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

And here you are, in Vologda. I’m very glad that

so many of you have gathered here today.

There is just one small

downside to it. We really had to rent

this hall. And I so wanted to speak

right there at the campaign office opposite the FSB (Federal Security Service), opposite

the administration building.

And more than that, I’m sure that they

would definitely agree with all of my main points.

And in 2013, after the mayoral election, we

conducted a small study,

identifying the buildings where officials lived. And

we saw that I had won in all of them. In other words,

everywhere officials lived, I

won. Because these people, who

are inside the system of power and perhaps

see the lies more clearly than anyone else. But

that was in 2013, and now, in

2017, everyone can already see these

lies. And I, well,

wanted to begin with one such enormous lie

and ask what you think

about it. So. What do you yourselves

think: is Vologda Oblast

a rich region or a poor one?

Poor. Poor.

I heard variations ranging from poor to destitute. Well then,

if the President of the Russian Federation

Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin were standing before you and said: "No, folks,

you’re mistaken, you’re looking

in the wrong place." This is actually quite a wealthy region,

because as I was coming here, I looked at

Rosstat statistics and found that your

average salary is actually higher than in

Yaroslavl.

Hey, why are you laughing? Rosstat is the

government’s official statistics agency.

Tell me, what do you think

the average salary is in the city of Vologda?

29,000.

Well, Rosstat says 29,000. You’re saying,

that’s for the region, not the ci

officially 38

15

15

36,000

rubles is the average salary in your city.

That’s what your authorities tell you, what our authorities tell

all of us. You laugh. But really,

there’s not much to laugh about,

because it shows that not only

have they spent 17 years building

this so-called vertical of power,

absorbing and spending money, receiving $3

trillion from the sale of oil and

gas. All those years, all 17 years, they completely

controlled the Duma and could pass

any laws they wanted, make life truly

good, genuinely decent. But

all they have done now, after

17 years, is simply lie to us, to you,

about what our

average salary is. And you said 17,000–18,000,

so let’s do this. At every campaign office

I do this exercise, and I really like it,

because it’s very revealing. Please raise

your hands if you personally know

people who earn—actually, let’s say less

than 28,000,

less than 20.

Thank you. Understood. Fine, I was wrong. Less

than 25,000. Who knows people who

earn less than 20,000?

Let’s say less than 20.

In every city, in every city,

someone says: "No need to lower your hands." Yes,

but still, let’s say less

than 20,000,

less than 18,000.

Let’s say 10.

No, well, I don’t know. Well, less, less

than 15,000,

less than 10,000.

I’m not even going to ask about less than 10,000. I

just don’t even want to, because

seriously, a salary of less

than 15,000 for a person who

works full time

is something impossible. And your utility bills—

how much are they? On average, how much do you

end up paying? Well?

Fine, 6,000–8,000. Let’s assume you’re

exaggerating. Let’s say it’s not 6,000–8,000, but 4,000.

Well, if your salary is 15,000 for full-time

work and 8,000 goes to utilities, how can anyone live on

that kind of money?

And you can’t say that this is a salary

earned only by, I don’t know,

some alcoholics or

layabouts. No, this is full-time

work. People in manufacturing earn this, people at

mining and processing plants

earn 15,000–18,000

rubles for a full working day. And that is

completely abnormal. Everyone understands that

this is completely abnormal. And most

importantly, it is completely inexplicable.

Because Russia’s level of development, Russia’s wealth,

the amount of natural resources, well,

what remains of the infrastructure, what remains

of industrial enterprises—and you have many

industrial enterprises here—all of this

shows that Russian citizens ought to

be living at least two to three times better.

We have something to compare ourselves with. Let’s

compare our country. One of

my favorite examples is Estonia. Does it have

oil?

Does it have gas,

does it have ore, does it have

mining and processing plants, aluminum,

nickel? What does Estonia have? Nothing

of the sort.

It has a government that doesn’t

steal. And that’s why the average salary in

Estonia is 1,100 euros, which is 66,000 rubles. How is

that any different from what

happening here? Nothing at all. And here it

should be like that too. Poorer countries

like Argentina have GDP per capita

lower than ours, and yet they have

a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles.

The minimum. Not a single Argentine earns

these 15,000 rubles you’re talking

about here. So why are we

like this? That’s the point. And the main thing in our campaign,

the main thing I ask you to fight against during

the course of our campaign is the idea

that we should not believe we can live better.

After all, it’s not really that people

support Putin,

it’s just that what I’ve told you is obvious

to everyone, right? But every person

living in our country, in Vologda, knows

all this perfectly well. It’s just that people

think that, well, it’s basically impossible

to change anything for the better. Basically, many

people in our country have it fixed in their minds

that Russia is doomed to poverty. And that

it’s somehow deserved, or maybe it’s karma

for us, or fate, or who the hell

knows what. But supposedly we’re meant to live

like this, in poverty. You know, there’s this

stupid saying: we’ve never

lived well, so there’s no point starting now.

We have to endure. We have to endure,

right. Ah yes, they say we have to endure. But

for what? Let’s decide what exactly

it is that we now need to endure for. For

Medvedev’s dacha.

For Medvedev’s dacha. So, are you ready

to endure for Medvedev’s dacha?

Are you ready to endure so that

the Admiral Kuznetsov could sail to Syria? No.

Are you ready to endure for the restoration of

Palmyra?

No.

Exactly—no one is ready to endure that. And everyone

understands it. It’s just that you, the people gathered here,

realized it earlier. And you are the bravest

part of society. You are that very 1%

of the population, the active 1% that brings about

all change everywhere. Because no kind of, well,

evolution, no development, actually

is driven by everyone all at once.

It never happens that everyone comes out,

the residents of Germany, I don’t know, or

France, or the United States, or wealthy Switzerland,

and did something so

wonderful. No—a 1% emerged that

understood that change was needed, that living

like this was no longer possible.

We know how to make these changes, we are

ready for them, and we are pushing them forward. You

are that 1%. And that is why I, well,

am giving this campaign everything I’ve got

because I believe in success. You

who have gathered here are all volunteers,

right? You checked the box saying

you’re volunteers? No one checked that box

by mistake. No one here is sitting there thinking, in

surprise, where am I? But I

really am asking you, asking you

to devote some time of your life

to this work, because I

truly believe that we can achieve

everything.

We just need to explain to people, to prove to them,

that change is possible—yes, everyone around us

lives better than we do.

There is not a single objective reason for this

poverty. On the contrary, the government

keeps trying to prove to us that abnormality is

good, and normality is something

unattainable.

They seriously say, "Well,

they’re not giving us any answer about Medvedev’s corruption

allegations. Who has seen the film about Dimon (a nickname for Dmitry Medvedev)?

Probably everyone has seen it. So are you

interested in those answers?

Well, it’s just

And it would be normal if Putin

or Medvedev commented on it somehow,

right? But they try to convince us: "No, that’s

not normal." For an official to come out

and explain to citizens what these

palaces and vineyards are all about—no, that’s

not normal. Come on, what are you thinking? We live in Russia.

How could we, people in the Kremlin,

be explaining anything to you nobodies down there

somewhere below? But that is simply

turning everything upside down.

There are countries that successfully fight

corruption. We know these countries. Even within

the territory of the former Soviet Union, in

the Baltics, there is quite little of it. It exists there,

but there is relatively little, and that is why wages

there are much higher. Georgia used to be, from the point

of view of corruption, an absolutely

hopeless country. A Georgian prosecutor was

a symbol of corruption in the Soviet

Union. Simply a symbol. And it seemed

impossible even to imagine

theoretically that traffic police officers would appear there

who didn’t take bribes. But they did appear.

All of that happened. So for us, that means it is

possible too, because if we

agree with this idea that

the Kremlin keeps planting—that positive change

is impossible here—if we agree

with this phrase that, well, yes, yes,

you’re right, everything you say is true, but

nothing can be changed. If we agree with that,

then we must, well,

automatically agree that we are

somehow inferior.

But do we agree with that?

No.

I do not agree that by our very nature

we are thieving, or stupid, or somehow

just fundamentally different. No, we are absolutely

the same—just compare the people of

Vologda and the Finns, they are no different

from each other. In fact, even when it comes to abusing

alcohol, Finns do it quite a bit more often than

than the residents of Vologda Region.

Look, in St. Petersburg on weekends people

lie around on the ground. But never mind — there is

virtually no corruption in Finland. Salaries

there are 3,000 euros. People are no different

from us in any way. How is Russia different from

Canada? Low population density,

cold weather, and so on and so forth. Yet

people live much better there, because

there is no corruption, because the government

functions properly, and these things are

absolutely connected. Here is a recent example. Who

watched the football match at the new stadium yesterday?

Well, some of you did — at the very least, you

definitely know about it. A disgrace,

well, yes, a disgrace in many ways. I’m not that

well-versed in football, but even I

could feel what happened yesterday. But

let’s talk about the stadium.

The pitch.

How much did it cost? Remind me?

Around 43. Let’s take the lower

estimate: 40

40 billion rubles. The most expensive stadium in

the world. They built it for six years under the personal

supervision of Putin, under the personal supervision

of the governor. And what did we see? The pitch,

it turns out, is being replaced with plastic

mats. Yesterday they were laying tarps over the roof,

because the roof leaks. But really,

this is not an exaggeration.

And they’ve already said that the pitch is unusable.

They’ve already said that some of the stands

for visiting fans need to be demolished and rebuilt. So

you see, this is a government not just of

thieves, but also of incompetent

idiots.

They truly cannot do anything. This

was their flagship project. A project

they are proud of. Right now, as you know,

a large share of taxes from here

is being redistributed over there to

Yaroslavl Region. Do you know why?

Because of the stadium. They need extra funding for

preparations for the FIFA World Cup

in football. And this is the state’s main

priority. They are running around with this

World Cup nonstop. Out of the entire World Cup,

for them the stadium in St. Petersburg is

their main fetish. And even there they could not

do anything right. And they still cannot

do anything. And we can see that in 17

years they have done nothing. Yes, at one time

they tried, from 2001 to 2005. Were there

some positive changes?

Absolutely — there is no arguing with that.

Were oil prices high? Yes,

absolutely, incomes were rising because

oil was as high as $120 per

barrel. But all we have seen since

2012 is a steady

decline in people’s living standards. Has

anyone here started living better since

2012? No, because the statistics

show a decline. Because the statistics

also show that incomes have fallen by at least

12%, plus 8% inflation.

So even relatively well-off people have become

20% poorer. Why?

After all, that is a perfectly natural question,

because we open the income declarations

— the latest ones, published just last

week — of members

of the government, State Duma deputies,

and members of the Federation Council. They have all become twice as

rich.

The newly reappointed head of Russian Railways. Last

year his income was, I think,

something like 10 million rubles. This

year he declares 172 million rubles. Members

of the Federation Council received, on average,

I think, 60% more income. State Duma deputies

of the State Duma

have doubled theirs, and government members

are getting richer on a massive scale. And

the question arises: how is all this

possible? They are such patriots, while we are

foreign agents. And apparently I’m Hitler on top of that.

So, damn, I’m Hitler,

speaking in Vologda, while they are buying property

in Germany. Property on

the south coast of France. They are buying up all of

Spain — Marbella has been bought up by Russian

officials.

In London, people walk around speaking Russian,

and these are the same people who come here,

make money here, and then go on television to tell us

that the Russian opposition is being directed from London,

and then they get on a

private jet and fly to London

just to stroll down the street.

We understand this government,

we are fully aware of what they are doing. We

understand that they will no longer be able to

do anything good. And our task is to

explain to everyone else who, at the level

of instinct, already senses this too,

that there is

an alternative, that we really can live

better, that it is not pointless

to vote for the opposition in Russia, that

everything can be changed. Everywhere, things have been changed.

Organized groups of people everywhere have

changed things and achieved everything. We are not

a lost country, we are not a doomed

country, we are not a backward country. We will

achieve everything. We need to believe in our own strength.

The main thing I want to achieve as a result

of our meeting is that you

leave here understanding a real fact. It is hard

to believe that we, as a political

force, are actually stronger than all the others.

If some United Russia member came here,

say, Neverov, Volodin, or Zheleznyak,

how many volunteers would come to him?

Volunteers

They’d be herded in. They’d be rounded up, and there would be far

more is needed. How many people? Well,

raise your hands, those who came for

money.

And how many people would come to them

without being herded there, people driven by conviction? Zero.

Despite the fact that it seems like they

are so formidable, strong, powerful, with

television on their side, in reality there is nothing there, there is

emptiness there, just inertia.

They rule not even through repressing us,

they rule through the fact that

people, by inertia, think that nothing

can be changed. That is why I ask

you, since you have signed up as volunteers,

every day, for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour—

whatever energy each of you has—do

a little bit, persuade one more person,

leave comments somewhere, somewhere

put up a sticker, work with people, and you

will see that we will cut through this like a knife through butter

and enter this political, uh,

this political vacuum. In fact, in your

regional capital, Zyuganov is running a campaign

here

Zhirik (Vladimir Zhirinovsky) is running a campaign. Mironov may

come and give a speech. Nobody ever

does anything. The opposition does not

succeed because nobody

ever does anything. But we will act

and that is why we will win. Thank you

very much. I am ready to answer questions.

Raise your hands.

And the sign? Well, I have already given you the floor.

A question. Will anything be done about the overreach

of the Russian Orthodox Church and the propaganda of a low standard of living

on channels like Spas and so on?

Ah, you know, that is an interesting thing,

which I have been noticing.

Well, I speak fairly often in different places,

and this year, in every city,

I have been asked about the Russian Orthodox Church. In every city, and

that means there really is a problem.

I am, well, I am a believer, I am Orthodox, but

what I see has absolutely nothing

to do with Orthodoxy, unquestionably.

Unfortunately, our Russian Orthodox Church has quite seriously

decided to merge itself with the prosecutor's office,

with the Investigative Committee,

and they gladly welcomed it with open arms. In

fact, in our country, people are jailed every week

because some

priest did not like something. He writes:

"Investigative Committee, look, they

liked a bad post there." And these people

are jailed. Literally

jailed in the literal sense. Well, you all know

the story about the guy who was catching

Pokémon in a church. Fine, he was catching them,

said some nonsense, but that is his

business. After all, he posed no

serious threat to society. How can you

compare a guy babbling

something on YouTube with a real criminal?

In our country, for real crimes, for

corruption offenses, people get suspended sentences,

while all these people are jailed. Therefore I

believe that the first thing is that the state must

be separated from the church. The church must

be separated from the state. And,

of course, the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church exists, but we should not

deceive ourselves.

There are actually quite few deeply observant churchgoing people in Russia

You know the statistics: recently

it was Easter. What percentage of citizens

took part in Easter services? 3%.

Those are the real Orthodox believers, the genuine

Orthodox Christians whom we love and

respect. But these people whom

they show us on TV, members of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union)

since 1976, who now

cross themselves, pray, and I do not even know what else,

it is appalling—this is hypocrisy, this is deception,

hypocrisy. I believe that everything needs to be

returned to what is written in the

Constitution: the church is separated from

the state. That is all. Next

question. Yes,

Alexei, how can we move away from

this dependence on raw materials, and how long

will it take?

Well,

we can move away from raw-material dependence

if we start developing something other than

raw materials, because right now we are not even

trying to move away from it. Our budget

depends on oil and gas; it gets

more revenue from oil and gas than in

the Soviet era, more than in

the Yeltsin years, more than in the time of

early Putin. So, essentially,

the government, quite cynically and,

to be honest, very openly,

is building an ideal economy for itself.

What does an ideal economy look like to them?

It is some Tyumen,

oil field, a pipeline, people who

guard the pipeline and the valve at the border,

so they can sell it. And ideally, all

the rest would die, because they have to

pay them pensions. In fact, I have even

heard from one official who

told me this. I said to them: "Come on,

guys, look, any developed

country spends around 36% of GDP on social welfare, while

Russia spends 12%. You did this on purpose

so that everyone would be poor." And they

say: "Well, listen, damn, why should we

pay these people? They do not

do anything. The only thing that brings us money is

oil, so, of course,

it sounds cynical, but who gives a damn if

life expectancy is low,

who gives a damn

if people do not live to reach retirement. The fact that

we do not have to pay pensions means we will save

more. And that is why they do nothing

about it, basically. If Russia

finally stops fetishizing

for this oil and gas, and even start by

looking at it from the perspective of the extractive industries

and moving into processing, it would be very

easy for us to do. We would already be taking

a huge step forward. After all, over these 17

years, you would think, with oil prices

shooting through the roof, they would build

oil refineries, you know,

build them, build some kind of processing capacity,

so that instead of selling crude oil, we sell lubricants,

so that we can sell quality gasoline.

We still import high-octane gasoline from

Finland because

not a single

modern oil refinery has been built

in Russia. We simply need to get to work on it.

We need to change the paradigm, change

the priority. I want to become the president

who changes all of this. It is clear

how to do it. Many countries have freed themselves from

oil dependence. We just need

to make it a national goal and

that’s it. Next.

Yes.

And what are you going to do about Chechnya and

Ramzan Kadyrov? Are you scared?

No, I’m not scared. Listen, I have many times

spoken about Ramzan Kadyrov

in completely plain terms, and

I don’t think I should be

afraid. I genuinely believe that

Kadyrov was most likely involved in

the murder of Nemtsov. And in Kadyrov’s case,

as well as in the case of everyone else,

there should be a proper

investigation. Without all this,

excuse me, nonsense. And when the FSB (Russia’s security service)

comes to court and, when asked why they

did not question the main defendant, the main

suspect, and did not carry out a search

at his home, they say: "Well, we

went there, to Shali and Urus-Martan (towns in Chechnya),

knocked on the door, no one opened, so we

left".

As for me, for example, I’ve had

searches at my home, and it all happens very

differently, you understand? A ring at 4:00

in the morning, then pounding on the door, then a saw,

cutting through the door, sparks flying—and here

for some reason they just came and left. So

law enforcement agencies must

conduct a proper investigation into all

of this. That applies to Kadyrov, to

Chechnya, and to the Caucasus as a whole. In

fact, the situation in Dagestan is more complicated

than in Chechnya. Even more

complicated. But I am absolutely convinced that

Chechnya, Dagestan, and the North Caucasus

as a whole need exactly the same things as

the Vologda region.

They do not need anything different. It’s just that

corruption there is even worse. I, well, we,

will probably get there too. When I

ask there about average

salaries, the average salary there is 8,000 rubles.

People there grow wild garlic just

to survive. Look

at what is happening there right now with

the truck drivers. And the republics of

the North Caucasus need anti-corruption efforts

even more. They need judicial

reform, only stronger. They need

social services, healthcare,

and education, even more than everyone

else. More does not mean that

they should simply be given more money. In theory, they

already have plenty of money. It’s just that

it all gets siphoned off at the level of

the top. I do not think that they, well,

of course, every

region has its own specifics, but they do not

need some special approach. They are

the same people who want the same

things: a decent salary, a dignified

life, to graduate from university,

start a family, be able to get

an apartment or buy one with a reasonable

mortgage, and live peacefully. That is what

we all want. So with the North

Caucasus, we will deal with things properly, because

we will not use it as

a feeding trough for a narrow group of officials.

Let me take a question from this side.

Yes,

Hello. Anatolyevich, I have a question for you.

Please don’t take this

the wrong way. We were

talking about Dimon (a mocking nickname for Dmitry Medvedev),

Yes,

about all these bribes and so

on, and how he takes us for fools

and gives us no answer. Uh-huh.

Please understand me correctly. I’m still waiting for you

to get to the point. I understand you

correctly.

And we saw things about your Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF)

and we also heard about

a slush fund. Could you comment on

that slush fund and those 25 million?

And where did you hear about this slush fund?

Live.ru.

Ah,

excellent. And what is .ru citing?

You mentioned that,

some links, some screenshots. I don’t

know.

Screenshots? Well, that’s exactly the point.

You see? I, uh, don’t know exactly what

is written there, but I know one thing: the

entire evidentiary basis for all of this is

screenshots.

That is, of course, quite something. And the Anti-Corruption Foundation

which is inspected

several times a year, where searches happen

constantly, where every

employee has been searched, where many donors to the

Anti-Corruption Foundation have been questioned, and it

is the most transparent organization

simply at least by the very fact that he is

constantly being checked and investigated,

checked and checked, and they still couldn’t find anything,

so then screenshots started getting dragged into it. So,

then ask me the following

question: am I Hitler? After all, in fact,

the birthday,

but yesterday was a birthday, and I

was telling this funny story. Well,

I’m Hitler, after all — the day before yesterday.

Yesterday it was Lenin’s.

Yesterday it was Lenin’s.

Same thing.

And everyone on Twitter started

congratulating me. I mean, I actually

got emails from several people saying:

"Alexei, congratulations." They didn’t realize

when my actual birthday

really is. And speaking of

screenshots. My favorite screenshots are the ones where, have you seen them,

Volkov and I are supposedly ordering

prostitutes to the campaign office? There’s even a supposedly authentic

looking exchange of messages between me and

Volkov on VKontakte, like, “Lenya,

are we getting blondes or brunettes today?” But

of course, I have to

comment on this constantly. Uh, yesterday

we were in Yaroslavl, and some drunks

from United Russia stood in front of

the hotel where we were staying. And

for some reason their sign said “Navalny

for Governor of Yaroslavl Region.” And

then — you can look it up, it’s all online —

after that a local journalist asked me:

“So are you actually

running? Are you really

running for governor of Yaroslavl

Region?”

And I’m like — well, I stay quiet and realize that

in any case, whatever I say,

the headline will come out as either

“Navalny denied that he is running for

governor of Yaroslavl Region,” or

“Navalny agreed to run for

governor of Yaroslavl Region,” but in any case

people are still discussing for some reason

me and the governorship of Yaroslavl Region. You shouldn’t

believe all this nonsense. Our investigation

into DMO is based on real dachas,

real facts, real

documents that we published. But

believing screenshots is the same as

believing that I’m Hitler. Let’s be clear on that

at least.

May I? Yes. I have two questions.

First of all, thank you very much for your

work, for what you do.

Support.

And my first question is this. Look,

right now you’re calling for, yes,

the fight against corruption and so on, yes,

corruption exists everywhere to some extent,

it just needs to be reduced. Will this

struggle lead to the consolidation of this whole, so to speak,

other side,

the conservative side, yes, and accordingly,

and the other side that is fighting

corruption — won’t this lead to

civil war, and then your headquarters won’t

turn into some kind of resistance headquarters?

Right now they’re campaign offices, later they’ll

be resistance offices, people will...

Our headquarters are resistance headquarters

only in the peaceful sense. After all, we’ve all

gathered here in order to

resist corruption, right? We do it

peacefully. You had a rally here

on the fifteenth,

right? And did anyone go to that rally with

weapons?

So, yes, it’s peaceful resistance — that’s what we’re doing.

And now, yes, this is an important question.

Thank you very much. Let’s think it through ourselves:

do these people have anything to lose?

They do. It’s real.

Kadyrov will defend all this. And

Kadyrov, and Medvedev, and Putin, and

the Rotenbergs — all of them will defend it,

because, well, these are real

cash billions, gigantic

palaces, yachts like those of Swiss —

Swiss sheikhs, Arab sheikhs, yes,

it’s really, well, it’s raw power and

wealth. Of course they’ll defend it,

but let’s look at it this way. And that

side — that’s a lot of people. In fact,

They’ll buy people. A lot of people.

And who will they buy? The police.

Yes, sure. There will be a huge

number of hired enforcers. But what kind of

enforcers do they have? Listen, they already

have those enforcers now. It’s the

National Guard, the police, OMON riot police, FSB officers, and

everyone else. But in essence, they’re all

mostly just brainwashed. Still, they understand everything perfectly well,

but none of them is going to fight

to the bitter end for these people, because

I say this everywhere, and I’ll say it

here too. Every time I get detained,

I’m sure the same thing happens with Damazhir too

They drag me into the

police van. “Come on, get in,” they shove me in,

shove me in, sit down, turn around, and

start telling me about their

hard lives.

Well what, do cops have a good life in

Russia? They’re not of the people. The police are not

of the people.

Well, their salaries are 70,000 to 100,000 rubles. Yes,

sure.

They don’t make 70,000–100,000. How could rank-and-file officers

be making 70,000–100,000? Same thing.

Their salaries are minimal, and getting housing is

impossible. I’m not saying that they’ll

join us at rallies tomorrow. I’m not

saying they’re outright our

supporters, although quite a lot of supporters

do support us. You have no idea,

how many résumés come in

from law enforcement officers

who want to work at campaign headquarters. But in essence, they

have the same problems; they are the same kind of

people who need to be persuaded. I, uh,

believe that no one

will defend this government with weapons in their hands

if we really do gather

the majority of people—and we will gather

the majority—then no one will defend them there at the cost of

their life. Because why would they?

After all,

86% of the national wealth belongs to

0.1%

of the population. That is, not 1% of the population, not

2%, not 3%—they haven’t even enriched

some large upper stratum. You can’t

say that 10% of people here are rich and

everyone else is poor. No, here everyone is

poor, and 0.1% are rich. The beneficiaries of this

corruption are 1,000 families in the entire

country—maybe even just 500 families. Well,

they’re the ones with planes and

yachts. And everyone else, even the mid-level

bureaucrats, even those involved in

corruption, are, by and large, not at all

fans of this government. What I want

to say is that it certainly won’t be

easy, of course; undoubtedly, they will

resist, but there are no preconditions for

civil war. There are no

truly organized groups of

people who defend them on ideological grounds.

A civil war is when on one

side there are ideologues, and on the other side

there are ideologues too.

It’s a war of political parties, a war of

programs.

Political ones. Well, take the NOD people, for example.

Do you have NOD people here? Are there any

in Vologda? Yes,

There are lots of them.

No,

well, there you go. Listen, NOD people

often come to my

meetings, and quite often I invite them

up on stage. Ask your question. And all of them

say roughly the same thing: "Well, actually, we

agree with you on everything. We just

think that America controls everything, and

Putin can’t do anything about it."

Well, their whole ideology is built on

self-deception: that Putin is good, while

everything else is bad. And on the point that everything is

bad, they agree with us. There will be no civil

war; the preconditions aren’t there. We do not have

people who are ready to turn brother against

brother. More likely, their Plan B

is simply to get into their

yachts and try to flee to Switzerland and

Italy. But we’ll bring them back from there. We’ll bring the money

back too. All right, what else? Yes,

please. A question.

Yes.

I wanted to ask: what is your view on

freedom of speech in Russia and these laws?

Extremism, insulting believers’ feelings,

which are used

to intimidate the population. Well, as I already

said, insulting believers’ feelings—

there should be no such law. I’m a believer,

and my feelings cannot be insulted. Go on,

try it, do whatever you want. I just

couldn’t care less. Some people believe, some

don’t. What difference does it make to me? I’m not

going to persuade anyone. And Article 282

should be repealed. It is unquestionably

used for political repression.

Everyone being imprisoned under Article 282 now—many

of them are fairly unpleasant people and write

what, excuse me, is complete crap. And

indeed, they

it’s extremely elastic. You can fit almost any

action under it. Yes. But people are being jailed simply

because they, uh, said something

wrong. But did you know that an image of Putin

wearing makeup was declared extremist?

A court officially ruled that the photograph was

extremist. Our list of

extremist materials is simply

a freak show. That’s what it is. More than that,

it’s also very harmful, because

all these anti-extremism centers, uh, that

fight the opposition, consume

enormous financial resources. What is there

to say about Domozhirov? It’s the same there. Take

Zhenya,

he

what exactly is he doing that warrants

the state going after him with the Center E, uh, with

the FSB officer, and everyone else? Well,

look: he fights overdevelopment,

fights to keep the price of

public transport from going up, and so on. Fine then,

a person like that appears, someone who acts

against the authorities, and the authorities don’t like him.

They opened a criminal case against his mother,

smashed his head in, and brought a million other

criminal cases. And everywhere there are prosecutors,

inquiry officers, investigators, all of them with

salaries, some kind of guards,

police officers—it all costs millions of rubles.

This whole fight against extremism amounts to

millions of rubles that are simply being

stolen from us. Meanwhile, well, there is crime

in Vologda Oblast, there are thefts,

there are probably assaults, there is

hooliganism, rape—all of that

exists. And all these police could be dealing with

all of that, but no, damn it, instead, I

guess about 30 people are diverted

to wage war on Domozhirov, who poses

not the slightest public danger

and only brings

benefit. Yes.

I have two questions. The first is

where it would be better to go on June 12: in Moscow or here

to the rally? And the second is: whom in Vypirsky...

bloggers do you watch?

The second one. The second one. One more time. What?

Which YouTube bloggers do you watch?

Sob.

Yes, Sobn. I watch him, yes.

So,

who’s going to the rally on the twelfth?

I think you should go here. Well, wherever

you want, wherever you feel is right, go there.

If you want, go to Moscow; if you want, go

to St. Petersburg.

Better here, but really, well, the main thing is

to come out.

It’s important to come out. We are satisfied with how

the investigation into Dimon is going.

We are generally satisfied with how

the fight against corruption is going. That’s it, no more

talk. So we are definitely going. It is our

legal right, on Russia Day, under

the Russian flag, to demand this. Therefore

the main thing is: come wherever you can. I watch

all of them, including Katya Klep and Sasha

Spilberg, though less now. And that’s because

for us, YouTube is really

some kind of brave new world. I still just don’t

understand how it works.

And yesterday at a hotel in Yaroslavl, later

in the evening, schoolkids from

St. Petersburg arrived there, traveling around the Golden

Ring (a historic route through old Russian cities). They were like this. They all

recognized me, they ran over to take pictures

— 13 or 14 years old. I don’t really understand how this

is set up or how it works. So I

watch lots of different video bloggers in order

to better understand what we should do

with all of this. At the same time, when we

look at the statistics for the official

channel, we see that our main audience is

25 to 30, so fairly grown-up

people. And I can see that these are millions of

views, that in Russia there are 103 channels with

more than a million subscribers.

I understand that YouTube can seriously

hit television, so we, uh,

are investing quite a lot of effort into it.

Well, you know, the fact that I’m now hosting my own program

myself — I nearly died of fear.

It’s pretty hard to host live. We

are building up this YouTube channel of ours. We

are continuing to build up our main

channel. Because they will never let us onto

television. Now, raise your hands if you

watch YouTube.

Who actually watches these videos. Good,

raise your hand if you don’t watch YouTube.

Ah, so there are people — well, LifeNews

is what he watches.

Well, in any case, this is something important that

unfortunately we still haven’t

figured out all that well, but with your help

we will figure it out, and we watch

absolutely everything. And I also watch all those

uh, well, the kind that are

against us — Shariy and all the rest. I also try to watch all

the political ones in order

to, well, understand what people

are saying and how we should conduct ourselves. For us, this is

a very new thing. Yes, you already asked,

sorry, so in the end maybe tell me,

as a person who is used to

doubting everything and possibly believing in conspiracy

theories, whether everything happening around

you inspires trust in you. Almost everything

you say inspires trust in you.

But what are you prepared to do so that

people stop forming the opinion around you

that when you come to

power, you will be just as much of a

corrupt official? That’s one. Second,

for example, Shariy invited you to

debate him, if I’m not mistaken. So

why can’t you go there and

explain how

Let’s start with the first one. What am I prepared

to do to convince everyone that I

won’t be corrupt?

Not what kind of corrupt official — that you’re

not actually deceiving us.

And what exactly would you like me to do?

No, no, don’t. I suggested that you take

a lie detector.

Let me rephrase my question. What

guarantees can I give you right now?

I can say:

“I swear on my life.” But would that convince you, guys? Well,

no, I hope not. This is a property

of power and a property of politics. I’m

standing here, I understand everything about myself,

I know all about my intentions, and I think:

“I’m a great guy, I won’t deceive anyone.”

But you should not take me — or anyone

else — at their word.

And the guarantee, the only guarantee

here, is the program alone.

Any person, if they remain in

power for more than 10 years, will be

a bad president. Any government, if

there is no oversight over it, tends

to slide into corruption. Well, because

that’s a natural thing. That is why I

support, in my program, freedom of the mass

media, which will tear

my government to pieces if I become

corrupt. I support reducing

presidential terms. I support

an independent judicial system. We have

specific measures: how you would prosecute me

if I became corrupt, and so on,

and so on. That is, in

the first month of my rule, I will make it so that it is easy for you

to impeach me.

Can we impeach Putin

right now? No. Can we dismiss

the government? No. Can we

initiate early elections? No. In fact,

we can’t do anything. We can’t sue

a newspaper. Has anyone ever

heard of anyone winning a case even

from the local administration?

I do win.

A unique person. That happens rarely.

Once.

Once. And how many times did you lose?

The local administration.

Which administration?

Sometimes you can win in court, but overall we

all understand that the system is set up in such a way

that you cannot beat the authorities. Even if you are

100% in the right, it is impossible. But I will change

the system so that you will be able to win against me in

court if you are right and I am wrong.

As for debates with everyone else,

well, quite a lot of people now

are, uh,

after we released the successful

film about Dimon (a mocking nickname for Dmitry Medvedev), and the Kremlin released

that idiotic film about Hitler, which also

gave me plenty of publicity. And now a lot of

people want to interview me. We

just can't give interviews to all of them. Besides,

I go on YouTube and I see that it is

full of me. You are all doing

streams, it's everywhere. I understand that

people will soon be sick of my

interviews and my speeches. So,

of course, with people who

are skeptical of me, we

will do interviews too, but we just need to

space them out over time. Let's take

a question over there.

May I ask a brutal question?

Of course, we need a brutal question.

Now you've got everyone intrigued.

What should we do if during your

campaign, God forbid, something happens to you

like what happened to Nemtsov?

Why is that brutal? I have two favorite

questions. People ask me: "Why haven't you been

jailed? Why haven't you been killed?" Well, I

am used to being asked that. People ask

because they understand perfectly well

how wrongly our system of power

is structured. And people understand perfectly well that

you can do absolutely anything to any person

you want. But at the same time I realize

that I am just as much a volunteer in this

campaign as you are. It's just arranged այնպես that

right now I am standing on the stage, while

you are standing here. And it is entirely possible

that the time will come. The time will come

when I will be standing here, and someone else

will be standing right

in this spot.

After all, we do not think that Putin

is unique, right? We do not agree

with that idiotic claim that

if there is Putin, there is Russia; if there is no Putin, there is no

Russia. We are running this campaign because

that is idiotic nonsense. And in exactly the same way, we

understand that the world does not begin and end with me

either. There are a great many decent

people. And each of them—well, not each of them,

but many of them—could run for

the presidency, many of them could

run a campaign. I want to become

a president who works for 4

years; if he does a good job, then another 4 years,

and then retire or go on

working elsewhere. And I do not have the slightest

doubt that there will be someone no worse

than me, maybe even better than me, who

will be able to govern the country after that. So

nothing will change. Look,

there are no indispensable people,

as Comrade Stalin used to say.

Yes,

yes. So what are your plans regarding

foreign policy with respect to

Syria, and what are your thoughts on

NATO?

Foreign policy, Syria, and everything

else.

I can only repeat what I say

in every city. My foreign policy

is to fix the roads

in Vologda. My foreign policy

is to raise

salaries in Vologda. My foreign policy

is to solve our own

problems. Because in recent years, both Russia

and the Soviet Union, including

when it was already on its last legs

in the 1980s—what did it do? It

fed all the other countries. I love all

other countries. I care about

the ruined city of Palmyra, but when someone tells me,

"Let's rebuild not

Vologda, but Palmyra," I will say, "No,

sorry, but no." Ruins are ruins. I will cry

over the ruins of Palmyra. I will worry

about Aleppo. But I will not give them a single

kopeck while we have ruins here ourselves. I do not—I

do not understand why Russia forgives everyone's

debts. I truly do not understand it. And recently we

even paid off a Soviet Union debt

to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia and

Herzegovina squeezed the last

$53 million out of us. And meanwhile, well, you

remember yourselves which countries we

financed: Cuba, Angola, Mozambique,

Syria itself too. Well, a huge

number of countries, a huge number

of countries all over the world. We forgave everything. We forgave all

those debts, billions of dollars

written off. Okay, maybe they could not repay

100%, not in full. But at least

let's recover something from them. Vietnam and

all the others, reasonably developed

countries—why can they not pay something?

Instead it's just: never mind, write off all the debts, pay for

Palmyra. The "bond-mongers" (a mocking term for ultra-patriots) play music in Palmyra, and we

all rejoice. Well, let them come to Vologda

and perform there. Let them perform in

Yaroslavl, let them perform in

Cherepovets. And my foreign policy

is based on the idea that a country can be

powerful and play a real role in the world

only when it is wealthy. And that is a direct

consequence. When the average salary

is 100,000 rubles, then you

can maintain a very strong army. And

then you really can, in the world,

tell others what to do. But when

right now, excuse me, wages here are

15,000 rubles, and we are straining every nerve to keep

that Admiral Kuznetsov going. And now it

has come back, and they are already saying that

40 billion rubles are needed to repair it.

Damn, seriously, this is not

a joke. They announced it: it went out once,

its power units burned out — 40

billion rubles. Great, damn, what a spree

we all had. Yes, it is a big problem.

Terrorism has to be fought. Well then let

those rich Americans fight it.

Let’s join a coalition with them. Let

them do the bombing. What difference does it make who is dropping bombs there?

So first we solve our own

problems, and only then do we solve all the others.

But at the same time, of course, Russia is a holder

of nuclear weapons, and it holds veto power

in the Security Council. Our role

exists, it is important, and it should

grow stronger — but first the prosperity of our

population, and only then, from that,

foreign-policy strength. Here’s a sign

there,

how to lower gas prices in our city.

Sorry, one more time,

gas and fuel prices, gasoline prices,

are just off the charts. AI-92 gasoline

costs 40 rubles there. In Moscow it costs

much less, actually.

Well, not several times less, to be precise, but

still, well,

well, more expensive, yes, more expensive

that’s true, I looked at

the statistics myself, and I was surprised. I thought, after all,

someone from Yaroslavl seems to have felt unwell.

Dear.

Come on, guys, let’s

get some water. No,

a chair. Or please give him a chair.

There’s a table there.

Right,

well, it’s probably better to take him outside

the person, mayb

pass some water over there, just in case.

Finishi

Well, right now, I think he can’t

no. Thank you very much.

Guys, I think it would be better to try

to carry him outside, otherwise

it’s all right, we’ll bring him around, everything is

fine, these things happen. So,

let’s do that.

I really was surprised when I saw

what gasoline prices are like here, because

the Yaroslavl oil refinery is nearby. And actually

it is quite strange why

gasoline prices are so high here.

Well, separately, for the whole country

it’s an inexplicable, excuse me, mess. Why

is gas so expensive? You turn on the TV,

and it’s all Gazprom, the national

treasure, the national wealth. But what exactly makes it national?

What is national about it?

How much? Does anyone know how much it costs to get gas

connected to a private house?

400

400

already 400.

Is the main line far from the house?

10 m

The main line is 20 m away. And to

get connected to the gas supply, you have to pay 400

rubles — 400,000 rubles. That is insane. Our

gas prices, especially before

this devaluation, were higher than in the United States. Our

electricity prices before

the devaluation — though now, because of the exchange rate, they are a bit

lower — but still

comparable to the U.S. That is absurd.

And of course, my firm position

here is this: dear Gazprom,

first you bring gas to populated

areas and connect people to gas, and only then

do you buy football players. First you

expand gas access, and only then do you pay

Miller a salary of 3 million rubles a day.

First you bring gas to populated

areas, and only then do you build your

beautiful glass buildings. That’s exactly

the point: we have

money to spare. The country is awash in money. Even at a price of

$50 per barrel, enormous resources are still flowing into the

country.

Enormous resources, enough

to rebuild the whole country,

restructure the economy, provide a decent

standard of living, and pay a proper

minimum wage. All of this can

be done, and we will do it all. But for

that we need normal government, we need

a fight against corruption. My friends, once

again, please, the most important thing is: believe in

your own strength. Believe that you are the largest

organized political

group here, at least in

Vologda Oblast. And you will persuade

so many people whom

television will never persuade. You and I

can do it if every day we do

a little bit and accomplish things

that, well, in 2018 we will simply

ourselves be like, you know, John

Travolta in that famous GIF

turning around: wow, it was us

who did all this ourselves. We will do all of it,

because truth is on our side. And on the other

side, in fact, there is nothing but

lies. Thank you very much. We need to

head to Cherepovets now. I’m very glad.

I really am. Thank you very much. And

Then visually, I guess. Okay. Save me.