Alexei Navalny’s speech at the opening of the campaign office in Yoshkar-Ola

So what’s the situation in general? Do your friends

support Navalny? We’re looking into how

young people in the city feel.

Some of my friends support him, but mostly they

just don’t know anything, of course.

All right, hooray, we’re starting. Hello,

Yoshkar-Ola.

We hope you liked this

stylish corridor with lights. The only thing we’re missing

is a disco ball. Leonid,

please begin,

and a procession too.

A pole, a pole.

I ran up. Yes, I ran up on purpose,

to make it look dramatic.

Ah, dear friends, good morning.

Yoshkar-Ola. Thank you for coming. Despite

the miserable weather and the early hour, we’re

opening our thirty-fourth campaign headquarters

for Alexei Navalny’s campaign, the headquarters

in Yoshkar-Ola, the capital of your wonderful

republic. Well, we’re opening it—let’s

be honest—somewhat conditionally ahead of schedule,

to use our usual terminology, because

shortly before the opening, because

our lease for the premises was terminated,

the place Vadim had found. So right now we

don’t have a premises, but we do have lots of

options to look at. And so the first

task for Vadim—Vadim Kremnyov,

the coordinator in Yoshkar-Ola. And

the first task we’re assigning to Vadim

is to make sure that this week, after all,

he finds a place. But on the bright side, look,

there are lots of volunteers. So, say,

we can do the renovations. Right,

They’ll all leave now after hearing the word “renovations.”

The two of you will be the only ones left.

So you’re not asking for a renovation budget, which means

we’ll do everything with our own hands.

Well, the main thing is to have handy people.

So, anyway,

this is the second case; the first one was in

Vladivostok. And this second case is

Yoshkar-Ola, where we came for an opening

and there isn’t really much to open. But we’ll

fix that. I’m sure we’ll fix it

within a week, and after that everything will go

according to plan, because we have an

active team here. Vadim joined us only recently,

but he’s already looked at a whole bunch of

premises and done a lot of

organizational work, so

everything will work out.

So. And still, it’s really great

that we came to see you. And it turns out that in

Yoshkar-Ola there’s no airport. I mean, there is one,

from there

in 2016 it handled 712 passengers,

according to Wikipedia, and then, and then

it closed. So we realized that

an FSB airport,

yes, we realized that if we didn’t come by

now—incidentally, on the same day as

Cheboksary—then getting here later would be

problematic. And so, actually,

despite all these difficulties with the

premises, we decided not to postpone

the opening. And I’m sure this won’t

prevent the Yoshkar-Ola headquarters from doing

excellent work. What will the work of the

headquarters consist of? My part—although all of you

already know it by heart, because you’ve probably

watched the streams from the previous thirty-three

openings—but they say it’s better live.

I mean, people go

to concerts for some reason even after they’ve already bought

the CD or the album on iTunes. It’s the same here.

So I’ll repeat what you actually

already know. And the first task

of the headquarters—okay, the zeroth task of the headquarters

in Yoshkar-Ola is to find a premises. And the first

task for Vadim, after the premises

has been found and the renovations are done,

will be to talk with each of you

and get to know you personally

and write down

we’ll write everything down,

yes, put it all into a detailed spreadsheet,

because, uh, our campaigning

is carried out by volunteers, and

they’re the ones who have television, they have

newspapers, they have radio, propaganda. And

now they even have Alisa Vox and Alisher

Usmanov. But what we have is you—this is our

shared campaign—and we know from the experience

of past campaigns, from the experience of Moscow in

2013, that there is no more powerful

and effective way to change people’s attitudes,

to change the mood in society, than

simply going out and talking to them.

It’s magic. You don’t always understand how

it happens. You hand one person

a leaflet, and he walks past. You hand another

a leaflet, and he crumples it up and throws it in the bin. You

hand a third person a leaflet, and he tells you to go

to hell, but then all the same you

look at the polling numbers and see that

something in the city is changing, that something

is changing in society, because

the fourth person put it in his pocket, remembered

something, then went online to search

and came across the film "Don’t Call Him Dimon".

And the fifth decided to learn more, and

the next time came back to the same street stand and

asked some questions. And the sixth discussed

it at home, and so on, and so on, and so

on. We had statistics from the mayoral

campaign. We deliberately did this

kind of thing. We compared two neighboring

districts of Moscow that were similar. In one

we handed out a lot of leaflets, while in the

other, as an experiment, for some

time we didn’t hand them out. And we saw that

there was roughly

uh, a 12-percentage-point difference in

the ratings. That means about every

eighth person. In other words, in one district we gave them to everyone

they handed out leaflets in one place, and in another to no one at all.

And somehow, roughly every eighth person ended up

being persuaded. It’s not really clear how

that happens, because it seems like

nothing changes in any particular person,

but society changes

little by little. You just have to believe in that.

Once you start doing this work, you’ll

see how it happens. Vadim’s task

as coordinator—we don’t have a

“campaign manager” position—is

to coordinate you in this work,

because all of you here are

people of different ages, genders, backgrounds,

and experience. Some have worked in direct

sales and are ready right now to go out and hand out 300

leaflets. Someone else may be very good

at direct sales, will hand out 300

leaflets, and even bring in donations as well.

And someone may be shy, but

have more experience online.

Someone may be older and not

ready for street campaigning, but has lived

in the same building for 30 years and knows all their

neighbors and is ready to go talk to them.

Vadim’s job is

to coordinate everyone, talk to each person,

and understand how each of you

is prepared to take part in this shared

campaign. After all, you came here of your own accord, as

volunteers. No one can force you to do something

or not do something, or do

something you don’t like. You’ll come

to him and say: "I want to do this and that.

Uh, I’m going to hand out leaflets on the

street," or "I want to try handing out

leaflets on the street. Uh, teach me how,

give me the materials for it, help me

learn how to answer the most frequently

asked questions. Show me the webinar,

show me how it’s done." Another person will say:

"I want to campaign in my building,

help me with that." And a third will say:

"My favorite approach: I’m going away on vacation.

I don’t have time for a vacation right now. I’m

going to Kozmodemyansk, and, well, there

I’ll have 2 completely free months,

and I’ll be ready to do absolutely anything there.

Help me with that. How does all this

work? And how do I get a whole lot of leaflets

across on the ferry?" And his task

is to organize all

of that.

And when Vadim has spoken with each of you,

drawn up a big spreadsheet, and understood

what resources he has at his disposal, how many

leaflets, stickers, and badges need to be

printed, how much needs to be ordered,

how many webinars need to be held—even if this

takes 2 weeks, or a month, or 2

months, that’s not a problem, we have time. But

in the end, we’ll assemble the best

campaign machine in the country, which,

as it turns out—and you’ll see it yourselves,

perhaps even with some surprise, but you will see it—

will prove capable of defeating everyone, of convincing

everyone, because what we’re campaigning for

is something very simple, right, and easy to understand.

We have six basic

program points, each of which, we know,

is supported by a majority of

Russian voters. And at this stage of the

campaign, we have one simple demand.

A very simple demand:

allow Alexei Navalny onto the ballot,

because even now we have already collected

450,000 signatures, and even now we already have

105,000 registered volunteers. We

know that Alexei represents

a substantial part of the Russian

population, and right now we are fighting for

a line on the ballot. And even if you’ve

spoken to someone, again,

whether you handed out a leaflet or argued

with someone online or talked at home

over a family dinner, uh, or with

relatives, acquaintances, friends, or

colleagues at work, and they say: "No,

we don’t agree with his platform, we’re not

ready. We’ve heard this bad thing about him,

and that bad thing, and that bad thing." You have

one final, absolutely unbeatable

argument. Okay, but right now we’re

collecting signatures so that he

will be on the ballot. You don’t have to

support him. You can put off

that question for yourself until later and then

decide whether you’re for him or not. But right now

we are demanding and seeking access to

the election so that he can take part in it.

And there’s really no problem with that. At that point

even the most loyal Putin supporter understands everything

and runs to our website to register and

becomes number 450,000

to sign. We will definitely collect

far more; I think we’ll collect a million

signatures. We will definitely process

these signatures, uh, as required under

the rules of the Central Election Commission. But

ultimately, the success of our campaign

depends not only, and not even primarily, on

the signatures, but simply on this feeling

in society.

Our political goal is

that by the end of the year, by December, when

the formal procedure for nominating and

registering candidates begins, all of Russian

society understands that without Alexei

Navalny on the list of candidates, these

elections cannot go forward. That without Alexei

Navalny, this isn’t an election but God knows

what. If we can explain that to society,

then in fact, broadly speaking, it already

agrees with it, because again, we’ve

done polling, and, yes, 70% of those who

vote for Putin also

agree that the opposition is necessary, should

be allowed into the elections, and should have

the right to vote, that political

competition is needed, and that it involves a clash of different points

of view. So if we can

explain this to society during our

campaigning, and we still have

another 8 months for that, then everything

will work out, and those in power simply won't have

any other choice. We will force them

to register Alexei. And then we'll

push even harder and run

the final two months of campaigning, already during

the campaign itself, and the election... So

that's what the plan looks like in broad outline. In

carrying it out, of course, we'll have to

deal with a certain number of

difficulties, details, wording issues. But again,

that's what the campaign headquarters is for. We don't know

what other videos, films,

or false articles they'll put out. Today they released

a game, an iPhone app, in which,

basically, Navalny is portrayed as very bad. You'll

see—they'll artificially boost it now, and it will become

the most downloaded in the App Store too. Well,

again, everyone has their own head on

their shoulders. You're all volunteers. The headquarters

is here for that. Probably at

every stage of the campaign we'll have our own

problems, our own objections that we'll

have to work through. So, you'll come in,

organize a roundtable here yourselves. We have

it written down: "Trust the regions; they decide

everything in Moscow." And you'll decide yourselves how, how to

fight that, what words to use, how to

persuade people otherwise. Over the next 8 months of the campaign

we will face eighty

different problems. But a volunteer

campaign—not an administrative one, not one

relying on state administrative resources—

is a campaign capable of solving 80,

800, or however many problems there may be, and

you'll be able to do it too. There will be some

difficulties, but that's nothing страшного. Again,

you'll try doing something, and it won't

work out. Say, you want to hand out leaflets

on the street, and then you realize it's not for you.

Okay? Come to Vadim, and he will

sit down with you, talk, come up with

some other tasks, and help you

get involved in all of that. So this is what

your interaction with

the headquarters will consist of, and what

your expectations of the headquarters should be. Who here has donated

money to the campaign? Even just 5 rubles,

it doesn't matter. Thank you so much. You are

paying Vadim's salary; you are his

employers. And what I was trying to

Yes, yes, yes.

explain just now is that you have the right

as his employers to demand that

he always be in the office, always try

to help you, and always try to find

the form of your participation in

the campaign that will bring the maximum

effect in terms of your time,

your age, your abilities,

your needs, and your expectations.

And after that, everything will depend on you.

I hope that in this sense the headquarters

will do an excellent job and fulfill

its role. Now, in terms of numbers. You know that we

have to collect and submit at the beginning of January

300,000 signatures to the Central Election Commission, with no

more than 7,500 from any one region. Right now we

have 447,000 registered on the website,

and that's very good—already one and a half times

more than we need. But then come the

complications with that regional

distribution. And on top of that, we still don't know,

honestly, we don't know how these signatures from

the internet will be turned, so to

speak, into signatures on paper. Soon the headquarters will

start working on that. Next

week we are starting to test our

super-duper IT system, and in about

a couple of weeks we'll tackle this in earnest.

And in Mari El, our plan is to collect 2,500

signatures and submit 2,000. We've allocated

the targets roughly like this: for cities with over a million people, a maximum of

7,500; for half-million cities, 5,000 each; for

smaller cities, 2,500 each—collect 2,200

and submit 2,000. Right now, on the website,

registered

1,100

and I won't hide it. So Yoshkar-Ola is

kind of among the lagging regions, I think somewhere

on a par with Chita and a couple of others. Well,

that is, among the regional centers it's

down in the bottom ranks. Well,

objectively, we are opening offices in all

cities with populations

over 200,000, and here it's 260,000. So, uh,

that's kind of normal, but nevertheless,

when I look at you, I think that

we'll be able to catch up

fairly easily. Okay, we've got 1,100,

so we need to collect another 1,400. Well,

there are about 150 people standing here. So

each person needs to persuade 10 people.

Well, there are 8 months ahead. That doesn't look like

a scary problem. I think we'll

do an excellent job of it here. So

that's what the plan looks like in broad terms.

I'm setting aside a month for Vadim to

talk with each of you, get acquainted,

well, two or three weeks would be better, faster if possible, and

understand how our

campaign machine in Yoshkar-Ola and in

the Mari El Republic will be organized. Then he will start

working on verifying those signatures

that are already on the website, that thousand

signatures that already exist now. That

means he will start inviting all those people,

collecting their data, including

consent for the processing of personal

data, preparing everything fully, while you

campaign and bring in another 1,000. After all,

it'll be summer, the weather will be good, and so

on. Well, if you bring in more than

1,500, no one will be upset or

offended either; on the contrary, we’ll say a big

thank you. We like it when our plans

are exceeded. So those are our

organizational and technical plans.

The main thing for me is that you hear what

we expect from you, what we expect from

the headquarters, and what we expect from your

coordination between headquarters, so to speak,

what Vadim should be doing and what he needs

to present, so to speak, and what should be

demanded of him, and what we expect

you to do. Well, there will be time later for

questions. If you have questions for

me or for the team on this matter, I’ll be happy to

answer them. And now, this

wonderful Alexei Navalny.

Thank you very much, thank you very much,

guys. Thank you very much, friends, for

coming. And I’m very glad that our

trips to open campaign headquarters

have resumed—or rather, they never

stopped, even when I was forced to

miss several openings.

We’ve just done a tour of the Volga region, and

it’s been very interesting for me.

I’m very glad to come, uh, here to Yoshkar-Ola,

in particular because it’s one of the

smallest cities where we’re opening a headquarters

at this stage. And basically

it’s believed—well, the authorities believe—that

everything rests on cities like this. Like, you can

make as much noise as you want over there in Moscow,

but out there somewhere in the heart of

Russia,

in Yoshkar-Ola specifically, and in the symbolic

Yoshkar-Ola, there are people who will always

support us—Putin, Medvedev, and everyone

else down the list—because they believe

everything there, they always keep quiet there, they’re always

in agreement with everything there, life is wonderful there. And

what interests me here is not even just

telling you something, but also

listening to you. So, is life wonderful here?

No.

Are you all in agreement here, or not?

That’s exactly how I feel too. I’ve been to

different cities. Well, we were in

Saransk, yes, you probably saw

the photos from there. We do have a headquarters there,

but we had to speak out in an open field at the edge of the woods,

because we were pushed out of those premises.

And it’s the same everywhere. They draw 99%,

but people are dissatisfied. So this feeling of mine

is turning

into certainty when I

come to places like this and see that,

despite twenty years of steamrolling

the political landscape, there are people for

whom Alisa Vox is not some unquestionable

authority. Because they really, well,

they genuinely think that, you know,

Navalny is gathering people somehow,

young people, not just young people, simply people. But

now we’ll show them the right political

video on YouTube. So, who watched

it?

Who watched it?

Everyone did.

And it will convince them, we’ll convince them. And they’ll listen:

"Hey kid, don’t get involved in politics."

Probably right. I guess I,

a kid, should stop getting involved in politics.

Volkov told you about the game. I’m going to read you

a screenshot now. So, here it is.

There’s this image here of my snarling face.

So, I’m yelling into a microphone. Well, that’s

apparently a reference, because I’m Hitler too,

according to them, right. So: "The opposition movement

bankrolled by Western money, the opposition

movement of Alexei Vandalny..."

"Pursuing the goal of seizing power in

the country, it skillfully manipulates the younger

generation of Russian citizens under the false

pretext of fighting corruption."

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

They really think that this can

fool everyone.

They really think everyone is an idiot. And

that’s the truth of it: they

really do think we’re idiots. They lie

in every word and expect that we’ll

believe them, that we’ll agree with everything, and

that we won’t pay attention. But

will it work for them? No, I don’t think

so. You can’t fool anyone with things like that.

Our task is simply to create some kind of

focal point, because everyone

around us is tired. Absolutely everyone. But,

just imagine any ordinary person. He

is less interested in politics than you are.

He didn’t come here. All of this here,

everything happening in the country—he’s tired

of poverty, he’s tired of hopelessness, he’s

tired of the fact that there are no

prospects. For him, it’s either drink,

or just sit there, stare out

the window, and feel miserable. So who is he

supposed to vote for? He says: "I’m sick of

all this. What political force

can I rely on?" Zyuganov?

Come on, would any of you ever vote for

Zyuganov?

No.

Zhirinovsky?

No.

Yavlinsky. I don’t know. Well, who then? Well, among

Yavlinsky’s supporters, some people might vote,

but probably

not that many people now. And that’s what

this whole system rests on: it seems

like there’s no one and everything is hopeless, but

I see you here—you exist, and we exist. And

not one politician who comes here

just like that could gather 150

volunteers. Have any of you ever seen

United Russia volunteers?

You’re laughing? Well, often, you know, these days...

They say, "We’ve seen United Russia volunteers,

but they’re all paid."

Those are the kind of United Russia volunteers

who do it for money.

Under coercion.

Under coercion. That’s how the whole system works. And

we are, in fact, the main

political force. And what struck us over the

past week?

Well, I don’t know, I can say

what struck me. Now I start every

campaign office opening with this. It was

a wonderful remake of that Star Wars scene

where Jabba talks to Han

Solo. Yes, we saw, uh,

an authorized representative

speaking on behalf of Putin and Medvedev. Well, we

understand that Usmanov—anyone who watched his

video, just so I know—did everyone

watch the video,

but he obviously didn’t decide to speak out on his own.

He’s a fairly non-public figure.

But it was the authorities—they chose him. They

didn’t even pick some more or less

glamorous oligarch,

some, I don’t know, tanned,

curly-haired, reasonably

presentable one. They decided instead:

let’s put the biggest boss of all

out there, and let him, from his yacht worth

half a billion dollars, say to

Navalny and everyone running around with

him shouting about corruption: "Phooey on

you, you’ll answer to me." And

that really is a striking

thing.

And of course the substance as well, and

the style, which boils down to this:

this government seriously

believes that this is how it ought to

talk to the people,

that this is the image of a Russian

businessman, the image of success. Some

shady guy who previously did time, well,

as he says to me: "You weren’t locked up for just one day,

but I did six years."

"So listen to me." Right. And what did he build

his wealth on? On creating something,

inventing something, bringing something

to us? No. Mining and ore-processing plants.

We pull ore out of the ground, sell it

to our own offshore company. The offshore company sells it abroad,

pockets the difference, and we keep it. That’s how

they made $15 billion. So is that the ideal

businessman in Russia? I don’t

think so. Do you? No.

No. And it seems to me that they really

do think it’s cool, that they can put

a guy like that out there, and he’ll

wipe the floor with everyone, and the whole country will watch

online and clap and say:

"Awesome, awesome, awesome." They think

this is the ideal, but I have a clear

feeling that nobody thinks

that way, that most citizens,

that most Russian citizens are disgusted

to watch this. Most Russian citizens

are disgusted even reading the news of the past

two days. And when, you know,

Usmanov tries to buy Arsenal,

the British football club, he

bought 30% at one point, and now he’s trying

to buy more. First he said—this was

two days ago—

I’ll pay another $1.3

billion. And British society told him:

"No, we don’t like you,

you suspicious creep with a criminal

past."

And he said: "I’ll pay $2.3 billion." They

said: "No, we’re not going to

sell to you." Then he said,

I’ll pay $2.6 billion. And as of today it still

seems to be a no. You see how

interesting that is. British society,

the British

are having some kind of dialogue with him there,

telling him: "We don’t like you, keep away

from us with your corrupt

money."

But here, where he made his money, he doesn’t

even think it’s important to so much as

raise the question of whether he has

the right—or not even whether he has the

right, but whether it’s normal that Russian

oligarchs who got rich off raw materials—who does

the ore in the ground belong to?

Us.

Us, exactly. It’s yours, it’s mine, it’s

all ours.

And our share of it should come, among other things, through

taxes. But he doesn’t pay those taxes,

and instead wants to invest $2.5 billion

and discuss it with

the English. And they tell him: "Leave

us alone, Usmanov." What’s he doing there? Begging

them, while they scold him in the newspapers, and he

answers questions. And meanwhile nobody

gives a damn about us. Not the Russian government,

not Usmanov himself, not those

English people—nobody cares at all

about the fact that there are

some 144 million

people who are watching in stunned silence

what is happening, how

their money is being divided up, how decisions are being made

about whether to invest in some football club

or not.

That is exactly why our campaign is needed,

because we are all tired of living in

artificial poverty. It is artificial.

We have a huge, wealthy country that

over the past 20 years has sold $3 trillion worth of oil and gas

and we still have

colossal sums flowing into the budget from

oil and gas sales. Fifty dollars per

barrel—that’s more than enough. We could

fund absolutely everything at an excellent

at a European level, or at least

an Eastern European one. But look,

I follow the statistics here, and

when it comes to Mari El, I’m horrified. It’s a national

catastrophe. If across Russia it’s 19%, here

23% of people are living below the poverty line.

And what is the poverty line? It’s 8,000

rubles. In other words, a salary of less than 8,000 rubles.

Let’s be honest, that’s not

a living wage, right? It’s below...

and by the way

here, formally speaking, just so you know,

maybe I’m about to tell you something

new. Go on, answer me yourselves.

What is the average salary here in

Yoshkar-Ola?

33

103,

I think.

Well, in reality it’s practically 10,000.

I saw an official figure of 26. 10,000.

I saw 26. But tell me, is it

really true that it’s 26?

No,

I do this in every city. People who watch the streams have seen it a million times.

But I, I in

every city will keep doing it.

Please raise your hands if you

know people earning less than 26,000 rubles.

Everyone.

Okay. So apparently the statistics are wrong,

right? We don’t consider that the average

salary. Raise your hand if you know

people earning less than 23.

Put them down. Don’t keep them up. You never know. Now

raise your hand if you know people

who earn less than 20. Let’s

move on right away.

No, I don’t want to, I want to savor this. I don’t

want to jump ahead, you understand? I want

to really feel it. This always, always

happens — every time I do this, everyone laughs.

Come on, raise your hand. Less than, less than

18.

Put them down. Put those down. All right, fine.

Now let’s do less than 15,

less than 12.

No, no, jokes aside. Now give me

a serious answer. Seriously now. Put your hands down,

please. Seriously. Not just to

support my cheerful flash mob, but

for real. Who knows people who

earn less than 10,000?

What do you call that?

So that comes out to...

The 20th century

culture

A developed country that, after all,

launches satellites into space, that has

an aircraft industry, that has

a nuclear industry, that has

a high, uh, a high share of the population with

higher education — 10,000 rubles. And how much do people have to pay for housing and utilities?

How much do they have to hand over?

All right. The lowest figure we heard was

4. Ten minus 4 is 6. How is a person supposed to live

on 6,000 rubles? It’s impossible. Impossible. How

does he survive? He plants potatoes.

And so it turns out that we built

and built our civilization. We have these

pipelines, deposits, quarries,

mining and processing plants. We created all of this.

For what? So that

people could survive on whatever they can scrape together in the 21st

century. Then what the hell is the point of all this?

That’s what this election

campaign is about: that right now we can and

must live better, but we don’t, because

we have simply all been robbed and

are being robbed every day. And we could

put a stop to it as soon as tomorrow. The only

ranking in which Russia is rising and

improving its position — what

ranking is that?

The number of billionaires.

The number of billionaires. Well, corruption and

the number of billionaires are apparently

connected, because our billionaires are, as we all know,

of a certain kind. In 2000

there were, I don’t remember, either two or three

dollar billionaires; now there are 102.

And the dollar has gone up.

And the dollar has gone up. But we’ve become poorer, and we

don’t understand what the source of this

money is. And the answer is simple: either raw materials, or

the budget, or both. Because all

of Putin’s neighbors from the Ozero dacha cooperative (a well-known group from Putin’s inner circle)

have literally become billionaires.

In the literal sense. Why did they suddenly

— some sparring partner in judo — become

a dollar billionaire and now builds

everything in Russia: from the bridge to Crimea to

Gazprom pipelines and, I don’t know, supplies things to

the army, and so on and so forth.

So it’s the same people over and over again, of course.

They’re billionaires, but these are communicating

vessels. They are simply taking this money

out of our pockets. And when the authorities tell me

that, well, you know, this is

Russia, nothing can be changed, this has

always been the case, and anyway those people stole,

and the new ones will come and steal too — well, you’ve

all heard these phrases — I answer: "I don’t agree with that for a second.

Why the hell should I agree with it?

I see countries

that live normally. Sure, maybe they

haven’t built some super-happy society, maybe they

haven’t defeated corruption by

100%. But my favorite example, which I always

give, is Estonia. Tell me, my friends,

please,

does Estonia have oil

deposits?

No.

No?

Are there

gas deposits in Estonia? Are there

mining and processing plants there, well

I don’t know, is Estonia spreading stories about

sending a satellite into space? What’s so special about that?

Well, the average salary there is 1,100

euros. About 70,000 rubles is the average salary,

earned by people who have

a normal, non-corrupt

government. And we will have that kind of

average salary too when we

achieve a normal,

non-corrupt government.

Because this is nothing extraordinary; it’s

an ordinary, normal standard. It’s not as if

they’re plucking stars from the sky. I’m often told

by people from United Russia: "You’re a populist,

you’re making impossible promises."

Please explain to me: why is my

promise to build decent roads

in Russia impossible to fulfill?

Why is it that Egypt managed to build decent

roads? All across Eastern Europe

the roads are decent. In most countries

in Africa the roads are decent, but in Russia they’re

bad. Humanity has been building roads for 6,000

years. We have quite a lot of skill and understanding

of how roads should be built. And I

go out and walk around, say, Yoshkar-Ola

— a small city, but it’s the capital

of a federal subject (region). We look around and we

see that apparently

Russia’s Aerospace Forces were aiming at

Palmyra, but somehow landed here instead and

dumped their ammunition here. Everything is falling apart,

everything is wrecked. Why? What objective

reasons are there for this? Go on, explain it to me,

what is it, is there something in our very nature

that makes roads

fall apart? No, they don’t fall apart everywhere.

It gets colder in Finland, and the roads there are excellent.

And in Norway the roads are wonderful,

while in China roads are built 20 times

more cheaply than in Russia. Or 10 times

more cheaply. And then there are these miserable bridges. What

is a bridge, really? They talk to us about bridges as

if they were some miracle of engineering.

Again, people have been building bridges for thousands of years.

And we see it — you’ve probably seen it yourself on

YouTube a hundred times — videos of

some Chinese workers building a bridge in three weeks, in

four weeks, in a month. Here, every bridge

takes two and a half years to build. Some bridges

take ten years. Why? We can achieve

elementary improvements

for the better right now, improvements we know

how to make, that we could implement

as soon as tomorrow. We just need

our government to focus not on

its own pockets, not on

clinging to that Kremlin

chair and sitting in it for 17 to 19 years. There is no such thing

as a normal president who stays

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

has to change hands. If you sit in power for 20 years,

whether you want to or not, even if

you were decent at the beginning,

you’ll inevitably become surrounded by friends, connections, and

all of that will keep you from doing your job

properly. That’s why we want simple

things. We are not populists at all. We want

only what is already working

right now in developed countries, and even

in moderately developed ones. We’re not going to

set our sights right now on some

Norway again. But surely, excuse me,

we ought to be able to live like an average Eastern European country.

And when in Russia wages are such that

—

as we’re discussing now, people

are surviving on $200 a month, and United Russia tells me:

"Navalny, your

proposal to introduce a minimum

full-time monthly wage of 25,000

rubles — that’s populism and impossible, isn’t it?" And I

tell them: "No, it’s entirely possible,

because a minimum wage exists

in capitalist

countries — that’s not populism. It exists in

Germany, it exists in the United States, it exists in

Britain. Everywhere there is a legally established minimum

wage. So let’s simply

introduce it, and then there will be a little more

distribution of wealth." Why is it, again,

that Russian oligarchs — the kind with

$15 billion, $13 billion, and so on —

you won’t find that in a developed country. Go ahead,

name for me the surname of a German oligarch

you know.

Germany’s economy is several times larger,

but you can’t recall a German oligarch

because there are hardly any people there

who wholly own

giant enterprises. There are many

simply wealthy people there, a great many

well-off people — tens

of millions of them — but very few outright oligarchs.

The source of an oligarch’s wealth

is simple: he doesn’t pay taxes,

and he pays low wages. That’s all.

That’s where the $15 billion comes from. And we are not

going to do anything populist. We

will simply make it so that, right now, you

pay 13%, and Usmanov pays

13%. Is that fair?

You tell me. Surely, somehow,

at the very least, that looks

strange.

That’s all. Basic measures to

reduce inequality, basic measures for

the fair distribution of

national wealth will make us

richer and better off, I don’t know, within

a year — on a fairly short timeline.

We will do it; we can do it.

There is one main obstacle here. Our

main, most sinister enemy. Who is it?

Television and United Russia

United Russia, the authorities

television

television

corruption

corruption Putin is the enemy of Russia, I agree

that’s not the main enemy, the main enemy is your

passivity and indifference, right

right, this whole regime stands, well,

it’s not like Putin is standing there like Atlas

holding it all on his shoulders, of course not

he form

he created it

he built it. But it doesn’t rest on the National Guard,

or on the police, or anything like that. All of it

rests on indifference. Not even on

indifference exactly, but, let’s say, on

this idea that we will always

live in poverty. And that it’s normal. That we’re, like,

doomed. There’s this saying

a well-known one, disgusting in my

view, yes: that we’ve never lived well

so there’s no point in starting now.

Well, that’s horrible. It means that

if we’ve accepted that, then

first, we’re duller, stupider than all

other nations, and second, that, well,

we lived poor, our children will live

poor, and our grandchildren will live poor too.

But we do not agree with that. And in fact

that’s not true. The main thing we need

is to overcome in ourselves first, and then carry

to everyone else the idea that everything can

be changed, that we are not some doomed

country, that there have been countries in worse

conditions and they developed successfully,

that defeated corruption. Just remember

10 years ago, those of you who are older, everyone

used to joke all the time about the Chinese, how

poor they were. There

250 million people were starving, nobody there

got a pension. They worked for

next to nothing. Now in China the average salary

is higher than in Russia. Now many

African countries have caught up with us in terms of

living standards. So

we are not doomed. We just need to work

properly. We can achieve all of this.

And despite the fact that it may seem to us, well, we’ve

only got, what, 150 people

gathered in the whole republic, and everyone else is

passive and nothing can be done. And

surely someone will ask me now:

"Well, we understand everything, but when I

go up to some grandma, and her brain has been washed

by television, and she says that

your Navalny stole all the timber and nothing

can be achieved. And the old ones stole, the new ones

will steal too." All that is understandable,

of course. It exists, it

is in people’s heads, but it is fairly

easily broken down

simply through work. Why have we gathered

here? 150 people in a city of 250,000

is already enough force to

win over the whole place. This is not

just my assumption or, you know,

me simply trying to inspire you.

But we saw the same thing in Moscow

itself.

Over the course of two months in an unscheduled

campaign, without television and without money,

they put me in jail right in the middle of

the election campaign. Everyone, including

Putin on television, was saying

what a terrible person I was. Nevertheless, 30% voted

for me after two months of campaigning.

And most of those people, according to our polling,

were pensioners and volunteers.

It was mostly young people, but pensioners

voted because they saw

simple things, Muscovites saw that there really were

volunteers, that they

really were going around campaigning and

persuading people. It’s not even about

Navalny proposing something — when

a person understands that the one who came to them is their

neighbor, someone they know,

and says: "Look, here I am

with my badge, I really am working

for free at Navalny’s campaign office. I

really may even have

sent him 100 rubles. I believe that everything

can be changed. So you, Marya

Petrovna, please vote." Now,

Marya Petrovna will say: "Oh, get lost,

leave me alone. I don’t believe in anyone." But she

will listen to you. That is exactly how it

works. When someone tries to convince a person,

that person will most likely follow

you.

The great mass of people always follows

the 1% who are the most active. Since you’re already here,

you are definitely that 1% of the most

active people whom everyone else

listens to. So, my friends, we have

well, a little less than a year of work

ahead of us.

We ourselves still don’t even realize how

much of all this we can do, but

we will do it. Let’s just believe in

ourselves and believe that our efforts are not

meaningless. Countries have emerged even from

worse situations than this. All of this

can be overcome.

if we work, because every

point in our program — remember this too

and be confident in yourselves — it

is supported by more than 85% of

the population. Everyone here is against fighting

corruption. Take some of the most

nasty people, I don’t know, maybe some

police officers from headquarters, uh, who are

standing around somewhere filming us. What do they

talk about among themselves? Well, first they

say: "Of course, because of this

Navalny, we’re standing here in the

rain like idiots, when we’re supposed to

have a day off." And then they

complain about corruption in exactly the same way. They complain about their

superiors. They talk about how they

can’t get apartments, about how

lower wages, about how people will have to

dig up potatoes just to somehow have

something to eat. And it’s all the same. And

officials talk about it too. And the people

who were filming Alisher Usmanov

on video came out of there and rushed off

not to like his video. Do you understand? His

video gets likes from bots, but they ran to like our

videos, because everyone understands how this

system works. In our country, the majority is on our side.

The only problem is disbelief. That disbelief

you and I will break down together. I am

sure of it. Thank you very much. I’m ready to answer

questions.

Raise your hands if you have questions.

Alexei, I have this question. Uh, it seems to me

that Putin has no intention of stepping down

voluntarily, and so it is not in his

interest for the elections to be fair and

for someone else to win them. Do we have

an alternative plan of action in that

Ah, I’ll repeat the question so everyone can hear it.

What’s your name?

Kirill.

Kirill thinks that Putin is not

interested in giving up power.

That’s a correct assumption, Kirill. And that he,

accordingly, is not interested in

someone else becoming president. That’s a correct

assumption. I agree. And therefore, they will not

hold fair elections. Do we have

some kind of Plan B? Are you implying

a revolution, or what?

Well, any kind of plan at all.

So, look.

Naturally, they are not interested, but

these people consider themselves, well, they are

the masters of life. Where else could this riffraff

get these yachts worth

400 million? Where else? In what country could they

earn and acquire these palaces?

In what other country in the 21st century would they

live as if under an absolute monarchy, where

anything is possible? In what other country,

if we look at it more broadly, right? And there are

governors who will say: "If you don’t

vote for me, I’ll dig up

your road." You know, remind me of the surname

of that man who is now complaining

that, supposedly, they’re not sending him

toilet paper there. He took away

the roads

took them with him. Yes, exactly right.

So, well, of course they have clung to

power. They revel in it. It is

absolute power. Well, this whole

thing of, like, you will answer to me,

Alexei, just be yourself. Well, they think that’s cool.

They get a kick out of it. Like addicts already. But

no one wants to turn themselves from such

crooks. So, we have no Plan B and

there cannot be one.

Are you here against corruption? Tell me,

are you people or androids?

People. You have the right to take part in

elections, right? You have the right

to nominate your own candidate. So let me

right now at this meeting ask,

my friends, I ask you to support my

candidacy in the presidential election.

Who is in favor? Let’s vote.

Yes,

I was afraid no hands would go up.

So,

that’s it. What else do we need? I have the

constitutional right to participate. It is

written there. You have the right to nominate. In

Russia, millions of people are against corruption.

In Russia, millions of people support a fair

distribution of the nation’s wealth. In

Russia, millions of people are against lawlessness,

against this stupidity, when people are jailed

over Pokémon in church and so on.

Millions. We have the right to run,

so we will exercise that right and

insist on it. And no matter what they

tell us there—that we have no right, or anything else—we

don’t care. Therefore I am sure that if we

work properly, they will have no choice

but to register me, and we

will win. I’m not, not just

passing off wishful thinking as

reality. I am sure

that we will win this election. Well

It’s not us who vote; they vote for us.

No, we do vote—they vote in our place.

It will be rigged, as always.

Yes, I’ve just come from Mordovia (a republic in Russia),

where it’s 100 percent, as everyone knows. But the point is

that in practice, no one has

organized proper election monitoring on a

nationwide scale. That’s the thing. We

regularly have some kind of scandals. Someone

organizes good monitoring at

a few polling stations, there’s a fight, a scandal,

or something else. But across the whole country, no one

has ever done it. We will be the first,

because we have the people for it.

Even if the Communist Party acted

in good faith, they still would not be able

to organize monitoring. Simply because

in reality they cannot cover 100,000 polling stations.

We already have 105,000

volunteers. Closer to the election, well, I

think it will be 300,000. We will cover all polling stations

with capable, reliable,

well-trained volunteers, and you

will become those volunteers. Therefore,

of course, it will not be an easy process—both

campaigning and work—but we will get those votes

and we will fight for them so that

they are not stolen from us. But that is the only way.

Question.

Yes.

Hello, Alexei. I would like

to ask you

what new social programs you

can propose. Do you want to

these are the social programs that, uh,

the current government has left in place?

Great question. So, tell me,

what social programs does the

current government have? Ah, well, the maternity capital program,

support for young people.

Ah, support. Oh, I see there are a lot of

young people here. Is anyone supporting you?

No.

But maternity capital is the right

thing. Well, of course it is. It

needs to be kept. And, well, you can see that

right now it is constantly being cut back,

its use is being restricted, and

other things are being done too. The most important

social project, which I have already

spoken about, is raising and setting

the minimum wage for a full

working day. Without that, nothing

will happen. That is the first thing. Second. The social

projects that are needed are education

and healthcare, which must be

properly funded. And there are

clear figures on this. Take any developed

country. There is a basic rule: there are no

developed and wealthy countries in which

education and

healthcare are funded at the level

they are here. It is not even a matter of

having less money overall; as a

percentage of GDP, we allocate

twice less, as a share of GDP, to

healthcare and education than in a

developed country. Until we properly

fund all of this, nothing there

will change, and we will still have

appalling hospitals. I recently had a

personal example of this: I

went to Barcelona for eye surgery.

A public hospital. I

paid as a foreigner there, of course, but I

saw the same grandmas and grandpas, just like

here, standing in line. But it was like

a hotel—well, not a hotel, but a

medical center. It gleams

like a museum. Everyone takes a ticket, and everyone

either gets treated for free, or the insurance

company pays, or a fund pays. And all of

it looks simply wonderful. And, basically,

we have enough money to

do roughly the same, if we simply

look at Russia's GDP and, when we

allocate enough money, act accordingly.

So those are the three main

social priorities. Question. Uh,

Public organization of Marii Ushem. I

have a question about the Mari Union. The question is: what

is your attitude toward proposals to

merge and enlarge regions? What would your

policy be?

Turning them into governorates, eliminating the national

republics.

Ah,

the enlargement of regions. But I do not understand

how much further they can be enlarged. Honestly,

I will say this: the idea of attaching depressed

regions to wealthier ones...

And what will happen? Right now, from some

district it takes four hours to get to the governor,

and this way it will take you nine hours

to get to the governor. I am against that. I am

absolutely against it, because we already have

an idiotic system in place where

everything is run from Moscow. And for

17 years we built this system. And

now we have seen that it does not

work.

And if we keep enlarging

the regions now, then we will simply end up with

federal subjects the size of giant

countries, where you cannot reach the governor

at all, cannot get through to him, and

he is God knows where, while the district head

will naturally be—well, they are always having

meetings there, right? Once a

week he will be driving some 600 kilometers (about 370 miles) to his

governor for a meeting, and then 600 km

back. It is nonsense. I believe that

what matters is, on the contrary, to hand powers

downward, to give powers to the cities, not even

to governors. People should have

the money, the taxes, and the authority,

because whose money is it? It is yours. Right now

the system is set up so that everything is taken from

the regions to Moscow. But tell me,

please, do you have unsafe housing here in the city?

Yes.

And there are probably barracks too, still standing

in the city center.

And is anyone going to relocate those residents here? Is

some damn renovation program going to happen here?

That is the point, you see? Moscow will decide. Here

I am sure you have plenty of

settlements and houses where people, excuse

me, have to run out into the yard because

their toilet facilities are outside.

There are such places in the city, not even in remote areas, but in

the city itself. And at the same time, from the whole

poor country they collected money so that, for 2

trillion rubles, 2 trillion—it is frightening

to think about—they can carry out renovation in Moscow,

which most Muscovites do not want.

They do not want their homes demolished, but

they will be demolished and huge amounts of money will be spent. But

that money is needed here. Those 2

trillion rubles could have been distributed, and at least

a couple of billion could have been thrown here for repairing unsafe housing,

at least. But no,

they say it cannot be done. This year, again, part of the

tax revenue that used to come to you was taken away,

the regional share of the corporate profit tax.

It is foolish. It is simply foolish. Money and authority

need to be left here,

and this manic drive to merge everything needs to stop,

because things are already poorly

governed as it is. Enlargement—and we have already

learned this lesson—leads only to even more

worse things. As for the national

republics, I’m against abolishing them. I mean,

why? What’s the priority in abolishing a

national republic? What needs to be done

is simply to create a normal system

instead. And when the money stays there, but we

understand very well—I’ve already been there,

I opened campaign offices in Kazan, in Bashkortostan,

and here too I’m opening one in a

national republic. Everywhere, some

local nationalists show up.

In Ufa, Russian nationalists came,

Tatar nationalists, Bashkir

nationalists. They all hate each other.

And all of them say: "We support you."

Well, that’s because nobody is being left alone to live. So

why are people picking on these Bashkir

nationalists? They want to preserve their language.

Well, great. Good for them. The Bashkir

language should be preserved. Who could possibly be against

that? It’s the same thing here, right?

There are two national languages. That’s

normal and right, if people want

to have something in their national language. It

hardly costs anything. So please,

just let everyone live their lives in

peace, and stop bossing everyone around from Moscow.

Let everyone handle their own issues. And we can see

that, by and large, democracy works. More often

than not, a mayor is better if he is

elected. A governor is better if he is

elected. That’s how it should

work. So I’m against consolidation,

against abolishing republics.

Yes.

What will happen to mortgages in our country?

The question is, what’s going on with mortgages in

our country right now—what kind of mortgage loan

can people get here from you?

11 per

11 to

at best; in reality, it’s higher.

And 11 is the minimum for military mortgages, right?

right?

Well, possibly.

So, people say—there’s this kind of

legend, supposedly—that there are people

who got 11 percent, but an ordinary

regular person will most often get something

around 14 percent.

Yes.

And at the same time, the Central Bank of Russia

proudly told us a week ago that

inflation in Russia is 4%.

And that raises the question, folks: if

inflation in Russia is 4%, can we

finally get a mortgage at least at

5%? The answer is no. And that is exactly why

one of the most important points in my program—on

mortgages—is written out separately. We

didn’t tuck it away somewhere under economics,

we stated it directly and separately: in Russia

mortgage rates should be at the level of

Western European countries: 1.5%, or 3%

at most. Why? Because this is no longer

even just an economic decision—it’s a

social one. In Russia, people have nowhere to live. In

Russia, people live with their parents

until they’re 40. Well, you know that perfectly well,

there’s no housing. Renting apartments is very

expensive, and it’s some kind of madness. That’s why

I absolutely believe that providing

housing and radically lowering mortgage

interest rates is simply—if you

like—a civilizational choice. Because

we cannot develop when people

get married, have a child, and live in

a one-room apartment with the grandmother and

the mother. And this is happening everywhere. Well,

that’s right—you know people like that,

don’t you? You do. That’s how everyone lives here.

That’s how the whole country lives. It’s

completely impossible, when people—while in the

Baltic states—can get mortgage loans at

1.5%, and in Denmark they are now introducing

negative-rate mortgages. So what are we

supposed to do here? We are much poorer, yet

we have to pay higher interest. This—this

isn’t a functioning system, it’s madness—it’s stupidity.

So rates need to come down. Let’s approach it from this

angle. And do you know how

to achieve mortgage rates like in Europe?

I do.

I do.

Look, it’s very simple. As I already

said, inflation is 4%, right? If

inflation is 4%, that means banks,

even commercial banks, could as early as tomorrow

issue mortgage loans at 5.5%.

Right? That’s how the math works. Well,

if, if commercial banks—and

the central bank lends to them at 4.2%,

then they can lend to us at 5%. Right?

Yes,

so I think we also need to

subsidize 3% from the budget in order

to bring it down to 2.5%. Does that

work? It’s very simple. And they

keep trying to prove to us that it’s impossible.

Navalny wants to hand out money to everyone

left and right. It’s populism. That’s

nonsense. I mean, mortgage loans at

3%, 2%, 1.5% do exist in

other countries. And they can

exist here too. Well, if inflation isn’t

4%, then stop lying about it. Right?

Then let the Central Bank tell us

plainly: inflation here is not 4%.

After all, we go to the

stores and can see that it’s hardly

4%, right? But in any case,

let me give you one figure. We

have spent on bank bailouts recently

almost

15 trillion rubles. And what is a bank bailout?

It means some people siphoned

billions out of a bank’s funds and carried them off

somewhere. The bank declares bankruptcy, and

After that, the Central Bank begins what is called

a so-called bailout, that is, it pours

money into it in order to solve

the problems created by crooked

bankers. And I have a simple proposal.

Let’s not do that. Let’s

direct that money toward

subsidizing mortgage interest rates. That’s

all. Does that solution work for you? Because you’re standing there as if

you don’t seem to believe

a single word I’m saying. Do you believe that’s possible?

That’s how it should be,

that

that’s how it should be.

That’s how it should be, exactly. See,

I’ve explained it, and you too, please,

use these simple

explanations, because they’re also

realistic explanations. Thank you for

the question.

Leonid, go ahead. Leonid is busy, but he

did come here in order to answer

our questions. Lyonya, be a friend,

come over here, please.

I’m not the only one who’s curious. Those foreign-language

gentlemen were here talking. Who

are they, what is their role? Journalists.

Foreign-language gentlemen,

yes,

journalists.

This is an interesting point.

In every city, we say that we are

completely open to the press. Come,

take a look, and ask questions. In

every city, we hold a press conference

and say, “Get accredited.” In the end,

the German press comes, the American

press, the French press, all sorts. They’re

interested; for them, Navalny’s campaign is important

to them. But the local media are, in

general, quite a serious indicator

of how things stand with freedom of speech and

everything else. Saransk was the most

telling example. One

local outlet showed up.

I wanted to tell this story. I wanted

to tell it. Anyway, look, in Saransk

one media outlet came. A seemingly normal guy

came up to me, started asking something,

about problems. Then, naturally,

they ask: “What is your attitude toward

homosexuality?” And I think: “Well,

okay, I get it, so basically, sorry that I’m

wasting your time.”

The one and only media outlet published an article

titled: “Navalny received

support from homosexuals in Mordovia (a republic of Russia).”

It began like this. Well, you know, my

birthplace is the village of Butyn, and,

in the Odintsovo District of Moscow Region.

The article began with something like, ah, “A native

of a village outside Moscow,”

of a little village outside Moscow

from a little village outside Moscow rolled into

the majestic capital of Mordovia (a republic of Russia), like, for

some amount of time. I mean, they’re really

lying crooks. But any

journalists can come here. We have

some American

journalists here. When we arrived in Penza,

the local media wrote: “Navalny

arrived surrounded by Americans.” Well, what

can I do about that? Any journalists

can come to us under our rules; we do not

throw them out.”

I think we’ve settled that question, and this answer

will, I think, be shared further.

Next question.

Look, suppose you became

president, right? What would you do

with all the state structures? Suppose

you became president. Then

the question is, uh, what will happen to government officials

state structures, meaning officials,

and then with all those who

protect Putin’s security. What will happen to them?

Will you

lustrate all of them,

right? Or will you leave things as they are? Because

for many people this is kind of un-

Well, all right, you tell me. Let’s

decide. How do we want to leave things?

They all need to go.

No, that’s enough about them. Go on, go on. But

what does that mean? In my work, I often

have to deal

with mid-level and lower-level officials.

They’re nobodies. I mean, they know

certain things, only what they’re supposed to know according to

the paperwork. But when it comes to actually

caring about their own, say,

municipality or whatever, they

couldn’t care less. I mean, even

when you shut down a certain, well,

facility, let’s say,

they say, “As long as the paperwork is

in order.” And everything else

Why does it work like this? Because in

this country there is negative selection. Because

you can rise as an official and get

higher and higher and higher if you are worse. The more

dishonest you are, the more hypocritical you are,

the more thieving you are, the faster you climb

this ladder. That is why we see that by the time

someone reaches the Kremlin, only the most

hardcore, outright crooks make it there. And, well,

this is beneficial, because these people are

on his hook; they are afraid of us because

we would put them in prison, of course.

So, of course, the state

structure must be changed drastically.

The people who are at the highest

level, in my view, of course,

must be removed, they must

be lustrated, well, that may not be the most

appropriate word. Criminal cases

must be opened against them. That is why I

am proposing the introduction of a law on combating

with illicit enrichment. For every

official, we now have a clear approach. And we check

their official income and assets. If

they do not match, we send them to the

defendant's bench. But at the same time, well,

we must not take it to absurd extremes. We know

that hundreds of thousands of teachers in Russia

take part in election fraud.

Right?

Yes.

Well, they sit there in schools doing it.

Is our top priority really

to, I don't know, shoot all

the teachers in Russia? Obviously not.

Obviously, there is a grassroots level

that carried out the fraud. We find it

disgusting. What they did was disgraceful.

For that, we will, uh, give them plenty of

reprimands, shame them, fine them

and so on. But to imprison them all or

drive them all out of teaching is impossible.

Right?

And what about the state's security agencies—

will they all remain? I mean, these

Well, listen, can we leave

the leadership of the FSB (Federal Security Service) in place, given that it

covers up all this corruption? Should we? Of

course not. The police too. So, all the people

making decisions

on matters of corruption and security,

who all these years ignored

reports of corruption and, on the contrary,

protected corrupt officials—all these

Colonel Zakharchenkos, all these people,

who seem to be some modest

lieutenant colonel somewhere, yet arrive in

a Mercedes every other one of them—of course, their

activities must be investigated,

criminal cases must be opened

against them. As for the rank-and-file level, these

members.

So, millions of police officers, yes, or

hundreds of thousands of them—you can't

jail them all, right? Some need to be

fired, some need to be re-educated,

but overall these people lived in a system

of negative selection for many years. I

believe one thing: the top

level and the middle level must be changed, and

normal principles must be instilled there. When they

work according to normal principles,

the lower, most numerous level

will adapt.

Why the hell would a teacher

falsify an election if no one

is forcing them to? If no one is forcing them

and you're paid a decent salary, well,

just live a normal life and don't get involved where

you don't need to. So we will make them

live differently. And of course, the people

responsible for the decisions will have to be

punished. Otherwise it all loses its meaning. Otherwise,

why are we doing all this

if only to restore the exact same system?

Of course not. Question. You, yes, with the sign.

Ah, please. Could you tell me, uh,

mm, the propaganda campaign being waged

against your headquarters and against you personally,

over the past few years, in my view, has

become more creative, I mean

things like mobile apps for

me—that's something completely new. I mean,

it's very untypical, for example, compared with

the situation in 2011, when it was all

"banderlogs" and that sort of thing. Do you think

that at some point this will become

a serious problem for you? Well, the

same thing.

Ah, well, not for us—yes, for us it

will certainly become a problem. But people

aren't fools either. We shouldn't

treat them like idiots. And we must not, like

they do, behave that way. They think all of us are

simpletons. But we—we must understand that

they are quite cunning, dangerous crooks. And

for many years they controlled everything

through television and brainwashed people on a mass scale.

Now they have realized that, well, there is you,

there are millions of people across the country who

have simply turned away from television

altogether, because they said: "We can't

believe this, we can't watch

Solovyov, Kiselyov, we'll move to the

internet." And at some point they

figured out that, well, Navalny is not

shown anywhere on television for years

at all, except in the context of claims that

he stole all the timber. Otherwise, not a single

good or even neutral word about me

has been said for, uh, about 10 years, and yet

here you are—you came here,

right? At the same time, 100,000 volunteers

have signed up, there are a million subscribers

on the channel, and hundreds of thousands watch

our rather homemade

shows like Cactus. Whoever

watches Cactus just out of curiosity—well,

Sobol will be pleased. I'll definitely pass that on to her.

I mean, it's completely amateurish

stuff, but people are willing to watch our

pathetic little internet shows because

we tell the truth, while over there everything is polished, but

every word is a lie. But you are right. They

will look for new approaches. They will move from

Alisa Vox, whom we laughed at,

to something more

interesting, more interesting, more

interesting. This is a confrontation. Here

we must, of course, be ready to work

against an opponent who

has something to lose. It will become a problem,

but we will overcome it together.

Hello. A question. Vladimir

Putin seems to freely change things,

add new rules and laws, and, well,

for example, on June 12 it suddenly became impossible

to hold rallies there, right.

Right. And could he just as easily say tomorrow

that Alexei Navalny cannot

take part in the election?

He already said it.

Well, he already said it. He already said it.

Of course, that’s exactly what they’re trying to say. Well,

they don’t want me to take part in the elec

tion and say: "I am the emperor."

He hasn’t actually said the words "I am the emperor" yet,

but all these people around him

have said it for him. Listen, on my way here, I was in the car

watching a video of a United Russia

debate in Barnaul, where they were, maybe

you’ve seen this clip too, they were in all

seriousness saying there, the United Russia members: "We should rename our

city Putingrad

or Putingorsk, because this very

man lifted our country off its knees, and

life in the city will get better if we

do that."

And what will happen? What will we do in that

case?

They’ve already done it. And in that case we

will do what we have to do.

There was a rally here before March 26. Yes.

How many people were there? About 3,080.

Will you hold a rally on the 12th?

Let’s gather even more people. That’s what

we’re going to do. We will take part

in the elections, we will spread our

message, we will do everything

to bring more people around us,

of course, in order

to stand up to these emperors.

That’s how it happens. That’s all. So they mean

overthrow.

What, what?

A violent one, then.

Why violent? That’s exactly the point,

that at this stage there is no need

for any violent overthrow of the government. Right now we are

going into elections. We really need

to win over the majority of the population. That

is, first we need to persuade everyone,

and that is possible,

I repeat, and only then will we

win in the elections or act

some other way if they don’t let us into the elections.

But that is exactly how the question stands.

There are still lots of questions from the people.

Fast-tracking in the European court on the terrorism case.

Fast-tracking, fast-tracking.

And who was protecting Markelov in Moscow, do you know?

Ah, good question. As for the second

question, I don’t know who was protecting him, but clearly

someone was. This was just absolutely

brazen. Well, I don’t need to tell you

that, right? It’s just, well, uh,

the whole situation with him turned out strangely,

yes, as if they promised him a different

job, and then a week later they jailed him.

And, believe it or not, I, I hated your

Markelov, yes, I made videos about him,

posted all that stuff,

said a lot of bad things about him,

but we had an ACF meeting, and I was asked about

it. I even said directly, I

read in an interview that I felt sorry for him

when he was writing that they weren’t

giving him water and that he had no toilet

paper in his cell and all the rest, but

this too is a sign of it: he is disgusting,

but of course he should be given

basic human rights, like

any other prisoner. Well, someone clearly

was protecting him, and that someone has clearly somehow

lost their power. As for

the European Court, I think that even

without fast-tracking we will achieve the result that

I will win the second Kirovles case as well,

because, well, everything that happened, everything

they did with the second verdict,

was such a demonstrative

show of disrespect. As for the timeline,

including that, I don’t know the exact timeline,

we have no way to put any pressure on the

court; those deadlines aren’t set. But I

am sure, my friends, that we will overturn

the second verdict too, and all the other

verdicts as well, but most importantly, we

without all these negotiations and without

all these legal technicalities need to understand the main

political point: legal trickery,

legal trickery—we’ll deal with that.

But the most important thing is for us to see the bigger

picture. And the bigger picture is

that we exist, there are many of us, we are

unhappy with what is happening, we know how

to change our country. And there is also

a much larger number of people

who will follow us if we

win them over. We will definitely do that.

My friends, thank you very much. We need to head on to

Cheboksary next. Thank you

so much for coming. You are all

wonderful. It was a real pleasure

talking with you.

Can we take photos? Who else wants

a photo?

All right,

let’s do it.

with a decent camera, will you take a picture of me

first

around the people, you

him

and so on here.

Well, we’re not done yet. Who knows, maybe

you’ll pull something out of your pocket now,

draw your saber and start slashing everything

left and right. But this time our whole

Volga-region tour went

exceptionally calmly. With your help.

That’s all, thank you.

I, like Alexei Anatolyevich now, also

completely