Text version
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Hi, this is Georgy Albburov. Anyone in
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Moscow has seen these kinds of cameras on apartment building entrances.
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They can look like this,
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or like this. And these aren’t just
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cameras — they’re a source of pride for Sergei Semyonovich
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Sobyanin. This is Moscow’s
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video surveillance system. Right now, there are about
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200,000 cameras installed, of which 100,000
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are specifically on building entrances.
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Here’s a map of the cameras from the Moscow mayor’s office website.
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On it, every residential district
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of the city now looks something like this.
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These neighborhoods are absolutely packed with
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cameras. It’s impossible to enter a building without
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ending up in the frame. The description on the mayor’s office website
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explicitly says that these cameras
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are installed at a specially
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designated height — at the height of an average
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person,
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170 centimeters (1.7 meters / 5 ft 7 in) — so that it’s easier
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to get a better view of the faces of people entering the building.
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The recordings are then sent to servers
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belonging to the Moscow mayor’s office and stored there.
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Originally, the system was created to
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track down criminals. Say someone
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stole a TV from an apartment — they’d check the
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cameras and find him. But in 2019, without
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any public discussion, the system
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began turning into a system of total
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control over Muscovites. Sobyanin said
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it would be linked to facial recognition
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algorithms, and openly boasted in
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Putin’s presence that such a system
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would be one of the largest in the world,
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rivaled, perhaps, only by
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Chinese systems. And now, speaking
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about facial recognition experiments
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in the metro and entrance cameras:
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they have identified dozens of criminals
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who were wanted, and this year
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we will very soon announce a tender
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for the creation of a large-scale video
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recognition system together with the Ministry
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of Internal Affairs. We are moving toward work that
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will cover
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200,000 cameras. Moscow will have
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one of the largest systems in the world,
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competing with Chinese systems. The principle
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is simple: you approach your building entrance, and
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the system knows that it is
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specifically you. It knows where you live,
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it knows what time you walk your dog, and
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what time you come home from work. Any
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district police officer can upload your
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photo into the system and find out who
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you go to visit on Friday evenings. And this
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system has become one of the favorite pet projects
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of Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin. He
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praises it at every
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opportunity. The facial recognition system,
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combined with the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ database
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of wanted persons, or people
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who have committed crimes, will immediately,
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as soon as someone appears in the city,
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determine that this citizen is the kind of person
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who served time, got out, and lives somewhere
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in some small town — and has come to Moscow. Why?
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Right now, the cameras are being used to monitor
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people who are under quarantine.
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Every day there’s some news story about
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someone being fined for taking out the trash
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or for walking their dog.
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Naturally, since the system is run by
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Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor’s office, and the Moscow
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police, the data from it can be bought on the
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internet.
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Journalists ran an experiment. They
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managed to find a person’s home address
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using the cameras, simply by paying a few thousand
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rubles. Last night I was sent an
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extract from the facial recognition system
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made using my photo. The data
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can be bought right now.
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Any archive from any camera, over several
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days, can be obtained for a very modest
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sum. So the data from the digital
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collars that Sergei
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Semyonovich Sobyanin has hung on us is literally
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available to any lowlife. Here’s one of them
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publishing footage from the camera hanging
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at my building entrance from two weeks ago.
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But besides this system’s complete
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corruptibility, it has another remarkable
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feature:
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it is designed so that no major
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official, security officer, or deputy
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ever gets caught by it, because
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cameras are never installed on their buildings.
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Your entrance in Chertanovo or Bibirevo
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or Yasenevo will get covered with a million cameras,
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plastered with them
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like a Christmas tree with New Year garlands.
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But on buildings where top officials live, the number of cameras
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will be zero.
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Sobyanin will definitely make sure of that.
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Just look.
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An ordinary residential district of Moscow — everything is covered in cameras,
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three or four per building, one per
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entrance. And here’s another building, at
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3 Shvedsky Tupik.
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This is where Sechin’s children, Gennady
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Timchenko, Sergei Lavrov, Konstantin Ernst,
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Alexei Kudrin live. And on this building there are, as you may have guessed,
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zero cameras installed. And here’s another building
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that contains a 1,600-square-meter
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penthouse belonging to Sobyanin’s deputy
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for housing and utilities, Pyotr Biryukov. It also has zero
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cameras. Apparently we just didn’t have enough
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for that one either. And here’s another building: Maly
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Kozikhinsky Lane, 3.
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This is where State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav
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Volodin and former head of the Pension Fund
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Anton Drozdov live, and on it, by an
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amazing coincidence, there are zero cameras. Here’s the building where
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Prime Minister Mishustin’s children own an entire floor made up of
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two apartments, and all the buildings around it are simply
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covered in cameras — but this one has nothing. Well then,
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you may ask, what about Sergei’s own building?
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Semyonovich Sobyanin
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Could it really be that the architect of the surveillance system over
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Muscovites didn't even put up a single
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small camera on his own building—at least
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out of basic decency? No, he didn't. I'll tell you:
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at the building at 12 Roditelskaya Street, where
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camera enthusiast Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin lives,
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former Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika,
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the chairman of the Constitutional Court,
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Zorkin, the family of Alexander Beglov, and
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many other distinguished gentlemen. On this
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building, exactly 0 cameras are installed. I'll even
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tell you that in Moscow there is an entire district
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filled with officials, and by a happy coincidence the cameras
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completely passed it by
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entirely.
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It's called Ostozhenka, or the Golden Mile.
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There is no more expensive district in Moscow.
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Here, Andrei Kostin gave apartments to
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... or Asker-zade; here there is a 1,000-square-meter
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apartment belonging to deputy and former senator
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Fetisov.
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Here is the legendary five-story
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apartment of Igor Ivanovich Sechin. But on their
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buildings, Sobyanin for some reason preferred not
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to install cameras. You see, there is only one single building
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in the upper right corner; for the entire super-
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elite Golden Mile, there were enough cameras
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for only that one, for some reason.
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Well, let's take a closer look at it.
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Apparently Sobyanin looked at it too, was horrified
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by such poverty, and decided that there were definitely no officials
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living there—so he installed as many as three cameras.
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What does all this mean? It means that
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Sobyanin, fully understanding how
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his illegal surveillance system over
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Muscovites works, chose demonstratively not
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to apply it to the most privileged
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among them—officials and Putin's friends. He
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knows that all his subordinates are so
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corrupt that they would sell any recording
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from an apartment entrance. Why, Sobyanin himself
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could probably buy, for 2,000 rubles (about $20), footage of Andrei Kostin
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entering the building arm in arm with Na... or Asker-zade
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arm in arm.
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That would cost, say, 2,500
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rubles (about $30), I think. And for 3,000 they could probably
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hand over all of Alina Kabaeva's movements.
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Just imagine: you have
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a photograph of some official,
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for example Mishustin, and along with it you
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send a couple thousand rubles
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to some unknown person on the internet, and
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five minutes later you receive a list of where
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that person lives—in other words, where
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they show up every day, and where they
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appear in the evenings and on weekends.
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It's an investigator's paradise, and
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Sobyanin understands this perfectly well. That is exactly why
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he built a digital camp for
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you, while for himself and the rest of Putin's
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corrupt cronies he graciously
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switched it off. We demand equal treatment from Sobyanin.
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That is why, Sergei
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Semyonovich, since you have put cameras in
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every building for every Muscovite, then please
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be so kind as to put them on your own officials' building on
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Roditelskaya Street as well.
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Put them on all the other buildings for official
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millionaires too.
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And I urge everyone watching this video
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to take part in Smart Voting (a tactical voting campaign). It's time
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to drive the hypocrites from United Russia
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out of their comfortable bureaucratic chairs.