important point,

actually. Look, this is the peak, the absolute peak

of their election technology—what can they

do? Go out and hand out tea or

vodka. But in reality, genuine

political work is being done by no one.

It’s important to understand, guys. Again,

look, people think that in Kaluga

region Artamonov has everyone here locked down,

that no one can even breathe. You had an

unauthorized rally—how many people

were detained?

One.

Three. And what happened to them?

So there was something after all. And what then? A fine?

How much?

12,000.

12,000. The others were released.

Did the appeal go through?

No, I filed it.

Okay. You’ll get €10,000, the way

those Kremlin people are always

trolling me about. In reality,

of course we’ll win at the European Court,

but I just want to tell you that

the regime’s ability to repress everyone,

to drive people into a corner, to clamp down,

on everything—they are practically nonexistent.

Of course, they scare people, which is why right now

these people are going around universities, and, and

they show lectures, these videos about how

Navalny is Hitler and all sorts of other nonsense,

because in reality, the ability

to repress large groups of people

is impossible. And even there, okay, in

Kaluga Region, Mordovia, you know,

the Republic of Mordovia, where 99% of the population votes for United

Russia. Well, they do vote that way because

everything is completely crushed there. The same

thing happened there too: I think about 200 people

came out to that rally. Nobody touched them.

A few detainees across the country overall,

well, of course, there are three people there

so far. And we, together with their

families, are trying

to support them, and we are very worried that they

have received real criminal charges. But tens

of thousands of people came out, and we don’t even have

that many people brought to administrative

liability — something like 200 people.

200 people in the whole country. This regime

does not rest on repression, nor on

intimidation, nor on the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), nor on

the police, nor on Center E (the police anti-extremism unit). There they are

with cameras, filming everything. It survives

simply on inertia — on the fact that nobody

does anything, nobody campaigns. Well,

we somehow lived like this, and we go on living this

way. So if we make an effort,

the situation will change immediately. Let’s take it from this

side. Yes. And

Two questions about nationalism. The first

question.

Two questions about nationalism.

First question. You filed a complaint against Tesak under

Article 282, and now you are advocating for its

abolition. Second question. An interview with the magazine

Sputnik i Pogrom. Were you offered one,

did you refuse, or what?

So, as for Article 282, does everyone

know what Article 282 is? It’s the article on

extremism, the one under which they now jail

people left and right. And I absolutely

believe that 282 should be abolished. And

Martsinkevich was prosecuted criminally,

essentially for

the hooliganism he engaged in when I

was holding debates. I can say that, you know,

Mark Feygin, the lawyer — just

two days ago he forwarded me a letter from

Martsinkevich apologizing for

all the crap he did against

me and whatever, I don’t know, during

the election campaign, the clowning around

he put on — they crushed him themselves there,

so in a way he came to his senses. So, well,

I find his views quite unpleasant and

repulsive. And many people who are imprisoned

under 282 really are actual fascists

and there is clearly something wrong with them. And

the things they say are not things

that should be said — but imprisoning people for that?

Well, Article 282 did appear in the verdict.

So, I came to his trial, and at the trial

I said that he should not be imprisoned. And

that is in the transcript. I said

that they should not be held criminally

liable. They should not be given

actual prison terms. And now he is in prison

under some other article, I think,

anyway. In any case, Article 272 should

be abolished. Martsinkevich, well, realized

that his behavior was wrong and, at

the very least, sent an apology letter

to me through his lawyer.

What was the second part of the question about?

Sputnik i Pogrom. Do you know that publication?

Right now a large number of people

want me to give them an interview. Well,

listen, from, what’s his name, Shariy all the way to

to Sputnik. Feminists. Exactly.

That’s right. It’s kind of a fashionable

sport right now. I simply realize

that it’s not because I’m some kind of,

I don’t know, especially smart person who will say

something brilliant in an interview, but because around

me there is emerging what Sergei Druzhko

calls

and that’s why everyone wants to get an

interview from me, but I can’t give interviews to everyone.

I open it up and it’s like all day long.

It seems to me that soon people

on YouTube will be sick of me, because

as you can see, there are constant streams. I hadn’t even

made it back here from Ryazan yet.

I go on YouTube, and there are four videos:

Navalny. I realize that soon people

will start beating me up — I’ll show up somewhere, and they’ll

come at me shouting, "Leave

YouTube alone already." So, well,

my ability to give interviews is

fairly limited. It’s not in my immediate plans

at the moment. Question. Yes,

Alexei, some kind of symbol, let’s say.

Right now we have the duck, yes, and today I took

it off the side of my car,

right? At one time we had the white

ribbon. I just have a suggestion, yes.

I stopped by a shopping center. So,

a sticker is all well and good, but do you need

to come to you for it, or go somewhere else?

In 4 minutes and for 100 rubles, they made me

four little bows like these.

Doesn’t that look like the Polish flag? No?

I actually thought we should

just take one red ribbon and one

white ribbon, but she didn’t have matching ones.

I think that’s the Polish flag, isn’t it? I’ll

google it or something. Google it.

It’s just, yes, it’s just, let’s say,

something to think about, but absolutely, guys,

we definitely need some kind of symbolism,

we definitely need to use it. Absolutely right.

Right. As you say — for example, I

was obsessed with ideas about sneakers. I

really liked that idea. We went out in front of the

office, and from our office secretary there

they confiscated sneakers and threw them onto

wires. It didn’t really catch on. The duck

came about on its own, by accident. I blurted out

something about this duck in the video. That is,

of course, some kind of symbolism is needed, and

but it really has to come from the people.

In other words, whatever shows up at these

rallies is what we should use.

Question.

Ah, hello. First of all, the flags look very

similar to the flag of Belarusian

nationalists.

Whose? Which ones?

Belarusian ones.

Ah, Belarusian. Second, I have a question:

student stipends are extremely low.

I’m a nuclear physicist. I receive

I’m studying to become a nuclear physicist and get 1.00 ruble

as my official stipend.

A nuclear physicist, 1.00 ruble. Wait a second. As for

the question of greatness, the question of oil

money. So, what’s the question? Sorry

for interrupting. How would you comment on

this?

Listen, I’ll tell you something else instead.

You’re students, right? Then tell me,

please, right now your stipend is

1,500 rubles, you graduate from university,

you get a job—what will your

salary be?

I think around 15,000

and the salary is around 15,000–20,000

for a nuclear physicist, which in theory is

a qualification that sits at the very

top. What

and then they also say that we have this thing

called grants,

but specialists get around 8,000

rubles. Even that

8,000, wonderful, 8,000 rubles.

And this is the peak of the pyramid of professional

occupations. In other words, Russian—well,

let’s say civilization, the country, Russia—

built and built, created and created.

And at the very top, we finally ended up with

nuclear physicists. There are few countries

that produce nuclear physicists, right?

You could probably count on one hand

the countries that produce

nuclear physicists. And what then? We pay them

15,000 rubles. Let me just give you

an example from a conversation I had in

Novosibirsk Akademgorodok (a major Russian science and research hub).

Russia’s main scientific center is used for

our state to puff out its cheeks, so to speak, about how

powerful we are, how great we are. And then

guys from Novosibirsk Akademgorodok

come up and say, “Well, we’re young

scientists, we want to do science.” Well,

like, “Alexei, what would you advise us

to do, because I graduated from

university, I earned a Candidate of Sciences degree (roughly a PhD equivalent), and my

salary is 12,000.”

And I tell him, “Damn, what can I

advise you? Well, vote for Alexei

Navalny.” What else can I say? It’s honestly

hard to understand how these people live, how they

still manage to keep the desire

to do science, because you could

go and, I don’t know, get a job

as a janitor somewhere and earn more

than that. And this is a typical example of how

the state just doesn’t give a damn about anything. And

why doesn’t it care? Because, well, from

the point of view of ducks and everything else,

you are of no interest to them. They’re not interested at all

in this whole ideal

state structure. For our

authorities, for Putin and Medvedev, the ideal thing is

an oil pipeline. Some people guard it,

and that’s it. And at the end of it, the oil is simply

sold abroad. And everyone else

would preferably just die, because they have to be paid

pensions. They have to pay stipends.

Some nuclear physicists are running around

saying, “Hey, hello, pay me my

stipend.” Well then, get out of here, nuclear

physicist. We’re not interested in that.”

“The only thing we care about is the pipeline.” And that’s why

in my platform we wrote that

spending on healthcare and education

must be increased by at least twofold. Not

because it’s a nice-looking number, not

because I want to appeal to

nuclear physicists—though of course I do. But

because if we look at the countries of the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development,

that is, roughly speaking, the rich countries of the

world—we want to follow their example, don’t we?

if we look at rich countries, we’ll see that

spending on education as a percentage of GDP

is everywhere twice as high, and spending on

healthcare is twice as high.

So either we will spend more

there, or we will simply

grow poorer, because it is beneficial—because

it benefits us to pay a nuclear physicist properly

so that later he can become some kind of

I don’t know, excellent engineer and

then pay substantial taxes into the budget. That’s

how it should be set up. Question. I have

Anatoly, I have this question. Do you

know that the authorities play dirty tricks, and the Central Election Commission

—can you allow for that? Do I know that

the authorities pull all sorts of tricks? I’ve been

convicted three times.

I’m a three-time convicted repeat offender. You understand?

Do I know anything about the authorities? I do.

What will the CEC do? Because it has always

done the same thing—it will ignore everything.

It will rig the elections.

To overcome this. Let’s think about how

it can be overcome. I don’t have a magic

button that I can press and the fraud

will disappear. I can’t just prevent it

or maybe I have some special, I don’t know,

magic powder—whoosh—and the fraud

is gone. So the only way

to fight this.

And there are more than 100,000 polling stations in the country.

So that means we need to

train 200,000 volunteers and

observers—real ones, genuine ones, not

the kind they usually put forward. Because even

our biggest political

organizations, like the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, only manage to cover polling stations in

major cities, and everywhere else

they can do whatever they want. So we

will try, for the first time in Russian history,

to make sure—together, because without

you I definitely can’t do this—that

every polling station has

a real observer. Getting votes won’t be

easy, and of course we will

fight for every vote and we won’t

give a single one away. A question, Alexei, one more about

the elections? Very briefly.

Briefly, yes, very briefly.

Yes, actually, they’ve now abolished

absentee certificates. Back in 2011,

or—wait—which presidential

election was it before that? Anyway, I was part of a mobile

group in Moscow’s Western District, and I saw

what was happening. All the traffic police officers would come

to one polling station, fill out

applications on the spot with backdated forms, then go

to a second polling station, fill out another

application, and vote at every station.

Yes, I filed three complaints with the territorial election commission,

and all three were rejected. And now these

absentee certificates have been abolished.

It’ll be the same thing again, only even

worse. We probably need to work out

some kind of official position on this. How

Of course, naturally, we’ll work out a position.

Uh, our election monitoring штаб (headquarters) has already started working.

But guys, we’re not naive

people, right? Just imagine that

you’re Alisher Usmanov, and you look at me

and realize that if Navalny becomes

president, he’ll put you in prison at the very

least. He’ll make sure that you

become much less rich, because

you’ll be less wealthy, because you’ll

have to pay colossal taxes.

All these Rotenbergs, Timchenkos, all these

people who became billionaires

simply by reselling oil—they

understand that, naturally, Navalny will come along like this

with his

volunteers from Kaluga, and they’ll make us

pay, and they don’t want any of that. They

will do everything they can to

rig the election. We have to

understand that. But we don’t have any other

chance either. So we will simply

keep fighting, because there is no other

option. Either we leave them

their wealth, or we accept that

the only ranking in which

Russia is rising is—which ranking?

Corruption.

Corruption. All right, and one more?

Billionaires.

In 2003, Russia had, I think, three

dollar billionaires, and now there are

more than 100. Where did all that money come from?

Well, where from? In theory, they

could have become billionaires if you

were very rich and spent a lot,

right? They would have made money off you and

become billionaires. But you, as far as I can tell,

haven’t become especially rich, have you,

and neither has anyone else. This money is

corruption money; it’s money from oil and gas.

So of course they will

resist with all their might, but we must use all our strength

to push back against them. Next question.

Alexei, what will you do when

you become president—about

Crimea?

No. Actually, all of that is

nonsense compared with the question of what you’ll

do about the legalization of

prostitution. I mean, there are questions like that

that when I answer them, I say

something like, "Please turn off the

streams" for everyone in the room, right? So, as for

Crimea, in fact it’s both simple and

complicated. I can tell you honestly,

absolutely honestly, that I believe

the Crimea issue cannot be resolved, just as no

territorial dispute anywhere on the planet has been resolved in the last 50

years—a territorial claim, a problem on

the map of planet Earth. Not a single one. There are

developed countries, and less developed

countries, and no one can solve

territorial problems. Take

Britain and Spain—civilized

countries in Europe. You see what’s

going on around Gibraltar. Did you see how

English fans recently trashed

a Spanish square? The Spaniards responded by

saying, "Give Gibraltar back." And they replied

in the spirit of Alisher Usmanov. And then

off it all went. It’s impossible to solve

a territorial problem. Of course,

there needs to be a referendum in Crimea,

a proper referendum, but honestly

I don’t see how President

Navalny, or the next president, or

the president after that, will solve the problem.

So in practice, pensions there,

salaries are being paid—it's part of Russia. But that

is not recognized by Ukraine, and most countries

in the world will not recognize it in the foreseeable future.

All of us will suffer. The people of Crimea will

suffer. There is no investment. The peninsula

is developing poorly. We suffer,

Ukrainians suffer, and even people at the UN suffer,

because they discuss this endlessly. So

unfortunately, this is not a very

optimistic answer. Suffering.

Well, after a new, proper referendum,

one that everyone in Europe recognizes and everyone

is satisfied with, we will accept any

result and, naturally, we will be glad

any expression of the people's will

by the people of Crimea. But which specific outcome would you

be happier with?

I would, I would be happy with any result. We

just roughly imagine it. And

no one will recognize it. No one will recognize it anyway.

No one will recognize it. Say I announce a fair

referendum, but the international community

is set up in such a way that they just don't care. But that's

the position of all European countries too. Like,

"just take it and give it back directly"—it's simply

impossible to do. There are 2 million Russian

citizens there. What, are you going to take away their passports

tomorrow? That's impossible. So we will hold

a fair referendum, and Ukraine, in response to our

fair referendum, will say that it is

not interested. And other countries will say:

"If it is agreed upon

that too, yes, listen, it doesn't matter with whom it is

agreed, but look at the territories

in Palestine or Israel—there are loads of

UN Security Council resolutions there;

some are implemented, some are not,

and nobody really cares. A territorial conflict

cannot be resolved.

your own attitude, rather than,

So, my attitude. I follow what

people vote for. I am often asked this:

"Would you rename

our city?" I was in Ulyanovsk, for example,

let's move from Crimea to Ulyanovsk.

Do you think our city should be

renamed back to Simbirsk? And

would you do it? I would become the kind of

president who simply would not be able

to do that. This is entirely a matter of local

importance. Let it be arranged the way people

want it. Next question.

Ah, hello, Alexei. I came to you

with uncomfortable questions.

Great. I love uncomfortable questions. Yes,

I'm just afraid that I won't be all

Pick the single most uncomfortable one.

They won't let me ask them all.

Well, they won't let you ask them all. I'm telling you right away,

I won't give you the chance to ask all of them. Choose the

most hellish, uncomfortable, scary question. And

ask me that,

You, you already seem reluctant now to respond to

constructive criticism directed at you. For example,

I can give one example. Here:

Anatoly Shariy, who in his videos,

who in his videos

the question,

who in his own videos didn't finish.

There was just a question.

A question. He says that in the book

by the former ambassador there is nothing about any bribery

by Usmanov, while you say there is.

Why, instead of responding to specific

criticism, is it easier for you to call Shariy, uh,

a liar, a hand of the Kremlin? And

are you going to treat all criticism

directed at you as the hand of the Kremlin?

Is your question finished?

Keep filming me, okay?

Please note that, in answering

your critical question, I am answering it as it is.

So, first. There will soon be a response to

Alisher Usmanov. I am not going to argue

with the Ukrainian blogger Shariy, because

my dispute is with Alisher Usmanov; I

will publish my response to him. That's first. Second,

all the documents will be there. Third, well, I

certainly consider him dishonest and

working for the Kremlin. I have a right to

an opinion. And my opinion is that

the video blogger Shariy is, without a doubt, a

dishonest person. And, well, that's how it is. That's what I

think. I have the right to think so.

Please tell him that this is what I think

of him. I don't know. Come on, I won't. What do you

think of this video blogger?

Very positively.

Negatively.

I am probably not the only person. At the same time,

of course, I do answer all questions.

There will be a special video in which

I will answer everything. But again, if someone

wants to create what Sergey Druzhko calls

what he calls

hype

hype,

then please, let Shariy do it without

me. I will create my own hype on my own

channel, right? Why would I do it on

his? Yes.

Let's imagine that you became

president and changed the country the way you

want. Let's imagine that.

going to do

There. And then you bring up Shariy. Questions like that throw

me off. Some Shariy. Once again: I

became president. What am I going to do

after that?

No, you became president and changed

everything we wanted changed in the country. You defeated

corruption, increased

salaries, and so on.

Ah, okay, I understand. So, I became

president. I did everything I wanted to do.

And what would I do afterward? That's it. Then

my presidential term will end, and I

will go home. I really want to become

the kind of president who comes to the Kremlin from

that apartment in Maryino (a district of Moscow) and goes back

to it afterward. And I want all of you to see

that I acquired nothing, that I received

my presidential salary, which is

quite large, by the way. I was a normal

president; I stole nothing. It is clear

who my family is, it is clear who my son-in-law is,

if I have one by then. It is clear

what my children do. Here are their

photographs. That's it, everything is clear. I do not want

the president, the institution of

the presidency, to hide from us. Yes. Well,

there you have it. And what is President Putin's son-in-law's name?

You know?

Shamalov.

Kirill Shamalov. And everyone knows that's his name,

that's what he's called. The whole country knows that the son-in-law

of President Putin is the youngest

billionaire in Russia. But officially,

no one acknowledges it. Officially, it's not even

considered that he has any

son-in-law. So when I retire, I'll be

that kind of president. I don't know, maybe I'll write memoirs,

I don't know, live on a pension. I don't know,

when the pension starts. No, I won't be entitled

to a pension yet, but if we win in

2018, of course,

I'll give lectures,

yes, I'll give lectures. I'll come here to

Kaluga, we'll put an armchair here and

we'll say: "Remember, guys, how we

held our meeting? And remember how you

asked me a question?" So there I'll be, sitting

here, I don't know, smoking a pipe. That's how it

should be. And what is Obama doing

now? Writing a book, I don't know, traveling

around or something. And what does Bill Clinton do? That's

the point. For some reason, the

Kremlin has created this illusion that either you're

president, or else some kind of

death has come, or Russia has fallen apart. But it's

absolutely right that

presidents change. Well, you were president

— that's a job, an important job, and when it

ends, you go do another job.

That's how it will be in the Beautiful Russia

of the Future. Next question.

Right now in Chechnya, gay people are being persecuted and killed.

When you become president, will the

community be able to count on

being treated as equal

members of society? And will they be able

to turn to the police for help? Will you

fight the prejudices

that dominate our Russian

society?

When Alexei Navalny becomes

president, the LGBT community won't need

to go to the police at all. I

believe all people are equal. I don't care

what you do at home, what

goes on there. That's your private

business. What matters to me is that people

work properly, pay their taxes properly,

earn decent wages, and

preferably vote for me. Everything

else is your private business.

So in our Beautiful Russia

of the Future, everyone will be equal. And these

reports from Chechnya — they're

monstrous. There are enough people, you know,

trying to produce new

reports saying that the head

of the Chechen government is involved in torture

or present during torture. But if

the media are to be believed, it's some kind of monstrous,

absolutely monstrous, savage

medievalism. And of course, that

must not exist — it harms everyone,

and it's terrible. Next question. Let's hear it. And

there are two things. First, please make

a video explaining

what 2 trillion rubles means. For example,

for Kaluga Region, that's 50 regional

budgets. Fifty.

Great idea. Great idea.

And second: what can

the people of

Donbas count on? Today they are also citizens

of Russia. We handed out passports,

the shelling is stopping. So

you promise Crimeans a referendum. And what

can you promise them?

Simply to end the war.

Listen, I — yes, you're right.

First, I promise to end the war.

Second, I promise to do what

Putin has already signed up to. I promise to implement

the Minsk agreements. Russia has repeatedly

stated that Donbas and all that

part of Ukraine are part

of Ukraine. We do not need to annex them.

Of course, ideally this should end in such a way

that they receive a certain

degree of autonomy, so that everything is normal

and peaceful, though that is extremely difficult to achieve. It's

all already been put down on paper. I will simply

carry it out. This war is needed by

no one. It makes everyone poorer. Just

think about it roughly yourselves: who is

paying pensions in Donbas right now?

Russia.

Russia. Well,

we're paying

they literally send KamAZ trucks loaded with

money there. And where do they leave from? Well, from

different places. One KamAZ truck

left from Kaluga Region too, carrying your money

there. That's why I don't want to do that.

I don't — they are now

part of Ukraine, so please,

let Ukraine deal with them. We should

keep an eye on humanitarian issues, but I, I

don't know, maybe you won't like how

this sounds. I am not going to take

money from you and send it to Donbas. And

the same goes for everything else. So,

President Alexei Navalny will

cry looking at photographs of

bombed-out Palmyra. He will weep

looking at bombed-out Aleppo. But he will not

send a single kopek there. I will not give a

single kopek for rebuilding Palmyra until

Kaluga Region has been rebuilt.

There are plenty of places to invest money here.

There are probably broken roads, there are

bad hospitals. We will spend all the money

only here. Of course, it's wonderful

to try to save everyone in the world, but

for now it's a bit too expensive. Your neighbor is raising

their hand. May we hear your view?

did he really embezzle money, or is this

a politically motivated hit job?

I talked about this on the show Navalny

for the last time in 2018, based on what

I know now. Look, guys, I’ve

had searches conducted at my home, and criminal cases were

opened against me. I’ve seen how this

is done. And what’s being done to

Serebrennikov very much, of course, looks

like a fabricated criminal case. There are no

explanations, no documents.

They tell us he stole money. Fine,

he stole money. Okay, then show us. In that case

it should be easy to prove that he stole money. But

the fact that there was a search, and then it turned out

they had found hashish on him—well, all of that

really looks like a setup. Next question.

Here’s a not-so-serious question. Have you seen

that Ptakha challenged you to some kind of battle?

Well, okay,

honestly, everyone keeps

challenging me to Versus battles, right? But I’m not

going to do it—I’m not a rapper, I can’t do that. I mean,

you know,

you have to admit, I’d look a little strange

at a Versus battle. That is definitely

not my format, and I’d be glad if

some great rapper—well,

tomorrow Alisa Vox challenges me to a battle.

What am I supposed to do, outsing her in some video? It’s

that kind of thing. So as for Versus battles,

unfortunately, I won’t be taking part. Yes, next question.

In one of your videos, you said

that the U.S. is like a tanker.

Russia is also a tanker, in a sense,

it’s just headed in the wrong direction.

So what do you think—could you, in one term,

manage to deal with that tanker at all?

Turn it around?

I think so. Look, there’s a set of

things that are fairly easy to do,

for example, introduce criminal liability

for illicit enrichment. I would pass it,

and tomorrow we would have the ability

to put officials on trial. We’d suddenly have a million people

who are thieves right away.

No, no, come on, that’s

an exaggeration—a million thieves.

That’s a big exaggeration. We would start with

the government, from the very top. There are

people whose spending and income

just blatantly don’t match. Take Shuvalov. Have you seen

my video about how he flies his dogs

on a plane?

You probably have. Those are the people who, first of all,

should be dealt with first. Of course, there are millions

of people breaking the law. Do you know who

falsifies elections across the country?

Teachers. Our schoolteachers—Maria Ivanovna and

Natalya Stepanovna—they falsify

elections. Strictly speaking, they are criminals,

but it is definitely not the top priority to

put them in prison. In fact, you can’t really jail them, and

you shouldn’t be trying to.

They’re given orders, and they carry out

criminal orders. They are guilty, but we

should be re-educating them rather than anything else. But

those whose wealth is blatantly obvious—we

should put them on trial. That can be done fairly

quickly. Corruption in state procurement amounts to 1 trillion rubles a year

a year. Quite quickly—well, as you know,

we at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) expose it

all the time. I’m not an intelligence officer, I’m not

a prosecutor, I have absolutely no

official powers. And yet we uncover

corrupt contracts worth

billions and get contracts worth billions canceled. We can

do all of this, we can. The same goes for

public procurement—well, company procurement too. But all these

Rosnefts—if I became president,

I assure you, there would be no spoons costing 14,000 rubles

anywhere near that. We would simply implement these things quickly.

And freedom of

enterprise. You know perfectly well

that right now—just out of curiosity—are there

any business people here,

by any chance?

Yes, I can see there are. It’s impossible to work like this.

It’s simply impossible to work. Especially

if you want to be involved in actual

business. All these inspections, permits—

none of that should exist. Businesses

need to be freed right now from taxes and

from all these permits. All of this can

be done quickly. I’m not saying that

tomorrow I’ll build crystal palaces in Kaluga Region,

that’s impossible. But

taking basic measures that

would significantly improve everyone’s lives and

substantially raise wages—like introducing

a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles. Well,

listen, United Russia tells me

that this is populism. But what’s populist about it?

They’re discussing it in the Kremlin right now, apparently they want

to do something along those lines.

Exactly, they’re listening to me. They

understand what I’m talking about. They watch all these

streams and videos. They see

that the whole country is howling. And they see that

my argument is correct, because in

the U.S. there is a minimum wage, in

Germany there is a minimum wage, in

all wealthy countries a minimum

wage is established, and only here is it

at an absolutely rock-bottom level.

So yes, of course, there are a number of simple measures.

I would adopt them quickly, and this tanker—well, not

that we’d turn it around 180 degrees, but it

would start moving in the right direction. Question:

And what about the proposals for paid school desks,

toll roads, and things like that?

They introduced a toll road here, after all. So

do you like the toll road?

Your toll road is just—well, it’s

it may simply be the height of absurdity.

They took, damn it, the Kyiv Highway,

a federal highway. Putin didn’t build the Kyiv Highway.

He didn’t build it.

Rotenberg's; they didn't build a new one.

contractor. It's a road that, I don't

know, was built a long time ago. They fenced off

one section and say that it's now a toll

highway, and the alternative, as far as I know, has

four railroad crossings, but that's

a scam.

This has nothing to do with a market

economy, and it has nothing to do with

improving infrastructure. It's simply

fraud and a way of squeezing money out of the public.

So I believe that in this form

toll roads are, of course, unnecessary, but

this is just deception, really. Yes.

Will Judge Novikov become the chairman

of the Supreme Court under you?

Well, Judge Novikov under me—

and will continue working as a judge, as I understand it,

he is an honest judge, and that's what he suffered for; that's why

a criminal case was opened against him.

But the courts in Russia will be independent,

and I will not have the power to appoint

the chairman of the Supreme Court. That is, in

fact, the key point. Why are they able

to steal so much? Because in

any court, they win against me.

Why does Usmanov record all this so brazenly?

Because he knows what a

Russian court is. There, they can do anything. I don't

know, I could bring video footage of him

handing a suitcase full of money to Medvedev. They

would say, "Well, you can't really tell there that it's

money; maybe it's toy money."

"They were playing Monopoly," they'd answer

me. That's why control over the judicial

system must not be in the hands of the

president. This is an absolutely crucial, important

thing. Yes. Next question.

Alexei Anatolyevich, when you become

President of the Russian Federation, how

will the problem of China's barbaric

expansion into the Far East be resolved?

Good question.

about China's expansion.

The same thing applies here. This too is

corruption: when Chinese companies take large

tracts of land and engage in agriculture there,

using some kind of

absolutely hellish pesticides. And then nothing

grows there for 10 years afterward. There are, after all,

all these agricultural watchdog agencies and all

the others that ban imported

products. That's what they should be

dealing with. The same goes for timber exports. Although

apparently I'm the one who stole all the timber,

but even from here, we can see that in

Irkutsk Region or in Chita they've already

cut everything down and hauled absolutely everything away. This is

also corruption. The Chinese cannot

get around border posts and customs officers.

Right.

The fact that they are shipping this timber beyond the quotas

means that they are paying someone

bribes. So we simply need to

eliminate corruption, and then the Chinese will

operate under the same conditions as everyone

else. Next question.

Alexei, and what about the land?

What?

The land?

What about the land?

that has been leased out long-term.

Well, we also need to look at the terms

under which it was leased, and at what prices.

If it's at a fair price, let them lease it out.

But the contracts I've seen so far are

also a typical example of corruption,

and besides, you understand how this works.

A Russian entrepreneur gets nothing.

The Chinese are given the best plots for

some minimal prices. But

that is absolutely wrong. I

promised to take a question from here, yes.

What will you do with Roskomnadzor (Russia's federal media and internet censor),

which is currently giving us such trouble?

My beloved organization. All day long

I get emails saying that Roskomnadzor

has complained about this video and is demanding

that it be blocked. What do you think

I would like to do with Roskomnadzor?

Well, block it.

Frankly, I'd rather have them all shot,

to be honest, but I am a principled

opponent of the death penalty. Roskomnadzor

will be dissolved immediately. It is a harmful,

completely unnecessary organization. That's all.

Question,

Alexei. This is more a question from my mother,

something that concerns her more. What is your view on

the government's initiative

to raise the retirement

age?

Do you really think they

want to? That this is optional? I don't understand.

They absolutely want to do it for

a very simple reason: so they won't have to pay

pensions. Look at the average

life expectancy of men in

Russia. It is lower than the age

they want to push it to. They simply

want people to die so they won't have

to pay them pensions.

We have atrocious healthcare. We have

an atrocious level of alcoholism. Again,

it's clear why. People drink.

Why? Because it's hopeless. You work really hard,

you don't drink a drop, and

you earn 25,000. You do nothing,

you're a drunk, and you earn 20,000 or 18,000.

So what's the difference? Why bother? Then it's better

just to drink and not think about any of

this at all. That's why we have illness, we have

alcoholism, and people simply do not live long enough

to reach that age. If

the Russian government says there isn't

enough money for pensions and that they need to take it

from here, and they need to take it from

truck drivers, and they need to take it from

individual entrepreneurs, and that they need to take from all of us, I

tell them: "Guys, turn around and you'll

see Gazprom, Rosneft, Transneft,

take at least something from them here, and only then

can we start raising the retirement

age." When we had taken all the money

that could be taken here, a young woman raises

her hand. I have two questions. First,

let's take the most important one,

yes? Do you intend to abolish the system

PLON? And how can we be sure that

the story of our anti-corruption campaign

won't turn out the same way as the anti-corruption

campaign under Yeltsin?

Yeltsin had no

anti-corruption campaign at all.

He didn't have an anti-corruption

campaign. What he had was the so-called

fight against privileges.

He rode the tram to show that

he would fight the privileges

of the nomenklatura (the Soviet-era ruling bureaucracy). But Yeltsin laid the groundwork

for the corrupt system that was later

fully built by Putin.

It was Yeltsin who started bringing his relatives

into the presidential administration.

It was Yeltsin who began creating the oligarchs.

I have absolutely no reverence for

him. And there was no fight against

corruption there at all. But as for

the Platon system, we sued against

the Platon system. I recorded the first videos

about it. I supported the truck drivers.

The Platon system is simply

a cash cow for Rotenberg's son. Well, it's

an absolutely criminal scheme. Question. You

said that you are ready to provide

to Putin? I'd like to know under what conditions.

If he goes through elections to stay in power, or

if he doesn't run in elections and this isn't about

his personal safety or

leaving him some kind of advantage as well.

A peaceful transfer is the main condition.

Well, we understand: the man is clinging on, and

he is afraid that if he stops being

president, everything will be taken from him,

he'll be jailed, and that's why he wants to remain

president until his death. So I

believe

as you understand, Putin is not my hero. I

have, among other things, personal

grievances against him, yes, he imprisoned

my brother, who spent a year and a half in solitary

confinement; only now has someone else been

put in his cell. So, I mean, he's

an absolute lawless thug, including in

his treatment of my family personally. But even so,

I believe these things need to be

set aside if Putin is ready for a peaceful

transfer of power; in everyone's interest, to give

him immunity, and his family too, to leave

him some property, let him sit in

Gelendzhik, I don't know, smoke cigars there,

do rhythmic gymnastics,

whatever he likes, if he is

ready for a peaceful transition. That's all. For

a peaceful departure from power and agreement to

fair elections. Young woman,

Alexei, please tell me, I have

a question about campaigning. It turns out that our

campaigning is fragmented.

Could you make a short video

about this? Because it's easier for people to watch

a video than to dig into it.

He said: "What is there really

to understand?"

It's a fantasy to think everyone knows everything. Many people

came to us after watching only the film about

Dimon (a nickname for Dmitry Medvedev). And in general, I later find out from letters

that people write things like this:

"Hello, dear Alexei, I

watched the film about Dimon and became your

ardent supporter, but then I was

told that you are an American spy and

that you also stole timber. Could you

clear up my confusion?" There are many people like that,

and you are absolutely right. We need

to put out videos that, well, might

seem to us like, well, why would anyone

watch them, we already know it all. But for a huge

audience, this needs to be explained again and

again.

We will do that. A question on the substance,

on the substance. All the others, all of you had

questions on the substance too.

No, actually this is a substantive question, yes,

let's put it this way: you have now done

a gigantic amount of work. You and Lyonya

have done the impossible. In my

view, you have effectively created

the structure for a nationwide party, with its

regional branches, with its, let's say,

members,

yes. So how much is this issue actually

on your mind: are we going to create this

party? Because just

as my comment, yes, I was at a precinct election commission when

you were in the mayoral election, yes,

and now I was, well, at the territorial commission, but still at the

precinct commission I was sitting, let's say, when there were

the last State Duma elections, and two different

Moscows showed up. The Moscow that was

at the mayoral election, that came to

Laz, it—look, as for the party.

Well, of course a party is needed. We don't

want to participate only in presidential elections,

right? But there in the Duma sit these

people in the Duma, and they represent you. Are there

any deputies there whom you

know about? Deputy Ivanov is more or less

close to my views. He says

the right things. Is there even one

like that there? I can remember Shein among

the decent ones, but otherwise there's basically no one.

So yes, a party is definitely needed. But we

registered a party four times. The

fifth time it was registered and then immediately

liquidated. Why? But they perfectly

they understand that if we have our own

party, we’ll get into the State Duma right away. And

if there are at least 20

deputies in the Duma who won’t be cowardly and

stay silent, but will stand up and make

scandals over duck houses, over little spoons,

over all those sons-in-law, over those

billions, that will be something entirely

different. That’s why

they’re terribly afraid. But of course, we

will continue all our efforts

to get registered.

A question,

Alexei, a question. I think many people here

have loans and

their debt has become basically impossible to repay

on those loans.

A loan amnesty for everyone. No,

it’s just that we forgive other countries’ debts.

Why not carry out refinancing?

Well, look, even though I was kind of

joking there about a loan amnesty,

yes, and it may seem like the most

extreme kind of populism, we’re actually calculating it now.

Here’s the thing: in our country

people really are drowning in debt,

overborrowed. I mean, who here has

acquaintances with loans, people who

have already taken them out two or three times?

In many places, you go to certain regions

— Altai, for example — and there’s no other

advertising hanging around the towns except

ads about dealing with debt collectors. In other words, everyone has taken out

loans two or three times. But the thing is,

banks — well, you know, for rescuing

banks, the Central Bank spent 1 trillion rubles.

And what does rescuing banks mean? It means

some people siphoned money out of a bank.

And to make up for all that,

the Central Bank handed over a trillion. Vnesheconombank

was handing out loans for the construction of

Olympic facilities. The loans were never repaid. All of that

gets covered. At VTB Bank

there’s constantly a hole in the books, and that

gets covered too. And my question is: well, if

you compensate these fat cats

for their overdue loans, while

some ordinary guy out there bought

a washing machine on credit, and it’s

hard for him to pay it back — why is it that debt collectors

chase after that guy and say, "We’ll take

your apartment away," while no one asks

anything of all the others? There’s also a hole in the Pension Fund.

The head of the Pension Fund has an apartment

worth 1 billion rubles on

Patriarch’s Ponds (an upscale neighborhood in Moscow). Let’s chase after him too

and say, "Come on, hand over your apartment

to cover it." So of course, here

we need to do the math. If we look at

how many overdue loans of

oligarchs the state has

covered, I think carrying out

some kind of restructuring of personal

consumer loans would be entirely appropriate. But that is,

of course, a matter of calculation. Yes.

Hello, Alexei.

Just louder, so everyone can hear.

Hello, Alexei. When you become

president of Russia, will you change

anything in the education system?

Abolish it?

Yes. Yes. Take the camera off.

And remove the cameras so people can copy answers

and cheat

in the education system. Well, first of all,

there are many things

that are smaller. For example, the Unified State Exam. You

know yourselves which region has the

highest scores on the Unified State Exam.

Dagestan.

Chechnya, Dagestan. And that makes it

meaningless. After all, why was the Unified State Exam invented?

So that you — what’s your name?

Ivan.

Ivan from Kaluga and some Akhmed from

Chechnya would have equal opportunities when

applying to the best universities. The exam

was supposed to level the playing field, but if someone from Chechnya

is always guaranteed to get a higher score than

you, that makes the exam meaningless,

right? So reform is needed here, reform is needed there.

A lot of teachers now

hardly teach at all; they spend their time filling out

endless paperwork. I meet with

teachers often. They say, "My God, we’ll

vote for you, we’ll even

falsify the results in your favor, but

just abolish this idiotic reporting that

we spend all day filling out." But the most

important thing Russian education

needs is money. That’s

what I said. Until we

increase funding for Russian education

by at least a factor of two, we won’t be able

to change absolutely anything. Any other

questions?

Yes. And how about someone with an uncomfortable question?

Go ahead.

What are you going to do with people

who disagree with you if they

come out

if they come out to rallies and

demand your resignation — what will you

do?

May I ask you a question?

Yes, of course.

Why are you reading your uncomfortable questions

from a sheet of paper?

Because I’m nervous, and I wrote them down

in advance on

You disagree with me. You disagree with me,

as I understand it. And what have I done

to you?

What do you mean? I asked you a specific

question. I’m simply asking, in principle,

whether you are someone who basically

disagrees with me.

No, I'm with you — I was one of the white-ribbon protesters myself in

2012.

It's just that, well, the thing is, I

I'm just interested in this question.

I'm answering that question. With those who disagree,

with those who disagree, I will do what I am

doing right now. I will answer

their questions. I want to be a president for

everyone. There will be plenty of people who disagree with me.

Right here, if we start polling

everyone, it will turn out that on 30% of my

views, they disagree with me. Some

are for the death penalty, others are against the death

penalty. Some are for guns, others are against guns.

Some are for legalizing marriage and

marijuana, others are against it. And of course,

there will always be a large number of

people who disagree. There is only one person in the world

who agrees with you completely. That is

you yourself. I want to be a president for

everyone. When I become president,

NOT will get the opportunity to register

its party and run in elections. All

the same — Putin has squeezed you out and turned you into

marginals, but I will allow you to take part

in elections — nationalists, the left, the right,

whoever. They are people, they are citizens,

so they have the right to do whatever

they want. That is the Russia I envision. And

only in such a Russia will people be prosperous,

because, well, if we finally give

people freedom, if we

put an end to corruption, which is

the reason dissenters are being suppressed,

then everything will work, guys.

And together we will build that kind of Russia. And

either I will definitely become president, or

another president will emerge who

answers uncomfortable questions, rather than

taking part in a staged call-in show, you know, where

the questions are prepared in advance, or appearing before

some group of miners who begin

their question, uh, with the phrase: "God grant you

good health, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,

we love you very much." I will be a normal

president who changes everything and

who builds our beautiful Russia of the

future, where salaries are high,

in line with oil prices, where

Kaluga Oblast does not send its taxes

to Moscow, but keeps them here and

spends the money it has earned on

its own prosperity. We will achieve all

of this. We can do it

if we believe in ourselves and engage in

campaigning — every day bringing our

message to people. If we start doing this

starting tomorrow — starting today,

in three months we won't recognize the city of

Kaluga — everyone will be walking around with huge

banners saying "Navalny for President."

Thank you very much, guys, I have to head out

to the districts, to... Thank you very much.

May I? And who wants to take a photo?

Me. Me.