About candidate Sergei Shnurov. Disaster in Krasnoyarsk. Deputies the Kremlin does not want

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Good evening, everyone. In Moscow, it's exactly 8:00 p.m.

That means we're live on air

with the program *Russia of the Future*, and I am its

permanent host, Alexei Navalny.

Or, as the Kremlin media called me this week,

someone who decided to make money off

supporting Sanders. For some reason, that's what the Kremlin media were calling me this week. I

wrote a couple of tweets saying that I

liked Sanders's campaign back in the day,

really liked Sanders.

For some reason, they think that I somehow

decided to profit from it. Send me

your questions on Twitter with the hashtag

#RussiaOfTheFuture, and I'll try to

answer them. Thank you very much for watching

the show. Last week's broadcast got

a million views in a week.

I think that's the third episode since the beginning of the year

to get more than a million

views. That's great, that's awesome.

It shows that people are coming to

YouTube, they're watching more and more

and more, and people are looking for truthful information.

That's great because, well, I still

allow myself to hope that my program is

not just a program, but a kind of

collective organizer. We're doing

important things here, and together with you we will actively

take part in and influence,

in particular, the upcoming State Duma elections

and regional parliament elections. We will do something

about this so-called referendum

that isn't really a referendum; we don't yet know exactly what,

but we do know that we will act. And it's very

good that so many people, in one way or another,

want to be practically

involved in politics. A bit later today we'll talk a lot more

about how many

different people are entering politics, like

Sergei Shnurov, and I'm sure we'll see

many more exotic characters.

But I wanted to start by following up on our

coverage of the Network case. This is the most important

political trial of recent years, and

it's very striking—encouraging, even—

to see that the outrage that

was enormous immediately

after those utterly outrageous

sentences in a fabricated case

based on testimony obtained

under torture—that outrage has not subsided.

Quite often, what happens is something like this:

we're very outraged on the first day, a little less

the next day, and by the third

day only the most

consistent people are still outraged, and after a week no one

remembers anything. That didn't happen here. This is

very good.

Apparently, this kind of blatant

inhumanity—the fact that innocent people

were seized, tortured, and then

sentenced to 18 years in prison—has simply

outraged all sorts of people, which is very

right. In the context of the Network case,

other cases are being discussed too.

Various ones. I can already see a question from Nila

Danilina, who's asking me for the second time:

the prosecution has requested prison terms for the defendants in the

New Greatness case in the Lyublino District Court, and then

the judge suddenly fell ill. The next

hearing is on March 3. Why might that be?

It's very easy to explain. Look at the photos:

a huge number of

people showed up. People are standing in one-person pickets,

and the Kremlin, which gives the orders

to fabricate these cases, is also watching

public opinion. What's happening now

around the Network case—and if

there are similarly monstrous

sentences in the New Greatness case—

that can't fail to worry them, at the very least,

because what have we seen over the past week?

Teachers wrote a collective

letter. Not just one or two

good people—people really weren't afraid.

Teachers from different schools across the country

wrote a collective letter. Doctors

wrote a collective letter. We've seen this before,

there was something similar with the Moscow cases,

but the Network case had somehow

still remained a bit

on the periphery before. Many people were frightened by the fact

that it involved terrorism charges.

But once people got a little more closely

acquainted with the actual facts of the case, they

saw just how completely

fabricated it all was. Let me repeat:

this is very important for all of us to remember:

there is not a single victim in

this case, yet people received sentences ranging from

12 to 18 years. There was also something completely unprecedented:

several bookstores

around the country—not all bookstores,

not hundreds of bookstores,

but several bookstores—

for the first time I can remember,

announced a one-day strike in

protest against all this. And if we look at

how many people are coming to

the one-person pickets for the Network case, it's

just an enormous line.

At these pickets—one-person pickets—

just to stand there for 10 minutes

in the cold, hundreds of people are waiting in huge

lines. What's interesting is that establishment politicians,

seeing all this—people who generally try

to avoid getting involved in things like this—

are also speaking out on the subject.

And today Gennady Zyuganov spoke about it. We can

be as ironic as we like,

saying, well, Zyuganov only said it because someone told him to,

or that he's being cautious, or that he used to

stay silent or didn't—but in any case,

however you look at it, he is the leader of the largest

opposition party.

It's a party that is sometimes not at all

oppositional, and sometimes quite the opposite.

Opposition or not, he really is

the leader of the largest opposition party.

and he publicly spoke out about it.

the Network case. Let's watch 35 seconds.

But perhaps the security agencies

are being overzealous in handling cases like this.

The sentences are clearly excessive, and the charges

are far from well-founded. In my view, we need

to look into all of this much more carefully

and not see every youth group

as conspirators or people preparing

to overthrow the system.

I absolutely do not like this criminal

oligarchic rule.

It is unnatural for our country, and

there is no justice in Russia here at all.

Whether you like Zyuganov or not,

whether you trust him or not, that's beside the point.

The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a separate issue, but he did say it.

Good for him—the leader of the largest opposition

party. Many in the Communist Party—I saw Rashkin

recorded a video address and spoke on this

topic. And separately, what really

pleasantly surprised me was this: when I was a child,

in my youth, when I was little, I

adored the band Alisa.

I still really love their early albums.

I remember them all by heart. Konstantin Kinchev,

who actually, broadly speaking, is not at all

—you can watch his interview with Dud (Yury Dud)—

for example, and he has the kind of views where he

criticizes Russian

reality a little, but at the same time repeats

full-blown pro-Putin nonsense, like:

"We must unite around the leader,

because otherwise they will take away

our Siberia from us—the Americans." That's the kind of

core lie of United Russia, and all of that

Konstantin Kinchev unfortunately repeats.

Nevertheless,

let's watch 12 seconds. At one of the

concerts, he said outright that the song

was dedicated to the defendants in the Network case.

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Yes.

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What Kinchev did is very important.

I'll say it again: very important, because,

well, he has always belonged to a somewhat different

group—those who in recent years have, one way or another,

consistently supported the authorities. But here

these tortures themselves—

they really did torture people; their teeth were broken,

they were shocked with electricity—so

these were literally fascistic tortures to which

they subjected

innocent people—or people guilty only of

having created some kind of

ridiculous paramilitary group and

running around in the woods playing airsoft.

We can ask them, guys, what exactly are you

doing running around in the woods playing airsoft? What are you

preparing for there? If you are preparing for something

bad,

then let's have a logical conversation with you.

But they were beaten with electric shocks,

and then sentenced to 18 years, and nobody

likes that. I see people are asking me

about the Nemtsov March (a memorial march for murdered opposition politician Boris Nemtsov). Irina

Pavlova is asking me, please tell us

about the Nemtsov March—will you go?

Of course I will. I will go. Official approval has been obtained.

I go every year, and the topic of

the Network case, the New Greatness case, and in general

torture and the transformation of our state into

a state that tortures its own citizens

will be one of the main themes of the march

this year. So on the 29th at 1:00 p.m.,

everything has been approved—do come.

There will definitely be a procession there. When I

say that our state

is turning into a state that already

openly tortures its citizens, that is not

a slip of the tongue or an exaggeration. We have always

understood that torture existed in the Russian police.

People were beaten; at times there was a lot of it,

then supposedly less, but

now it really is a kind of state

policy, and specifically in political cases.

First of all. Second, we see that torture

is being used against certain groups

that emphasize, emphasize their

apolitical nature, which is very important.

That is what different people are feeling, by the way.

You may not be politicians, much less

opposition politicians, but when someone is

being tortured, you understand that it can

come for you too. And probably the best

example here is Jehovah's Witnesses and what is

being done to them. This is a subject

I would not call slippery; for me it is

completely clear. I just know that other

politicians—probably almost no one,

except Roizman, as far as I know—speaks out on

this issue.

No one says anything

about Jehovah's Witnesses, who are

being subjected to repression in our

country, and now even torture. For me, as

a religious believer, this matters because

Jehovah's Witnesses really are

a kind of sect, a distinct movement, but it is

certainly a movement of a Christian kind, and

in Russia right now, these very Christians

are being tortured.

There is a lot about them that is strange,

internally, and the main complaint against them

is that they prohibit blood

transfusions, which can accordingly lead

to the death of a person who follows

this branch of Christianity.

There is a lot of debate over whether they are Christians or not,

but mainstream

religious studies says quite

clearly that Jehovah's Witnesses are

a Christian denomination, and right now

these police officers are torturing them despite

the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses, for example,

It is clearly stated in their charter that they

are forbidden from engaging in political

activity—that is, they are prohibited from

speaking either against Putin or in support of

Putin. Nevertheless, some idiot decided

that across the country they should first start rounding them up

and jailing them, and now they are starting to seize them and

torture them. That is what, in particular, was done

by yet another bunch of fascists in uniform

in Chita. Let’s take a minute

to listen—look at what happened in Chita,

please. If you want to call them

sectarians, fine, let’s call them sectarians.

In Chita, these “sectarians” are modest, quiet people

living in a modest apartment

of their own. Why their door was broken down and why they were

tortured—no one understands, except perhaps

this strange state of theirs.

Let’s listen: “They broke the door and the lock. The thing was,

interestingly, it doesn’t even close properly anymore, and

they tried to... we didn’t even have time to do anything here.

They broke down our door and burst into our

apartment, threw my husband onto the floor, and

me as well.

Force was used against me today too, but I myself—I

sat down on the floor. They began putting pressure on me,

trying to get some kind of confession,

trying to beat some kind of

confession out of me,

asking me to testify against other

Jehovah’s Witnesses, trying to make me give them

names, surnames, and addresses.

I said that I would cooperate only

with the investigator in the presence of

my lawyer. Then they pulled

a hat over my face and drove me out to the woods, to the area by

the Yubileiny Stadium.

I asked everyone who was participating in this

medical

examination to identify themselves. No one gave

their first or last names, and they did not provide me with any

documents. When I started addressing

the person who had tortured me,

because I clearly recognized him, he

hesitated, and the escort immediately rushed me out, and

the medical worker hurriedly took some kind of

readings from me,

measured something with a ruler, and left.”

They live in Chita.

Quiet people. Fine, let’s call them

crazy sectarians—let them be crazy

sectarians. They sit quietly on their

little couch at home and study the Bible.

Originally, and in general, the name of this

sect refers to people who study—

a community of, I think, Bible researchers.

They sit there reading their

pamphlets and bothering absolutely no one. But

of course, someone there—same as always—wants

to earn another star on their epaulettes, so they need

to break down this family’s

door, rush in, take the husband to a stadium,

beat him, and say, ‘You’re reading the wrong book,

you’re praying to God the wrong way.’ In

the literal sense, they are beaten because

someone thinks they are not praying to God correctly. Well,

the parallels here are just completely obvious

with the Roman emperors and, therefore,

with the actual persecution of Christians.

And I think that, of course, we must

talk about this, because in Moscow, in the major

cities, among the generally educated

public, we talk about New Greatness (a Russian political case),

and rightly so; we talk about these

various other trials, these

political cases. But about how they persecute,

for example, Jehovah’s Witnesses, very little is said.

We need to talk about it. They are torturing people in the North

Caucasus.

In the North Caucasus, this is generally standard practice:

torture, fabrication of criminal cases on

made-up terrorism charges—this happens

constantly. In Ingushetia, for example—about Ingushetia

no one holds pickets, it is not covered nearly as well,

but they have jailed a huge number of

people there simply because of the rallies that

took place quite recently against

part of the territory being transferred to Chechnya. People

were simply holding peaceful protests in

their main square. They had every

right—they had every right—to ask

questions about why part of the territory

was being handed over.

They jailed them, and now there is a huge

number of people in Chechnya and in Dagestan.

It is an endless process: they seize

some young men,

torture them, beat confessions out of them that

they financed terrorism, after which

they are given monstrous prison terms. This

happens constantly, and this is, of course,

state policy. And I am very glad that

more and more and more

people

are becoming outraged by all of this. So we must not

stop being outraged. Let’s write

about it, let’s talk about it, let’s

come to the Nemtsov March and to one-person

pickets on this issue. Viktor Medved asks me:

‘Alexei,

please comment on the interview, friends.’ Well,

apparently he means the latest interview with

Andrei Kolesnikov.

He is quite a remarkable person.

Watch this interview—it is very

interesting, and I even included it in the plan for my

program. I’m going to show you two clips from it now.

Andrei Kolesnikov

is, well, the chief chronicler of Putin’s life,

a man who for 20 years has been the main

pro-Putin journalist, and for 20 years

has been writing these kinds of articles

where he describes some event involving

Putin and portrays everyone else

as complete idiots, while Putin is presented not exactly as

some super-cool guy, but rather as

the only remotely normal

person among a gathering of idiots.

which various officials represent

who, in Kolesnikov’s columns, are always

very cowardly and terribly afraid of the main

boss — I mean, that’s the kind of

supposedly ironic and

but always [ __ ] and his description of Putin

and he gave an interview, and it will be very, very

interesting also from the point of view that we can

understand how these people — and Kolesnikov,

who certainly used to be considered, and now

considers himself, in my view,

a very respected journalist, and basically all

of journalism — a very well-connected journalist.

Of course, he lies in the interview when he says that he

gets eight or ten thousand

dollars a month — he gets much

more.

For Kolesnikov, they even

created some nonexistent magazine.

He also presents himself as being with the magazine Mr.

I forgot what it’s called — some magazine. That is,

he works for the publishing house

Kommersant, and I think he has the magazine *Russian Pioneer*

there — Surkov once wrote a column for it,

Surkov.

Then Putin wrote a column there. All of this

is financed in some unclear

way.

And apparently it’s simply a structure

through which Andrei Kolesnikov is paid

a lot of money for his sycophancy. But I kind of

expected him to have some elegant,

ironic answer as to why exactly

he works as a lackey — but he just

he simply kept, in that interview,

acting like a lackey, really,

without even being embarrassed that

millions of people would see it. There’s an absolutely

great, marvelous moment where Dud

shows him those famous clips from those

hockey games where everyone skates away from Putin,

the defenders move aside, and the goalie

deliberately lifts his leg so that

the old man can slide his puck in, and

Kolesnikov, completely seriously, starts

saying: no, it’s normal, let’s take a look.

Who, as they say — whatever anyone says —

has a feel for the goal. There he is in the slot,

standing there waiting for a pass.

And then he scores. If you look carefully,

they’re very difficult goals. I’m

serious — you should watch.

And they’re like that — right into one top corner,

then the other — you can’t do that just in warm-up.

Trying to find a way out — something’s not working, yes, yes.

Yes, let’s watch this video here.

There he is — well, is this the goal, or should we replay it now?

This is typical Vladimir Putin, in the sense that

look, he’s skating,

the defenders are going in a completely different direction, and

the puck, with incredible difficulty, goes into the

spot that’s easy to cover. There’s no

top corner here, no upper angle — but you

see, the shot — is the shot really bad?

The shot is monstrous — it goes straight into the goalie’s pad,

and the goalie

with a deft movement at the last moment

manages to lift it

so it slips through. Come on, let’s

watch some more — no, like this, look, look.

There, there — he can’t lift the puck off

the ice, you see, he wanted to do it there,

but — logically — you just picked an unsuccessful

shot. That’s one unsuccessful one, maybe.

Maybe there’s one successful shot.

You understand, you can laugh at the cliché and

say, sure, like, grandpa decided

to play hockey and everyone is playing along with him.

In a normal situation, there would be nothing

terrible about that. But no — “what a great shot,”

“is the shot really bad?” Well, you picked

an unsuccessful shot, but in general it goes right into one

top corner, then the other top corner. But still,

everyone has seen this, everyone knows. But if now,

after 20 years, you’re working as one of Putin’s

lackeys, then you have to be a full-fledged

Putin lackey. No one will forgive you

if you say, “Well, no, as for

the hockey game, because now isn’t

the time...” They won’t forgive that — you’ll immediately

be cut off from the feeding trough and have to live on

just one salary, and you won’t be the editor-in-chief

of a nonexistent

magazine, *Russian Pioneer*, and no one will

pay you for this

nonexistent magazine. There’s also

a moment that separately just

delighted me. Kolesnikov is also very

much like that, just

you know, like: “Is the shot really bad?”

They’re discussing why there are no

fair elections in Russia, and Kolesnikov says something like:

“Of course there are fair elections, but they

lose in Germany, for example. And why

wasn’t Navalny allowed? Well, he was allowed

to run, and I don’t know why he stopped

taking part in elections.” Let’s watch 26

seconds.

I’m simply stating that when he was

allowed to run, in the Moscow mayoral

election he got more than 20 percent. If he had continued,

if he had kept going, taking part there in

elections — why he

didn’t continue, I don’t know. As for

Navalny, I agree with you that

Navalny got a lot of votes back then in the

election, and probably could have been in the

next one and the one after that, and

he was invited there — so why didn’t he go?

Once, twice — well, I don’t want to get into that at all.

He just tosses it out there, just like

he just said — “puts it right in the top corner”

with a goal — and here too: “But he was invited.”

Why didn’t Navalny go, really?

Why didn’t he go to the election? I mean, I was supposedly

invited.

And Ella Pamfilova was running after me, shouting,

“Alexei, Alexei!”

So, we let you onto the ballot, we allowed you to run,

and then why aren’t you going? It’s so strange—

to the State Duma and everywhere else, all the candidates

for the Moscow City Duma were practically being invited outright; they were told,

“Come join us.”

“We don’t have enough great candidates.” And we

just turned around and went off—some people to eat

ice cream, others shawarma—because for some

secret reason, we supposedly just didn’t want to.

That is, he says this with a completely

straight face, knowing that millions of people will see it.

It’s been up for an hour and already has four and a half

million views, this interview. Those of you

who haven’t watched it—maybe later you

clicked in, thought, “Some random weirdo,”

and decided not to watch—well, you should watch it.

It’s very, very interesting and

instructive.

Alright, 35,000 people are watching us live right now.

I can see these little icons flying across the screen,

with Medvedev in the corner of the screen—that means

that some people are going down below

to the links in the description and helping the Anti-Corruption Foundation

continue to exist.

We always need that. We need your

support, of course, so please take a look there.

VDK News 24 is asking me here:

“Please comment on the situation with

Yukos and the $50 billion.”

It really is a complicated situation. On

the one hand, it’s simple; on the other,

it isn’t. It’s simple in the sense

that we understand perfectly well

that the criminal cases against Khodorkovsky

were fabricated—especially the second

Yukos case, which was one hundred percent fabricated

for political reasons. If they had wanted

to punish Khodorkovsky

for taxes or something else, then

they would have had to jail absolutely all

the oligarchs, because Khodorkovsky didn’t do

anything that all the others

among Russia’s oligarchs weren’t also doing—those

with whom Putin kisses, embraces, and

makes richer and richer every year.

So yes, the case was fabricated, and the company

was taken away.

And Yukos went to arbitration in The Hague, and Russia—

the Russian Federation—

this wasn’t the European Court of Human Rights

or anything like that; it was an arbitration

court, essentially a tribunal.

Russia, as a state, said: okay, we’re

prepared to litigate in this court. So when

people in the Kremlin now say, “Well, we

won’t comply, this is some kind of

lawless outrage, this is all nonsense,”

that’s just empty talk.

Russia officially agreed to comply with

whatever ruling would be issued there; it

recognized that arbitration. But then the question arises:

what about the $50 billion? Obviously,

Russia is not going to pay it back.

All sorts of lawyers will run around trying

to seize property. But in the beautiful

Russia of the future, should we return

$50 billion to Khodorkovsky—that is,

who exactly would be paying it back? Would

we have to take money from every Russian citizen?

Take several thousand rubles from each person

in order to repay the Yukos shareholders, because

bandits—Putin’s bandits, Putin himself,

and his Sechin—took from Khodorkovsky

this company, which Khodorkovsky himself, back in the day,

had acquired absolutely illegally,

just like all the other participants in the loans-for-shares

auctions, simply grabbed it from all of us.

I saw a tweet today that, I think,

let me quote in full—it describes this situation

in the best possible way:

“A brief description of the Yukos case:

the Komsomol guys grabbed the oil from the people; the chekists (security-service men)

grabbed the oil from the Komsomol guys; and now

the people have to pay for the oil that was grabbed

—$50 billion—

to the Komsomol guys, and in the end the Komsomol guys

will have dollars, the chekists will have oil,

and we’ll have neither oil nor money.” That

really is a complete description of what

is happening. So I believe that the ruling

issued in The Hague was, of course,

based on law, but overall

we must understand, first of all, that everything

that was done during the first and second

Yukos cases

was total lawlessness, and all the

people who carried out that lawlessness

must be brought, lawfully and fairly, before a

jury trial and held criminally accountable.

We need, so to speak, to remove the basis on which

that ruling was made. But as for

the loans-for-shares auctions

—and not only the loans-for-shares auctions, but

privatization in general—

that all needs to be dealt with separately, in a

civilized way, first and foremost

through taxation. Because what

Russia’s oligarchs represent—

all these former Komsomol and Party

functionaries who simply climbed onto

huge factories—this is not business at all.

It has nothing to do with business, nothing to do with

entrepreneurship, nothing at all. These people

just stole everything, and then other people stole

it all from them. That’s all. 40,000

people are watching live right now. Send me

your questions with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture

and I’ll try to answer them.

I see a question about Shiva Vihde—well, I’ll

say a bit about that later. I wanted

to talk about Krasnoyarsk. This is super important,

actually. There are really two parts

to it. Indeed, in

Krasnoyarsk, an environmental

disaster has occurred. I often, here on

my program, talk about this

special thing called

Krasnoyarsk’s “black sky” regime.

a unique city where they officially introduce

this "black sky" regime, which

is officially called a period of unfavorable

weather conditions, but of course all the residents

call it the "black sky" regime because

that’s what it is when the sky there is simply black

and that’s one part of the problem; the second

part of the problem is that it

is basically being completely ignored by all

the federal media, actually

and most federal politicians, in general,

ignore it all, and this time this

"black sky" regime was introduced

because something happened in Krasnoyarsk

some kind of extraordinary emissions, and

a buildup of these particles there, some kind of, well,

it was just hanging over the city—let’s watch the video

a short one that was filmed from

an observation deck, from this

observation point in Krasnoyarsk, this video was shot

from where Krasnoyarsk should be visible

in the best possible way—let’s take a look

let’s see what’s there—you

look at what we’re breathing

the city isn’t visible at all

[music]

to live

Krasnoyarsk is a city where, actually,

a million people live, and where there is

a huge number of industrial enterprises. These

enterprises bring in a great deal of money—to

oligarchs and to the state budget, well

that is, the residents of Krasnoyarsk, with their

lungs, their life expectancy,

their own health, are filling up

the oligarchs’ budgets and the state budget, and

basically nobody cares about them, and this time they

this time I just go onto

Instagram, into all sorts of text stories, and I see

it’s just flooded everywhere, everywhere, with people leaving

messages aimed at me so that I would see them

I see people tagging me, Dud, Shnur (Sergey Shnurov), any famous

people with big Instagram accounts, and

the city’s residents, driven to

desperation, simply started writing

to celebrities, even though they have

a governor, a prosecutor’s office,

a regional legislative assembly, a whole damn army of officials

there’s also the presidential envoy there, the federal envoy,

the chief federal inspector, and so on—that is,

there is a gigantic number of officials

they should be writing to them, not to Dud, Shnur, or me, and this is

just something truly monstrous

simply monstrous, and such disrespect

an insult to all these people, because

they simply have nowhere to turn, nowhere

to appeal, even though, once again, this is a city of a million

that brings in enormous amounts of money, and basically

nobody gives a damn about it. I asked our

coordinator Daniil Leongard in

Krasnoyarsk to record a short video for us

about what is happening there right now. Right now

this "black sky" regime has formally been

lifted in the city—let’s watch

Coordinator, tell us what’s happening

The "black sky" regime was introduced on February 14, and already

three days later, on the 17th, our city was in

first place in the global ranking for

air pollution levels. Smoking

coal-fired CHP plant smokestacks and the aluminum plant are

the main sources of air pollution

but the authorities blame everything on

motorists. All this time there was no

wind, and people were choking on chemical

emissions that had no time to

disperse: headaches, coughing,

sore throats, irritation of the mucous membranes

of the eyes—these were just a few of the symptoms that

healthy people experienced, while those who had

respiratory problems suffered

the most

This happens constantly, but this time

the situation reached a boiling point, and people

came out for one-person pickets and at rallies where

they handed out respirators and asked Yuri

Dud (a well-known Russian journalist and YouTuber) for help, and posts saying that

the federal media were ignoring the situation

were also shared by musician and poet Sergey Shnurov in

his Instagram. He expressed his opinion

in the form of a poem. The haze has now

cleared, and at last it’s possible to breathe, but

that’s thanks to the wind

and the local authorities, in terms of solving the problem,

traditionally did nothing

Well, this is what made me absolutely

furious. We have a city

whose environmental problems have not

been solved for many, many years, and here I

see Daniil Sologub writing: "Alexei,

what do you think, what is

the cause of the smog? Who is to blame for it?"

The cause of the smog is established there: it’s simply that

Krasnoyarsk is located in a kind of lowland, and

there are a huge number of industrial

enterprises and coal-fired boiler houses around it, and simply

the smog hangs over the city when there is no

wind, when there is severe frost—this is a known

fact, and the solution to this problem is also

known: all these oligarchs,

the owners of industrial enterprises

around the city, the owners of boiler plants—they should

install treatment facilities there, that is,

in the city of Krasnoyarsk, what needs to be done

is to make emissions much lower

than in any other large city, because

it simply has an unfavorable

geographical location

but basically nobody cares. All these people, all

these oligarchs—Deripaska and all the rest—

buy yachts, go wherever they please, and nobody

forces them to buy treatment

facilities. There is simply no pressure at all

the local authorities do not deal with it, nobody

deals with it, and the residents of Krasnoyarsk

run around writing to celebrities on Instagram

How could you humiliate the citizens of a

million-strong

industrial city even more, other than driving them

them to the point where they would run around

they were asking there

on Instagram, from Dud or from me

from Shnur (Sergey Shnurov) or from me. Shnur did well, he wrote

a poem—we’ll criticize it a little at the end

but in that sense I noticed

Peskov and the poem—locals are all rejoicing

some people are writing in blogs, but finally

they finally paid serious attention to us, well

that is, this shows the complete corruption

of the state system, its hostility

toward people—it just

once again, a very serious

proposal to the residents of Krasnoyarsk and

the Krasnoyarsk region in general: let’s

make sure it gets zero votes there

United Russia. If that happens

if we run that campaign, then the authorities will start

paying attention. Right now, the

working group on the Constitution is meeting—let’s

start a petition

I’ll support it and promote it in every way I can

let’s put it into the Constitution—if they’re

already writing whatever they want into the Constitution

at this stage

of Putin’s lifetime guarantees, then let’s

write into the Constitution that the residents of Russia

have the right to receive financial

compensation if their water and

air are polluted—so that residents

of Krasnoyarsk

could go out with a measuring device and say, “Oh, here

the maximum permissible concentration is exceeded by two

times. Please, Deripaska, from the aluminum

plants, pay me 5,000

rubles for every day that my children and I

have to breathe this air.” And then things will start

to change. That’s basically how it

will start working. We don’t, we don’t

necessarily have to apply some kind of

administrative pressure. But simply, if

you want to poison someone, then be

prepared

for lawsuits to be filed against you. Then everyone

will have to pay, and to avoid paying

you’ll stop polluting yourself. And United Russia

must get

zero, nothing. And every resident

of the city, if they don’t want to breathe this

filth, absolutely must

take part in Smart Voting and, in general,

in any campaign against this government

because there is also this demonstrative

contempt going on. In these very

same days, when Krasnoyarsk is under a

“black sky” regime, the governor, Uss,

who is an old acquaintance of ours from when we

ran campaigns and promoted

laws against illicit enrichment

and used his case, among others, to show

that

that his standard of living is completely inexplicable

the property, the houses this governor has are

in no way comparable to his

actual income. And on top of that, what

happened there? Governor Uss actually

officially owns a house in Sochi, and he decided

as governor to go to some

another pointless investment forum in

Sochi. Well, obviously he doesn’t want

to sit in Krasnoyarsk in February under a “black sky” regime

he wants to go to Sochi instead

hang out there, stop by his dacha, but

since it was an official business trip, they

actually had the nerve to

through public procurement

announce a tender and rent a room in

Sochi for 250,000 rubles, and the room in that

hotel is literally located

right here—you can see this room in the

Sochi hotel

it is literally 500 meters away

damn

from the governor’s house. And here, on the screen,

you can now see the map: the house and the hotel. What kind of

fantastic level of arrogance do you need

to have an official luxurious

fancy residence in Sochi, and still say, “You know,

I’m going to this investment forum, I’ll

stay in a hotel”

while you people here, coughing and wheezing,

walk the streets

pressing some rags to your face so that

you don’t cough your lungs out in a week—and you

please chip in for me so I can pay for

this hotel: 250,000 rubles.” They

are actually doing this

How much longer can this be tolerated? I—I don’t understand

one thing: how can even one person

vote for United Russia under these

conditions? How can even one person

vote for Putin, for Mishustin, for this whole

gang? It’s obvious they’re mocking us

because people keep

on voting, keep

voting for them. You could say that

pensioners have been brainwashed, they watch

television, they vote—but no,

not just pensioners. You’re all watching this

several tens of thousands of residents

of Krasnoyarsk will watch this video, so

let these several tens of thousands

people convince the remaining million residents

to vote against United Russia. Then

everything

will start changing fairly quickly. So, about

Prya-prya-prya—Videnny, I see

people are asking us about Videnny

there really is news, and something about

our Ruslan Shaveddinov. Let me remind you

that he is an employee of FBK (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) who was simply

kidnapped and taken to Novaya Zemlya (a remote Arctic archipelago) and

told that he would serve as a soldier, and

said that he had been conscripted into

the army. He was completely isolated, they do not allow

him to receive letters, they forbid him

from using a mobile phone

or any means of communication at all

despite the fact that even by their own logic he is

a soldier

he is not a prisoner; ordinary conscripts

have the right to write letters home, to their mothers

but he was not allowed to do that before, and now

as far as we understand now, we

filed a lawsuit, and then under video

camera supervision they handed him something like 30 or 50 letters

that they had simply not been giving him before, but

what is interesting about this court case is that in order

to make sure no one could get into this hearing

they are holding it not even simply in

Arkhangelsk—the court itself is located in

Arkhangelsk. If you want to sue

someone who is on Novaya Zemlya (a remote Russian Arctic archipelago)

since Novaya Zemlya has bears and

no judges, you will have your case heard in a court in

Arkhangelsk, and everyone goes to court in

Arkhangelsk. But in his case

it was specifically stated that there would be

an off-site hearing held on Novaya

Zemlya—that is, by special plane the court

and the court secretary will fly for two and a half

hours to Novaya Zemlya so that something can happen there

and no one can get in. But for example, I

did not receive permission to visit Novaya Zemlya

even though I have a power of attorney to

I have a power of attorney for

representing his interests

and officially submitted a request to the FSB saying, give

me permission—I need to come and

visit him. Can you imagine? Interestingly,

they refused me, but nevertheless

one of our lawyers does have such permission

and so I asked him in Arkhangelsk

Alexei Molokoedov, one of FBK’s lawyers, to record

a short video

a minute and a half long, about what is happening there now

and what will happen next. Let’s watch.

Good afternoon. I am standing in front of the Arkhangelsk

Garrison Military Court, where what is probably

the strangest case of my life is being heard.

As part of this case, Ruslan and I

are trying to challenge the actions of

the military unit’s command in banning

the use of a mobile phone and

the sending and receiving of postal

correspondence. Since Ruslan was taken away

at the end of December, we have not once

received any letters from him. At the same time, the command

of the unit submitted to the case file

a log of outgoing correspondence from

the unit, according to which Ruslan regularly

tries to contact us.

According to Russian Post tracking data, our

letters are not reaching him either. He is allowed to call

only a couple of times from the unit commander’s phone

and, yes, on speakerphone in the

presence of officers. We petitioned

to ensure Ruslan’s appearance here in court

in Arkhangelsk, but his appearance was not

secured. Now

the judge has ordered this sort of procedural

anomaly: an off-site court hearing on

the territory of the military unit. Now I

must go there, to the territory of Novaya

Zemlya. Today I will fly there together with the judge

to Novaya Zemlya on a military aircraft, and later today

late in the evening there will be

a court hearing. This rush is explained by the fact

that we can return only

on that same plane early tomorrow morning

and there is no other way. In any case,

I am glad that this evening I will apparently

see Ruslan, and you can wish

me luck.

So, you saw what our lawyer recorded

in Arkhangelsk. I very much hope that

Alexei has in fact managed to get onto that

military flight. A military plane was specially sent there

and is flying to Novaya Zemlya

to take the judge and our lawyer there and

to hold an off-site hearing on

the territory of the military unit. In general, such a

thing simply cannot exist in principle

it is completely out of the question, it cannot

exist.

There is not the slightest reason for it. Obviously,

it would have been much easier to bring him

to Arkhangelsk, as is normally required

to be done. But no—specifically so that

you would learn nothing

and hear nothing, what is happening will take place

at a hearing specifically on Novaya Zemlya. But I

hope that Alexei Molokoedov will get there

and that no

bears eat him on the way, and that we will find out what is happening with

Ruslan.

I see that we have received several similar questions

about this. For example, Innokenty

asks:

“Regarding the FBK case, they have started

summoning ordinary people who previously donated

money to you. What do you think they are

trying to achieve?” Also, Sanya from Yaroslavl

asks: “Alexei, please comment on

Meduza’s report that FBK sponsors

are being called in for questioning.”

There is nothing new here. I hope that you, the

wonderful people who support

FBK and send us money

after all, everything exists on your money

will not be afraid of this nonsense. This

has been going on for quite a long time. The first time

it happened was in 2012 and 2013

when I basically announced that

our organization, which at the time

was simply called RosPil (an anti-corruption project), and my

work would be financed

simply by people’s donations, and we

received our first several million

rubles, after which the Kremlin said: no,

that can’t be, several million rubles?

Back then no one was raising money like that; now everyone

raises money this way, but crowdfunding was

still rare then, and of course the Kremlin said that they did not

believe it—there must be some shadowy oligarchs

who, through a large number of

People under their control are sending money.

to Navalny, and then they interrogated them afterward.

for the thirteenth year of my supposedly vile organization.

literally thousands of people. First of all, across the entire

were interrogated.

Second, they asked them to write

a statement saying that I had, essentially,

fraudulently tricked them out of

that money. To this day, I am still very

proud that not a single one of those people

wrote such a statement, and several years later

they had to specifically

hire a crook who transferred

some money and then immediately filed

a complaint saying that we had deceived him

so it would be easier for the police to deal with us there.

Here they are doing the same thing.

They are sending people a notice. You can

first of all, not go at all and ignore that

piece of paper — nothing will happen. You

can also go and simply say:

"Leave me alone. Under Article 51, I’m not going to tell you anything"

or you can

tell it exactly as it is: I

transferred 500, 200,

100,000 rubles to Navalny, fully within my rights (about 1,100 USD).

Just say it like it is. We have

nothing to hide, and as I understand it,

right now all these FSB goons (FSB, Russia’s security service) and various

police officers

— in other words, this whole gang of idlers and

crooks — somehow has to

report back to Putin and say what they’re

doing. They went around telling everyone

that supposedly we have some kind of

secret foreign funding, and now they need

to show results. So now they simply have to

try to build a case for their

theory that we are funded by some

single huge sponsor. But again, they

will come to many people, I think, and those

many people will say: yes, I really

did send 100 rubles (about 1 USD) because they

really did send 100 rubles,

because indeed the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation)

and our entire structure, our network of headquarters,

is funded through donations.

And I have never taken a single kopek of that

money, and there has always been a Chinese wall

between the money you

donate and any of my personal

funds, and they will not be able to prove anything.

And once again they will simply lie on television.

So don’t be afraid of anything, and keep

supporting us. 45,000 people are watching

us live right now.

I can see Vitaly Kolesnikov, taking advantage of

his official position, writing on

Twitter: let’s tell the viewers about

the Russian courts. My case with Vitaly

Kolesnikov ended this week — his

well, sort of ended temporarily; he will continue

to litigate. You probably remember his court case.

The Kolesnikov case was about the fact that

Vitalik is one of our video

operators and editors. When you watch my

videos on the main channel and all those

funny or not-so-funny things pop up on screen,

Vitalik is one of the people

who does that. And something unpleasant

happened to him: he had

an apartment.

Somewhere in the Moscow region, he

sold it, and instead of immediately putting the money

in the bank,

he made the "smart" decision to keep it at home

for two days, and at exactly that moment

they came to search his home and took from him

800,000 rubles (about 8,800 USD) that were lying

there somewhere, hidden under a pillow.

Vitalik has all the documents:

the apartment ownership certificate,

proof of the apartment sale, the purchase agreement,

a paper showing that he

received the money and from whom, and

Vitalik took all those papers and went to

court, and for several months he fought for a hearing,

and then — bang — the court said:

the investigator has deemed your money

material evidence, therefore

it doesn’t matter that your name

doesn’t appear there anywhere, that it isn’t linked to you, that you

have all the documents — still, your

money will not be returned to you. A perfect example

of how, in principle, from anyone in our

country, absolutely anything can be taken away.

If you are not Vitaly Kolesnikov but a person

who sold a factory or a large

apartment, or for any other reason

some crook and thief in the authorities

or the security services knows that you can have

a million, a billion, or, I don’t know,

300 rubles taken from you — they can just as easily

come, take it, and then

the judge will say: the investigator deemed it

material evidence. Let’s talk

about what I think was the most high-profile video

this week. It was that

meeting between Putin and a woman with a disability

who asked him a question about whether, on a pension,

it is possible to live on 10,000 rubles (about 110 USD). It is

very symbolic, and that is why I wrote it

on my cup. That

dialogue had enormous, enormous resonance,

and it has been very interesting to watch.

And you know what I thought? That the Kremlin

with this whole thing about

the Constitution is making one big,

important mistake that is quite

advantageous for us. They need

to lure people in so that they

come and vote for the amendments

that will give Putin more power.

But nobody wants to give Putin more power.

So how are they supposed to attract

people to this referendum? They say:

you know, you are all so poor,

as it turns out, so let’s put into the Constitution...

guarantees that this will be done for you

the indexation of pensions, and in any case the indexation of

wages, or that your salary must

be no lower than the subsistence minimum, they

thought

and probably still think that this is

a great idea, and people will come and

vote in order to be less

destitute and less poor, and people

really will come and vote, and

this deception will work. However,

things turned out differently, because what they

did was come out and tell the whole country that we

already knew, something everyone understands perfectly well, but

this was, in effect, said out loud for the first time:

the whole country is poor, and we need to put into the

Constitution something that

would make us less poor. And they expected

that everyone would start bowing and kissing

their feet, but people are saying: we’re not beggars.

So maybe let’s discuss why

we are poor. And in that sense, this woman—

watch the video, let’s watch it again—

let’s look: she quite energetically

and rather bluntly, boldly, is shouting something there,

then she approaches Putin and very clearly, not by accident,

asks: please explain, how are we supposed to live

on these 10,000 rubles (about 100 euros / 110 US dollars), and around

this, in fact, right now

the main national

debates are unfolding. And that is very good, because

there is still no answer to the question of why, after 20 years

of Putin’s rule, a disability pension is

10,000 rubles (about 100 euros / 110 US dollars), and how is anyone supposed to

live on that? Let’s take a look.

Here, you try living on 20,000, and then—

[fragment unclear]

[music]

as you know from... you know who. [fragment unclear]

go to the store and buy food with that money

that is not

...thousands... the minimum... [fragment unclear]

and then there are children... [fragment unclear]

I don’t understand about the children, so

right now this program... [fragment unclear]

then, of course, accounting... I

what’s really striking is that this still

turns into something that I quite

understand—it’s just not simply difficult, it’s

I try, but not very often... [fragment unclear]

used it, started to learn

but less than two sheets... I was mistaken [fragment unclear]

someone was being coddled

sitting here together with us, and not... [fragment unclear]

2,700... could you live on that amount?

thousand

why is that the ceiling? If you don’t want to, you didn’t pay... [fragment unclear]

of course, and the specificity of the fact that

to move on

what a revealing dialogue that answer was

So then, could you live on that? Well,

of course not. And this is being said to him

by a woman who quite clearly had not prepared for anything

at all. But notice:

she is not afraid, and she quite

clearly asks the question: could you? And what is your

salary? “18,000,” the woman says to him, and

Putin says: yes, of course mine is higher

but there are salaries that are even higher. She

says, of course, you can’t live on that

And this is very important. Putin, of course,

is not as stupid as Medvedev (former Russian president and prime minister); he does not

say to this woman, “You know, ma’am,”

“3,800... because there’s no money. Well, in general, you

hang in there, there’s no money right now”

So instead, in a quiet, more

sympathetic voice, without idiotic smiles,

he says: yes, it’s impossible to live on that.

Yes, it’s impossible to live on that, and all of this

started being discussed because, because

the Kremlin suddenly decided to discuss it and

decided it was a good idea. Excellent—if

they want to discuss wages,

this is exactly the right time for it. All this

this

fuss around the Constitution and their grand lie

that something needs to be written into the Constitution

and then life will get easier—that’s a great topic

for discussion. Here they are luring pensioners

with the promise that, come on, let us have

a minimum wage that will be no

lower than the subsistence minimum. And then

journalists ask Peskov (Putin’s press secretary) today:

all right, the subsistence minimum—

but the subsistence minimum is, like,

10,000 rubles (about 100 euros / 110 US dollars). Can you live on that subsistence

minimum, our dear mustachioed Peskov? And now

Peskov says, you know, when he is

asked that question, “that question no longer

falls within my remit.”

“I will not answer it. This question

is rather rhetorical.” No, it is not

rhetorical. Twenty-two percent of our citizens

live below the poverty line; for them this is

absolutely not a rhetorical question.

They earn less than

the minimum wage.

This is not a rhetorical question. And it is

good that this is happening, even in such a

spontaneous way. These are exactly the kind of

debates that need to be forced onto all these people.

It is very interesting that all sorts of

show-business figures—they need

love, of course. What the authorities need most

is, of course, love. The authorities do not need

money, but they do seem to need

popular affection, and therefore

once in a while, every many years, they

end up saying something truthful.

And into these debates about poverty stepped

the well-known TV host Yakubovich,

who caused quite a mini-scandal because

he said a fairly simple thing,

addressing the labor minister, something like:

I have 23,000 rubles (about 230 euros / 250 US dollars), which is actually a very large

pension, by the way. How am I supposed to live on

that—on these 23,000? Maybe the labor minister

could try living on it—and then the labor minister...

He says something in response, and as for persuading Yakubovich...

to try it himself, and then, basically, "go to hell"...

"to hell with you, live on my pension, that's all."

People applauded Yakubovich, forgetting, by the way,

unfortunately, that one of the

reasons why Yakubovich and everyone else

Yakubovich — 23,000

while everyone else gets much less — that's one

of the reasons, and Yakubovich himself, in fact,

because he recorded videos like this

quite recently. Still, let's

spitefully remind one another of them. I

can put it this way: there is no alternative. But who

can you place beside him? Put any public figure next to him and

say: either this one or that one — and they

ought to be of equal weight, because

unfortunately, there is no equally significant figure.

By the way, I don't feel any urge to raise my

hands and applaud the fact that he agreed,

because the most important thing, in my view,

is finally to bring this country to

stability. This turbulence is beginning

to affect people's mental state, people who

are having a hard time — no one can endure it anymore.

No one understands what is happening. He is at least

some kind of guarantee that perhaps after

some time there will be no more of this

unstable situation. So I, of course,

that's exactly what I support, and

glory...

There is no other alternative, there isn't.

So, Leonid Arkadyevich, you said all

these things, and you understood that you were speaking in

the language of propaganda: there is no other

alternative, we need stability,

Putin — Putin provided stability, and

of course you have huge income from

Channel One (Russia's main state TV channel), but still, with

your stable pension, a very high one of

23,000 rubles (about $250–300 at the time), here you are now sitting and

and in his latest interview comment,

on this subject, I read that Yakubovich

is now literally saying that soon

people are still silent for now, but public unrest

and even revolution could happen because of pensions

like these. You see how it turned out: it seemed

they kept providing, providing

stability, and it seemed to us there was no

alternative. Sure, they stole everything, but still

there was no other figure of comparable scale.

And in the end, what did we arrive at? That

the pension is tiny, and a revolution will happen

not because of some villains,

but because precisely those who were supposed to provide

that stability simply drove the people

into poverty — and a revolution will happen.

And it will happen.

Because people live, they endure,

but they still cannot endure

forever. Sooner or later, all of this

will collapse and go completely to pieces, and our

Vladimir Vladimirovich, what can he

say to that? Well, we saw how he

was telling a woman, yes, yes, yes, "I

really sympathize with you," but in some more official format

he said that this

week, for the 15th time, he said it — for the 15th time, I

on my previous program, on this

topic, was sneering and joking about it.

It seemed as if at some closed-door dinner

he wouldn't say anything like that again, because

not only me — the whole country is laughing at

this. It had been said 14 times, but he did

it a 15th time. Let's listen. Therefore,

I believe that the current composition

of the government has absolutely no one with even a single

minute to waste getting up to speed — that's exactly what

they have no right to do.

He again said that there isn't a single

minute to waste, and this is absolutely,

completely, utterly unbelievable. Not

to mention that they're getting used to it. An update for you in

messages from our lawyer, who

is in Arkhangelsk.

Alexei Molokoedov reports that apparently

he is at the airport. Let's — I haven't

watched this video myself — let's listen. Hi everyone,

Hi, I'm currently standing at Talagi Airport

in Arkhangelsk, and in half an hour — that is, at 7:30 —

I'm supposed to meet here with the judge.

Obviously, the departure will be even later, and given

the estimated flight time to

Novaya Zemlya, which is a little over two

hours, the court hearing itself can only

be held sometime after midnight.

Under these circumstances, I don't really understand

how a sleep-deprived Ruslan will tomorrow

defend the Arctic frontier of our motherland

from northern invaders. Well, there you

have it, that update. I still hope

that our lawyer really will end up on

that remarkable military plane that

will take him to the closed, secret nighttime

court on Novaya Zemlya, on the territory of a military

unit, and so on.

Good Lord, I hope Molokoedov ultimately

makes it there, and that tomorrow we won't learn that he

was brought there only to

get lost and be drafted into the army too, in exchange

for an important legal case — we don't even know.

Does Molokoedov have a deferment from service or not?

They simply won't let him leave Novaya

Zemlya afterward, and that's how they'll gradually lure everyone

in — all our lawyers will go there

to litigate and be transported there, and then

gradually a whole unit will be assembled there

out of FBK staff. So, Pasha Bulakhov

asks me: if I transferred 500

rubles while being in America, would that

count as foreign interference? Pasha,

if you are a Russian citizen and you have

an account in a Russian bank, it doesn't matter where you

are located — as a Russian citizen, you have

the right, every right,

to donate to any Russian organization.

We would be very glad if you did that.

If you also have an account in a Russian bank,

if you try to do it through

if it's a foreign bank, then unfortunately we won't be able to

accept that money, because, well,

because we simply won't be able to

be sure that you are a Russian citizen.

But if you have a Russian passport, you

have every full right to

donate to whomever you want. Vovka,

they're asking about some strange developments in

the Golunov case: one person is accusing, another is

denying the accusations. I'm stocking up on popcorn.

In the Golunov case, indeed, one of the

police officers has testified. We

understood all along that the police officers

who planted drugs on Golunov

were acting on orders from their superiors,

the police leadership, and the police leadership

received instructions from the FSB (Russia's security service), from people in

the Moscow FSB directorate. And now, at

least, the first link in the chain has started

to unravel, and

the operative planted those drugs

because his boss told him to.

"Plant them." And now they're telling him, basically,

"You'll get five or ten—well, whatever—three years,

however many, they'll lock you up. So

you have to keep quiet." Well, naturally, he

sees that no one is going to save him.

The bosses will wriggle out of it, the FSB people will wriggle out of it,

so he testified and said, yes, I was

told to plant the drugs.

Now it's interesting to see when this reaches a higher

level, when the corrupt police officers

will have to admit

that their sources told them

to plant the drugs. Will there be

a split at that point, and will they give us

testimony? 50,000 people

are watching us live. We've been on air for almost

an hour already, and the main topic

of the day is this:

although in fact this has been discussed since

the beginning of the year: the Kremlin has finally started

bringing in some super-

famous people for its various

political projects, and Sergei Shnurov

has announced that he is joining the Party of Growth,

and everyone is discussing, discussing what

this means. What does it mean? It

means they are afraid

of Smart Voting. They are afraid that

in the State Duma and in the regional

parliaments this coming September

there will appear the kind of people who, in particular,

have already appeared in the Moscow parliament. That's why

—I'll explain later—they are building

a setup so that United Russia

gets more votes, and for that it needs

to create many, many satellite parties.

But first, let's sort of divide the question into two

parts. The question is: what kind of depu-

ties do they not want? They don't want any deputies at all—they

want their own mechanism.

That's why the Kremlin started

frantically trying to stage something. Because, you see,

when the chair of the Moscow

City Court, that villainous auntie I

have often talked about,

on this program, she

comes to the Moscow City Duma, and those deputies

whom you elected, whom we elected with the help

of Smart Voting, they simply

give her a real grilling. Let's

listen again to Deputy Sheremetyev.

I just love

the way he speaks every time when

Yegorova—who, in fact,

everyone used to be afraid of; I showed

a video here once of how they were kissing

her hand—all the United Russia deputies. She

sits there, and the United Russia people come up one by one

to kiss her hand. And then suddenly

people were elected who have absolutely no desire

to kiss anyone's hand. Let's listen. Well,

Deputy Sheremetyev, Alexander. The point is

that under your careful leadership

Moscow justice has turned into

a punitive system.

I am already, in essence, speaking plainly here, so I won't

beat around the bush: you must

resign. You see, the only reason

United Russia still has a shaky

but existing majority is what helps her, helps

save her. It's only thanks to that chair's

position as head of the Moscow City Court.

Otherwise, she would simply have been torn apart there.

But the United Russia members are just blocking all the very

proper questions that are being asked

to Yegorova. And in particular, Stupin did a great

job. Let's first listen to what

question he asked Yegorova, to which

the United Russia member Shaposhnikov allowed her not

to answer. Please, Deputy Stupin. Olga

Alexandrovna, civil activist

Konstantin Kotov was sentenced by Moscow courts

to four years

of actual imprisonment under Article

212.1, for repeated violations of the rules

for holding public events. Do you consider

it lawful to impose a real

prison sentence for taking part in

peaceful demonstrations and

marches, the right to which is guaranteed

to us by Article 31 of the Constitution of the Russian

Federation?

This question is not related to the agenda;

it does not have to be answered.

That was interesting, because

in that situation Shaposhnikov, speaking as

he did, can shut a deputy up and say,

"You don't have to answer his question." But then

our deputy, a normal opposition

deputy, comes to the podium. Let's hear what

he says: a situation in which

acquittals are handed down

by professional judges in less than one

percent of cases, while by juries in 50

percent of cases—in Moscow, I'm talking about now—is

an abnormal situation, accordingly.

to talk about someone admitting guilt

75 percent—well, sure, someone probably does admit it

but in the Network case (a Russian anti-extremism case), we can see how

those admissions of guilt

are obtained—and obtained through torture

you understand? Just read the case materials

about how people’s teeth were crumbling, how

a sock was shoved into their mouths—read it

you understand? Those kinds of

confessions are worthless

those responsible absolutely must be put on trial, even if not yet

the people from whom these statements were extracted, you understand

and the time will come when they will be convicted, so

I ask that you stop referring to these 75

percent of confessions; we

have seen perfectly well, especially in the

Network case, how they obtain them. Thank you.

Stupin is the deputy’s last name, by the way, from

the east—elected there, where it seemed that in eastern

Moscow

it seemed that absolutely no

opposition candidate could ever get through, but nevertheless

he got through, and he tells it like it is

he’s absolutely right—they’re not just

going after Shnur (Sergey Shnurov, Russian musician); they’ll pay whatever

money to whoever they need, just to keep people like this

from getting in, just so there won’t be

deputies who, well, who come down

to the people’s level, come down

to the level of ordinary people—that’s the wrong way to put it, wrong

expression

they connect with the people. So today I

just decided to take a look—I thought, where are the deputies now?

I’m going to talk about it on the program

and compare United Russia members and opposition politicians

what these opposition politicians are actually doing

I go on Instagram—Teplova, Inga, what’s going on with her?

she’s got photos there—they’ve basically taken over

and are holding the builder’s vehicles hostage, well

I mean, these people are genuinely doing the work of deputies

not afraid to sit there all night because in

somewhere in her district, within her constituency

on land meant for a children’s facility, they allocated

the land to some developer—sure, allocated the land

supposedly for the construction of

a kindergarten, and of course on that land

they’re building some huge

massive elite apartment building. She sits there all night

together with everyone else, sitting in a car

keeping watch. Of course they’re afraid of deputies like that

I wrote to Inga and asked her

to record a short comment for our program

a brief comment about what

is happening, just so that

well, so that once again we could see the kind of

deputies they’re afraid of, and what great

deputies you and I elect with the help of

Smart Voting (an opposition tactical voting strategy). Meanwhile

today in Moscow—well

now in our fight against infill development

it’s not only residents who are being beaten, but

even deputies of the Moscow City

today at Michurinsky 30B, defending

the residents, I

and a deputy of the Moscow City Duma

Yevgeny Super

people are fighting against infill development

people have the right to do that—why aren’t they being

heard by officials? Yes, now we have

deputies who defend people, who

stand with the people, and it doesn’t matter if they beat us

throw us to the ground, drag us around—we will stay with

the residents, we will defend them anyway

and

try to change the situation. Everything that

happened today happened right

before the eyes of our valiant police, the Internal Affairs Department

they saw everything perfectly well, heard our

calls and appeals to stop these

violations, to stop this

beating, when construction vehicles drive

into people. Several people

have been hospitalized, one with serious injuries

with a suspected spinal injury

some kind of lawlessness is happening

I have no other words for it. At least now

deputies have started to look like normal

people. You look at this deputy

and you understand—she’s just like everyone else, lives in the

building next door. People got together there

nominated her and elected her as a deputy, and

now as a deputy she is exactly the same as

before, sitting through the night together with everyone else in

a car in order to block

construction equipment that, instead of

a kindergarten, wants to build an elite

apartment building. Of course they hate deputies like that

and as for explaining what kind of

deputies they are—damn, of course I also

want to say something about the wonderful deputy

Bondarenko, a frequent guest here

a really great, cheerful guy who

just today—today was really

just

what you’d call absolutely on fire in his

city duma—well, no, in the Saratov

Saratov Regional Duma. Sorry.

The United Russia members decided to do

the same thing they actually did

with the Moscow deputies

changes to the rules under which they

simply won’t be able to say anything—they

are trying to shut him up, and today

Deputy Bondarenko won a victory over

all the United Russia deputies—he didn’t let them

adopt those rules. Let’s take a look

at what happened. Friends, hello everyone, my name

is Nikolai Bondarenko. This whole saga with

United Russia’s attempt to adopt a new

set of rules that would

deprive us, the Communist deputies in the Saratov

Regional Duma, of virtually all

powers, ban us from speaking, and

simply not give us the chance to so much as

open our mouths—this whole story has reached

its logical conclusion. We brought this issue

to the Saratov Regional Duma. I don’t

know—they must have thought that we would

to put up with being slapped in the face

and turn the other cheek—but no way,

that’s not going to work. Every attempt to shut us

up will be met

with the utmost fury and

outrage on our part. Igor, that

case was, of course, no exception.

Well, hello everyone.

So, they basically wouldn’t let us through—look at the colleagues

deputies and all that. We’ll see, let’s see

how much pressure you can put on

the rules. In April, they brought banners and a megaphone

and blocked the podium, but that’s exactly what

created an atmosphere in which

even the United Russia members (the ruling party) simply realized that

they couldn’t vote like that, because

their opponents—in this case,

the Communists—were not going to sit quietly like

they used to.

There’s the formal position: they sit quietly, and their

votes get taken away—but they don’t even need that, because

they stay silent. But these people can’t be silenced, and so

we need to elect more deputies like that, to make sure

they become the majority.

And that is exactly what United Russia is terribly afraid of. 52

thousand people are watching us live,

and here’s the explanation. Basically,

the question is: why would Sergei Shnurov

get in the way of people like Bondarenko and others

being elected? Well, because,

what’s so bad about Sergei Shnurov?

Nothing bad. I’m not blaming Sergei Shnurov.

At the beginning of the program, I said that he

supported the residents of Krasnoyarsk. We’ll judge

Sergei Shnurov by his actions. It’s just—

look, this isn’t so easy to explain

to a broad audience, but each of us needs to

understand it.

I may even record a video for the main

channel explaining why the Kremlin is

doing this now. It’s very important for them to

register several small

parties so that those parties

get 3–4 percent each. Why? The State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament)

is formed from single-member districts, where

you vote for a candidate by name, and from party

lists. Party lists are basically

like a pie—imagine a pizza

that gets divided up: this slice goes to the Communists,

this one to United Russia, this one to the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), and this one

to some small-time guys. But

there’s a 5 percent threshold. So this

fairly significant part of the pizza

gets into the State Duma only if

it cleared that 5 percent mark.

And what happens to all the other votes?

They get redistributed in such a way that

most of them go

to the winner—and the winning party, the one that

gets the most votes, as expected,

will be United Russia.

It’s fairly complicated math, I repeat.

Maybe I’ll describe it

in a separate video, but overall everyone should understand that

it benefits United Russia if there are lots of

unallocated votes. If there are 10

parties that each get 4 percent,

that’s an ideal situation for them, because

then as much as 40 percent of the seats will be

distributed in such a way that

United Russia gets the biggest share of them.

That’s why they now need to create

various parties that we’ll be talking about,

and then we’ll go and vote for

them. It works in practice too:

there seem to be normal guys there, and Shnurov too,

not some controlled puppet, supposedly—and yet

several such parties have already appeared.

A special controlled party has even been created

for those anti-Putin

patriots. That party is headed by

Zakhar Prilepin.

Let’s watch a few seconds—here

he is talking about this movement, “For Truth.”

It seeks power, strives for power,

has a right to power. I’ll even venture to say that

we are better than the authorities,

brighter than the authorities, angrier than the authorities, kinder

than the authorities—we’re like that.

Thank you. All right.

So there you have it: a party that is better

than the authorities, headed by Zakhar

Prilepin. He’s a decent enough person, a writer; I’ve

known him for many years, and at one point I even

worked with him on an organization.

Recently, by the way, I even called him

because he sits on the public council

under the Ministry of Defense, and I asked him to somehow

help with Svidetelny (unclear name) so that at least a letter

could start being passed along.

He wasn’t able to help—or maybe

I don’t know, I won’t lie, maybe he didn’t even try

to help, or maybe nothing came of it—but

in any case, this kind of party is being created:

a patriotic one. Obviously it won’t get 5 percent,

but whatever it does get

will help United Russia slightly increase

its share. Then another party was created,

called Direct Democracy, and the members of this

party will mess with the heads of people who

spend their time online. They say,

we’re the party of the internet.

It’s headed by the guy who made the game

*World of Tanks*, which millions of people play.

It’s probably a good game—I haven’t played it myself—but

they’ll try to lure those

people in too and pick up some

votes. Obviously, 5 percent is

far too much—they won’t get that—but once again

they’ll increase the number of mandates that

will be distributed mostly in favor of

United Russia. And today we saw

Sergei Shnurov, who for some reason joined

the Party of Growth. What is the Party of Growth? Well,

the thing the Party of Growth is best known for,

is that famous video. And

Titov—that’s the very man

who heads the Party of Growth, and his

the absolutely legendary video where he

flew over Moscow on a chair. Let's

remember that. Hello,

I am addressing you, Muscovites, people who are

active, independent,

professional,

with a proposal to become municipal

deputies. After all, the September 10 election has only

just ended, and the next one is already coming, but

this is a municipal election, which means it is also

the most important one. Almost 3,000 people are writing

and watching us live, and the question is:

can these hellish freaks

get even anything at all — what, five

percent, at least 2 or 3 percent? Of course

not. Could Sergei Shnurov — well, people may feel

differently about him, but at

the very least he is definitely not the kind of person

who dreams of joining some party

and getting 2 percent along with it. No

way. Could he have simply joined it

just like that? Of course not. Of course, this

strange spectacle that we saw, where

he shows up at the Party of Growth meeting,

they introduce him there — clearly,

Shnurov was paid a lot, a lot — in money and

maybe some medals too, I don't know what they could

have promised him. It's unlikely he wants to be the host of a

show on Channel One like Ksenia Sobchak.

I think Shnurov simply took the money

and after some time will release a song

about how he fooled everyone, how they are all

idiots, while he made 10 million

dollars or 20 million dollars. Let's

take a look, after all, at this strange

little scene at the political council where Shnurov says:

"I'll be useful to you."

The life of my

has taken such a strange turn that, in

my view, in the form of the Party of Growth, I

think I can be useful to you.

Absolutely, at the very least, down below

I can add bright colors, call things by their names, pay

the fines — with me it will clearly be

more fun. The general idea is that it will clearly be

more entertaining here: over there are the gloomy patriots, while

here there are some ecologists — they've already made

a fake environmental party,

where they brought in that internet artist Vasya

Lozhkin, who is supposed to attract

attention to these underground ecologists. And then

there's this cheerful Shnur (Shnurov), who will

curse somebody out and somehow make five

percent. This setup, too, most likely

won't get there. And if the authorities see

that they are crossing the five-percent

threshold,

then of course they will stop them by some

methods — and we know what kind of methods those are —

so that

Shnurov, too, pulls all of us by about 4

percent, 4.5 percent, and

just does a little work for United

Russia. How should we feel about this? Should we

denounce Sergei Shnurov, call him all sorts of

names? Well, no, there is no reason yet

to denounce him. A person should be judged by deeds.

So far, Sergei Shnurov...

Well, we should probably say: Sergei,

what are you doing in the company of the Party of Growth and

Titov? That's rather strange.

What we can denounce Shnurov for is that he

really did engage in outright

political prostitution when

he worked for Sobyanin's campaign, and when

Sobyanin was buying up absolutely every celebrity,

Shnurov sold out too and recorded

some absolutely disgusting,

vile clips. Let's remember that too,

and for that, Shnurov of course should be

condemned.

[music]

[music]

It's nauseating, absolutely — a song and unquestionably

a shameful stain on Shnurov's biography. Well,

the man simply couldn't resist. Here, for the sake of

fairness, it should be recalled that in this

campaign even Semyon

Slepakov took part, who by all appearances is a very

good person and does good

things, but he couldn't resist the money either. And so

Shnurov recorded this thing, and Slepakov

then answered him with his own song, and all of it

worked together for Sobyanin. It was all

quite revolting. All of it was

paid for with money stolen from us.

Well, fine, that happened. We understand that

Shnurov is music, musicians sing

for money, including for all sorts of

unpleasant people. But in principle, he did

stand up for the residents of Krasnoyarsk,

and maybe tomorrow he will say something

about political prisoners — that's good too.

That is a kind of permitted topic.

And in the near future, in fact, you and I will

see a whole parade of rather

unexpected people, and people whom we

might consider decent, or at least not

completely awful, who say

some normal things and who, within the

zone of permitted criticism — permitted

criticism means that you can say that

things in the country are bad, and

you can also say, in the harshest form,

that you support political prisoners,

speak in their defense — that is a permitted topic,

an important topic.

Very well, let them speak out at least

within the bounds of this permitted space. For example, they are

not allowed to speak in favor of what

those who are now

political prisoners stood for. For example, you cannot

advocate for free elections, you cannot

speak up for the reasons why people in the

Moscow Case (the criminal prosecutions following the 2019 Moscow protests) took to the streets.

But defending them is apparently allowed, and I think

this whole crowd will defend them,

say generally good things, and

All of this will be aimed at making sure that you and I

spend less time, so to speak, thinking about Smart Voting

and how to defeat United Russia

(the ruling pro-Kremlin party), how to make sure United Russia

is gone, and more time thinking, well,

Shnurov seems to be saying sensible things,

he’s eccentric, let’s vote for Shnurov—and then

United Russia says: these guys should

go ahead, vote.

He’ll get 4 percent, and all those votes

will end up benefiting us, because that’s how they

get redistributed. And of course this

is not a simple setup—it’s hard to explain

to people that they need to vote

differently somehow. But still, let’s see.

Maybe he’ll say some very good things.

Maybe tomorrow the Party of Growth

will put some good people on its list—well,

I’m being a little ironic here

on this subject, because of course it won’t.

It’s an utterly corrupt, sellout party, but

let’s not condemn Shnurov and everyone else

ahead of time. It’s just that we

must not let ourselves be fooled.

That’s all. And we need to understand ourselves, and

explain to others why all this is being done.

This whole scheme, by the way—Meduza

wrote about it on January 10, at the beginning of this

year. They published a very direct article

saying that the Kremlin is creating pro-Kremlin

parties, and among the leaders they wanted to see

Shnurov. I’m sure we’ll expose this, of course.

Of course they won’t succeed. A new

Shnur, Vanya—somehow they bought them, they’ll buy

many more different people. I’m expecting, of course,

some kind of women’s party, and there will be

some respectable women there speaking up for women’s

rights with a feminist agenda.

There will definitely also be some kind of

human rights party, one hundred percent—you’ll see.

They’ll buy off someone from among those who

were involved in the Moscow Case (the prosecutions tied to the 2019 Moscow protests), or

some supposed victim—something along those lines.

Maybe their parents, or someone from each group.

Look—politicians.

Let’s vote for them, because, well,

sure, they’re basically puppet parties, but still,

they do seem like politicians. That’s the kind of

cynical trick that will one hundred percent

definitely be used, I think.

There will also be some environmentalists popping up,

some other pseudo-opposition figures

will appear too, absolutely, because

the Kremlin needs lots of parties.

It will be interesting to watch. These

people—Shnurov and all the others—need to be

used, so to speak, so that

they say the right things. But if they’ve

said they’re going into politics, then let them at least

say something. So far, unfortunately, Sergei Shnurov

started disappointing people right from day one.

Very badly disappointing them. For example, he

deleted from his Instagram—I saw that

Open Media wrote about it—all of his

critical poems. You remember, there were

some great ones—he wrote poems about the guarantor

(a common ironic reference to Putin), about pension reform, about Putin.

And today it turned out that after he announced

that he was joining the Party of Growth and going into the elections,

he somehow went and deleted them.

Those critical poems were

fairly mild, harmless even, but still

he deleted them anyway. It was probably

part of the deal: we’ll give you not

this much money, but this much money

if you delete everything. Unfortunately, Shnurov

fell for it, but

I think he shouldn’t have done it, because

after all, his audience is the audience

he’s counting on.

They sense all this pretty clearly, and

of course over Sergei Shnurov—and over his

participation, and indeed over the participation of all

such people—throughout the whole time while they’re

trying to run in

the elections, there will hang, so to speak,

Sergei Shnurov’s own song, which has already

And today that was also such a

disappointing move, such a

disappointing act by Shnur—he

publicly declared that he was disavowing

that famous song of his about

elections. But I want to say to Sergei: Sergei,

that song—and especially the ending of that song—in

this situation, you won’t be able

to disavow it. You’ve only made it all

that much more relevant, even more relevant. We

very much want normal people

and normal candidates to take part in elections.

But what the Kremlin is doing is exactly what

you sang about. And at the end of the program, please take

your children away from your blue—in this case,

black—screens. Let’s remember

how brilliantly Sergei Shnurov described

exactly what the Kremlin is doing now:

The great day has come, I

was handed a ballot, I take it and

mark an X—I vote against them all.

[music]

I’m playing out of the flame.

[music]

I’m not choosing you.

[music]

The voting is underway.

[music]

Elections. Candidates.

Someday we will definitely achieve

a situation where there are normal

candidates in elections. And to Sergei Shnurov

I wish that he would conduct himself in politics in such a way

that we could support him without any hesitation

through Smart Voting, and we would certainly

be happy to do that if he turns out to be

a decent deputy. See you

a decent candidate first. See you

next Thursday. Bye.

[music]