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

I think, I really think—come closer—

that Nizhny Novgorod is an easy

region, because, well, because everything

we talk about here doesn’t require

any explanation,

it doesn’t require, you know,

any justification.

When I go somewhere else, people

say to me: "Well, explain why this

is happening." And I say: "Well, look,

you’ve got corruption here, and that’s

bad because someone is stealing."

But here, I was just driving past the Kremlin, and

the road there looks like it’s been bombed

for real—roads in Vladimir are better than

and that’s supposed to be the best road.

And that’s happening because, because your

mayor has an apartment where?

In Miami.

And our work—thank you very much—

our work, the work of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

here in Nizhny Novgorod,

is extremely well known. Possibly even better known than

in any other region. From Nizhny Novgorod

yesterday

there are always huge numbers of visits and

views. Leonid, in terms of the number of

volunteers, what place are we in?

Fourth, after Moscow, St. Petersburg, and

Yekaterinburg.

And Yekaterinburg won’t stay ahead for long,

though I’m rooting for Yekaterinburg.

Sorry,

there’ll be more.

Well, of course there will. Because just

look at how they behave. Damn,

they didn’t bother with this kind of petty

nonsense in Bashkortostan. And why is all this happening? It’s

very simple. It’s like in the cartoon Treasure Island

(a Soviet animated adaptation): "I can’t see you, but I can feel

your fingers trembling." That’s exactly about

them, all of them. They’re terrified.

They’re genuinely afraid of any

person who calls them out over their apartment

in Miami. They’re afraid of any political

force that talks about this corruption.

I just had a press conference,

and they asked me: "So what place do you

want to take here, in Nizhny Novgorod

Region?" First place only. What else

could we possibly aim for here? Because, well, everyone

can see what’s happening. Who here,

in Nizhny Novgorod Region, actually likes this

government? The last time any building here

was repaired was in the 1970s.

Everything here is falling apart. In a rich

industrial region, everything has gone to

hell. And it’s not even clear why. And all

my theoretical points in the program about how

0.1% of the population controls 80% of the wealth

—it’s all happening right here

in front of us. The proportions are obvious:

a salary of 22,000 rubles and some guy buys

a million-dollar apartment in Miami. And

you can tell me all you want that

Shantsev’s approval rating is 60 or 70 percent. That’s all

bullshit. But who actually supports him? Is that some kind of

poverty rating?

It’s just a rating of the absence of work and

the absence of purpose. It seems to us that this

government is a monolith. In reality, it’s nothing of the sort.

What are these ratings even based on?

They’re based on the fact that people don’t

get information. But when all of us, when we

—thanks to you—reach every resident of Nizhny Novgorod

and tell them, not just about

corruption, not just about the bad

economy—there’s no need to explain that. Everyone

already knows. When we say that there is

an alternative, when we say that we are

a political force that believes

that Russia is not doomed to live in poverty,

because they keep trying to convince us that

we’re hopeless.

These ones steal, the next ones will steal,

there will always be stealing. We will always

live badly. We will die poor. Our children

will die poor. There will always be poverty

in this city on the Volga. Do we believe that or not?

No.

Do we think that’s right or not?

Do we think of ourselves as somehow defective,

as some kind of lesser people? Are we worse than people in

Finland or Canada? Of course not. So

we just need to reach people and tell them this,

and they will vote for us,

because the truth is on our side.

Because if they really had 67 or

80 percent, would they really be shutting down venues?

Today they foamed up the

campaign office.

Damn, that really scared me. I walked

up to the door and said: "That’s it,

expanding foam—I’m going back to Moscow,

please, Rotenbergs, keep stealing,

please, Medvedev, build yourself another

thing. Expanding foam. An insurmountable

obstacle."

These methods are very popular here.

These methods are popular because what

else can they say? There were NOD activists

picketing in front of the office. I walked up

to them and said: "Well, do you want to ask me

something?" And they go: "Navalny,

shame, shame." I say: "Okay, shame."

Ask me something.

So this was their question. They thought for a bit and said,

here’s the question: Why do you insult Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin?

Seriously? Watch the video. "But he’s our

president."

He’s the president of all Russians. Is he your

president?

No,

he’s not my president. And that’s what they’re trying

to prove to us: that we aren’t really a people at all.

That we aren’t really Russians. That we’re just

some random people who just exist out there

it’s unclear where and whom they need to completely

exclude from the political process,

completely strip of political rights.

At the same time,

well, I mostly see young people here, and

people usually call us hipsters or something,

the advanced crowd, and so on. But this

concerns everyone. It concerns

nationalists, it concerns the right, it

concerns any people who

want to say something, to speak the truth,

who are unhappy about something, who do not

like being pressured, who do not

like the regions being robbed, and all of them

have been pushed out, and all of them will be with us. I

have given this example several times already,

if you watched these streams, the streams

are a huge problem. I keep saying the same

thing, and you keep streaming, and people in the regions

already know what I’m going to say.

In Ufa, people came to the press conference,

stood up and said: "We are Bashkir nationalists, we

support you." Then the next person stood up: "We are

Tatar nationalists, we

support you." Then others stood up,

and said: "I don’t like the previous two. We are

Russian nationalists, we

support you".

Everyone supports us. The right and the left alike,

all kinds of people, because people want a free,

decent life. There are no politicians or

political forces that support

a salary of 22,000 rubles.

They just don’t exist. And they have no supporters either.

Are there really people in Russia who

think that yes, it’s right that Russia

should be in second place in the world for the

number of oligarchs? Are there such people?

Oligarchs. Well, there are 82 people on the list.

That’s them, and some of their обслуживающий crowd.

There are no such people. And our greatest advantage

is the main thing. Why won’t they let us in?

Because they feel that we are telling

the truth. And we are not afraid to say what

we want to say. And in elections, with us will go

United Russia, which will be running away from us and

trying to force us out

of the premises. And all the others will go too,

those who are too cowardly to speak the truth.

Our biggest advantage is that we

tell the blunt, raw truth. And no one can reproach us

for anything. We say it exactly as it is. We are not

afraid to name names. We talk about

Putin, we talk about Medvedev, we

talk about the Rotenbergs. And we really, we

are not afraid of anything.

We are not afraid,

right? We are not afraid. That’s right. That’s right.

One person is chanting. Let me

hug you.

No need, you need to show initiative. And,

guys, the main thing to remember is, now I’ll

try to answer some questions.

The last thing I want to say. Sorry,

Leonid, I stole your part.

All right, then A

many of us, well, everyone is standing there,

watching, saying: "Cool, well done,

Navalny is speaking." Well, of course, afterward

we’ll leave. Well, all of this is mostly

useless, because, well, because

nothing can be changed. That is the most harmful

idea. It is easier for us to defeat Putin than

to defeat that idea. Or rather, the death of this regime

lies in defeating that idea,

when we ourselves do not believe. We think that

they are powerful, while we are, well, just kind of

a group of honest citizens. We are 100 times

stronger. Because they have no one. Have you

ever seen a person, damn it, who

went to a United Russia rally for free?

No. No, they simply do not exist. Seventeen years

of television,

seventeen years of oil money. Not a single one,

nobody. There is no real support there. But we

are real people. And there is no more

powerful political force than people

united by an idea.

That is simply the history of humanity. Always,

from the Egyptian pyramids to Russia in 2018,

it was ordinary people who won, people who had

nothing except their sense of being right and the moral

right. Do we have the moral right

to take part in the elections?

No.

That means that here too, in Nizhny Novgorod, we

will take part, and we will win, and

no expanding foam will stop us.

Go ahead,

and will a criminal conviction stop you.

We’ll answer all the questions now, but

we’ll try. I’m not good at that. A strange

question to answer. So, uh, Alexei, but I need

to say a few organizational

campaign office matters. We were not allowed into the

working meeting,

where we wanted to talk about

organizational matters,

don’t hit him. Anyway, listen to me,

man. Today I

when I arrived at the hotel today, from 7:00 a.m.

he was standing there banging on my

door. I didn’t lay a finger on him, so

now he’s going to squeal. Please, don’t

hit him. Go on.

We only wanted to discuss

organizational matters, to explain

how exactly the

campaign office will operate. So, first: the office will

be operating; expanding foam did not

stop it. The address is Minina 25A. When you

get there, you’ll understand why we

rented a separate hall and paid money

for this meeting. It is very

small and functional, because this

office is about work. There will be only

four people working there, led by Sanya. These

four people are needed in order to

to coordinate all of you, to

turn you into the most awesome

campaign machine. And in the near

future, what exactly is going to happen there

throughout March? Will you just

come there on your own, or will Anya

call you, invite you, and she’ll simply

talk with you. Like, I can put on a

car sticker. I have 15 minutes a

day to campaign online. I

don’t have time now, but in the summer I’ll take 2 weeks

of vacation. And there’s this awesome

pedestrian street here, actually. When it gets

drier and cleaner here, sometimes

more people. I’ll campaign.

And this joke works in every city

in Russia. In every city in Russia it’s like

that. So she’ll put you down there in

a big spreadsheet so we can understand: here is our

campaign machine, how it’s going to run, what

little wheels, screws, and steering wheels

it will consist of. In other words, just to

understand what resources we have, well,

because all we have is you.

All we have is 25 million rubles,

which you sent us. All we have

is 35,000 volunteers who have

signed up with us. Of them, 400 volunteers,

actually more now, 460 in Nizhny Novgorod—that’s

the fourth-highest number in all of Russia.

That’s it. You are our television, you are

our radio, you are our newspapers. Our

only way to talk to

people here, on Bolshaya

Pokrovskaya Street, in Sormovo, in Arzamas. I

know there are people who came

from Arzamas. People who in Arzamas came to the

post office about the local meeting. accidentally waited

for the event at all

and came anyway, which means

because you didn’t register as a

volunteer

I did register

or, or they confirmed the address—well, that means

there are even more of us

we’ll clean up the database there, Anya will write to everyone

and get in touch with everyone, so during

March you’ll simply come

to the headquarters, and we’ll find time to speak with each person

individually, to understand

what to expect

No need to run, no need—run! Run, run.

There they are. United Russia

ran off. That’s it, that’s all they’ve got. There are

the main supporters of the authorities.

How many are there in the region?

3 million.

3 million people. There’s your defense of the regime.

That’s all they can do. And off they ran. Off they ran.

They just ran off. Ah, yes. They carried out a

special operation against Navalny. That’s it, they blew things up,

damn it. Wrote up a report: 8,000 rubles. Damn.

That’s all they can do.

I think today

they’ll write down 8,000.

No, I mean, they probably burned through 80 or

an egg and

we know what their efficiency is like.

Alexei, may I ask a question?

In a moment, in a moment, friends, let me just finish up a few

organizational matters. Just a little

more.

This is important. Important.

In short, in March the headquarters will need

to get acquainted with all of you, to

talk to each of you, to understand how

our campaign machine here will be organized.

who will go with leaflets to

towns in the region, who else will be able to

do what, right? In April we’ll begin this

signature verification, that is, we’ll

start inviting everyone who

registered as signatories, we’ll

talk to them, check their information

and so on. In Nizhny Novgorod and

the region we already have more than 4,000 people. So

that means we’ve already completed more than half of this

7,500 target. In May we’ll begin

training election observers, and in June we’ll begin

street campaigning. So little by little

we’ll build this campaign machine

and it will start working for us, and everything

will be fine. We just need a little

patience, because the headquarters itself is very

small, and as you’ll see, we’re conserving

resources; we don’t have many, and all of this

is people’s money—there is no other kind. So we’ll

build it gradually, gradually. That’s why we

are starting so far in advance across the region.

We have

our country is big, and we’ll build all of this

at Mini on 25A, the headquarters address. Well,

I’ve said the main points. Go ahead.

Did you see, after the eggs they also turned on that sinister squeaking?

Apparently that was phase two.

Go ahead. I understand that you’re cold and

soaked through. I’ll try to answer a few

questions. Go ahead. Yes. Uh,

My question is this, my question is this. We all

see that across Russia there is a march of

Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy in the form of seizing

property, well, so-called

seizure. So when you become

president, what will you do about these

idiotic laws on restitution of property to the

church, on protecting religious feelings?

Okay, I’ll repeat the question. Across the country

Orthodoxy is marching and being imposed—what will you

do about it? I don’t notice that

Orthodoxy is marching across the country. Tell

me, when, excuse me, some crazy

woman starts talking about the myrrh-streaming of Nicholas II (the last Russian tsar). Is that

Orthodoxy? No,

we have the Glinka Conservatory.

I understand, I got it, I got it, I got it

the question. So, what is happening

now has nothing to do with Orthodoxy

at all. It is a gathering of lying crooks,

hellish Satanists. Damn, just because

that

just because they are members of the CPSU of the seventy-

seventh year, the head of the Supreme

Court was throwing people in prison for

distributing the Bible, and now they are there

crossing themselves and bowing to the floor. Gatherings of

hypocritical crooks. Will you repeal the law—

these

all the laws like Article 282, under which

people are jailed for offending feelings,

of course, they need to be repealed. Next

question. Will you give Crimea back to Ukraine, or

what will you do?

Right, questions about Crimea usually come at the end

but

will I bring Kadyrov to heel? So, there

they found some really easy questions.

So, first. On

Crimea, my position has changed. Whether we want

to or not, this issue is

unsolvable in our lifetime, or in the

lifetime of the next generation. Why do I

think so? Because, based on the experience of the

world, not a single territorial dispute

has been resolved in the last 70 years. Not

one. Regardless of how much

effort is put into resolving

the Israeli issue there, the settlements,

the status of Jerusalem—zero progress. And on

Crimea, in the foreseeable future there will be zero

progress. Whatever we do, unfortunately,

this is already, well, for decades,

possibly for much longer.

Will I bring Kadyrov to heel?

There’s no need for that, there’s no need to

subjugate anyone. Well, as for Kadyrov,

there should be an investigation into

his possible involvement in the murder

of Nemtsov, involvement in the murders

of other people, torture, and so on.

Therefore, his fate should be decided

by the investigation and an independent court. In general,

Chechnya is, in essence, not that different

from Nizhny Novgorod, except that there are

a lot more unshaven people there. The same

thing. Huge amounts of money come in. One

family bought themselves Porsche Cayennes and

drive them around. We see it on YouTube. Everyone

else lives in poverty. In poverty.

So they need the same thing we do.

Law and order, proper distribution

of money, and everything else. Nobody

there wants to secede. No one needs to be

subjugated. We just need to establish

normal life, so that the republic

can live, so that mayors are elected

in cities, so that

governors are elected. That’s all. Next question. Yes.

My question concerns public education and

society’s self-education.

Briefly, please.

There’s a saying that vodka

gets cheaper while books get more expensive.

Yes.

So how do we make books

cheaper?

Great question. I’ve heard the saying

that vodka gets cheaper while books get more expensive.

How do we make sure they don’t? This is actually

a very important issue, because

since Soviet times, if we

look at the ratio of wages to

the cost of goods, we’ll see that bread

has become more expensive, milk has become more expensive,

meat has become more expensive—the only product that

has become cheaper is

vodka.

Vodka is the only product that

has become cheaper since Soviet times. And

this is, in fact, their deliberate

policy, because when everyone is drinking heavily,

they don’t go vote. Because when

everyone is drinking heavily, they don’t watch films about

Dimon and so on, and so on. So,

ah, and how do we make it so that vodka is,

so that books are cheaper than vodka?

By investing state money in

education. Because this is not just

something that sounds nice. Let’s give more

money to schools, because it is

profitable. If we invest one ruble today in

a person’s education, then in 10 years that person

will pay us 100 rubles in taxes. This is simply

the practice of developed countries: the most

effective investments are in

human capital, healthcare,

and education. Right now, well, just

look at the budget curve. Spending on

education has simply been going like this

for the last 15 years—straight down. Spending

on the military, on military-police needs,

keeps rising all the time. There you have it,

your famous center in Nizhny Novgorod,

which is notorious across the whole country. They

get endless funding, while education does not.

This is a key point of our

program: to change the budget balance,

to reduce the bloated military-police spending

which is absurdly inflated, and increase

spending on education and healthcare.

Let’s take one here.

Alexei, a question. May I, Alexei,

a loud one. Go ahead.

When you become president, how do you

envision the revival of the

Krasnoye Sormovo plant?

Only Krasnoye Sormovo is on your mind.

And I’ll be honest,

by the way, it is operating.

I’ll be honest: I don’t want to make things up

right now. Like saying I have a plan, it’s

all written down—I just forgot to bring it with me.

Sorry, the plan for

reviving the Krasnoye Sormovo plant is in the car. I

am not ready to answer specifically right now, but

reviving a plant is not really a matter for the

president; it is a matter of economic

situation. We need economic growth.

If there is no economic growth in the

country—and there hasn’t been any for the past 4 years, for 4

years people’s incomes have been falling, real

household incomes—and there will be economic

growth when we free up business, when

we stop squeezing everyone for money, when

governors and FSB officers stop

muscling in on and seizing those very businesses, then

probably the plant and Krasnoye

Sormovo will recover, as will Russian industry

as a whole. And, well, there really is no alternative

to this. You know, one could have argued with

me in 2007. Well, Navalny

is proposing a more market-oriented program, while

Putin is proposing a more

conservative one. But now, in 2017,

we simply have 17 years of experience showing that

their program doesn’t work worth a damn. That’s

it. So that’s how I would rebuild it.

There was a question here. Yes.

Back under President Yeltsin, this

was privatization. Under

President Putin, in effect, there is no such thing, but instead

there is... well, when you become

president—I’m really counting on that—

do you plan

I’m counting on it too.

yes, to start again, well, to do more

privatization, and what role will

I understand, that’s a good question, and I’ll repeat it.

So, under Yeltsin there was

privatization; under Putin there is

re-privatization. What will you do?

The trick is that under Yeltsin there was

illegal privatization, and under

Putin

there is even greater privatization going on, only

damn, it’s so sneaky that he is

effectively handing over management rights

to his friends. Look, Rosneft is a

state-owned company.

Formally, yes, but in reality

Sechin.

So when Sechin drives around with a flashing beacon,

he’s supposedly a state official. But when Sechin

pays himself 3 million rubles a day,

excuse me, he says: "I’m not a state official, I’m

a businessman, I can pay myself as much as I want."

It’s unclear whether they are officials or businessmen.

So what Putin has done is a kind of

hybrid privatization. It is the effective

transfer of practically everything specifically to his

friends and to his friends’ children. Just

look at how power is structured now.

Putin’s crooks, his friends from the St. Petersburg

mayor’s office, have seized all the political posts,

and all the economic posts have been taken by their

children.

Who is at Rosselkhozbank? Patrushev’s people. Who is at

VTB? The Bortnikovs. Who is now at Ros...?

Little Rogozin. Damn, I remember little

Rogozin from many years ago. Lyosha Rogozin

and boom—now he’s in charge of

what there? Shipbuilding.

And how will it be under you?

Why,

Alexei?

Under me, there will be meritocracy. First of all,

the president will not be making such appointments. He

should not appoint such people. It

works differently. That’s the first point.

Second, if a company is private, then it is

private. If a company is state-owned,

then it is run, among others, by

independent directors on the

board of directors. Because what we have now is that

Rosneft is state-owned, and we

say: "Great, let’s have a

state-owned Rosneft," but at the same time it has

3.5 trillion rubles in debt. That means it is

literally a black hole into which money is

pumped and pumped

and pumped, and no one even

raises any objections. Sorry,

for taking so long to answer this question, but

it really gets to me personally. I want

to record a video about it. They even introduced

a law to seize a debtor’s only home.

Have you heard? Yes,

well, they’ll seize it and say, well, we’re

taking the only home from

drunks, from some kind of social misfits,

or that it’s their own fault because they couldn’t

repay the loan. But my question is:

when Sechin doesn’t repay debts, do they take his home?

Do they?

No.

And VTB Bank has had a hole in its budget for years—

do they take its home?

No. And the head of the Pension Fund, where there is

also always a hole, the apartment that

we found—600 square meters at Patriarch’s Ponds (an upscale Moscow neighborhood)—will they take

that away from him? No.

So tell me, please, even

if he

drinks away his utility payments, how is he

any different, damn it, from Drozdov or

Sechin, who, well, racked up

debts of 20,000 rubles, 100,000 rubles,

while those guys ran up debts in the trillions.

They’re worse than any drunk. So all this

crap—it’s neither

state-owned nor private; it simply

belongs to the mafia. And this is the system

we are fighting and will keep fighting, right?

In principle, most of our capital

A little louder, please.

Most of your capital is located in

Moscow and St. Petersburg—how do you see the development

of the regions?

Excellent question. Most of the capital is in

Moscow and St. Petersburg. How do I see regional development?

I see it this way: we need to give them

freedom. I see it this way: we need

taxes to stay here to a greater

extent. I see it this way,

so that—thank you,

so that the city mayor is elected and there isn’t

all this nonsense with city managers,

or any of that crap. By now, in

Russia there isn’t a single major city

where the mayor is elected. The governor should

be elected. We need to redistribute

the system, because, well, I always use

this example everywhere, and I’ll gladly give

it here too. What’s your city’s budget?

Minus what?

Is that the region?

No, that’s the region. What are you—

24 billion.

How are you counting the city budget?

24 billion.

Alexei

I thought it was 29, turns out it’s 24.

Well, anyway, somewhere in the 20 to 29 range

consolidated,

now that’s an informed person. So, at the same

time, for reconstruction, for

beautification of part of the Garden Ring in

Moscow, 12 billion rubles are allocated. That is,

with only a slightly larger amount, you have to

maintain schools, hospitals, kindergartens

here, pay teachers’ salaries, repair

everything somehow, keep the roads in at least

some kind of shape, deal with all utilities and housing services. And in Moscow, that’s just

the reconstruction of the Garden Ring. And at the same time

I mean, I’m a Muscovite, I love the city,

but what do I get from those 12 billion? How much

of those 12 billion will they steal?

11.

12. They’ll steal all 12 out of 12.

That’s why the current system, under which

all the money is taken to Moscow, and then

the regions have to beg, plead, and

say: "Give us a little." It is,

of course, rotten, which is why nothing at all

develops, because, say,

suppose you had a good

governor. A good governor would go all out tomorrow

and bring businesses here,

and something would start developing. But would

you profit from it? No, they’d still take it all to

Moscow. So the system is absolutely

rotten. Let’s take one more person. Yes,

please.

Alexei, how would you relate corruption

on a mass scale, which in our country is an undeniable

fact—even Putin supporters don’t deny it—and

the preservation of Russia as the world’s main

raw-materials appendage, and the preservation

of energy exports as the main source of federal budget

revenue?

The question is about the relationship between corruption, which

even Putin supporters do not deny, and Russia’s status

as a global raw-materials appendage.

It’s a direct relationship, because the easiest thing

to steal from is simple things. What is the main

Putin-era corruption scheme? The fact that

Russia has five largest oil

companies. Four of them sold oil

through Gunvor. One of Putin’s associates sat at Gunvor.

It’s very simple. The ideal

economy for Putin is one where

there is Tyumen and Eastern Siberia.

From there, there is an oil pipeline. That pipeline

is guarded by a small number of people. At the

border, it gets sold. Everyone else is dead,

because then there’s no need to pay them pensions. And

that’s great, just great. For them, that’s the

ideal economy. And they genuinely

consider everything else a cost. They

think: "Damn, some Nizhny Novgorod,

what the hell do we need it for? How great it would be

if there were no Nizhny Novgorod and we didn’t

have to pay anyone pensions and didn’t

have to repair roads there. And Russia

really has become much more of a

raw-materials appendage than even in

the Brezhnev era (the Soviet period under Leonid Brezhnev). Right now, 60%

of the federal budget is oil and gas.

And if we add primary-processed metals

and mineral fertilizers to that,

we’ll see that we really live only

off oil and gas, because that’s where

it’s easiest to steal. Yes.

National treasure, gas, and about

the national treasure. How do you plan

to

Do I plan to do what with the national wealth

exactly?

Well, listen, is Gazprom now

a national treasure?

No, it’s the property of Miller and Putin.

What is Gazprom now? It’s a huge

company that earns a lot of

money. Almost all of that money—it pays very little

into the budget. They spend it on, like,

capital investment in pipeline construction.

And who the hell builds all those pipelines?

The Rotenbergs, at prices seven times higher.

This is another favorite example of mine, how they

built

a gas pipeline from Leningrad Region to

Germany. The very same line, absolutely

the same pipeline. On

German territory it costs 2 million euros per

kilometer, and on Russian territory 6 million

euros per kilometer. That’s it.

That’s brutal.

So it’s brutal, right? Brutal. Well, that’s

exactly the point: the whole country says:

"Damn, that’s brutal." But we’ve gathered here

in order to turn this brutality

into votes and channels of communication.

Sorry, what?

What will you do with the three main

TV channels?

As for television,

I’d start by shooting them all. You work there now

yourself. Just kidding. No, that would also be

extremism, but at the very least I’d throw them

all out and ban them from working on TV channels

or in the press. That’s first. Second,

the state does not need any three channels.

So, one of the main tasks is

the point of democracy is that the media

should be free,

so that if I became president and turned out to be a bad one,

for example, then five years later those

media outlets would not be subordinate to me

and would tear into me for being

a bad president. Without honest media, without

free media, we will never defeat

corruption. Next question. Next question.

Charlatans prey on the uneducated.

And what about you?

The fourth question, which leaves me at a loss:

how do we fight psychics,

fortune-tellers, and everyone else who

makes money off ordinary people? Honestly, I don't

know. But wait, just a second, just a second.

Just today, by the way, I was reading in the

hotel that there has been a surge in trust in

folk medicine. And one guy, a smart one,

was explaining—I don't claim that I

understand this very well—but he explained it

by saying that conventional medicine has

fallen apart so badly and can't cure anyone,

that everyone runs to psychics, fortune-tellers, and

so on. And apparently there is no other way.

When a person understands that they will be treated

at a hospital, they won't go to a fortune-teller. That's

the only way. Yes.

Alexei, I really like your plan. But how

can one person make the whole machine

work differently?

But we are the ones...

...the whole huge city. No, let me start.

Great question.

Officials—where will all our

Sorokins go? [inaudible]

we have room.

Where is your regional administration building here? Everyone

will be driving past it.

Many of your

many of your officials will end up there,

where an honest, fair jury trial will

consider their specific

cases. You don't doubt that you have

corruption here, do you?

And you don't doubt that broken

roads and unrepaired buildings have another

side to them—that there are places where

the money is really going, which means there is corruption,

and all of that will be investigated. But overall,

of course, you can't do all this

from the central government—I believe it can

be changed fairly quickly. And it's

important to understand—it's important for us ourselves

to understand that in Russia you can find people

who will not be corrupt, because

we will build a system.

There are plenty of them.

First of all, there are plenty of them. Second,

officials will stop being

corrupt when it becomes dangerous,

frightening, and unprofitable, because right now

any official of yours—say, the head of some

department here in Nizhny

Novgorod—looks at Kornilin and

sees that this guy bought apartments in

Miami, with money from who-knows-where, something

may or may not have happened to him, he was

caught, and he still remained one of the leaders

of United Russia. So what is the behavioral model?

Steal, but don't get caught, don't

blow your cover. When the federal government,

when the president, when the prime minister

work honestly and properly, they

will force the whole system below them to work

properly. And we have seen this in many

countries that had problems from the point

of view of corruption, like Singapore or

Hong Kong. Question. The government says

that you're a criminal and will stop you.

The government says that you are a criminal

and won't allow you to run. How will you make sure

they approve you, put you on the

ballot?

I have a few acquaintances who

will make them. And, for example, right now they

are in Nizhny Novgorod and are standing

in front of a bench on which there is

one person. I have no other way

to make them all do it except to appeal

to you, because this is exactly what I

was saying at the beginning. They believe that

there is not in Russia any sufficiently

large number of people who

are ready to challenge their corruption, who

are ready to challenge their methods. But I

am absolutely, 100 percent sure that such

people are numerous, because the slogan of fighting

corruption,

when I say, "Let's fight

corruption," I have support from more than

86 percent. On the law against illegal

enrichment, I have 90 percent support. On

a compensatory tax against

the oligarchs, support is 100 percent. So all

I need to do is appeal to

you, rely on you, so that when these

crooks in the Kremlin, through their opinion polls,

realize that, well, they simply cannot fail to

register me, then they will

register me. So all of this is

absolutely in your hands alone. Question.

The question is precisely about percentages. When

you, as a participant in the election, once again

we encounter mass

fraud, ballot stuffing, like in the recent

ones—what will your actions be as a candidate? Ah,

this is not even a hypothetical

question. Will we face

fraud? It's a fact. Of course we

will face fraud. Well, let's do a

thought experiment. Dmitry

Medvedev is sitting there thinking, "If Navalny

wins, they'll take away my vineyard in

Tuscany."

So let me think,

should I rig the election or not

rig the election? So of course, yes,

They will do everything they can to

falsify things, but we must do

everything we can to defeat it. And that

can be done. We saw it in the regions,

even in places considered difficult, like Bashkortostan, people

did it. And it can be done in the North Caucasus too.

It can be done there. There is enormous support coming

from there. And here, in Nizhny Novgorod

Region, we will succeed, because we

will send real observers, genuinely

strong people like that. People are afraid

A question. Let's

from this side

from this side. Yes, please.

And the question is: do we need a progressive tax scale

and what should be done about various

Alisher Usmanovs who flee

their tax residency? I'll start with the second part.

We'll ban changing it.

That is, if you, uh, change the ultimate

ownership of a mining and processing plant,

we will make you pay such a

tax that you simply won't want to

change it at all. That's the main thing. Because

right now, you see, the thing is, well,

people talk about nationalization in Russia and

so on, but the most frightening thing

for the Russian economy is

nationalization in Cyprus. If Cyprus

were to nationalize offshore assets tomorrow, it would

automatically nationalize everything

there is in Russia. Because any large

company ultimately comes down to Cyprus,

the British Virgin Islands,

the Cayman Islands, and so on. This is

critically important. I've spoken about it a lot.

Libertarians criticize me a lot for this,

for example, because I, well, you could say,

actively argue in favor of banning

Usmanov and everyone else from, uh, changing

their tax residency. I mean, what kind of nonsense is that?

So they own

mining and processing plants here. In those

mining and processing plants, people

work their guts out underground for 18,000 rubles a month (about 18,000 RUB), while they

at the same time are tax residents

of Switzerland. That just can't be right. It is

wrong. So pay all your taxes here,

pay that miner 100,000 rubles (about 100,000 RUB),

and then change whatever

residency you want. So of course, he

will change it.

A question: how are things with Valerin?

There are no prospects.

And how can you say there are no prospects?

And a question about Oleg, about my brother—what

the prospects are, and so on. But

there was recently a hearing on

parole. I don't know

whether you followed it or not. Once again they said

that he is the main rule-breaker in that penal colony,

because he lay on his bed, because

he did not introduce himself in the proper form, and so

on. And so they denied it. Unfortunately, there are no prospects,

and he is in prison and will remain

there, because they are holding him

hostage. Terrorists have taken him and do not

want to give him back. Will it affect me or not? It will not.

It will not. Because despite the fact

that this is a constant pain for both me and

my family, Oleg was the first person

who told me, damn it, don't even

think about holding back a single word,

or changing anything at all in your rhetoric

for my sake, because then everything simply

loses its meaning. Then it would mean that I

am sitting in prison for absolutely nothing. So

this definitely will never affect me. Next question.

Alexei, we have the only city

of over a million people that is dying out.

Great voice. Go ahead. Yes. Well

we have the only city of over a million people

that is dying out. What should be done about it? How

do you plan to govern at all?

Change this government. Change this government.

Your city of over a million is dying out because

for 17 years the people in power have been those who

have made it so that all cities of over a million

are dying out. We have one thriving

city of over a million people—Moscow. That's it. And

even there, population growth is only happening

because people are moving there from all over the country

and migrants are arriving. Already 2 million people have

come. Everything is dying out. In Russia,

everything is dying out. We still have

male life expectancy that is

just so low that, well, they want to raise the retirement

age, but here

everyone dies before reaching retirement

age, so, well, 17 years have

passed. That's enough—we need to draw a line,

replace all of them, and that's it. From this side

let's take one from here, then from you. So, Alexei,

do you plan to register your own? No.

We registered it three times, and on the

fourth time it was registered, but

a month later it was dissolved. But again,

why? Because they are afraid. But at

the moment, we are still

focused on the election

campaign, and that is where we will put all our efforts. Yes.

Name a specific promise or

guarantee—if you fail to fulfill it, you will resign

from office.

Good question. Can you name a specific

promise that you guarantee

to fulfill? Otherwise, you will leave the post of

president.

Uh

All promises, deputy.

Well, first of all, if I—damn, Nizhny

Novgorod is some kind of

not-so-simple, not-so-simple city. First of all,

if I became such a villain that I did not

keep my promises, I assume that

I would not want to resign. So the

most important thing is to make the system such

that you will be able to send me into

resign; the free press would tear me apart over it,

and you would re-elect me if I

failed to keep my promise. But if we're

speaking in general terms, then of course

the fight against corruption. I promise you,

the people of Nizhny Novgorod, and all of Russia, that I

will be able to defeat corruption in Russia, that I

will be an uncorrupt president and

that I will put behind bars everyone who

whether they are close to me or not,

who is involved in corruption. That is what I

promise.

What reforms are planned in science? We have

a special policy group, including

people who are closely connected to

the Russian Academy of Sciences, members of the Academy. They are drafting it

in detail. So, overall, as

with education

and healthcare, we have a fundamental

problem of underfunding.

All the money in the country is now going into

the military and police budget. In other words,

in terms of population, in terms of the number of

police officers per capita, we rank first

in the world, yet when it comes to murders,

rapes, and thefts, we are still

among the worst in the world. So we are

spending inefficiently. I believe that

first of all, we need to provide more basic

funding, while the specific measures

are being developed by the group. They will be

published soon. Next question.

About a progressive tax scale. I think that

introducing a progressive tax scale right now

would be pointless, because we simply

would not be able to administer it, because

people just would not be able to pay more.

Look, everyone is in poverty. Even in

Moscow there are wage delays; simply no one

has any money. If we raise the rate even a little now,

people will simply stop

paying wages officially at all. But

the basic idea is that we need to rely more on

the actual personal income tax, the 13% rate, and

make less use of these hidden taxes,

because they love telling us

that Russia has the lowest taxes,

right? But that's a lie. It's a lie. We

do have low taxes for sole proprietors,

although it is still difficult

to operate, but on wages it's 13% personal income tax plus 35%

in unified social tax. So what we need

is what exactly?

30.2 — they keep correcting me on that all

the time. So we need to bring

this into a normal system in which

people understand how much they pay

in taxes, reduce social contributions, and

perhaps, in the future, raise personal income tax.

Question.

Our region has become a pioneer in

polling stations at hospitals, construction sites,

temporary settlements, and — attention — at cemeteries.

A cemetery polling station — a cemetery.

Great. Who votes there, exactly?

I'm not even asking which party wins there

.

You can guess who the main beneficiary of those

polling stations is. And the existence of such stations

becomes known only at the moment

the Central Election Commission publishes the data.

Yes, in St. Petersburg, 60,000 votes were cast at such polling stations.

And that's not 10, not

100, and not 1,000 votes.

Here's the question. Observers cannot shut down such

polling stations. From your

point of view, what can be done? Because

appealing to that very smart one,

the one behind it — yes, it was he, it was his

doing that uncovered such polling stations, he

brought them to light. Appeals to the court and the Central Election Commission led

only to the main beneficiary

being lightly inconvenienced

They gave them a tiny slap on the wrist, and that was it.

Well, look,

it's clear that they will keep

inventing new tricks. As I already said, they

have something to lose. At the cemetery

that's why they're even at cemeteries, and who knows,

soon they'll set up a separate polling station at every grave

where a thousand

people will somehow vote. But the most important thing here is

systematic work from the very top

all the way down. How many of you have ever been election observers?

You know very well that very often

it works like this: there is a formal

party position, it has quotas for

observers, but in practice they simply hand them over

to United Russia or the authorities. And

under those quotas, Communists, A Just Russia members,

and all sorts of other people are sitting there. And very often

the observers, frankly speaking, with rare

exceptions, do not fight very hard. We

want from the very beginning, from the Central

Election Commission down to regional commissions,

territorial commissions, to genuinely

build a ferocious control machine.

It will be up against a ferocious machine

of falsification, but we are simply

going to push ourselves for real this time, in a way

that no one has actually done before.

Question.

A question about the army. When you

become president, will you

modernize it or somehow reform it?

At every meeting I look around

for young men who will ask me

about conscription. Do you want to

go into the army?

I believe, and my opinion is based on

global experience, that what works best is

a professional army. There is one

exception, and that is Israel, but Israel is

a state that is in a constant state of war.

A professional army is always better. What

is conscription in Russia today? Exactly.

What is conscription in Russia? It is a tax on

poverty. Please tell me, are there

two regions where young people practically do not serve

in the military. Which regions are those?

Honestly.

Chechnya — they do not conscript from there — and Moscow

— there, everyone buys their way out,

because, well, it is a wealthier region, people

have money, they pay off the draft offices

and do not serve. And the poorer the region, the more

rural it is, the farther out into the countryside

you go, the more people serve,

because they do not have the money to buy their way out.

So now conscription, unfortunately,

has nothing to do anymore with

combat readiness or the army. It is simply

a tax on the poor. Next question.

Russia's foreign policy

Russia's foreign policy, Syria, Ukraine

and Nizhny Novgorod. So, Russia's policy — both

foreign and domestic —

not lower and upper,

but both external and internal — should have

one priority. First, fix the roads in

Nizhny, then in Palmyra. First we

solve domestic problems, then

damn it. Sure, it looks impressive,

to send that ship off to Syria

to sail around, but it cost, damn it, 7 billion rubles.

7 billion is a third of your city's budget,

and your city is suffocating from lack of money. In

the hospitals, you can barely step into either the wards

or the toilets. So when we become

ridiculously rich, when the average

salary here is 150,000 rubles, we can think

about sending things over there. Right now,

of course, we need to concentrate on

the prosperity of citizens, because only

the prosperity of citizens gives a country external strength.

A state cannot possess

military power if it has a small

economy. When we are rich, we have

a great army, we can hire more

soldiers and pay them higher salaries.

That is the only way. Next question. Go ahead.

Whew, good thing you did not ask about drugs. As for

the legalization of civilian firearms, I

admit that my view may not be the most

popular one, but I have held it

for a long time. I believe that

handguns should be

decriminalized and legalized.

Yes,

right now I also do not...

and there is a very simple explanation for this,

because the people who oppose the legalization

of handguns usually argue from this

point of view. They say:

"How can you give Russians

weapons? They are alcoholics, they will

kill each other, they are crazy,

they will run around the streets shooting."

Why is nobody shooting in Moldova? In

the Baltics, people — including Russians — are not

running around shooting their neighbors

with pistols.

In Russia before the Revolution, nobody was doing that either.

I believe that Russians specifically, and

Russian citizens in general,

are normal people. They are perfectly capable of

owning weapons without necessarily

shooting their own family members. At the very

least, take a police officer standing there — he

has a weapon. How is he different from

us? There he is, standing right there.

Well, we can own them too, and behave normally, and

everyone will be equal in their rights. Yes,

Alexei, there is a region called Chechnya, and

it receives very large subsidies, but

there is no regional development. What is your

position on

Chechnya and subsidies?

Not only Chechnya — in principle, there are

regions where huge amounts of money are spent,

but there is no development at all.

So, this is actually

a continuation of that question, right?

I understand,

I understand the question.

Comrade lieutenant colonel, come here.

I will explain. Come over here too.

It is awkward to invite you over informally. Let's

the hall is rented

and officially paid for. The door

is closed. All these people were invited through

an email mailing list several days

ago so that there would not be

an unauthorized event — they wanted an authorized one.

I kept it authorized

and now I am simply holding it.

And

help us out — they arrived a bit late there,

you see, they had to wait four hours

before they got moving.

No, they did not let them in there. Something

must have delayed them for a long time.

Officer, help open the door.

Help us open the door. I am explaining

to people the situation: that we cannot get into

the hall and that we will soon disperse. So at this

moment, do not conclude

that

we are holding a public event.

Absolutely not.

Let us into the hall

the hall.

Why don't you go to the hall and better yet

open it for us. Help us.

Why should we back down? Let's go. You are, after all,

representatives of the authorities. Let's go there.

They were throwing eggs. Why didn't you detain them?

Look, they are illegally not letting us in.

And the police, by the way, are refusing

to do anything. I even called

city hall today and said, "Come on, guys, you yourselves

are forcing us to hold the meeting outside."

People came anyway.

Let's go, yes,

let's go,

Come on, let's go.

They're just closed there.

Let's go.

Do you have a lease agreement?

Only the payment receipt so far.

I hope,

justice is somewhere

Comrade lieutenant colonel

Lieutenant Colonel, we demand justice.

standing in the corridor. Let's make

it orderly

everything public. This is not how it

is supposed to happen, interestingly enough.

after which they came and shut it down

illegally. So, while we have the chance,

we ask you to restore order. And, well,

if that doesn't work, we'll finish fairly soon

and wrap up, because everything has already been discussed.

I'll just say now that everyone should

disperse in an orderly way.

And in this situation, they've shut it down. They

draw it up. You, you are

you're here for the people, for us, right,

the people are right here. Who is in favor of

punishment? Why not? To make them comply?

And so that nobody gets nervous, I

suggest, well, either let us in, or

we'll finish in about 15 minutes,

and everyone will disperse in an orderly way.

What? That's it,

nothing's going to happen.

We're moving.

They,

I hope they just can't see me.

Please,

make a corridor, please. Come on.

All right, guys,

come on, come on, come on, come on.

Crushing, crushing. I was waiting

just move back.

That's it.

Move farther along, keep going.

As I was saying, whenever there is a confrontation

with organized groups of committed people,

the authorities give in to our demands.

So now we'll go on just a little longer,

literally 10 minutes, I can see that you're already

very cold and soaked through.

We'll finish and disperse in an orderly way so that

well, so that I don't keep you here

for another 15 minutes.

Let's take a couple more questions. Yes. When you

become president, what will we do about

the LPR and DPR (self-proclaimed separatist entities in eastern Ukraine), if by then they still

exist?

We must fulfill the Minsk

agreements.

Guys, come a bit closer over here,

it'll be easier for you. We must fulfill

the Minsk agreements that were signed

by Putin. That's all. That will be the issue.

Will you be able to see me without the bench?

Again, so,

construction foam won't stop me. Without

the bench I can manage too. The main thing is that you

can manage. Can you manage without the bench?

What was the question? Go ahead.

the Minsk agreements. If you become president, then as in

his time Yeltsin used to say,

in a situation where you find yourself one-on-one

with an opposition parliament

opposed to you, how do you plan

to deal with that situation?

Well then,

so, here's the thing. I would be faced with

an opposition parliament. This

parliament we have now is not

an opposition parliament; it's people with stolen

mandates. Does anyone in this parliament

represent you?

No.

No, they don't. And does this parliament include

anyone who wants to fight

corruption?

No.

Does this parliament include

anyone who is against the oligarchs?

No.

Therefore, we will dissolve this parliament.

We will elect a new, honest parliament. Next question.

And as for equalizing the retirement age for men and women: I

think that would be premature. And

in general, our main problem

with the pension fund is not even the retirement age

or the gender ratio, but the fact that pensions

are low because there is no economic

growth. The main problem of pension

reform is that it's simply impossible to live on 7,000

rubles (about $120 at the time). Can a person, even

an elderly person living modestly, live on 7,000?

No,

no, they can't. So this problem

will be addressed, and economic

growth will address it. Yes.

What would I do with the Constitution? I don't like this

Constitution, because under

this Constitution, sometimes the president was elected

for four years, now it's six.

Mayors were sometimes appointed, sometimes elected, sometimes

something else entirely. Sometimes I'm allowed to run in

elections, sometimes I'm not. And all under the same

Constitution. It's a bad Constitution. I

believe it needs to be changed. Yes.

quality conditions.

What conditions need to be created to improve the

quality of the work of law enforcement

agencies?

Law enforcement agencies—these

guys should answer to these

guys. That's all. That's the main condition.

Because what is the police

for, after all?

For public safety, for

protection. And perhaps that is the main

thing I am running for,

to remind everyone through you

and to realize once again ourselves that this

state, this beautiful Russia, I don't know,

officials, the buildings of Rosneft and Gazprom,

they don’t exist in some abstract sense, and not for

Putin, and not for Sechin, they exist

for us, for the people. And the task of the entire

state is to make life easier for people

and for a police officer to come over

and say: "My God, you’re soaked. I’m going to

break down the door right now and let you in." That’s

what a police officer should do, because he doesn’t want

a whole crowd of people to get sick. The authorities must

obey the people. And they will

obey the people if the people

demand it. I am absolutely certain that across

the whole country, and here in Nizhny Novgorod

Region, we will be able to build this

political momentum, which we will carry to

the authorities, force them to comply, and we

will win these elections. My friends, thank you

so much. You’re completely soaked already.

Thank you.

Sorry,

sorry once again. That’s how it turned out, but

okay, this won’t stop us. For the sake of

the beautiful Russia of the future, I’m willing

to stand in the rain a while and lose my voice.

I’m sure you are too. Thank you.

Alexei, you and you

from Monday to Saturday from 11:00 to 20:00

at Mini on 25A. You can take a photo.

Thank you, guys, thank you so much

very much. I’m very pleased, and your support is important

to me.

Can I as well,

that’s why you do it,

Guys, one second, I’m not running off right now. Well,

let’s ask the police now. They won’t

object too strongly to me

taking some photos. I have time before

the train. I’m not in a hurry. Not that,

but I’m hurrying to work.

So, do you admire yourself or

does it scare you?