Text version
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And now, without much introduction, Alexei.
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Navalny: Hello, everyone. Welcome to
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the first rally in my experience held in
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the woods. The weather is not bad, but if we are here
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in the woods, that probably means something
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not very good is happening in our country overall.
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Can you hear me all right? Yes. And see me? Yes. Well,
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if you want, I can climb up on the fence. No need.
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Well, I really hope I do not
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fall off it. But if that happens, it will be
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the first victim of the Yarovaya Law
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(a package of anti-terror laws associated with Irina Yarovaya). First, I have a question for you.
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How many of you even know Yarovaya, are acquainted with
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her, have seen her in person? Anyone? Yes?
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Well, I see a couple of people have.
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Has anyone talked to her? I know Yarovaya very
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well. For many years, I was in the same
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party as she was. It was called
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the Russian Democratic Party Yabloko
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(a liberal political party). I was in the same party as her. I remember
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very well the congress at which she was
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elected deputy to Yavlinsky. Yarovaya
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would come up to the podium and say:
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"I hate Putin. I hate United
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Russia," and the hall would say, "Well done, well done!"
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Irina Yarovaya would say,
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"United Russia invited me to join them, but I did not go,"
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and the hall would tell her, "My God, what a blessing,
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Irina Yarovaya, we will elect you deputy
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chair of the party," and they did, because
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she was the kind of woman who was, well,
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at that
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congress, very anti-Putin. She
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hated Putin, she hated United
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Russia.
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Now she hates... But it turns out that
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there is only one thing she loves. What is it?
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Money. What happened to
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Yarovaya is an act of what? It is an act of
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political— Exactly right. But what is
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striking about this act of political
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prostitution is that there is the woman,
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there are the clients, and all of us are the ones paying for it.
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That is why
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[applause]
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we will be paying for this political
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prostitution. Today, in the post where I invited people
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to this rally, I posted
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photos from similar rallies in Hungary.
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There, people came out several times and
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forced the government to repeal a law like this.
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There was a great slogan there: "We do not
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earn as much as you
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steal." The same can be said
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here too. Yes, we will never earn enough
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to satisfy your appetites. No amount of money
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will ever be enough
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for that. Anton Nosik spoke here about
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the figures, about the amount of money
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the Yarovaya Law will bring someone. It is 57
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trillion
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rubles
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(roughly hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars). Will this rally here in the woods
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stop them?
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So far, everything we have done is not even
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funny to Shuvalov's dogs flying on a
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private jet—they would not even give that up
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because of this, not now. But the point is
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this:
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life does not end tomorrow.
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And I want to, well, I do not know,
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upset you or tell you this:
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for many of those who, after every
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rally, after every setback,
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get upset, worry, or start
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writing that everyone is scattering, everyone is leaving,
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the country has no future, and so on—well,
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my friends, you can write whatever you want,
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but you are not going
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anywhere. You will still remain here, and
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we will all be gray-haired old people, and still
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we will remain here, in our country,
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because we do not have another one. And in fact,
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we do not want another country. So
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there is no point at which we have
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lost. We lose only
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when we stop our
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struggle. On the way here,
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I looked on Wikipedia and read the article
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"Protest movement in
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Russia"—that is the article's official title.
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Wikipedia says: "Protest movement of 2011–2013."
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Do you understand? That is it—the protest movement
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is supposedly over. But you are here.
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I have not stopped my protest
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movement. I have a question for you: have you
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stopped your protest
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movement? "We have not even started yet." There, that is
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the right answer. My protest movement
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is always with me, and this protest movement
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will not stop until this country
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lives normally and fairly, the way
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it is meant to live, the way we all deserve.
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That same Wikipedia article lists
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the rallies. So
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tell me, who knows how many rallies there were
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in total during the protest
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movement in Moscow and other major cities?
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How many?
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A hundred? No—20 rallies. Just 20 rallies. We
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held only 20, and already everyone is lamenting,
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writing, "My God, nothing
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worked out for us." But do you really think
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anyone is going to give up trillions of rubles
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overnight? And Kirill Shamalov, Putin's son-in-law, the youngest
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billionaire in Russia—will he give up
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his status as the youngest billionaire in
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Russia because of 20
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rallies? I am ready to hold 20 more, I am ready
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to hold 200. As I said at one of the
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rallies, I have not changed my position. I
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am ready to go to them as if going to work.
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Maybe that is the price.
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Freedom is never won for free. So far,
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you and I cannot exactly say that
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we have overworked ourselves, right? Many of us—some
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of us have paid for these rallies with our
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freedom; some have paid with their
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with our lives. But for the most part, most of us
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have simply shown up at rallies 20 times
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and said: that is not enough
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for freedom to
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it is enough to defeat that
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very real Mafia. And I do not mean that
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in a figurative sense, I am not just saying it like that.
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A mafia: our Prosecutor General's Office is tied to
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the Tsapok gang, our Investigative Committee
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covers for Shakro Molodoy (a Russian crime boss), and in our
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Central Bank, as we found out today,
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there are people from the Tambov gang.
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Our country's president is from the Taganskaya group—I'm being
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corrected. Sorry, I got it wrong—from
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the Taganskaya gang. Our... is connected with
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These are real bandits in the literal
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sense of the word, and fighting them will be
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hard. Quite possibly, it will take a long time.
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But we have no other country and no other place
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to go.
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That is why we must return to the streets, one way
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or another. Whether there are many of us or few of us,
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if there are many of us, it will happen faster; if there are
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few of us, it will take much longer,
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and it will be scarier. But everything depends only on us
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ourselves. I am ready to go back to the streets. Tell
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me: are you, are you
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ready? Well, that's all. To be honest, I
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for most of my... People think that
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I have mostly spoken in front of audiences of
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thousands, but for most
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of my political life—and the journalists
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who have known me for many years know this very
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well—I spoke at rallies where there were
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12 people, 20 people, four
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people. There were pickets in the early days, in 2007,
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2008, and 2009. The political
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situation for the opposition
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movement was far worse than it is now. I
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could not even dream of a rally of this
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size. Everything depends on us. There is
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nothing that will put back into our pockets
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the money they steal from us except us
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ourselves. In closing, I want to say: we have
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a popular slogan, "Russia will be free."
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Today, let's say a different slogan: "We will make
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Russia free." Thank you very much. We
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will win.
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[applause]