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

someone from the city, or a deputy, or somebody else, should

stand up in the Duma and say: "Have you

all lost your minds or what?" But we can't

do nothing at all across the whole of Russia,

and then only dump 3 trillion rubles into Moscow

to relocate residents from buildings where people don't want

to be relocated. In Moscow, just an hour

ago, there was yet another rally against

the renovation program. People there don't want to move, but

they'll still "spend" 3 trillion rubles in order

to simply steal the money. But here, no one,

well, look, the governor is beating his chest

saying, "I'm for the people of Novgorod." The mayor,

United Russia members. Just stand up and say it.

Say: "Guys, come on, could we please

under the renovation program

relocate the residents of two buildings in Veliky Novgorod,

instead of relocating everyone in Moscow?"

Uh-huh.

I mean, it's obvious, right?

Yes.

It's just obvious. But what happens is,

Putin and Sobyanin are standing there saying:

"We'll allocate 3 trillion [clears throat] rubles,

and skim it off here." And all the

United Russia members just stand there, silent, nodding. I'm

jumping up somewhere from the back row,

jumping up and saying: "But how can that be? I mean,

that's just stupid. The whole country can't

work for Moscow. It's impossible for all

the money to go to Moscow." I say this

because it doesn't do Moscow any good either.

It can't be that

all the money you've paid here,

all the money your businesses have earned, gets taken to Moscow and

carved up there.

But everyone stays silent, and nobody wants to say

it. That's what our election campaign is about:

the obvious things that

just need to be said louder, because

everyone else is too scared. And when we say these

things, everyone will follow us.

Absolutely everyone. Even these so-called pillars

of the regime, the police, the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), and everyone

else—they understand the same thing too.

I mean, what prospects does a police officer here, in Veliky

Novgorod, have in

life? Does he have a huge salary? Is he

being given an apartment here? Does he have some kind of

mortgage support? No, he has nothing.

The whole country is a dead end.

Tell me something, please. I

read a briefing and looked at Rosstat data on your

city, and honestly I was a little shocked

by the figure for the average salary in

the city. What's the average salary in Veliky

Novgorod?

Everyone is shocked.

Everyone is shocked. Are you shocked? We're

shocked in different ways, because I

saw

the official figure

the official figure.

Well then, let me inform you, in case you don't know.

So, officially, according to Rosstat,

the average salary for 2016

34,700

rubles.

Yes. Yes. Alexei Navalny,

why are you whistling at me? Let's

call the governor. I mean, this is Rosstat's

actual figure. And I do this in every city.

I ask about it. So far I haven't seen

a city where people said: "No way,

that can't be true." That's why

this is my favorite kind of vote, a sort of public-opinion measure

that gives

me strength, because I understand that I am

right. Please raise

your hands if you know people, have

relatives, and so on, who earn

for a full workday less than these

34,000. Only for full-time work.

Too bad the mayor or governor

or a United Russia member isn't here. Thank you.

The acting one is.

Who knows? The acting officials are.

Your elections haven't happened yet. And who knows

people who earn less than

30,000?

[laughter]

Why are you laughing? I mean, according to

Rosstat, it's 35. Rosstat says 35.

And who knows people who earn

less than 20,000 for full-time work?

No, we'll keep going to stretch out

the pleasure. Yes indeed. Thank you very much. And

who knows someone who earns less than 18,000 for

a full workday?

I get the feeling it's the same people

raising their hands.

Well, it is the same people raising their hands.

Right, exactly, they are the same

people. Thank you very much. Now,

not just to humor me, but

so that—well, I take it you're

skeptical. You don't believe in this

show of hands.

We do. Why wouldn't we? I guess we do.

earns something.

Honestly now, not just to play along with me,

but tell me truthfully: do you have

acquaintances whom you know for sure

who, for a full workday, earn

less than 12,000 rubles?

For a full workday.

For a full workday. What, you don't believe

such people exist? So who is it, in your case?

Where does this person work?

She works at the post office. A woman,

For a full workday. A person works

at the post office, the state postal service, in a

country that has sold oil and

gas worth 3 trillion dollars over the past

years, and earns

less than 12,000. We get in a car, we

drive for 4 hours, and arrive in a country called

Estonia, which from day

12 grand. So tell me, is there

oil? No,

No.

Is there gas?

No.

Diamonds?

No.

Golden sprats?

Regular sprats, coal. There’s nothing there,

nothing. The average salary in Estonia is 1,100

euros.

70,000 rubles, even more. And it’s not as if

it’s just, you know, because they’re 1,000

km away, or because we have a different climate here, or

because somehow our natural resources are

different. No. It’s the same.

The same kind of people. But all the same, the quality

of life and standard of living are completely different.

And our campaign is about this, not about any prison nonsense.

Here’s a simple question.

If in most countries, even in Eastern

the basic problem of poverty,

the problem of roads has been solved, the basic

problem of healthcare has been solved, then why

can’t we solve it? I once

talked about roads with some

United Russia member. They all tell me: "Well, you

understand that it’s impossible to repair all the roads in

Russia."

Who said that?

And you know, like that little icon on the

internet, that little person who goes like

this. I don’t understand—why can’t we

repair them? Why is it that in Africa, in

most countries, they’ve fixed all the roads, but

in Russia it can’t be done? What’s so extraordinary

about roads? So here’s the

point. I think we just need to stop

stealing from road projects. Every

construction job, every road repair

is treated as, well, officials

understand: on this section I’ll build

myself a house, on that section I’ll build myself

a dacha, on this section I’ll make enough for

a yacht, for some motorboat rides.

That’s what needs to be eliminated, and then it

will all start working. It will all work

perfectly well. All of this can be done. We’re not

talking—our campaign is not about pie in the sky,

but about obvious things that are

right there on the surface,

things we can definitely achieve.

But listen, we launch rockets into space,

we have aircraft manufacturing, that is,

we have entire sectors of

industry that don’t exist in

most countries in the world. That means

that on average we should be living better. But

instead we live in poverty. Here, officially,

in Novgorod Region, 19%

of people live below the subsistence minimum.

How much is the subsistence minimum?

Eight. They get less than eight. How

do they live?

Well, I mean, like,

they plant potatoes, do things like that. And

again, a basic

question comes up. Here I am, in

Novgorod, the cradle of Russian civilization.

Historically, it’s Russia’s principal city.

From here we built our

civilization. People died here,

worked, fought, and built

industry, and yes, launched rockets into

space. We have a nuclear

industry, we have a lot of things. And

in the end, what we get is that a person

has to plant potatoes just to survive,

like, damn it, in the 19th century. That’s it. That’s why we’re

running this campaign—to fight these things

and overcome them. And they can be overcome quickly. And

it’s clear what needs to be done. And it’s clear

what to do about corruption. That trillion

rubles a year that gets stolen through

state procurement, by Medvedev’s estimate, not mine,

Medvedev says it—I know what to do

about it. We drafted the bills

several years ago,

but they don’t want to pass them. Illicit

enrichment of officials. I know what to do

about that. It’s all there. We wrote Article 20

and the corresponding draft law for it.

The anti-corruption plan is ready. On this point

United Russia says, "You want to bring back

Stalinist practices." Why

Stalinist practices? I’m just saying,

man, if you can’t explain where

you got the yacht, then either explain where you got

the money, or we open a criminal case against you.

That’s Stalinist practice?

No.

No. Do you agree with that?

Everyone agrees. We run polls—90%

are in favor. But it’s impossible to push through. That’s

the main thing we need to

remember: we are the majority.

Take any point in the program. You’ll

meet any person here, whatever

I don’t know, whether he’s for Putin or

whoever, spouting some nonsense about

a third path of development. But on every

specific point, if you ask him, he’ll

say: "Against corruption?" "Yes."

"Do you want to raise the minimum wage?"

"Yes, I do."

And so on, point by point. That’s why

it’s important not to treat our campaign

as if it were some joke or

something ironic. It’s important to believe in your

own strength, because

no one else is really doing anything at all.

People think the authorities are

some huge monolith. And we [clears throat]

are just like this. And Navalny runs up and

smashes his head into that wall and bounces off.

Bang. Like Don Quixote riding a donkey and

charging at a giant windmill. But there’s nothing

like that. There is no wall, no

of a giant mill. There is simply

inertia. People have simply gotten used to it. Putin

became president by accident. He was appointed by

Yeltsin. And now they are clinging to this power.

People just look at them. Every time

the people say something, they throw at them

Alisa Vox, Ptakha, Alisher

Usmanov, and think that this

is enough. And up to now, it

has worked. What I want is for it

to stop working. No one is simply

doing any political organizing. When we

start campaigning, we ourselves will be surprised

at how quickly the whole city will be on our side.

We ourselves will be surprised at how easy it is to win over half

the population. We just need to believe

in ourselves and we need to defeat, in the course of this

campaign, our main enemy, which is

what?

Putin.

Corruption. Putin is just, well, Putin is simply

television

the system neutralizes

disbelief

disbelief

all right, raise your hands, those who

have ever tried to campaign, well,

to persuade people, to explain something

thank you, and now raise your hands, those who

have heard in response the phrase, well, corruption cannot be

defeated, everyone will always steal

excellent, and now again raise your hands

those who have heard the phrase, well, these ones have already stolen enough

the new ones will steal even more.

That, you see, is what

Putin's power rests on. That is the propaganda

simply on that phrase.

And we need to go around and prove that it is possible

to defeat corruption, that there have been cases,

for example, mainland China is

corrupt. In Hong Kong there is no corruption.

In Singapore there is no corruption. Georgia was

the most corrupt republic of the USSR

at the grassroots level. There is no corruption even

there now. All of this can be done. Therefore

first we need to build confidence within

ourselves, and then go out with that and be surprised

at just how many

supporters we have. That is why I am sure that

here, in Veliky Novgorod, and indeed throughout

the whole region, we will have a great campaign,

and we will win outright in the first round.

Thank you very much. I'm ready to answer questions.

Raise your hands, and I’ll answer.

Please.

As of yesterday, I still had

just a thousand questions, so to speak,

starting with

And now you’re so disappointed that

you don’t even want to ask anymore. Still,

...

healthcare and education in Russia. But

today, on the way here, I realized that

is in Russia,

yes.

What is freedom to you? Can you give it

to citizens?

Sometimes there are questions like that which

really stump you. What is freedom to me, and

what? Can I give it to citizens? I, I

want everyone to leave everyone else

alone, so that no one interferes in anyone else’s life, so that

if there is an entrepreneur, he knows for certain that

no one can come to him tomorrow and

say: "Get out of the office, we’re tearing

you down there." Or that you owe us something, or

must pay, or that we will somehow, like

with the Platon toll system, now make you pay

the Rotenbergs, not the state budget, but the Rotenbergs.

That is what I want: for such people to be left alone.

I want any people to be able to say on

the internet whatever they want. Even, perhaps,

some vile, disgusting things, but they are

just talking, they are merely moving

their lips, they are not killing anyone,

right? I want the church not to

have the right to put them in jail. Please, you

can respond to them, put out some kind of

video in reply, make a diss track about Sokolovsky, or

whatever it’s called, challenge him to

Versus, insult him, throw something at him

or do something of that sort. I mean, I am a believer

myself. I simply do not see any

problem. Let him talk. I can

say something in response. And for me

freedom means that a person should not be afraid of the police.

Because here, well, even according to

polls, 84% of people, when they see

a police officer, cross to the other side of

the street. You saw that video, that video

today, of the police breaking up a festival of

colors,

and the schoolkids shout back at them: "AUE!" (a Russian prison/criminal subculture slogan)

[laughter]

Good grief, what is happening? What is happening?

It’s a nightmare. It’s funny, but this is, this is

a national catastrophe. It is

a national catastrophe. The level of

crime is staggering. Go on then,

police officers, do your jobs. But no, we

are going to chase schoolchildren. And the schoolchildren

will become, well, AUE. And that is what they will remain

in life: AUE. Because how do they relate to

this government? Well, that is

a catastrophe. So freedom is simply, well,

basically not interfering with people in their normal

daily lives. Next question.

May I?

Yes. What do you think about the fact that Sasha

Spilberg was invited to the State

Duma? And if you become president, will you

support a similar policy,

inviting well-known bloggers

for some kind of communication, perhaps with

the public?

And when I become president, to the State...?

No, let’s start from the beginning. Well,

all right, let’s start from the beginning. I, I understood your question.

Repeaters. Everyone has heard how I feel

about Sasha Spielberg going to the

State Duma. When I become

president, will they be bringing

video bloggers into the State Duma? When I become

president, people in the State Duma will work, not

mess around. That’s all. What kind of

nonsense is this? Pass

laws. You sit there and receive a salary of

450,000

rubles a month. Free apartments,

free travel. In other words, we

are paying for this whole crowd. They invite

Sasha Spielberg and sit there looking at her. She

tells them something. It’s just stupidity,

really. Grown adults gathered together—they shouldn’t

be doing this. Why did they invite her

in? Because they don’t understand what

to do about your idea. Our idea.

Hold a rally here on the twelfth. Alisa

Vox didn’t work. Ptakha didn’t work.

They’re sitting there like, "Oh my God, oh my God."

Sasha Spielberg, Sasha Spielberg will

help us. She’ll come out and say: "She

said there: "I don’t understand why

people go out to rallies against yellow

sneakers."

But I’m not against yellow sneakers,

I’m against the person wearing the sneakers,

against the system, against how he bought them, against

the yacht he walks around on in those

sneakers. We all understand perfectly well. It’s

stupid. And there’s no need to engage in this

kind of thing. Let video bloggers do whatever

they want, including Sasha Spielberg. She’s

fine

in the Duma, people should work instead of wasting time. Question.

Yes,

now let’s ask about the church.

Most likely, there really was no

rape.

Then let him apologize to him.

So, Alisher Usmanov

has sued me on many, many

different counts. Specifically, he is disputing

a phrase that I didn’t even say in the film.

In the film, we didn’t talk about his convictions.

I said it on Sobol’s program, Navalny

Live. Those of you who watch Cactus know

what I’m talking about, right? Sobol will be

pleased. I passed along that so many

people are watching. And what I said was

this: that Usmanov, who was imprisoned in the USSR

either for rape or for

fraud—that was the first point. Second.

Wait for it—my response to Usmanov will be out soon.

You’ll see everything. I’ll also

speak on this topic.

Three

times

with what? What was that again?

Yunarmiya,

yes. And private military companies.

Right, and Yunarmiya is

I was so surprised that I even

lost my microphone.

What is Yunarmiya? What is Yunarmiya? Is it

like cadets or something?

A Russian movement of sorts.

Well, look,

for the state as well.

Well, Zarnitsa (a Soviet-era military-style youth game)

in general—I don’t know. When I was little,

I liked playing Zarnitsa. Since I lived in a

military town, we found it

interesting—shooting and all that, it all seemed great.

So if this really is

schoolchildren who want to prepare for

the army or want to serve under contract

service, if they like marching or

taking apart and reassembling a rifle, there are quite

a lot of them. And if it doesn’t require

enormous amounts of budget money, then fine,

let it remain. But what is happening now

is, first of all,

something compulsory, and second, an idiotic

waste of money. From the same category, in

the Moscow region, yes—the Moscow region has 5 million

people—they ordered all schools to hold

their graduation ceremonies in Patriot Park, where

tanks fire and all that. Naturally, all the schools

are in an uproar. All

the girls are saying, "Why the hell should I, in a

dress, go climbing around some ditches

and trenches? We want our graduation to look different."

Well, that’s the stupidity of it,

the fact that they want

to drag as many young

people as possible into their state-run setup. Of course, I’m

against that. And again, it’s

a pointless waste of money. Question.

Alexei, please tell us, we now have

gubernatorial elections coming up, and

accordingly, there is a municipal

filter under which a candidate has to collect 170

signatures from deputies at different levels.

Naturally, only United Russia has

that many candidates. No

other party has that number of deputies

.

Do you think the municipal

filter itself is a way of creating a reservation out of

the Novgorod region, or is it somehow beneficial? And

the question is about the gubernatorial elections and

the municipal filter. Well, tell me,

please, let’s make a prediction

—a very difficult one—about who will become governor of

your region. Well, everything is obvious. This

municipal filter is effectively a

ban. But we both understand that this brings us back

to the issue of obvious things

that everyone stays silent about, and someone has to

shout: "We do not have gubernatorial

elections." Our governors are

appointed. The municipal filter is

a ban on nominating people. It is all

a grand fiction that exists simply

to allow Putin, during his live call-in show,

on the line saying, pretending to be

some kind of fool: "Well, we do elect

governors, we do have competition,

none of that exists." It's a fiction, it's a

harmful fiction. And I am absolutely convinced

that an official who is elected will be

better than an appointed official. I'm not

just convinced. Historical data

shows this: electing mayors and

electing governors is always better,

because they work better, because

they are at least somewhat afraid of the public,

because they want to be re-elected. They

depend on someone. But as things stand, your

Nikitin has how many voters?

One. One. He only needs to please one

person. He doesn't need to

do anything for you, I don't know, answer

questions or report back. He couldn't care less

about what's happening. One person appoints him,

and one person can say:

"I will become president." We will abolish all of this

and restore normal direct elections

for governors and mayors. And no

repeat terms. So: 4

[clears throat] years in office, then maybe

another four, and after that you stop being

governor. There will be no people who

sit there for 25 years. The question is

what to do with the military budget and the military

the syste

what will be done with the military budget and

the syste

the military budget.

The most important thing about the military budget

was said not by me, but by the Accounts Chamber

of Russia, which last week or

the week before released a report in

which it wrote something that, honestly,

when I read it, made me want

to run around the office screaming and wondering

why the whole country wasn't running around and screaming.

They wrote that 25%

of the money allocated for the state defense order

is immediately cashed out through

fly-by-night banks. Just imagine:

a trillion is allocated, and we're fed

all this nonsense about how we'll build

the very best whatever-it-is, and then they

just immediately cash out 250 billion out of that trillion

stuff it into suitcases and

cart it around to each other in little rolling

suitcases. It's madness, of course.

So overall,

the military-police budget has devoured the entire

country. It has taken money away from education,

it has taken money away from healthcare.

Tell me, well, there are younger

people here, maybe you can tell me: is it easy

to quickly get an ultrasound for free in

your region?

Very easy.

No,

An MRI costs 3,000.

MRI. But if you don't have 3,000, say if

you earn 12,000, right, and you don't have 3,000 for an

MRI, is it easy to get one for free?

Not here.

Wait for a quota. A year.

Wait for a quota. You see, again, it's the 21st century,

2017, for God's sake, MRI machines are everywhere.

In every country in the world, there's simply no

problem. You come in, you get it. I just

have personal experience, yes, I had this operation in

Spain. I paid there because I was a

foreigner. It was a state clinic.

Any person could come in and get everything

done for free. And we could do the same here, but

the military-police budget has swallowed it all.

That is why I believe that first of all we must

double spending on

education and healthcare,

and cut the military-police budget by

eliminating precisely this corrupt margin,

which would even allow us to raise salaries

within the system. We just need

to wipe out corruption. Let me take a question

from this side. Yes.

Yes. And what will be done about the country's level of

culture? I'm not talking only about people who

in general, out in the provinces, have a very low level.

They believe in reptilians, Freemasons, and other nonsense. Just

drinking from a very young age.

You feel this very strongly in the provinces.

What will you do about it?

Ah, I'll repeat it so everyone can hear. What

will I do about the level of culture in the

country? Because right now it's drinking and

all that.

Belief in all kinds of nonsense, like house churches.

Belief in all kinds of nonsense, like churches

and Freemasons. Listen, I'm a believer. I, well,

I can't exactly say that's nonsense,

right? But look, [laughter] you can't deal with the level

of culture in the country through administrative

measures. I become

president. What am I supposed to do, issue a decree to raise

the level of culture in Veliky Novgorod by

17% and launch some federal targeted

program on improving cultural standards? But

in fact, paradoxical as it may seem,

this woman over there is right about me

— that woman in the

red thing. It's all money, money,

money. And

it depends on income. Because really,

you're right to say drinking. I

just came — we came here now from

Pskov. You have the same problem here,

mass alcoholism. Right? Why do

people drink? Because of hopelessness.

No way out, nothing to do. But let's say

an adult man with

a secondary education,

he doesn't drink, he's hardworking. What is the highest

salary he can realistically get?

30,000.

Yes.

30.

Well, 30, then 30. Fine, let it be

say he got a job for 30,000 rubles.

And he’s not a drunk, he’s a normal guy. He

got a job for 30,000. He brings home

his paycheck. And his wife says to him, "But

you can’t buy anything with that. [laughter]

And there’s nothing you can do about it." And your children

when they get older say, "We want sneakers like

Medvedev’s." And then

someone says, "Dad, I’d really

honestly like an iPhone for my

18th birthday." And he realizes that he has to

buy that iPhone on credit and

spend several years paying it off. So

he just thinks, "To hell with it, I’ll go buy

a bottle of vodka and forget everything." That’s

exactly how it happens. That sense of hopelessness,

it leads, among other things, to, well,

alcoholism, because if you drink, your life is bad,

and if you don’t drink, your life is still bad. So

the level of culture depends very heavily

on this. We really have to raise

wages. You can say all sorts of clever things

about reforms,

but if people are living hand to mouth

just trying to survive until the next

paycheck,

neither the level of culture nor, for that matter,

life expectancy—none of it

will improve until people start

earning wages, again, as I already

said, at least like in Estonia.

Let’s take the question from this side. Yes.

so that an entrepreneur

his taxes, and at the same time there’s also the point that wages are

25,000 rubles. How will you regulate

individual entrepreneurs so that they don’t

get around this?

Aniskin has clarified the question—it’s about

the point in the program where I say that

individual entrepreneurs should be

freed from taxes. How does that

fit together with the point that there should

be a minimum wage

and freedom from tax reporting? This is an extremely important

issue. I wonder if there are any sole proprietors here,

well, individual entrepreneurs

former ones.

There you go—former ones. And why did you shut down your business?

Because you have to pay high

taxes, right?

And pension contributions, social payments, all that. And this isn’t

just my personal belief—it’s simply a calculation.

And that calculation shows that right now

a sole proprietor, an individual entrepreneur,

isn’t even a way to get rich. We haven’t

seen sole proprietors turn into billionaires with

duck houses, have we? It’s simply

a survival mechanism. They pay very little

in taxes anyway. So I believe

that at this stage they should simply be

left alone altogether. Let them do what

they want. We need to loosen the reins and allow

them not to file all these reports with the tax authorities. After all,

the taxes they pay there are tiny.

Let them work normally and peacefully. But

they should only have to buy a patent, and they

must pay wages of no less than 25,000

rubles. And we will exempt that wage from

most payroll taxes. Right now

people are paid under the table.

Why? Because payroll taxes

are enormous. You’ll go broke if you

pay official, fully declared wages. So we

have to reduce this part and give them

the ability to pay legal, declared wages.

Sole proprietor, we’ll free you from all of it,

but don’t pay a person less than

twenty—no, not less than 25,000. And on this

point there are calculations showing that this will

work, because it works in

most developed countries. And I promised you

a question. Yes.

I have this question

in our country—it’s simply the system.

I’ll repeat it for everyone afterward. Uh, let’s say,

in Singapore, what did Lee Kuan Yew start with? He started by

first of all replacing the entire police force,

and second, he cracked down hard on corruption.

Even if his relatives were caught up in it,

he dealt with them very

harshly. But there, well, and here, our

entire police force, as you understand, is entangled

in all of this.

So, the question is about corruption—

whether it can be defeated. Singapore is often cited as an example,

where Lee Kuan Yew, as is well known,

used harsh methods and simply

jailed everyone and disbanded the police. Even when

his closest associates were implicated in

corruption, he also

ruthlessly

put them in prison. But the question is that

Singapore is small, while Russia is large.

Will we be able to do this? Well,

the uncomfortable truth is that

Russia is also fairly small. It is

geographically gigantic, but if we

put together all the places where people actually live, it

would be quite a small country. We simply have

vast expanses

where either no one lives

or they are unfit for habitation. Even

here, where there are wonderful places to live,

when you drive from Pskov to Novgorod, you

hardly see any

settlements at all. The population of your region has

fallen by 19% in recent years.

So there it is again—a national

catastrophe. People are dying out and

moving away. So in reality,

the actual places where people live, and the actual

country that needs to be governed—the country of

people—is not that large. All of this

can be changed. There are large countries, of course.

There is corruption in the United States, but it is not at the same

level. Even in India

The level of corruption is much lower now.

It's almost scary to say this, but even in China. We always

used to laugh at China, saying they had nothing

to their name and that corruption there was terrible. But

now salaries in China are higher than in

Russia. On average, higher than in Russia.

People still think labor there is cheap,

but wages are higher than here.

And corruption is lower than in Russia too.

So all of this can be done. We don't

need to change millions of people. First of all, we need to

change the top. The people at the top

need to live by proper

norms and rules, because, well,

right now, look, I don't know,

any official in your Novgorod

region—how are we supposed to convince him to be honest?

Well, if he knows, if he's seen

my film and understands that, well, here's

the rule: you can steal as much

as you want, but if you remain

politically loyal, no one will

touch you. He understands that this is the right

behavioral pattern: be a crook, but

politically loyal. All of this needs to change.

Everyone needs to know perfectly well

who the president is, where his family is, what they

make their money from, what they look like, where they

go, where they live, who their

relatives are. Right now, though, nothing

is known about them. Who is the youngest

billionaire in Russia?

Putin's son-in-law.

Putin's son-in-law—it seems to be

common knowledge, but it's never officially

acknowledged anywhere.

When he was asked about it

the only time, he said: "I'm not going to tell you

anything." I mean, really—

how can you not tell us?

You're the president of an entire country. It's a paradoxical

situation. Everyone knows that his son-in-law is

the youngest billionaire in Russia. And this is

a closed and forbidden subject. When

that is no longer the case, when the people at the top start living

normally, we will gradually squeeze out

corruption. That's how it works. All right, let me

take a question from the back—I haven't done that in a while. Yes.

What do you think about foreign policy

foreign poli—?

Oh, who wanted to ask about foreign policy?

Look.

This question may not sit well with everyone.

I know some people are very

hung up on geopolitics, but I have

a very simple approach. I'm sitting there, I'm

the president, and I have two folders. One says

"Restoration of Palmyra," and the other says

"Restoration of Veliky

Novgorod." Which do I choose? Which

pill do I take here? So my

choice is that I choose

Novgorod. I

love the people of Syria very much, and I love all

other peoples too, but I can honestly

say, even if some people

won't like it, that I will not give a single

kopeck to the restoration of Palmyra. I

promise—not a single kopeck until I have restored things

here first. I am not going to spend

money on who-knows-what. I won't have

some ships sailing around. Back and forth

for no reason. Peter the Great's journey cost 17 billion rubles.

What the hell for? Let's at least

raise salaries a little. Give someone a pension increase

with that money. So my

foreign policy is this:

Russia, of course, as a nuclear

power and a holder of a UN Security Council veto,

will remain one of the

leading powers in the world. And we need

to stay that way—but not at the cost of

making everyone poor. I am not

going to forgive anyone's debts. I want

all the money to work here, for the Russian

Federation. Next question.

Another question about foreign policy.

Will peace with other

states be restored, in particular

with neighboring countries? And what about troops and

what will happen regarding Ukraine?

So, the question is about Ukraine, as I

understand it, right? Will we restore

peace with Ukraine?

Thank you.

The war with Ukraine is causing us enormous

losses. It is taking money away from you every

day. It's a simple puzzle, really. Again,

one of those obvious questions. Look,

there's the DPR and LPR there, and about

2 million people live there. The question is: most of them are

pensioners. Who pays their pensions?

Russia.

Well, where do they get the money? Exactly.

Literally, KamAZ trucks full of money

drive out of the Central Bank and head there. And

we're somehow shouting after them: "Hey, guys,

stop by here in Veliky Novgorod

and send us one little KamAZ truck." We could

distribute it fairly here. And they

say: "No, we're going there, there are people there too,

and we feel sorry for them as well. It's a big

problem there, but this needs to stop."

It needs to stop. The war is causing us

enormous economic damage. And that is why I

will do what Putin signed. I will implement

the Minsk agreements, and that is where I will begin

the settlement process. Yes, a question.

Will there now be lustration of current

officials?

Lustration of current officials. Do you want

illustrations of current officials?

Partly.

Partly. [laughter] And what does

"partly" mean?

No. Fu—

No. All of them.

We'll cut something off of someone.

Look, when people talk about lustration,

any reasonable person simply means by

lustration what? That these

thieving mugs have had us fed up. I want to

punish them for their theft, for their

crimes. But that is not even called

lustration. We do not need to lustrate

Alisher Usmanov. We will bring him to

criminal responsibility for

tax evasion. There is no need to lustrate

Medvedev, we will jail him for bribery. And

all these people do not need to be lustrated—

Churov or Ella Pamfilova. They

falsify elections. That is a criminal

offense. So lustration is not needed here.

Lustration is punishment without

individual guilt. Say you and I decide that all

top-level United Russia members (the ruling party) — whether there are good ones

or bad ones among them — are to be punished,

for example by banning them from being elected to

public office. I would

vote for such a measure. But that is a matter

for broad consensus. A new parliament, in

which there will be liberals, nationalists,

the right, the left — we will let everyone in. They

should decide all this as a whole so that

there is national unity on this

issue. Yes.

Alexei, I have a thousand

questions for you too, like that guy, but I will ask two

short ones.

The main thing. Yes.

Yes. Two short ones. So, the first

is a Moscow question. It has, yes, caught up with you

here from Moscow. And Muscovites, as

everyone knows, twice a day really love

their government, which blocks off

the roads and drives home. So,

the question is: when you become

president, are you going to

move the state authorities out of Moscow,

including the presidential administration? And the second short one:

how is your eyesight? How is your

eye doing? What are the prospects?

My eye.

How is the eye doing? Just like that.

Thank you very much. Well, outwardly it is already

almost completely normal. But if I close one eye, I

if I look like this, I see a whole lot of

wonderful people. And if I look like this, I

see mostly only beautiful silhouettes.

But the doctors told me that

it will recover, that is, I will not see

the way I used to. I will never again have

20/20 vision. But possibly,

if things develop normally,

it will be minus five, minus four. At least,

they are supposed to remove the stitches and, well,

then see what the final

result is.

What a bastard he is. Uh,

well, I agree 100%. As for

road closures, that really is

idiocy, again, and it causes

a huge number of problems and losses. 100,000 people

are standing there, late for work, with

gas burning in their cars, wear and tear,

environmental pollution, all so that

some guy can just drive through. Well, fly

by helicopter or even live in the Kremlin. I

am against the president working in

the Kremlin. What is the Kremlin? It is a

medieval fortress. There it is, that is what

the Kremlin is. Why the hell should officials

sit in the Kremlin? It is not suitable for

that. It should be a museum. So I

believe that

we need to move a significant number of

government bodies simply out of the city

center. That is what the so-called

New Moscow was created for. Yes, vast

territories were annexed to the city, and then somehow

everyone forgot about it all, and now they are simply

dividing them up and handing them out to each other

for development. Of course, the president should not

be here in the Kremlin. And these road closures

are not only for the president, because for

every loafer from the presidential administration

they should be stopped.

Question.

Yes. Yes. So, you... Yes. On the subject of Crimea, you have already

spoken about foreign policy.

Will you return it? And how are you planning

to get sanctions lifted from us, and also

what is your policy regarding, well, sexual

minorities?

So is Crimea a sexual minority too?

Okay.

Listen, I come here precisely in order

to answer absolutely every question. That

is, there is no such thing as me saying,

"I am not going to answer this

question." So, as for Crimea,

lifting sanctions, and everything else. Unfortunately,

the answer here is not encouraging. I believe

that the problem of Crimea as a territorial

conflict is unsolvable. Yes, I believe that

the first step should be to hold a referendum,

but at the same time I honestly admit that we

will not be able to resolve anything. Not a single

territorial dispute on planet

Earth has been resolved in the last 50 years.

Not one. No one has even

made progress. Look at Israel,

look at Northern Cyprus, and look at

Europe. In Europe everyone made peace long ago,

everyone loves each other. And yet

what a scandal there is again now over

Gibraltar, right? Spain and

the United Kingdom. It is impossible to resolve

a territorial dispute. And everyone will

suffer. So these sanctions will

remain in force for quite a long time. Crimea, unfortunately,

will not develop, because

it is under sanctions. Ukraine will not

recognize it. We will keep clashing.

That is, everyone will suffer and struggle.

We will, our children, and our grandchildren. And honestly

speaking, I even think great-grandchildren. So, and

what about homosexuals, then?

Could we maybe do something with Crimea, make it

into Hong Kong, our own Hong Kong.

That would be great, but how? Well, I mean,

it would be good to turn it into Hong Kong. And there

Veliky Novgorod only there. Well, everything

would be great to do the Hong Kong thing, but

it’s simply impossible to do.

Say it.

And how do you

do that? Speci—

a special economic zone.

Well yes, Hong Kong will emerge if

you defeat corruption. Why did Hong Kong

develop? Because it had

a British administration, British

courts. There is genuinely almost no corruption

there, practically speaking. There is absolute freedom of

enterprise there—that’s Hong Kong.

The current authorities will never create any kind of Hong Kong

at all. They announced

Skolkovo. So what? Does Skolkovo look like

Hong Kong? Not really. So, about

homosexuals—please make the question

more specific: what exactly needs to be done

with them?

As I understand it, the authorities seem to be waging

a campaign against them, banning rallies,

prohibiting them.

Well, I think this is a matter of

freedom. Everyone should just be left alone.

I mean, I’m looking around here and I see a whole lot of

people. I’m interested in what you do

at home.

That is, I’m interested in what you do at

rallies, what you write. As for everything else, I really

couldn’t care less what kind of, I don’t know,

relationships you have with the people close

to you. I just want everyone to be

happy and healthy and all the rest of it.

So all people are equal. And to me

it’s just that the authorities are now fixated

on this topic because it’s a distraction.

Back in 2003, this topic wasn’t

on television or anywhere else at all, but now

every time you turn on the TV, it’s always

about us fighting Gayrope (a derogatory Russian propaganda term for Europe associated with LGBT rights). Some kind of

homosexuality is the main topic. I, for one,

don’t see any problem here. Everyone should

just be left alone. Question. The young woman

holding the sign?

Uh-huh. She’s holding it up for the young man.

Okay.

I’m at wor—,

So, the question. One second, let me answer

this.

Presidents from you. I will choo—

from you. So, I serve you as

a candidate, and you are my voters. Without you I

can do nothing. You are my

volunteers, and I’m tremendously

grateful to you and want to take your opinion into account.

Please tell me, dear

volunteers, do you think that

the presidential term should be not six

years, but four? Yes.

There you go, you see, and I feel exactly the same, together

with you, yes, because it’s

nonsense. He has already been in power for 18 years

and wants to stay for at least another 12. I mean,

how much longer can this go on? If the man himself said

in 2007 that after 10 years anyone

goes mad, then that means for the last 7 years

or 8 years this country has had a crazy president. And

that is the plain [clears throat] truth,

because there has never been a single

ruler who stayed in power for more

than 10 years and didn’t lose his mind. Power

really does corrupt people. And I think

that wouldn’t happen to me. But you can’t just trust

a person like that. So,

of course, these are fundamental things. We will reduce

the presidential term to 4 years. Maximum 8

years. No consecutive terms loopholes and none of that

nonsense. 8 years and that’s it. Off to retirement, go write your memoirs

like in any normal country. There are no

rich countries where people stay

in power for 20 years. It just doesn’t happen. It’s

a law of life. So one more term is simply

a road to poverty. That’s all.

Question.

What will you do about Chechnya?

What will I do with Chechnya? The same thing

as with

Novgorod Oblast. The same thing.

Chechnya needs everything that

the rest of Russia needs, only even

more so. Huge amounts of money are allocated there,

but the population is even more

impoverished. Sure, we see flashy footage of

everyone driving around in Porsche Cayennes. But we

understand that’s just the top layer. There are

multimillionaires and the poorest people at the bottom. There,

well, people want decent, substantial

wages. They want a normal income,

they want a normal court system. That is, if you have a conflict with

an official and you’re in the right, you go

to court and win against him. These things

will work in Chechnya, I’m convinced. And there can be no

other approach, because

Putin argued otherwise. He

said that to pacify Chechnya, we

had to crack down on everyone there.

They cracked down, installed a man there, and he

created a Sharia army. We see

some kind of people who look like

Basmachi (anti-Soviet Muslim guerrilla fighters in Central Asia). They’re all armed. Who the hell

knows who they are? Maybe they’re police,

maybe they’re bandits—it’s completely impossible

to tell. And what has it achieved? Just recently

they were storming an entire house there. They fired from tanks,

burned the house down, there are regular terrorist attacks,

attacks on National Guard bases.

So nothing has been solved, because

these things cannot be solved that way. What’s needed

is simply to establish a normal life.

That plan is not only for Chechnya, but for

the entire Caucasus. In Dagestan, the situation is much

more complicated. Look at what is happening with

the truck drivers. I mean, these are

truck drivers, ordinary working people. So, what

needs to be done to keep them from

going on strike? Leave them alone. They

work. Then Rotenberg comes along and says:

"Now pay me." That is why they

are unhappy. I want them to be

left alone too. They were working for themselves,

supporting their families, living happily,

and I would not interfere with them. Next question.

First question: repealing Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code.

Do you support that?

I do.

Second, free all political prisoners

and, of course, the latest one, whoever it was there,

Podnamushkina,

acquit everyone, and everyone serving time under that article.

I am often asked:

"What are your first three steps?" I always

answer: first, the release of all political

prisoners. Second, introducing a law on

combating illicit enrichment. Third,

judicial reform. Why do I say

that the first thing is the release of

political prisoners? Not even because

these are people sitting in prison for

nothing. Well, my brother is in prison; yes, he spent a year and a half

in solitary confinement. In general,

this affects the economy too, it affects

the investment climate, when

people in a country are imprisoned for no reason

left and right. It is simply

disgusting, insane; the country will not

develop. So of course we

will free everyone. Yes, keep your hand up. Uh,

one of my friends writes to me almost every

day on VKontakte saying that Navalny

is definitely being paid off, that someone is surely bringing him

large sums of money, uh, so that Navalny

will fulfill certain conditions if he

comes to power. I do not know why he does not

I wanted to write, but

I would like to answer him, but I do not have

the data, because it is not publicly

available.

Well, there is no data showing that no one is paying me off.

Look, there is plenty of information about me.

Tell that person this.

As for the claim that an acquaintance keeps writing

constantly that Navalny is being paid

by the U.S. State Department, that money is being funneled to him so

that he will do something to Russia — tell him

that Navalny is, even if only

by necessity, the most transparent person in

the country. I mean, who do they make reports about? About

the hotel. About the hotel in Veliky Novgorod. About

me. I am in Karelia, somewhere in the woods,

grilling shashlik with my son, and there is some boat

on the horizon. My wife says, "I think

they are filming us." I say, "Are you

out of your mind? You are being

paranoid, damn it." Then I look, and they really were

filming, damn it, me standing there in my underwear with

my son, grilling shashlik. So in that

sense, it is obvious where I live. I do not know,

you have seen my wife in pictures or

seen my children somewhere — you have. Where

they study is clear too: they go to an ordinary

school. Where my apartment is? Also clear. In

the declarations, everything is listed. If I

had a lot of money, then probably my

apartment would not be in a prefab apartment block in

the Maryino district, overlooking an

oil refinery. My income is

decent — I am not pretending to be poor

here — but even with my income, for example,

I cannot afford to buy an apartment, and at the same time

that is all I have. I live in a rented apartment, I

have just one home. And we have one car

registered to my wife. So in that sense, again,

I am transparent, even if by necessity. I

hope I never reach the degree of

transparency that some Mikhail

Mikhailovich Osnov reached, where some

FSB officers (Russia’s security service) installed who knows how many cameras

in my apartments, but my, uh, my

activities and my money are simply under

constant

surveillance. I am checked endlessly. My home has been searched

three times. The materials from

those searches are online. You can

literally look at what was seized, what was found

in the apartment, how much money there was, and so on.

So in that sense, everything about me

is completely clear. So you can tell that friend

exactly that. Yes.

Alexei, I have a question about this.

How are you planning to arrange your

relations with Kadyrov? Considering the...

But I have already answered about Chechnya.

Right, but what if Chechnya wants

to leave the Russian Federation, and that is

most likely what they will do. They will want to, right?

Right?

Why is that? No, explain to us why

they would want to leave — in order to

lose money, is that it? That is exactly the point.

That is the wrong way to frame the question and

the wrong assumption. But people keep

saying, "That is what Putin

uses." He says, "If I am not

here, Russia will fall apart." But why should it

fall apart? Before you, it did not

fall apart; after you, it — I mean, it

has existed for many, many years. Why should it

fall apart? Why would Tatarstan

leave Russia? Why would it

have to leave? Where would it go? They want

simple things: for there to be more money,

because right now all the money has been pulled into

the federal center, and absolutely nothing

is developing anywhere. The whole, the entire country is living

in poverty, while in Moscow everyone is swimming in

money. And even Muscovites are not really getting

anything out of it. When we, when I,

President Navalny, redistribute

the budget in such a way that the powers and the money

would be located here, and in the regions, no one would

separate. And why would they need that?

It would simply be pointless. The question

would start, I guess

It’s difficult

Do all the debtor countries that

owe us a great, great deal—and in general, under

what system does this happen, and why

does no one take part, there’s no voting, no one

is this—are these issues decided single-handedly?

Excellent question, excuse me, the question of

why debts are forgiven

under what system this happens, given

that we’re poor and could use the money ourselves

Absolutely. Listen, I’m virtually

hugging and kissing you, and I’ll do it

when, when we finish the meeting.

May I ask a religious question?

I don’t understand it either. I see,

for example, the Czech Republic.

I can’t see.

Jakub. Guys, please be quieter.

Around May 9, somewhere in that period,

So, look. Yes, apparently,

There is a small country called the Czech Republic. This

small country, the Czech Republic, was approached by Cuba, which

said: "Guys, in the Czech Republic, we’re so

poor here in Cuba. Could we maybe not

pay you back?"

In that situation, Russia said yes.

It said yes to Cuba, it said yes to Angola.

It said yes to Mozambique, it said yes to everyone, and

forgave billions.

And what did the Czech Republic say? You don’t have money?

Then pay in rum. No money? Then pay

in cigars. Pay however you can. So,

Alexei Navalny will not forgive a single

kopeck to any country. We need that money ourselves,

right?

I don’t understand why you should forgive it.

We’ll restructure it, we’ll recover something. This is

our people’s money. It’s a little extra toward

someone’s salary, a little extra toward a pension. These are

obvious things. We must not

squander what belongs to us. And

that is exactly what, these simple things,

our election campaign is about. And, my friends,

once again, when we bring this message,

we just need to start doing it. Spend 5 minutes

a day campaigning and asking

these kinds of questions and saying: "And Navalny

thinks this." And we’ll see now,

just a second, and we’ll understand how easy it is for us

to campaign, how many people are with us

and how we will draw everyone in. And Alisher

Usmanov, in his third video, may

perhaps, following the logic of Star Wars, say:

"Alexei, I am your father," but he will no longer

be speaking about you. Thank you very much,

guys. Thank you very much. It was very

nice on an individual basis. On an

individual basis, one-on-one,

the most pressing question is about the pension for

hazardous work.

About the hazardous-work pension. As recently as three

years ago, it was calculated, roughly speaking,

like this: you started on September 1, worked 10 years, and on September 1

those 10 years were counted

and then retired. What?

you retired on a hazardous-work pension, but now

they’ve excluded all vacation time, sick leave, and so

on. That is, so that in order not to slee—well,

Well, you understand yourself why this

is a rhetorical question for you. So,

all right then, that’s it, thanks everyone, bye everyone.

Because they want to buy themselves a yacht,

because they want to, yes. Overall,

the pension, though. But why