Alexei Navalny’s speech at Pushkin House in London

So, the main idea behind why I came here.

And you all know my main

line of work, what I do, and you all

understand perfectly well, including

that this is precisely why you are here,

that, unfortunately, the Russian

political system does not give us

the opportunity right now to go after

the people who need to be pursued, those

crooks who are robbing our

country right now. There are a great many of them.

In effect, they have built

our country's political system around themselves.

They run everything. They have now seized

power, but that does not mean they

cannot be fought. They can be fought.

And if in Russia, at the moment, we, unfortunately,

have few opportunities, then we

must fight them outside

Russia. I have been saying for quite a long time that

we must use the opportunities offered by

the Western political system, the Western

legal system, in order to catch these

guys out somehow, somewhere. And,

naturally, the key,

the absolutely central role here belongs

to the United Kingdom,

because the ties between our countries

are very strong. All the money, the big

money, is borrowed in the UK, and so

on. Uh,

it is declared that the United Kingdom

is setting some new standards

of ethics and is fighting the involvement of

UK citizens in corruption,

English companies, and so on. In

practice, of course, nothing happens.

And I am here to find out

what real possibilities there are, what can

be done and what cannot be done. And I am here

in order to, uh, try to persuade

both the political establishment and

the business establishment, and you as well, and

to hear your views,

that Russia has now reached a unique

moment, uh, which consists in the fact

that, broadly speaking, we have realized that the

political regime that was built, whose basic idea

consists in an exchange of

economic privileges for political

power, that is, a delegation: we

give you the right to enrich yourself, and you

give us the right to grab political

power. As a governor, you can steal

as much as you like, but in return you must rig

everything in favor of United Russia. This system

was built. It was, it was first

built under Yeltsin and strengthened by Putin, but

by 2005 it had begun to break down.

Now, it has become clear to everyone that this

system is meaningless and useless

for absolutely everyone. It is meaningless and

useless for the opposition, for the Kremlin,

for the oligarchs, for the crooks, for honest people.

In other words, it simply does not work.

It is impossible to get anything done. Everything is in

manual-control mode. And no matter what

group of people in Russia may gather,

in one place, whether they are simply

ordinary citizens or terrible crooks,

corrupt officials, their conversation is roughly

the same: My God, we are so sick

of all this, nothing works, all of this

is a nightmare, and this whole country will soon

fall apart. So I believe that right now

in Russia, on the one hand, there is an

absolute consensus that

nothing works anymore and

that the only question is when it will collapse—it is a matter

of time. On the other hand, we have

tremendous opportunities connected with

high energy prices and so

on. Russia is incredibly rich. Never in

its history has Russia been this rich.

Neither the Russian Empire nor the Soviet Union

had even a small fraction of this

money. The Soviet Union at the height of its

power, back in the 1970s,

when it was feeding half of Africa and

half of Latin America, did not

have even a third of this money. We are very

rich; we have tremendous

opportunities.

At some point, the regime will simply collapse.

And

some of the opposition, some of the establishment,

some, I don't know, of Russian society

believes that it may change and

should change as a result of a revolution.

I believe that it will either change through

a revolution, or we ourselves

must push it so that

it changes. I am not saying, and I am not trying to convince you,

of such nonsense as the idea that they themselves

will change something from within, reform

themselves. That is absolutely impossible.

But in the modern system, in the modern

world, it is possible, so to speak, to force these

people to live differently.

I am speaking now about entirely

practical things, yes; after all, I

work on anti-corruption. I

absolutely believe that a consolidated

position, particularly from business,

international business and British

business in particular, will help create very

specific barriers to stop

the flow of dirty money here and to

prevent corruption within companies.

An example.

Under Russian law, in order

to file suit against

specific managers,

not against the company in general, but against specific

individuals, you need 1% of the votes. Yes, it is

completely impossible in Russia to gather

1% of the votes in Gazprom, Rosneft,

neither in VTB nor in Transneft—nowhere at all.

And those who have that 1% in Russia,

naturally, are very afraid. But those

shares are held by Western funds and

Western companies that, by and large,

couldn’t care less about Putin. They’re not

afraid of him. And, generally speaking, they could

do this. They just don’t do it,

because there are no mechanisms, they can’t be bothered, they’ve

never done anything like it before, and so on, and

so forth.

By establishing new ethical standards,

standards of ethical conduct—what is called

Corporate Social Responsibility—I, uh,

believe that we should persuade companies

to act this way. If someone like me, or any

other minority shareholder, gives you

information about corruption,

then you are obliged to go to

court, or you are obliged to go to

the police—at least the Russian police. And

that alone would already be a serious change,

because it’s one thing when I file a complaint with

the prosecutor’s office, and quite another when it is filed by

Citibank or BlackRock or

any other organization.

And then there is the nomination of independent directors. In

order to nominate an independent

director—which is a very, uh, significant

mechanism for change within

a company—you need 2%. In Russia, no one can

assemble 2%. That is precisely why, when

Medvedev said, “Let’s get all the

government officials off boards of directors,” those

officials were replaced by former officials or

friends of officials, or some other

equally strange people—basically

officials in all but name. But no one nominates

independent directors; no one can

nominate them, because no one has 2%. And

the foreigners, who quite easily do have that 2%,

don’t do it either.

Why? Not because they don’t want to, not

because they’re afraid of Putin, but simply because

no one deals with this, because

the attitude is, well, Russia, corruption, and

we don’t have the time for it, or

the desire, or, again, a dedicated

person whose job it is.

Here in Britain, there are

the newly adopted so-called

bribery laws, which are extraterritorial in

theory and which, in theory, make it possible to

sue any company,

to prosecute any crooked Russians if

they are connected to Britain. Theoretically,

even if you simply have a bank account in

Britain, you can fall under

its jurisdiction.

In practice, no one applies this either,

even though several months have already passed since

it came into force. And we see

a situation where, on the one hand, the British

ambassador to Russia writes grandiose articles in

Kommersant, saying the Bribery Act is so great,

let’s go after crooks with it. On the other

hand, absolutely nothing happens.

The local regulators here

do nothing, and so on. In other words,

by using these already existing

mechanisms,

I want to stress that this would be a kind of

pro-Russian use of

local legal mechanisms. We

can, I am absolutely certain, achieve

some quite remarkable goals. And even

without any revolution at all, we can

put pressure on these people of ours and

force them to change. Why do I

absolutely believe they can be effectively

pressured? They’ve become quite cunning

by now. They keep all their money here.

I mean, it would be rather stupid to steal

a billion in Russia and then have no way

to spend it, or to go to Harrods, or to

buy some enormous house here,

right? So they understand perfectly well what

they are risking. So, in principle, I

believe they are ready, let’s say,

to live by somewhat different, more

proper rules. Are they ready?

And even all these terrible

siloviki (security-service hardliners), former FSB officers, who

look like completely unhinged

thugs, are already quite cunning

now. If we surround them with certain

traps and red lines and show them

that they cannot cross this boundary, it will

work. Probably one of the best

examples of how this

was made to work is the work of Bill

Browder and, uh, Jamison Firestone,

who, two years ago here, when

they were telling me that they were going to

do this in the U.S., I said it was completely

pointless. It simply wouldn’t

work. When I spoke with

some Americans and asked them as well:

“Do you really think this will work,

that this will actually happen?” It seemed impossible, because

just imagine: there is a completely different

international agenda—

nuclear nonproliferation,

missile defense, and so on. And then

there’s some Bill Browder with some

lawyers of his. Yes, it’s a terrible story. A lawyer,

sure—but no one is going to deal with this at the

international level. And yet, here is

an example of how people really

—forgive the slang—put pressure on the entire

law-enforcement system. Now the

so-called Magnitsky case is

one of the most important issues on the political

agenda. And in reality, a huge number of people

are afraid they will be put on that list. I

can give an example.

I spoke before a congressional committee

about a year and a half ago in the United States, and

I mentioned Timchenko there, you know, the company

Gunvor is one of the main

crooked mafias that have latched onto the entire

oil—uh, our oil industry,

they registered an offshore Swiss

company. That’s Timchenko, Putin’s

crony, who gave up his Russian

citizenship for tax

purposes. And over there they’re raking in

billions of dollars. So, I just

want to say that when I, uh,

just mentioned him a few times,

Timchenko has now hired special

lobbyists who go around Congress and, and

calmly ask: "So,

does there really exist

a theoretical possibility that we

could be put on some kind of lists?" In other words,

these people are genuinely afraid, and if you really

create such systems, they will start living

a little differently. I’m absolutely sure of it.

So, uh, of course, you could tell me

that, well, this is a very

ineffective mechanism, but we need

to use what we have, right? Uh, whether

a revolution happens, whether a revolution comes,

or doesn’t, whether it comes in a year, in

six months, in 10 years, or it may

never happen at all. Nevertheless, we need

to use what we have. There are a huge

number of opportunities. It’s just that

unfortunately, everyone neglects them,

because it’s painstaking work. And in that

sense, I think that your role, too,

should be quite

significant here.

And, well, I’m not afraid to say this,

what’s needed is a consolidated,

uh,

a consolidated position from this

so-called Russian community in London

on these issues. That is, I

believe that it is your duty, if

you like, to raise your voice as well and

say: there are, what, 10,000 of us here

people,

yes, and obviously the overwhelming

majority are completely normal,

honest people. We need to say that we are

unhappy with what is happening here. We are

unhappy that from the outside

the Russian community looks as if it is

just a bunch of people laundering

money here. We do not like a situation

in which the richest people in Britain are

some Russian crooks who

quite obviously are simply

stealing in Russia and laundering money here.

And we believe that it is in the interests of all

Russian citizens to put up barriers and

red flags around all these people.

And I am absolutely sure that your—your

voice will be heard both in Russia, and your

voice will also be heard here by the local

establishment that

sets these kinds of rules. And this is not

something impossible. Well,

look,

companies that 15 years ago,

companies that invested in

Vietnam, where there were factories

using child labor, right, and

that used to be considered normal. But then

activists simply appeared who

again put pressure on those companies, and

now that would lead to a huge

scandal and ruin if you

invest somewhere where there is child

labor. Why can’t we create the same kind of

rules regarding corruption, if

you invest somewhere where

they’re skimming, tearing apart, and looting

some country, plundering its national

wealth. That is just as unethical and

unacceptable. And this is where our

position must be, because business will go for

it unless pressure is applied, and

that pressure can be applied quite

effectively.

I’ll sort of start wrapping up this

fiery—or less fiery—speech of mine.

I would like to say, uh, before we

move on to questions, a couple of words about

politics and political positioning. What

we should do, so to speak—the tactics

of political struggle in the near future, which

I urge everyone toward. Why should this struggle

be political?

Uh, and I consider my own struggle a political

struggle. I am precisely that kind of, uh,

civic activist who, unlike

other Russian civic

activists, takes this position.

You know: “I’m not a politician, I’m a

civic activist.” That’s very popular

in Russia. “We have nothing to do with politics.

We’re over here,

human rights defenders. We have nothing to do with politics.

We’re standing off to the side here,

environmentalists. And over here we’re some kind of

sports enthusiasts. And politics is horrible

filth.” But all of that is an absolutely false and

two-faced position. I firmly believe

that civic activism now, especially

civic activism aimed at fighting

corruption, is entirely political

activity. And I consider myself, of course,

more of a politician than some kind of

civic activist. I am not going

to mess with anyone’s head and say

that I would never want to run

for anything and that I’ll remain purely civic. I

very much want to run for office. They

do not give me the chance to run

for anything. I am putting pressure on this system.

I demand that free

elections be announced so that all of us have

the opportunity to vote and to be elected.

Therefore, uh, political struggle must,

let's put it this way, happen in this sphere. And,

but each of us can make our own

contribution to it. In addition to a consolidated position

regarding the corrupt little schemes of our

crooks, there must also be a consolidated

position toward the upcoming

elections. This is a tactical matter.

Elections decide nothing, but in any

case they are a source of stress for the authorities. And we

must use this moment to

intensify that stress. And a great many people

have already asked me at previous

meetings, like: you're calling on people to vote

for any party against United Russia, and

that means you're calling on people to vote for

a Kremlin party, so you must be

a Kremlin puppet. That's all

complete nonsense. I simply want

to clarify my position, yes, and call on you

to support this idea of mine, so to speak. In any

case, we live here and now. We

must use the mechanisms

that exist. Yes, all the systemic parties

are, one way or another, under the control

of the Kremlin. Absolutely. But it is also

absolutely true that Gryzlov is very

different from Yavlinsky, and that

Zyuganov is very different from

Shoigu. Yes, all the systemic parties have been

squeezed, pressured, and they're sitting somewhere

under some bench or table.

So our task and our duty

is, if you like,

to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them with our own hands. They

are afraid to say it. Voting for United

Russia means voting for the party of crooks and thieves.

Vote for any party against United Russia.

They are afraid to say it. So we

must say it. We must give

these systemic parties the chance, yes,

cowardly and pathetic as they are, to crawl out from under

the sofa and from under the bench, or wherever they

are hiding now, and perhaps take

better positions in the State

Duma. And then they will force United Russia

to negotiate at least somehow. Of course,

Zhirinovsky is controlled, given money,

and so on. All of that is clear. But in any

case, either the system is based at least somewhat

on compromises, or these people completely

control everything and completely

ignore everything. And the Russian political

regime rests on Putin's real

popularity. Putin is still a very

popular politician, but his real

popularity now is not 70%, but

rather 45% or even 35% in large cities.

The political task now is to bring down

the organizational pillar of this regime,

namely the United Russia party, to somewhere around

that 35% mark.

The others will remain under Kremlin control, but

in any case it will already be a different

country, a different political system with

different possibilities. You have

200,000 people here. Of course, you

may not play some

significant role. Naturally, you

your votes won't change anything in the

arithmetic, but your votes should

change a great deal in politics. The point is not even

how the votes are counted; the point is

that you actually came, acted, and

called on others to do the same. And the regime rests,

I repeat, on real political

support, not just on who counted what and how.

Churov can count it however he likes, but

if Putin's real approval rating, his real

support, is 5%, then tomorrow the whole thing

will collapse and he'll be kicked out of

the Kremlin in no time. So we need to work toward

bringing down that real support.

That is why I am working on this, and I

urge you to do the same. In a certain

sense, I even demand it of you, uh,

because, well, since you are such

advanced people, and the hopes of many

Russians are directed here, and we are all waiting

for the moment when you finally return and bring

a great deal of benefit. This is your kind of corporate

social responsibility. Thank you.

Question. Look, if compromising material is actually

effective, then it has to be real

compromising material. That means you can paste together as many

Photoshopped pictures of me as you like

together with Berezovsky and say that I

went to see Berezovsky. Well, I did go to see

him, and you know that I did. So

I'm not sure that by means of sheer

falsification you can really convince anyone of

anything. The fact that I appeal to

British companies, and to members of Parliament,

and so on—I say this is a pro-Russian

opposition. And I demand that, since we still do not have

mechanisms inside Russia yet

to protect our national wealth from

plunder, then we demand it of you. Because

power in Russia has been temporarily

seized and usurped. Sooner or

later, all the money that was stolen and

brought here—we will sooner or later

demand its return. That is absolutely

certain. That day will come. So in

any case, we call for it, we demand it,

from an entirely pro-Russian position.

I am lobbying for Russian interests here,

so I don't think there is any kind of

compromising material here. And I have no

concern about it whatsoever.

It is rich; it's very simple. It is

rich—it's just elementary math, simply

an enormous quantity of petrodollars,

gas revenues. Look at the prices of everything.

Uh, prices—if we take purchasing-power parity

and so on, then we will see that

in terms of, well, the scale of absolute

wealth, yes, in absolute terms,

if you recalculate all of this, of course,

Russia has never been this rich.

An enormous amount of money is flowing in.

And all the main commodities right now, our

exports—what are they? Oil, gas,

primary processed metals, fertilizers. So

those are the four main ones.

And when all this ends, what will there be left?

That is exactly why I say that right now there is a

unique moment. Russia is rich now, rich for the next

10 years. Most likely—I do not see

any truly objective reasons

for tomorrow—this is just the dream of some of our

crazy politicians—that

oil will suddenly drop to $15 and everything

will collapse. First of all, why would we want

everything to collapse? And second, I do not see

any objective reasons why it would fall to

15 or even 60. I think Russia still has,

unless some global

cataclysms occur, another 5 to 7 years

during which this wealth will keep coming in

in fairly large amounts.

Well, I also think of Russia's wealth in terms of its people.

Well, look, do you want to hear something real from me,

or do you just want me

to stand here and say: we are rich

because of our intellect. I look at your faces and I

understand that each of you could tell

some story about Ruslan and Lyudmila. Well, all of that is true,

but those are completely obvious things.

But in Russia, corporations that are under

state control, according to

official statistics from Standard & Poor's, account for

53% of total market capitalization. And

if we take the largest companies,

we will see that they are almost entirely

the state. And state

officials,

ministers, deputy ministers, and so on—they

are the ones actually running it. Not managers, but

some deputy ministers are running these

companies. So all big business

in Russia is fundamentally about politics.

And here you absolutely cannot take

this kind of two-faced position and say

that, well, there is business, and then there is

politics, and let's separate the two. That

is impossible in Russia today. There is no

point in deceiving ourselves. And if you want to influence

a system that is so terrible for political

reasons, you have to do it through

politics.

That is my idea. I am absolutely not calling

for an end to investment in Russia.

On the contrary, the idea is that

Russia is an excellent place for

investment. The point is simply that one should not

just invest somewhere, but also bear

some responsibility.

If you have invested, say, a billion dollars

in Gazprom—and yes, Gazprom and

even Transneft, if we abstract away from

the crooks who have taken everything over there,

are excellent investment targets. But

by investing there, you bear some

responsibility not to encourage

the corruption that exists there. Because

you should not think that corruption is just

some kind of white-collar crime.

Yes, and the Magnitsky case shows that

first 5 billion rubles were stolen, and then

a man was tortured to death. And behind

a huge number of corruption cases

there are real kidnappings, torture, and

murders. And that is the responsibility

of companies. Yes, people should invest in

Russia. Naturally, Russia is an excellent

place for investment, but investment

must be tied to responsibility,

at the very least the basic responsibility

not to encourage corruption.

Question. I know this is, of course, a very

painful topic, and many people who

argue about it in a reasoned way

often point to the Communists.

Well, I could never bring myself

to vote for the Communists. I fully

understand that in your community there,

especially among people who

emigrated during Soviet times, this is,

of course, a huge issue.

But first of all, look at what kind of

Communists these are. They are not at all the same ones.

I am not trying to campaign for

the Communists. In fact, my whole concept

is that it does not matter whom you vote for—

flip a coin if you like.

The main thing is to vote against United Russia.

The Communists now use their

stupid pro-Stalin rhetoric mainly

in order to shore up

their

core electorate. But overall,

what they are proposing,

they were the only ones who introduced an amendment on

the ratification of Article 20 of the convention,

Article 20 of the anti-corruption convention,

which provides that

if an official cannot explain

the origin of his wealth, then he

should be prosecuted under the law. They have

put forward a huge number of initiatives that

are simply human-rights

initiatives. So, in

any case, these are not the same Communists.

The task is to force United Russia to engage in

dialogue with someone, including the Communists.

What about the Communists—will they actually be given those

votes?

Of course, the regime will resist to the very

end. And if they realize that there is

some critical threat—and the critical

threat for them is even United Russia

falling below 50%—

they will make some serious efforts

to rig the elections,

as happened back in 1996.

They probably will not allow everything, but they will allow it to some extent.

in any case, much more than if

you do. That is, if you really get

15%,

then yes, they can knock you down to 12%.

And if it's 52,

if they get 52, they may

be brought down to 49, but it will still be

49. That means it will be a completely

different Duma. As for what they

will do if their votes are stolen?

Well, unfortunately, they will not take

to the streets or stage anything like what

happened in 1996,

when Yeltsin edged out Zyuganov. And this,

in fact, and many may

disagree with me, is one of the tragedies

of modern political history in

Russia. In Russia, what should have happened

was what happened in most

European countries. That is, the pendulum

should have swung after the collapse

of the Soviet Union: the liberals and the so-called

hardcore democrats had swept everything aside.

Yeltsin got 90% of the vote. Then, as

everywhere in Eastern Europe, the pendulum

really swung back. The population

became disillusioned, and apparently

some kind of left-wing forces were supposed to win. And they did

win the elections. But various people,

myself included, were shouting

things like, crush the vermin, shoot

the Supreme Soviet, uh, trample all of them

underfoot, because they wanted to abolish

the constitution, and so on. But that is exactly

what we should repent for. It was a

colossal mistake. If the pendulum

had swung back then, we would not have the current

situation, where power has simply been

usurped, because the very first

steps toward usurping power were taken

by our wonderful liberals. All those

Chubaises, Yeltsin's inner circle, and so on.

I was a desperate supporter of Chubais

back then. So when I say that all sorts of people

supported it, I was the same, but

of course I do not bear that kind of

responsibility—I was a schoolboy

or a student—but in any case I

admit that, unfortunately, the people who

were directly involved in it

back then still dig in their heels and

tell us these tales that

Russia was on the brink of civil war.

There was no brink of civil

war. We all lived in Russia then, and

nothing terrible was happening. This is,

if we are discussing

recent political history, an

important point. But I still want

to emphasize that all of this is

irrelevant nonsense right now. Forget

about it. Whether it's communists in the country or not,

whether it's Zyuganov, Budyonov, of course,

there will be nonsense on the leaflets.

We need to force United Russia, uh, we need

to push it below 50% and thereby force it

to start negotiating at least with

the pocket opposition. In doing so, we

will strengthen that pocket opposition and open

a certain window of opportunity for broader

opposition forces.

There is only one answer here. In struggle

you will win your rights. No one will

give anyone anything for free. And no one will

give the communists anything either. But if we, uh, and

as soon as the communists—the условные

communists, so to speak—feel their strength,

then perhaps, as I already said, they will crawl out

of their Bandar-log stupor and do something.

So only political struggle

brings any results. We must fight for them.

If you are proposing that I

not fight,

if you are proposing that I not fight, but instead

sit around on the stove bench (traditional Russian idiom for idling), watching

TV and saying, "What a bunch of bastards

everyone is around me. It's all pointless. These, well,

those communists are controlled by Grisha

Yavlinsky has been getting on my nerves since 1996,

the Patriots of Russia are a bunch of suckers,

I don't even know who they are, and Zhirik (Vladimir Zhirinovsky) is there on the list too,

—a crazy clown. So what? That is exactly

what they want from you. That is

the whole strategy: to make sure that

simply no one goes to vote, everyone

stops caring, sits around waiting for something,

but no power is ever going to fall

into our laps just like that. We need

to stop being puppets.

So, uh, we have come to some kind of

key point here. So,

real political struggle is not

only, or even mainly, about the participation of political

parties. To hell with political

parties. Real political struggle

is still about struggle and concrete action.

To come to the elections and use

the ballot in that way is a rather strange

position, because first of all, if you go to

the elections, you are recognizing them, and you

are boosting turnout, while by voting and spoiling

your ballot, you simply do not affect

the distribution of seats at all. In

that sense, the supporters of a boycott, with

whom I also disagree, have a position that is

much more correct and moral.

If you do not recognize this procedure and

consider the whole thing complete nonsense, well,

then I do not go. I despise you and

boycott you. I do not agree with that position,

but at least I can accept it. But to

come, take part in the circus,

spoil your ballot, and help no one

—that is completely pointless. That

is, it is just nonsense; we really do need

to act rationally and

meaningfully. Uh, we are people, they are wha...

my success right now will be if I

I’ll be able to convince some of you of

the validity of my ideas. And my success

there over the course of a year will be if I can

somehow make use of it and, under the anti-corruption project,

hold someone accountable. My

success with RosPil will be this: RosPil has now

got corrupt tenders worth 200

million canceled. We, uh, will cancel even more. Right now

we are registering a foundation for our

work. We’ve raised for RosPil, as you

know, $250,000 from ordinary people.

We’ll register the foundation. I’ll persuade all of you too

to send me $100 each

and we’ll raise a million. That

will be a success. And the political task, uh,

well, the strategic one, is the announcement of

free elections. Once there are free

elections, that will be the success

we are striving for and toward which we

are now moving. But overall, you see, I don’t

And this is a very popular question

in America, Britain, and abroad in general,

one that always leaves me stumped: "Where do

you see yourself in 10 years?" It’s just such a

strange thing altogether. I

believe that now, in the conditions of

modern Russia, there are no real

guideposts telling you to go straight, or left,

or in zigzags—they simply do not exist.

The only guide is a kind of, well,

some people may laugh,

moral compass, an understanding of what

is good and what is bad. Whether what

you are doing now is right or wrong,

right? But that proverbial

categorical imperative within us. Every

day, when doing something, you simply need

to measure it,

yes, to compare your action with certain

standards that you have set

for yourself. That is what you need to do every

day. Where it will lead us, I don’t know, but

in any case it will lead us somewhere

good, to the right place.

I, uh, don’t understand why this realization didn’t

come to you. Because, well, I don’t

understand. Every day I open

a newspaper in which it plainly says, in black and

white, that these guys

stole a billion today, and yesterday

they stole 2 billion. It just drives me

crazy. I really don’t understand

why I’m not allowed to take part in

elections. Everyone gets kicked off the ballot, and

why there is no freedom of assembly and

so on. This happens every

day. It’s not some abstract thing—it’s like apples falling

out of a KamAZ truck onto us every day. And so

there is no need for any sudden realization here

at all. It is so obvious. And it seems to me

that this is the sincere desire

of any person to fight this

system, because otherwise we are no longer

human beings, but something else entirely.

It’s a fairly ordinary story.

I, well, used to work as a corporate

lawyer and had no intention of getting involved

in politics. I was always interested

in politics. I liked some things

and disliked others. I

always followed political events

very, very closely. In

1999, when it was announced

that Putin would become

president—he had become prime minister—and

the very first talks began about

raising the threshold for getting into the

Duma from 5% to 7%. That did not happen in 2003

—it was raised later. But the first

discussions had started, and it became completely

clear that this was being done

to keep democratic

liberal parties out of the Duma. In other words, it

was aimed at Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces. I

wasn’t some big fan of

Yabloko, but I decided, damn it, well,

to state my political position on principle

I’d go and join Yabloko. So

I went, joined on principle, and wasn’t planning

to do anything else. And back then they were all

very important—those Yabloko people sat in the Duma

with flashing official car lights and all that. Deputies

were practically untouchable gods.

Uh, well, I joined,

there was a six-month probation period, so

it wasn’t easy to get in at all. Everything was very

complicated. And then somehow I came to a

party meeting. Everything looked very dubious and

kind of strange. People were talking complete

nonsense. I simply realized that

their losses were not because

people didn’t support them, but because

they couldn’t organize anything. But I started

working as a volunteer, as a lawyer, somewhere

in campaign headquarters, doing election

monitoring. And then, well, I simply

got drawn in, as they say. And of course, it is

extremely interesting, and very little can

compare with it. So in that sense

I’m a lucky person, because I

do something I really love.

I mean, it’s just really great to be involved in all this.

And it’s even better if

there is some support from people in this

direction. And I simply realized

that this interests me, and everything else

is much less interesting to me now. So that’s why

I stayed with it.

Look, once again, we live in the real

world, so let’s not build utopias. No

52% or whatever are suddenly going to

vote for the Communists. But we have

what we have, and we must

use what we have. So,

the task now is this: we can see that United

Russia is afraid. And of everything I

do—all these criminal complaints against

Gazprom, Transneft, and so on—the most

a painful reaction specifically to my

campaign calling United Russia the party of crooks

and thieves. So this is where the pushback

began, and everything else followed. This is what they

dislike most of all. And that is precisely why it

needs to be used.

These elections, overall, I repeat, are of no

real significance. These elections are not

some kind of window of opportunity, and it will not

be the case that on December 5 the country will change.

But I repeat, this is stress. This stress

needs to be intensified, and we need to make sure

that at some point this 1%—well, I don’t know,

there may be different scenarios—

will take to the streets, or something else will happen,

or the authorities themselves will agree to delegate

some of their powers, to share

power, because they will realize that they are

standing on the brink of catastrophe. All these

Kremlin crooks, as a kind of

accusation, really love quoting my

phrase from an interview with New Times, that

power in Russia will change not as

a result of elections. Yes, it will change in

Russia not as a result of elections, and certainly

not as a result of these elections. But elections

are simply a practical

mechanism by which we can cause these guys

problems, by which we can

show the public what they really are—

how wrong they are, how they decide people’s fates, how they

deceive, and so on. That is the point

of elections, not that

the Communists will get something out of them, and so on.

Well, that is completely obvious. Naturally,

99% of people are against us giving away

the islands. And I am against it too. Because

Britain fought over some

islands that are, frankly, God knows where

they are. And here too,

there is a strong sense of collective unity, yes. So this is

completely normal. A nation cannot

live in a state of endless

self-abasement, saying, let’s just give everything

away, and so on. It is normal

for people to celebrate victories, to want

the Olympics, and not want to hand over

the islands to anyone. That is completely normal. And

there is no need to give any islands away

to anyone. And then there is a more important

point, really: when I

say Putin, there is no need to fixate

on Putin personally. It’s just that when I use the word

Putin, I really mean a certain

system of power that has been built. They

really are the main

promoters of the idea that their system,

which they built, well,

is corrupt, of course, yes, but it is

effective in the sense that they did not let

the country fall apart.

But that is complete nonsense, because

the country has already fallen apart, or at the very least

is falling apart. Is the Caucasus

part of Russia now? Well, obviously not,

because Russian laws do not operate

in the Caucasus. Something completely

incomprehensible is happening there, right? I mean,

if what unites us is that in every

office, if

what unites us is a portrait

of Putin in every office, then yes, the country

is united. If by the country’s unity and integrity we mean

a single

system of governance and the supremacy

of the same law throughout the territory

of the whole country, then Russia is now

actually in a major crisis and

may fall apart solely

because they created this

political corrupt regime.

And I believe that this is a completely

wrong position. And I do not see

any reason why Russia should

fall apart. You know, there is this traditional

line of thinking: first the Caucasus will break away, and then

the Volga region will flare up, and after that

it will spread to the Urals, and from there

Mordovia will supposedly go up in flames. Well, that is just

complete nonsense. Why should all of this

fall apart? What unites us is

the Russian population, the Russian language, and

the awareness that we are citizens of one

country. That is what unites us now.

Not the monetary system, nor anything else like that,

but simply the awareness that

we are citizens of one country. As long as this

awareness exists, and as long as we have shared

cultural codes and a common language, our

country will not fall apart anywhere. No one

in Tatarstan is going to secede; Tatarstan does not want

to separate from anywhere. This is

And I do believe that powers should, yes, be

delegated from the center to the regio—no, not to

the regions, rather, but to the cities, because

giving governors more powers

would be a colossal mistake; that would create

little nests of petty tsars and so on.

Power should be where people

live, namely in cities,

municipalities, and so on. Let them

decide for themselves what they want. If in this

city they want to sell alcohol, let them

sell it. If in some city they want

to ban it, let them ban it. And so

on. In other words, more, more

needs to be given. If in this city they want to develop

trade, let them lower the sales tax.

If in this city they want to develop, uh, I don’t

know, more settlement, let them

lower the property tax. More powers need

to be delegated. I do not

see in this any threat of the country

falling apart. It is all complete nonsense.

So, this 1% consists of people, including

you; these are people who were fortunate, yes, who

had parents who sent them

to school, and they received a higher education

and are not, unfortunately, lying around drunk in

a village in Ryazan (a region southeast of Moscow). And these people bear

responsibility to everyone there who was less

fortunate, whose lives did not work out, or who for some other

reason. So all of you—there is no need to

persuade you, and there is no real way to organize you there either.

You have to understand it yourselves and

do all of this yourselves. That 1%—those are the people

who decide everything. They understand their

responsibility to everyone else,

and they have to carry the load and build

the right system. As for all this

sociology, first of all, most

such questions cannot be resolved by sociological methods.

And secondly, it all depends on

how the question is framed. You can ask,

do we need to borrow

European values? Everyone says:

"No." But ask: "Do you want

to elect the mayor of your city?" and 90% will

say, "Yes." Do you want a fight against

corruption? Everyone will tell you, "Yes." Do you want

cars not to park on

sidewalks? Everyone will say, "Yes." Russians,

Russian people, and so on—the citizens

of Russia—are an entirely European

community. There is nothing that

seriously separates us from

anyone else. I believe we are at

a stage of development where Russia is ready

to become part of Europe—not geographically, but

mentally and politically. I mean,

of course there are clear differences between

Germans and Poles, for example.

They are different. Germans and Russians

are different too. They are different. Germans

will never become Russians. But even so,

we are part of Europe; we share a common

understanding of what is

good and what is bad. And that is why,

all these attempts

to use opinion polls

to construct some kind of reconstruction of the Russian

mentality are simply

completely wrong. Everyone wants to live normally.

Any person from Ryazan,

who goes to Germany and then comes back to

Ryazan says, "My God, they wash the sidewalks

with soap. Great—we want that too."

The police do not take bribes, they protect

everyone. Very good. We want

to live like that. Everyone has a clear sense

that they want to be part of that, they want

everything to be exactly the same, and they do not need

any special separate path.

That is it.

But it seems impossible to me. Do you not

agree with the theory that this decision is made by

a group of apparatchiks? I just would not

call them apparatchiks. It is a group

of people who, largely by chance,

through a combination

of various circumstances and reasons, usurped power

for the time being. That is just how it happened. If

Yeltsin had, I do not know, been

drunk that day instead of sober, or Voloshin, or

Dyachenko, had found someone else, or if the

weather had been different—maybe it would not have been Putin

but someone else. It was just a set of

circumstances. These people usurped

power. Naturally, the question of how

to preserve that power going forward—the question is not

who will be the next president. The question is

how to preserve this power going forward, through

what mechanism. That is the question they are deciding.

Obviously, it is probably not just

two people; it is some

broader circle, in various

forms. And there is no need to build a fully conspiratorial

theory around it. Many people in Russia

think this decision will be made

in some terrible Masonic lodge

and so on. But really, this is just

a group of crooks who have

very practical problems.

Then why did they not announce it themselves? Why are they so

what is the point? Why would they give you extra

information? I mean, all of this—these are

people, living people, right? And in any family

there are lots of conflicts and lots of

very complicated and delicate things. As far as

I understand—I am not much of a specialist in

Kremlinology. And what I am

saying now is more like

my guesses, or just

something along those lines. As I understand it, Putin

absolutely does not want to stop being president—

well, in the sense that he does not want

to stop running the country; he is not tired of it. But at the same time

he very clearly feels that giving up

real power would, after some time,

put his

life, security, freedom, capital, and

so on under real threat. So it is impossible for him to leave

power. He has created a system in which,

if he steps down, they will, I do not know,

tear him apart. And it will not be

Kasparov, Nemtsov, or Navalny, but his own

people, the ones he brought in, members of the party of

Crooks and Thieves, who will hunt him down and

put his safety at risk.

So there are concrete considerations:

there is Medvedev, who has to be moved somewhere somehow.

There are many different

combinations: a reworked parliament,

a reworked State Council, prime minister,

president, some kind of father of the nation with

additional powers. The arrangement

can take different forms. And in this

arrangement, everything is taken into account: who has what

health, whether someone has become tiresome to you or not, in

which city you want to live. This is just

life—the ordinary life of living people—and they are

trying to make that life

comfortable for themselves. That is all.

All right, answer this question for me.

Do you really think that in the election

both of them will run?

I’d really like that.

Well, obviously everyone would really

want that, if only for a laugh. Yes, everyone would

want it, but it’s not going to happen.

So—as I said, the question is: who

is the president of Russia right now?

Well, nominally. That’s why the president

of Russia, in terms of real powers and

actual authority and so on, is Putin. In other words, after these

elections, the real president of Russia

will still be Putin. It doesn’t matter who they

round up there and so on. In terms of the amount of

power, real strength, and so on,

Putin will remain the guy who

is actually in charge of everything. That’s it. That’s

the answer. And as for

That’s a good question.

Well, first of all, a criminal case has been opened

against me, right? And the fact that I was able

to come here is because my

investigator did not issue an order for a

preventive measure

— not a written undertaking to appear, not a

travel restriction.

A travel ban, right.

Then what was it?

Well, it’s complicated. I didn’t pay for it;

it’s hard to say. I don’t have an answer. Honestly,

I also don’t really have an answer

to the question of who exactly initiated that

criminal case and who is pushing it. It

could be purely for political

reasons. United Russia—maybe it’s

Surkov, Putin, I don’t know. Or maybe it’s

just some crooks from VTB who paid

someone off. Though I’m more inclined to think that

some crooks from Transneft did

it. But there’s no answer to that question;

I have no idea, right? And why

can’t they just, you know, simply

shut down what I’m doing? Well,

first of all, I tried to structure it in such

a way that it’s fairly hard

to stop, because, uh,

there’s no opaque financing behind me,

and it’s clear where all the money I have

comes from. I don’t take any money

from oligarchs. If I

were to open a foundation and look for some kind of

funding, then everything would become

obvious: these people are transferring money

to the foundation. They’d call it embezzlement. There were inquiries from

the FSB, they tried to find out what was going on there, well,

they tried and tried. And what did they find?

Twenty thousand—one thousand people transferred 400

rubles each. That’s all. What can you do with that? And

it’s a question of a kind of

practical character. Well, first of all, that

possibility always exists. And as

my work becomes more

effective—I hope it will become more

effective—unfortunately, apparently,

the risk also grows that they will move on

to some more serious, uh, measures.

Probably, in a certain sense, the moment has passed,

because, well, I’m kind of

a known figure now, and, well, I’m already

someone they have to weigh carefully. I mean, sure, they can

arrest me, lock me up, but there will be

some kind of—I don’t know—protest, maybe not

a protest exactly, but in any case some kind of

political uproar and so on, so

who knows what costs more: getting involved

with it or leaving it alone. And that’s one of the

good things about the current ineffective

political regime: it even

goes after its political opponents

rather inefficiently. Everything

is run manually, and no one

can take responsibility. Well,

for example, the criminal case against me.

They tried to open it at some

lower levels in Kirov, in the Volga

Federal District, and so on. Everyone

refused. No one—everyone was afraid to take

responsibility. Then it was taken to

the very top.

Some investigator opened the case,

issued the order, and that same day kicked

the case back down the chain because he doesn’t want to

deal with it.

What did they do in Kirov Region?

It’s an unclear situation. On the one hand,

there are obviously no grounds for it. On the other

hand, if they opened it, that means some kind of

signal is clearly being sent.

So on the one hand they created

an investigative team—two

investigators for especially important cases,

both colonels—but apparently nothing

has happened for several months now. Everyone

is mainly occupied with

covering themselves. No one wants

to take responsibility, because

again, well, who is supposed to give the

order to arrest me?

Putin? Medvedev? I don’t know, maybe

Surkov? Or just some police officer, right?

Who the hell knows. And so, uh, everyone is somehow

afraid, and the police are afraid too. Today we lock them up,

tomorrow they lock us up. And this

all feels very strange somehow. And at every

level there’s this sense that

this government is not forever. And this government

will be replaced, possibly in some

harsh way, whether now or later,

it’s unclear, but it will be replaced. And who knows

how all these people will have to answer for it. But

that absolutely does not mean they can’t

crush or kill

a particular person. Of course they can, but

even that, in this system, is not so

easy. So how does the system work?

Someone has to make the decision, someone

has to coordinate something with someone else, uh, and

someone has to be that kind of person

at the very top who will take

full responsibility for what

will happen. I think that

Putin, Medvedev, and the others have plenty of other things to do

than to issue some kind of orders saying that

I should be arrested. Uh, it's hard

to say. If there is an order, they'll do whatever

they want. I mean, tomorrow they could simply

arrest me at the border and lock me up, well,

I don't know, for what — for stealing the Moon.

That would be no problem at all for them. But if

someone makes that decision,

and so, probably, this

chaotic nature of the system

is one of the reasons why I

am able to act. It's not to my credit.

It's that well-known idea: the fact that you are

still free is not your merit, but our

oversight. That's exactly, absolutely

my situation.

Look. Fine. Twenty thousand people

sent money for RosPil. Have I united

with them?

Yes,

I think I united with them

far more than if I had made them

They gave me their 400 rubles each. And that

connected me with them far more than if I

had collected questionnaires from them, entered them into

an Excel spreadsheet, and sat there. And then

looked at it thinking: "Oh, there are 20,000 people and

their forms. Here in my Orenburg

cell there are 15 people." That's not

unity. Unity should be for

some specific actions.

No. Is anyone else acting besides you?

Well, good for them. I'm not trying

to claim that I'm the

smartest one here and that my actions are the only

effective ones. I don't agree with

PARNAS and thought it was a waste

of time, but even so they are

acting relatively effectively. And I

think that overall they are political

allies.

A significant part of the nationalists as well. I

think they are acting absolutely

correctly and are also my

critical allies. I say that

directly. There are lots of useful environmental activists.

Chirikova.

She did something absolutely

astonishing. Three years ago, when it still wasn't

her working on the Khimki Forest, but

someone else, they came to me and

said: "Well, we want to fight for

the Khimki Forest here." I told them

it was complete nonsense. You won't achieve anything.

But Chirikova did achieve something. Something

astonishing. No one believed in it.

A lot of people, in fact, are now one way

or another involved in building momentum

around the Magnitsky case. Some guy

set up a website, people are signing it.

They're doing a lot of useful things. Why would I need

to unite with them in the sense of

putting them on a list,

appointing a cell coordinator there, a head

of regional organizations, and so on?

That's not unity, that's just

a meaningless waste of time and money.

So

there are other formats of unification. I've already united

with everyone.

I'm on good terms now with Yabloko,

on good terms with Mitrokhin. We have not

stopped having good relations. I

think that he is

an honest politician, and I think he

acts quite effectively. I worked with him

for many years, and I value much of

what they do. I think that

this format of political struggle simply

has outlived itself. It's not about whether it's Yabloko

or not Yabloko. The party format of struggle and

the organization of a Leninist-type party, like

this very example with a cell in Orenburg.

It has simply outlived itself; they are no longer needed.

At least, they are not needed now.

Alexei,

Yes, Roizman and Prokhorov. Only one conclusion

can be drawn from this. And I think

most normal people have

understood this long ago: with these people — I mean

the Kremlin crooks — you

cannot cooperate with them; you can only

serve them. They understand absolutely no other

format of work. Either you serve them

or all cooperation

ends. As for Prokhorov, I think that

Prokhorov's appearance on the political

scene was positive overall. Suddenly

a new person came in, started doing something,

whether he made mistakes or not, whether he was controlled or not,

he still created a certain

new political entity, created

something new. And that

was right. But he thought he was such a

clever guy who would come in,

make deals with them all, and then

double-cross them, deceive them, outplay them. In

any case, he would push his own line. And

as soon as he even slightly began

to pursue that line of his, they immediately

showed him that it was no problem

to sacrifice even a project

into which a lot of effort had been invested, but it was no

problem to sacrifice everything if there was

even the slightest threat to something

more important. And that important thing was precisely

United Russia's result in the upcoming

elections for them. And it was clear that Prokhorov

had started doing, started building what he was not

allowed to build. Here, the more

revealing example

is not Zhenya Roizman, but Alla Bossart.

Yes. The fact that Prokhorov brought her in

shows that he was in fact

planning to siphon votes away from United

Russia and from the electorate that

United Russia could count on that there.

Pugacheva alone could have delivered 2% for him there.

And then, well, after that it becomes a matter of

math. If Right Cause

had actually made it into the Duma, and also

got around 10% there, then United

Russia really could have dropped

to just 50%.

That is exactly why they have now started

going after Prokhorov's party so aggressively,

because the optimal setup for

some people, of course, would be three parties,

the Communists, LDPR, and United Russia, although

for United Russia, purely arithmetically, there would

still be quite a lot left over.

In fact, nothing all that terribly awful

happened there. I'll repeat once again:

this is further confirmation that this is actually

what Pharaoh said—no bargaining, uh...

those who are responsible for all kinds of

negotiations with the Kremlin. I discussed something

with them and said, well, somehow I also

asked: "Is it possible to reach any kind of agreement with them

about anything?" And he told me:

"You can't agree with them about anything; they

can only be served." And there is no

other way of working with them

that exists. You simply need to understand this very clearly

and have no

illusions about it.

In other words, it wasn't really about Roizman as such.

As for Zhenya Roizman specifically,

who is a really great guy, I don't know,

maybe there is some kind of

personal dislike toward him on the part of

Medvedev or someone else. Well, right up until

the very last moment I was sure that this was

complete clownery. That it had all been

made up, and so on. But then it turned out that this

wasn't clownery after all. It was exactly

as it seemed. As for Roizman specifically,

maybe he was the pretext, maybe

there was a more substantial reason, and he became

the more visible pretext. But the main,

of course, reason was that they were taking votes away from

United Russia. They crossed their red

lines.

By the way, that is really interesting to me. But

we, uh, will organize fundraising

not specifically in London. It's just that right now,

uh, I'm not collecting any money because

I don't have a mechanism for receiving that

money. Right. Most of you

use things like PayPal, and

you couldn't even transfer money to me

for RosPil. So right now we are setting up a

non-profit organization, a foundation,

to which everyone will be able to send money.

And, well, of course we are not going to do

some special road show in England,

because then there would really be

an uproar. But yes, and it seems to me we'd be

very interested to know how many of you

would donate, and how much.

And I'm not trying to persuade 1% to go

vote against United Russia. I am

trying to persuade 1% of these active

people, who bear responsibility for

the other 99%.

to move on to active measures, yes, and then

to broader action. And what is 1%? Well, in

Moscow, how many people live there? 15 million

people.

So what is 1% of 15 million people?

150,000 people. If 150,000 people came out

onto the streets of Moscow tomorrow and stood there for two

days, then after two days we would be living in

a different country. And even without any terrible

revolution, without any bloodshed. That

would force the authorities into substantial changes

fairly quickly. That 1% can do

absolutely anything. That is, that is,

you can be educated and very

wealthy, but fail to realize your

responsibility to everyone else. But if

you do realize it, even if you are less

educated and not at all wealthy, then you

belong to that 1%.

A corporation operates according to established

rules, while politics is conducted without

rules. There are no rules, and

historical examples are meaningless, and

no one knows how change

will happen, or how many people are needed for a

revolution. And who could have imagined, say, in

1913 or even 1916

that this whole absolute monarchy in

Russia would collapse? And who could have imagined

in 1983 that in

1989 we would be living

in a completely different country? And who could

have imagined in 1994

that by 2004 everything would already have been

rolled back, and people would be

arrested for public demonstrations, and there would be

censorship everywhere in the mass

media? There are no rules. And no one

understands when it will all happen. I do not

know who the opponent is. I know that it

exists.

This is one of my favorite examples, which, I

don't know, if you read LiveJournal you may have

heard it too, but I'll say it anyway because

it seems very telling to me. As for

Tunisia, I studied at Yale on Yale's

World Fellows program, and there was a

Tunisian opposition politician there, a local

businessman.

This was in the fall, around late fall or winter. And those

Tunisian opposition

politicians were insanely jealous of Russia.

They said: "Well, at least you have real

opposition activity, and you have a lot of

opportunities, because

at least your internet is open. You have

YouTube, Facebook is open, and you even have

Twitter open." Which was completely

impossible in Tunisia, while in Tunisia we were like

unhappy, because Ben Ali had 99%

support. We live, uh, better

than the neighboring countries. We have

a high standard of living. Our

corrupt elite is completely

happy, because if you want

to enrich yourself, then enrich yourself. You'll live on

the southern coast of France. Everything here is just

great. A completely controlled

gendarmerie, police, and so on. Some of his

friends from

Tunisia came to see him, and in

presentations they showed opposition protest actions

that had taken place. When I looked at those

protests, I thought, my God, there were

so many. Our Strategy-31 (a Russian opposition campaign defending freedom of assembly)

was a magnificent protest action

by comparison, because they had

literally five people who

as a sign of protest put on white T-shirts and went

to sit in a café; 30 journalists filmed it,

after which everyone

was arrested. And they planned to conduct all their

opposition work

from France. And those opposition

politicians were the last people

who believed in any kind of change at all. It was

winter there, before New Year's. And a

month later there was no Ben Ali, no Tunisia as they knew it, no

100 percent support, and so on. I

just want to say that I do not believe in

political technology.

I don't believe you can stage some kind of

event instrumentally, gather 100,000

people, a Maidan, tents, and in that way bring down

Putinist regimes and the like. I am not

sure that this can be

instigated, but the time will come. And

whether now, in three years, or in a month, it

will definitely come. Because I began with

this. We all have a clear

understanding and, on this issue, a

consolidated position: that this

regime has outlived itself; it is no longer needed.

A country of 150 million people cannot

go on living with this weight dragging at its feet; it's simply

completely pointless. Sooner or later

it will happen. We cannot organize

that moment, but we can bring it closer.

If we want to be honest with

ourselves, we must admit that Russia

is now, uh, a free country by

comparison with our earlier history.

So how exactly it will happen, how it

will be organized—we do not know and do not

understand. As I already said, there can be no other

guiding point except an inner

moral sense,

there simply cannot be. I repeat this everywhere: that

the alternative to the current government,

the alternative that we must

present, is not organizational, not

financial, not ideological, and not

political—it is moral.

We simply must do what ought to be done

by that percentage of people who have realized

their responsibility.

the right. If we consider ourselves at all

educated, advanced, or even

slightly responsible people, we do not

have the right to speak that way. We bear

full responsibility for everything that

happens in any city. So if a bunch of

I don't know, alcoholics or

drug addicts who, for various life

reasons—I am not passing judgment on them now.

They are the same as you. They have the right

to understand.

You're not listening to me. I'm saying that in

life we were lucky. We did not have the kind of

life circumstances that would have resulted in

our ending up in a drug den

of addiction. Addicts who have already

ended up there for various reasons, in

that den, cannot cure themselves. Someone

has to come to them and

say: I'm not going to go make money

at an investment fund; instead I'll go

and do at least something to pull

these addicts out of utter hell and

horror. We understand why my

anti-corruption activity gets more

support from

some managers sitting in

companies than from poor people. Because

poor people ought to be more

outraged that billions have been

grabbed, and so on. Because those

managers in offices understand how it

works. For them, stealing a billion is

not something abstract, like something on

the moon; it's something concrete. Yes, he

may even be participating in it himself. He sits

there in Gazprom and organizes this

scheme. And he's furious, and he understands that

this is something concrete, and he is much

more inclined to help me than someone

sitting somewhere else. These people—we

understand this, don't we? We understand that this is

wrong, because in life we

were lucky enough. Therefore it is our

responsibility to help others. Let's

put it this way: 1% of 1% must convince that

percent so that they convince the other 99%. In other words,

there is no other way, nothing else

works. It only works through

concrete actions. What's the point of complaining?

If it doesn't work, then it doesn't work; that means we haven't

convinced them. The necessary moment will come.

The moment has not yet come; we need to bring it closer.

We cannot instigate it, but we

must bring it closer. That is our

responsibility, and that is what I urge all of you

to do. Thank you very much. Let's

end on that note. Thank you all so much

for coming. It was very

interesting for me.

Unfortunately, I can't go out

so much.

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

That's

speaking for an hour and three quar and he

Thank