Alexei Navalny’s speech at a meeting in Yekaterinburg

Hello, everyone.

We’re told that with the microphones

at some point everything might start working

properly, and we hope that until that moment

we’ll have enough air in our lungs. I can see

empty seats in the hall, and that

doesn’t really match the fact that people are standing

in the aisles. Those of you who have an empty

seat next to you, please raise your hands so that

the people in the aisles can see where

to go. Let’s take a minute for that.

Let’s allow for that. Announcements about today’s meeting were

made exclusively on my LiveJournal, so everyone

who came here reads it and, apparently,

supports me. So I want to say

a huge thank you for your support and

apologize that, so far, your support

hasn’t paid off.

Yesterday we

received delayed polling data from that

district, from the Oktyabrsky district. The polling

showed that we were winning this election

without question, you and I. But apparently

we weren’t the only ones who had that polling,

and that led to the results

you already know about. Nevertheless,

I apologize.

For some reason unknown to me,

we still should have won anyway.

It’s still a shame that it didn’t happen.

And huge thanks to everyone who helped

in this entire campaign. Your help was

enormous, invaluable. And by the decision of the

Supreme Court, which was handed down

the day before yesterday, they wiped out not only just over

1 million rubles in private

donations collected from all across the country

for my election campaign, but also, as I

calculated on the plane, roughly 20,000

person-hours of volunteer work in

my campaign headquarters, which went into

canvassing, helping with outreach, working with

people—all of that work. All that effort, all that

money was basically spat on.

Very blatantly. I can see a great many

people here who helped, and once again I ask

for your forgiveness. Now, look—on stage is

Alexei

Navalny. Originally,

it was planned that

—it’s clear what the purpose of this visit was.

Alexei was supposed to come in the final

week to, so to speak, once again

bring together all the helpers, all the

supporters, everyone who cares,

everyone sympathetic to our cause, and say: Guys,

come on, there’s one week left—everyone out into the streets,

to information pickets, hand out leaflets,

newspapers, help, help—there’s a chance,

a small one, but there is a chance to help get elected, because

this is very important, because the whole

country is watching.

Plus, of course, work at the polling stations, plus

of course campaign against the party of crooks and

thieves. Alexei came anyway, even though he already

knew that on December 4 I would not be taking part in the election,

and for that

many thanks to him.

He’ll say himself why he came. I want to

draw your attention to this: we

were running two campaigns in parallel. We had

a campaign in the Oktyabrsky district in

support of

candidate Volkov.

And

we invested enormous resources into it.

A huge number of newspapers were printed,

and a huge number of

events were held there—pickets, people standing in

courtyards, and all the rest. But that

campaign was not the only one.

In parallel, with the same headquarters and the same people,

in a sense almost underground, we were running

a campaign on the scale of the whole city,

maybe even the whole region: vote

for any party except the party of crooks and thieves.

That campaign may not have been as

visible or as successful, although 30,000

stickers were distributed, and you can

find them in the most unexpected places.

Dozens of people were also involved in it

as volunteers and participants.

So that campaign has not been canceled; it is

still going, and you can

take part in it—you can and should come,

sign up,

train in the election observer school, and monitor

the vote on December 4. We still

feel that the ice is cracking. Even though

winter is only just beginning, still,

it is cracking—that’s the feeling that hasn’t

left everyone who, all these days, in my

headquarters, worked in the streets, campaigned. There is

a sense that we can push and

break it.

Well, it seems not everyone has sat down yet,

although I can still see empty seats. But

all the same,

let’s give the floor to our guest. So, what’s going on

with the microphones? It turns out that for

me—well then—can those in the back rows

hear us at least a little? Yes? Excellent. Well then,

let’s go. Excellent. Thank you very much, dear

friends. It’s a great pleasure for me, for the second time,

to speak in Yekaterinburg. It’s very gratifying.

And, to be honest, it’s even a little unexpected

that so many people have gathered

to listen. Probably that’s less my

doing than the doing of your authorities, who

have gotten on your nerves so badly. Today I’ve already

had several meetings.

At each meeting, I begin by

retelling a rather

some wonderful news last night

I flew into Yekaterinburg, and I was met by

Volkov and Krasheninnikov. And so here I am,

walking straight through security, and there they are,

standing there with joyful smiles. I thought, well,

what are they so happy about? They’ve already been kicked out of the election.

Why are they celebrating? They say, “Listen, you know,”

in Uralmash (a district of Yekaterinburg), United Russia campaigners

are getting beaten up. That’s wonderful news.

Just now, I came back from

a meeting with volunteers, and they too

were saying, you know what the difference is between us and

United Russia campaigners?

Well, aside from the fact that we stand for

the right things, it’s that we can walk around

alone. They can’t. They get beaten, and they should be beaten.

Those people should be beaten, because I came here

basically because

a crime has been committed, because

they stole from me, from all of us,

at least a million rubles (about 1 million RUB) — including from me.

I campaigned so people would send money to Volkov.

Money.

They stole from him, they stole from you, they stole from all of us.

From these 20,000 people with signatures, from all of us,

they stole the chance to choose this

candidate. I don’t understand why some

random nobody, some jerk out of nowhere,

Mostovshchikov, should

get to decide whether we vote for Volkov or not.

He might have lost, maybe we would have voted for

someone else — but we want

him, if he raised the money and collected

the signatures and went into the election. A crime has been committed.

A crime.

And I think you all know who committed this

crime, who committed this crime,

who stole this from us.

It was the party of crooks and thieves. There is no such thing as United

Russia. Let’s all say it together:

the party of crooks and

thieves. I’m here too, and maybe

above all because

Yekaterinburg is the city where,

simply for historical reasons,

I feel that you can defeat the party

of crooks and thieves — not physically anymore,

like they do in Uralmash, but politically.

Here, in the last

election, they got 30% across the city of

Yekaterinburg. Right now, no polling,

not even the most favorable, gives them more than

20%. That’s why I came here to campaign

and I continue urging you to support

this election campaign. And now it has become

perhaps an even more important, more

serious part of this election

campaign. Forgive me, Alyona,

but maybe because you were removed from the ballot,

more people are feeling anger and even

hatred. I urge you to take this

very personally. When I

found out he had been removed — and I had spent

a huge amount of time urging everyone

to raise this money — inside me

there is sheer rage boiling. These people really did take away and

rob us, and I hope that now, in

this final week, we’ll manage to make

an extraordinary effort to crush these

crooks and thieves. Power in your

wonderful region belongs simply to

pathetic, incompetent, and

monstrously cowardly people. That video —

everyone saw the video where they simply

cut him off the air after the words

“governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast” — it’s just

a disgrace. There they sit, those people, and

on one side they’re protected by

the police, on the other side by the FSB (Russia’s security service),

over there stands the sanitary inspectorate, here stands

the fire inspectorate. They have an enormous

amount of money. Everyone works for them.

State employees work for them. The corrupt

media works for them. Everything is for them, and still, on some

pathetic TV channel watched by three

and a half people, they cut him off

right at the words

“governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast.” And for that, we

have to hit back. I call on everyone, in

this final week — it is the decisive week — and

you have every opportunity to do it,

because this machine of election fraud,

fortunately,

in the region, in the city of Yekaterinburg,

works much worse than

it does in Chechnya, Tambov, or even Moscow,

for historical reasons.

And now everyone has the opportunity

to print out a leaflet from our website against

United Russia, against the party of crooks and thieves,

stick it up in your apartment building entrance, tell

five people you know, urge them to go vote,

become election observers, and smash, tear apart

these people on the fourth, show

everyone that it will begin in the city of Yekaterinburg.

If you want to call it a revolution,

then this filthy government is no longer needed by anyone.

The thing is, yes, Putin and

United Russia do have some votes,

some percentages, some support.

But let them get only as much as they are

entitled to by law and by

justice. Let them get 20%.

Let them get 25%, but they have no right

to take all power away from us. These people have seized

all power in the country, they have monopolized

these resources — and what have they given us in return?

That is, to monopolize everything.

To concentrate everything in their hands—they showed us that.

to us.

Badminton, you see—we wanted something from them after 12

years of Putin in power, 12 years of a colossal

flow of money. In its entire history, Russia

—the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union—never

received even

a third of this money. An enormous amount

of petrodollars, with prices for all raw materials

going through the roof. What did we want to get for that

money? Police reform, for one. We wanted

army reform. We wanted some kind of

housing and utilities reform—something, anything. Buy us, with

that money, at least some kind of

reform. We wanted at least some kind of

order restored. We wanted the elimination

of the chaos. They did do a few things, of course—no one

can say nothing was done after 2003.

There was, for example, tax

reform. Let's put it this way: we shouldn't

criticize them where criticism isn't deserved.

There were achievements; it would be foolish

to deny that Putin had a period when

his rating was 70 percent. There still is

some support. But from 2004

to 2011, what did these people do? They stole. They

did absolutely nothing. What is the most

popular flight out of Moscow to

some city—which one? First, St. Petersburg; second,

London. Do you understand? And those bastards still

have the nerve to say that

people like Volkov and Navalny

are acting on orders from some

American oligarchs who want

to destroy the country. I live in a district of Moscow, and I

don't know how it compares with Yekaterinburg,

but right next to my home

there's an oil refinery, and my children

go to the local—so that's the whole

secret, that's exactly the secret. I

look around: I live in Moscow, I have an oil

refinery nearby, oil prices are

sky-high, my children go to the local

kindergarten and the local school, and I

get absolutely nothing from it. And I

see planes constantly flying from Moscow to

London, ferrying these officials around everywhere. Their children

live abroad, they all have bank accounts there,

they all own property there. And what do we get? What do

we get? Only the smoke from that

oil refinery, because

the money flows straight to London.

The same thing is happening, the same thing

is happening everywhere. These people gave us

nothing, and they cannot do anything. I

have given this example many times already—the

Magnitsky case. Everyone in this hall knows it.

There were 10 police officers, three prosecutors, five

FSB officers—outright gangsters. It's all

clear, everyone knows where their money is, how

they looted, and so on. Everyone knows.

Everything has been exposed. Well then, put those 10 people

in prison. They can't do it,

because those 10 people tortured

and killed Magnitsky, but at some point

they were also doing something useful for them.

The system created by Putin—United

Russia—has become useless. And the most

important thing is why it will collapse: not because

we here will stage some kind of artificial

revolution, but because it is useless.

It gives us nothing. Do we really believe that

these two badminton players

will somehow be able to do something in

the future, that they will once again somehow

deliver some reform for us? Does even one person believe

that?

No. They can't do it, and they don't

know how to do it, and they don't

want to. These people are traitors to the national

interest, and that's not a figure of speech—they really are

absolute traitors. Look

at one of the favorite subjects of my

investigations: Timchenko, Putin's crony,

who became a billionaire and is on the

Forbes list. He gave up his Russian

citizenship and is now a citizen

of Finland, lives in Switzerland, sits there

with a cigar, and the oil money keeps flowing to him.

How much does he have now—about 6, I think,

billion

dollars. They betrayed the country, all those

Rotenbergs and all the rest. Here's my

favorite example. I don't know, maybe I gave it at

the last meeting too, but

this stream here—

this gas pipeline they built in

Germany, which Putin opened with great pomp

and so on. A kilometer of that

pipeline in Germany costs €2 million, while in

Russia, in the Leningrad Region, it costs

€6 million per kilometer—three times as much.

Why? Because the contractors are the

Rotenberg brothers, Putin's associates, one of whom is

Putin's judo partner. How can I, how can we,

look at that? If you look at

Gazprom's contractors and suppliers, we

will see that large-diameter pipe there is supplied

by the wife of one of the members

of the management board, a former music

teacher, and so on and so forth.

Schemes are openly published showing

that what is being built in Russia now is

a new feudalism. There is simply no other way

to describe it.

It's like that famous joke that used to go around.

A few years ago, when there was

this kind of presidium on stage, some party officials there,

United

on stage, they said to me: well, we've already

sort of taken care of ourselves, bought this

bought that, now it's time to think about the people. And

someone from the audience says: yeah, 200 serfs per soul

wouldn't hurt. And that's already been put into practice.

A real feudal system in which

crooks have seized power, and their children

just look at the board of directors of any

bank — sitting there are the children of these FSB officers (Russia's security service),

Patrushev's children, and whoever our current, current

FSB director is.

In theory, they are supposed to be the ones

fighting the people who are

robbing us, but they are taking part in that robbery.

They've put their own children in place so that the children

can rob us. They protected, and they still protect, their

children, people like

us. That's why we do not need this government, and

it must be changed. I very much wanted

for this to begin with the city of

Yekaterinburg. That does not mean we should stage

a revolution or set fire to some government building.

We need to do everything possible so that

they get exactly what they

deserve — their

20%. In the next elections, we must

keep pressing these people until they lose

their monopoly on power, until they give us

the opportunity — you, me, him —

the opportunity to take part in elections in which

we may very well

lose. Very likely. It's entirely possible that

if we make something happen now, there will be

free elections and we will lose, and no one

present here will become

president, or even a boss.

So what? At least the government will be honest.

The government will be legitimate, at least.

There will be some kind of change. Because

what we are seeing now is just one step short of

actually formalizing those

really entrenching some kind of

200 serfs for every family — that's exactly how all of this is being built.

That is precisely how it works. Look at what is happening in

Moscow — there are more Mercedes cars there than in all of

Germany, it seems to me.

You know about Moscow already. For how many

million rubles did your governor buy

his car? For 8 million rubles (about US$85,000-90,000). There is not a single

large country in the world where some

regional governor drives a car that

expensive. Even your mayor

of Yekaterinburg bought one

for 6.4 million rubles (about US$68,000-72,000). We even had a case where the head of

the Central Base Customs office bought one for 9

million rubles (about US$95,000-100,000). What is he planning to haul around in it?

Why can't you just buy yourself a very

expensive car for, say, 1 million rubles (about US$10,000-11,000)?

No, he needs something special. That is, he wants

to drive on his own road, and for mud to fly at us

not from ordinary tires, but from

some kind of golden ones. That's what they

want. So now I am wrapping up my

remarks so that we have more time

left for questions. I want to say this:

these people are afraid. That fear is simply

spreading across the whole country; you can feel the fear,

the fear of your vile, cowardly

governor and his whole gang — you can physically

feel it. Otherwise they would not have

shut things down.

They would not have cut this off in the middle, and they would not have

taken down those 'won in principle' posters — what happened?

But they are afraid. That is, they are

afraid. And we need to understand that in order

to throw them out, to remove them, we do not

need some huge crowds, I don't know,

hundreds of thousands of people. What we need is an effective

position and energetic work. A fairly

small number of people is enough.

We just need to do everything possible over the

final week, to work hard,

to help the observers a little, and we understand:

if we can bring United Russia's rating down by another 5%, that needs to

be done. St. Petersburg, in the famous phrase, was the cradle

of three revolutions. Let's

make sure Yekaterinburg becomes the cradle of at least

one. Thank you.