Text version
0:00
Hi, this is Navalny. I have some
0:02
news for you—both good and bad.
0:05
The good news is that you and I have
0:06
won a small but important
0:08
victory. For many years, the nonprofit
0:11
foundations controlled by Dmitry
0:13
Medvedev published no
0:15
financial reports at all—they hid everything. And despite
0:18
the requirements of the law, well, they simply
0:20
ignored them because they could. Of course, we
0:22
filed complaints, and
0:24
journalists wrote about it, but those efforts were in vain.
0:26
Medvedev did not want you to find out
0:28
how much was being spent on his palaces and dachas (country houses), and he
0:31
didn't show it. But just the other day, by pure
0:34
chance, I happened to wander onto the Justice Ministry website and
0:37
couldn't believe my eyes: all of Medvedev's
1:00
most likely a sharp feeling of sadness and
1:03
maybe even
1:08
hatred. Because no normal
1:11
person can imagine that
1:13
this amount of money, under the guise of
1:17
charity, could be squandered on
1:19
the needs of one person. Yes—what kind of needs?
1:22
Entertainment and hobbies. Let's start with the report of the
1:25
Foundation for the Support of Winter Olympic Sports.
1:27
As a reminder, it is the legal owner of the
1:30
mountain residence in Psekhako.
1:33
691 million rubles (about $11.8 million at the 2016 exchange rate) is the amount spent annually on its
1:36
upkeep. You probably remember the list
1:38
of items we found in Medvedev's hacked
1:40
emails: decanters were ordered there,
1:43
there were housemaids, film-
1:48
... Let's move on: the report of the foundation
1:52
Gradislava—this is Medvedev's dacha in Plyos (a town on the Volga River),
1:55
the Milovka estate. Expenses:
1:58
768 million rubles a year (about $13.1 million). I stress: this is not
2:02
construction, not renovation—this is
2:04
just maintenance. Next report: the foundation
2:07
Sotsgorod. Thanks to Usmanov's efforts,
2:11
we probably know it better than anyone, and on
2:13
its books is the Rublyovka dacha (in Moscow's elite suburban area), a gift.
2:16
718 million rubles (about $12.2 million). And nobody even
2:19
lives in that dacha. As
2:21
Eliseev tells us, they simply maintain it, clean it,
2:24
take care of the grounds, and that costs
2:26
the Foundation for the Support of Socially Significant
2:29
State Projects 718 million rubles. And one more
2:33
main foundation connected to all the
2:37
palaces and dachas and apartments with
2:39
car elevators and everything else—
2:41
that's the DAR foundation. In 2016, it spent
2:45
1.5 billion rubles (about $25.6 million). In our
2:47
investigation, we proved that all these
2:50
four foundations are essentially one and the same:
2:52
one enormous corrupt slush fund
2:55
used to pay for
2:56
Medvedev's purchases. And the manager of this
2:59
charitable empire, banker Ilya
3:02
Eliseev, confirmed it: all four
3:05
foundations are run by him personally. So let's
3:07
add up the figures and see how much
3:09
we get in total. Altogether, the four
3:12
nonprofit foundations spent in a single
3:14
year 3.681 billion rubles (about $62.7 million). Right now,
3:20
anyone who has even a slight idea of
3:22
the state Russian
3:24
charity is in has probably already crawled under
3:26
the table to pick their jaw up off the floor. And for
3:29
those who don't, I'll now explain everything clearly,
3:31
visually, and briefly. I'll venture to suggest
3:34
the following: if I asked you right now
3:37
whether you know any Russian
3:39
charity foundation, you'd think for a moment and
3:41
then answer: yes, of course—the foundation
3:43
run by Chulpan Khamatova, Podari Zhizn (Gift of Life). Everyone
3:45
knows it. And you wouldn't be wrong: it really is the largest
3:47
Russian charitable
3:49
foundation. They have been working for more than 10 years and
3:52
have literally saved thousands of children. You
3:54
have definitely seen ads for this
3:56
foundation, or their events, or maybe
3:59
you've even donated money to it. So—
4:01
do you know how much this foundation spent in
4:03
2016? 2.3 billion rubles (about $39.2 million). That's almost 1.4 billion
4:08
rubles less than Medvedev's foundations. Once again:
4:12
less was spent on saving, treating, and rehabilitating children
4:15
than was spent—by a factor of one and a half—on
4:18
maintaining the splendor of Medvedev's palaces.
4:21
I am amazed, honestly, simply
4:23
amazed that Medvedev's disgusting
4:26
friend Ilya Eliseev even has the
4:28
nerve to give interviews and describe
4:31
what wonderful projects
4:32
his foundations are involved in—what a marvelous
4:35
spa complex with attractions they built
4:37
in Psekhako, or how profitably they swapped plots with
4:41
oligarch Usmanov in
4:42
Rublyovka. If I didn't guess right away and you
4:46
didn't immediately think of the Podari Zhizn foundation, then
4:48
you have almost certainly heard of
4:51
the Rusfond charity foundation. That's the one
4:54
that raises money for treatment via SMS on Channel One (Russia's main state TV channel).
4:56
It also collects money for treating sick people—
4:59
a very well-known, very large
5:00
charitable foundation. From all across Russia,
5:03
people chip in and send text-message donations.
5:05
Their spending in 2016 was 920
5:10
million rubles (about $15.7 million). That's four times less than
5:14
what Medvedev's foundations spent on dachas. Just
5:16
think about that: on decanters, wine, and
5:19
housemaids, four times more than on
5:22
treating children. And if the very head of
5:25
Medvedev's foundations, Ilya Eliseev,
5:28
admits that all four of these foundations are
5:31
essentially just subdivisions of one
5:33
big foundation, then here is the plain
5:37
truth, based on Justice Ministry data:
5:40
the largest charitable foundation in
5:43
Russia, the richest nonprofit foundation,
5:47
is the one that holds title to
5:50
Medvedev's palaces and dachas. By a wide margin, its
5:53
spending is comparable in scale to
5:55
all of Russian charity as a whole. And please
5:58
don't think that Medvedev has
6:00
some separate money of his own, while
6:02
sick children have some other money.
6:04
The upkeep of Medvedev's palaces
6:06
You and I are also paying for their perks.
6:09
We pay for that too. For example, Medvedev.
6:11
leases 40 million square meters of land in the town of Plyos (a small town on the Volga River),
6:16
for 39 rubles a year—you heard that right, 39 rubles.
6:20
That means one thing: the budget of Ivanovo Region
6:23
is not receiving hundreds of millions
6:25
of rubles that could have gone, for example, to
6:27
hospitals. When Alisher Usmanov gives
6:30
Medvedev a palace worth 5 billion rubles,
6:32
then of course he expects somehow to recoup it
6:34
for himself through clever
6:36
tax schemes that will be overlooked
6:39
or another piece of state
6:42
property. Medvedev and his friends
6:44
have built an entire empire of foundations that
6:46
has grown into one of the largest and
6:49
most opaque commercial
6:52
structures, whose main purpose is
6:54
to provide a luxurious life for one
6:56
man. And meanwhile the whole country
6:59
is chipping in by text message for operations in
7:01
Germany because we do not have
7:02
the equipment, while the oligarchs, apparently,
7:05
are chipping in tens of billions for
7:07
palaces for the prime minister, but not for healthcare for
7:09
everyone. And we do not have enough doctors either, because
7:11
the state budget pays them—the people who
7:14
save lives—a pathetic pittance,
7:16
which is simply impossible to live on. And
7:19
their salaries cannot be raised, because then
7:21
Dmitry Anatolyevich (Dmitry Medvedev) will not have 40 million
7:23
square meters of hunting grounds,
7:26
and as we all know, there is no other money. It is bitter for me
7:30
and disgusting to say these words and
7:32
these numbers, but such things must be said and
7:35
spoken about so that there are no
7:36
illusions, so that the vileness of this whole
7:39
corrupt machine—however revolting it is to
7:42
look at it—becomes obvious
7:44
to everyone. Because in a certain sense, this is also
7:47
our failure too, because we
7:49
the people of Russia allowed this to happen. We stayed silent.
7:52
We thought, well, all officials
7:54
steal—so what? Well then, now let us
7:56
all try to fix this together.
8:00
Stop staying silent. Act together. Spread
8:03
the information. I need your signature at
8:05
the link below—add it. Organize
8:07
an anti-corruption rally in your city
8:09
on June 12, or help those who are already
8:12
organizing one. Subscribe to our
8:15
channel—this is where the truth is told.