Putin and Mugabe, a 92,000-ruble salary, and why YouTube matters

[music]

It is 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, which means that here in the studio

on Navalny Live, I am Alexei Navalny, and

to answer all your questions,

ask me whatever is troubling you.

I will tell you the whole truth, absolutely.

You can send me your questions on Twitter

with the hashtag #Navalny2018, and I have

everything set up here, and I will be answering your

questions.

I want to start with 92,000 rubles. That is the

figure that shocked me this

week. Zimbabwe, Putin, Medvedev,

Medvedev running for president again, and other

widely discussed news stories—

but for me personally, all of that faded

completely into the background compared with

the astonishing report on

the socio-economic situation in

the city of Moscow, which was published by Moscow City Hall.

According to this simply mega-

super document, it turns out that

the average salary in the city

of Moscow is 92,000 rubles. I wanted

to discuss this with you, and on that note

let me launch a poll right away

that will run on Twitter as well as

VK and Facebook. It is very

simple.

Whether you live in Moscow or not—

after all, a lot of people from Moscow are watching—

just tell me:

is your salary more than 92,000 rubles or

less than 92,000 rubles? Because I

live in Moscow, and I do interact with, well,

let us say, middle-class people.

Right now I am in a large office center

where there are office workers sitting around

who are probably also considered part of

the middle class, and even here I cannot

say that I see a large

number of people earning 92,000

rubles or more. That is higher than

the average salary at the Anti-Corruption

Foundation. It is higher than the average

salary in our election campaign.

So I am interested, because this

simple math shows that, yes, on the one

hand, we have the salaries of Sechin

and State Duma deputies, and on the other hand

the salaries of people who earn very

little. But for the average to come out to

92,000 rubles, the average salary in

Moscow—

that would mean that every third

person we meet

earns 100,000 rubles, 150,000

rubles. I do not know—maybe I have some

other Moscow or some different social circle, but I do not

see such people in large numbers, and

so I am very interested: do you see them?

Are you one of them? And what do you think

about this report? Officially, that is—

this is not just, you know, some

analysts or political scientists, my favorite

people, writing about it. This is Mosgorstat,

that is, official statistics.

When Mayor Sobyanin and Vladimir Putin

talk about what a wonderful

life they have built in Russia, in

Moscow, they will say that

the average salary in Moscow is 92,000

rubles.

The average salary across Russia, which

is now somewhere around 36,000,

will also be calculated based on

the fact that in Moscow

the average salary is 92,000 rubles. So

let us discuss whether this is true or not, and

also, right away, there is one

great fact there that simply

delighted me. Besides the fact that in Moscow

it is 92,000 rubles—meaning we are rich—

it turns out that from September to January

food prices overall went up by

and guess by how much:

one percent. In other words, they barely went up at all.

A quote from this document has just appeared on the screen.

So almost a year has passed, and you go to the store, and you

go shopping, and you should not

believe your own words, it turns out.

Food in Moscow is not getting more expensive.

Everything has stayed the same, only salaries are

excellent—huge salaries, 92,000

rubles. At the same time, the average salary in the field of

education

is 68,000 rubles, and the average salary in

healthcare is also 68,768

rubles. Some amazing Moscow—maybe

it is located somewhere else. I do not

really understand it, and for me it is very important

to talk about this, because, well, basically

I am running my election campaign with

a fairly simple—some might say

primitive—slogan: I want

everyone's salary to go up. That is actually

the main goal, really, of why a person

should go to the polls, why I am running in

the election: so that there is economic growth, and that

economic growth leads to

all of you having higher salaries. And no matter

what region I go to—you probably know,

those who have been to my meetings or

watched these videos—I ask everywhere,

and I always ask about these very

salaries, and

there has never yet been a case where

the officially reported salaries for a region even

roughly matched what people

say. If the official salary is 35,000, then in any region

people will tell you: the average salary in our

city—not even in the whole region, just in

our city—is 20,000. It is always like that, everywhere.

And in my view—well, I interact with different

people, again: with some in an

office center, with others I sit in a

special detention center—so in my view,

the average salary in the city of Moscow would be

is more likely approaching

more like 45,000 or even 40,000 rubles, but

it definitely does not correspond at all

to that 92 percent mark. Let me

see what you're writing here about getting past 92

92,000 rubles. If there are already any

questions on this topic

so, say 2,000 rubles—what are you going to

do about the enormous salaries, because

officials have huge salaries,

deputies and officials probably

make some kind of major

distortion in these statistics. The

thing is, officials and deputies

should receive high

salaries—though not as high as they are now, of course.

450,000 rubles for a deputy in the State Duma (the lower house of Russia's parliament) is

too much. Another matter is that we all

should be earning decent wages

so that the real average salary

would match this, in my view.

Why does this happen? Russia has a huge

shadow economy. The Russian government

says that a third of the economy is

in the shadow sector, and all these construction workers,

taxi drivers, salespeople—the entire service sector

—a huge number of people receive

gray or black wages, whatever you want to call them, and in any

case those wages are lower than the ones

paid officially, because

who gets an official salary?

People on the state payroll, because

only they, only those organizations,

are in a position to pay those gigantic,

simply gigantic and insane

payroll taxes—the so-called

insurance contributions and insurance fees.

I can see it even from our Anti-Corruption Foundation

during the election campaign: we

pay a gigantic amount of money

in payroll taxes, but we can afford

to do that because you send us money.

We get it just like that—we don't

earn it; you simply send it to us.

So we pay salaries and do it fully

officially, paying taxes in full. But no business owner

can do that. Take any

small business—say, Edik's place. If he paid

everything officially and in full, they'd go bankrupt.

And so this is what happens:

the salaries that go into these statistics are

those of police officers, naturally,

officials, deputies, state companies—all

the various Gazprom and Rosneft (major Russian state-controlled energy companies), and

all the other budget-funded

enterprises and government contractors.

In other words, those who get money from

the state, and for whom it is basically

not all that interesting or important

how much tax is or isn't being paid,

because it's simply money that was sent to them,

and in any case they will spend it and

pay out whatever amount of taxes

is required. This leads to a

massive overstatement of the average

salary across the country by

probably 30 or 40

percent on average, and of course that leads to

the utter meaninglessness of all our

Russian economic statistics. All

this talk about real incomes

of the population—they've been falling for years already,

year after year, but in reality, in terms of actual wages,

they are falling along a much

steeper

line. All the talk about economic

growth, about some kind of investment demand,

and everything else—it is all

calculated on the basis of this 92,000

ruble average salary in the city of

Moscow, and

1 percent growth in food prices.

Let's see what they have there for us,

whether the coordination has already started or not.

So, on Twitter we're being told that 20

percent

earn more than 92,000 rubles, and 80

percent earn less than 92,000

rubles. Quite a wealthy crowd on Twitter.

So please, that 20 percent

of Twitter readers who, who

earn more than 92,000 rubles, please go to

right now—no need to complain—

navalny.com and send us

please

900 rubles toward our election

campaign. Now, on VKontakte (a Russian social network),

7 percent say that they

earn more than 92,000 rubles, and 93

percent earn less than that. Now that sounds

true, that sounds true. Facebook has

similar numbers: on Facebook, 8

percent make more than 92,000 rubles.

[music]

And 92 percent earn less

than 92,000 rubles—that is,

if we assume these people are from Moscow,

of course, then these statistics from the Moscow mayor's office

just don't add up somehow, and

this matches my own sense

of how people in Moscow live, because

these are simply insane statistics. I don't

understand why the Moscow government

has this level of

audacity to publish this and not even

try to say, well, guys, there may

be some distortion here,

some disproportionality. Instead, they actually say

that yes, that's just how it is, that's

really the case, and we're all so rich,

earning 92,000 rubles. This is not

a technical issue, not a technicality at all.

It's not that I'm just nitpicking

statistics or arguing over some data.

This is a fundamental thing about Russia, a fundamental

thing about all of us:

we earn far less than we should

be earning in a country at this level.

of development, and we end up with figures that are actually much

lower than what the official

statistics show. Official statistics are lying, and

any further calculations, as I already said,

simply make no sense. So

every time you hear that, well,

Dmitry Medvedev or Putin likes to say

that people are, you know, continuing to get richer, that everything is fine,

that everything is going well — then please

remember those 92,000 rubles

a month (about 92,000 rubles). Those words are worth exactly

as much as these statistics. Next topic.

Yes, now I’ll answer a couple of questions.

Alexei, do you really not know the old

joke about the average temperature in

the hospital? No, it’s not even about the average temperature

in the hospital. It’s not that, you know,

one person has a temperature of 40°C (104°F), another is in the morgue, and

the average comes out normal. No, this is

simply about the fact that in this hospital

a significant number of people are not even

counted at all. They’re just not included — they’re not even

in the morgue yet, though they probably soon will be.

It turns out that about 30 percent of people here are simply

left out altogether, and the official

statistics are basically made up of public-sector

enterprises and various state corporations. In

our country right now, after all, the state

controls 80 percent of the economy, and

everywhere there are companies with state

participation. They pay official

salaries, their salaries are high, and that

is what makes up the state statistics. But

all those people — go to a construction site,

talk to the workers there, and ask

how much they earn — you’ll hear a completely

different figure. "Have signature collection rates slowed down?"

Kolya Chudo writes to me. No, they haven’t.

"Is it time for a new film in the spirit of *He Is Not Dimon to You*?"

Is something like that planned? Well, if I

could, you know, just say,

"Hey, investigations department, put out a new

film like *Dimon*," — but that’s not how it

works. We have a large number of cases

in progress. An investigation is

a major undertaking by a huge team of

people. If only

it were that simple. We already have a lot of things, we

have a lot planned, but it

is done in a much more complicated way than one might

imagine. As for making sure

the signature collection rate doesn’t fall — you can simply

take part in it personally. To be honest, we

were prepared for the fact that the rate

of collecting signatures would drop. After all, right now we have almost

700,000 signatures. We got through this

initial stage,

with the people who were immediately ready

to sign, and from here on it becomes

a big, painstaking job.

Alexei, why did you change the Bitcoin

wallet? Ilya asks. Was this

an attempt to hide the real income from cryptocurrency?

I’ve never, anywhere, had a personal Bitcoin wallet

— I never

declared one, never set one up.

Honestly, to my shame, I don’t even

really understand it very well.

People often ask about cryptocurrencies; I

have practically never used them.

Perhaps you mean the campaign’s wallet.

As far as I

understand, nobody changed it. When Volkov

comes into the studio, you can ask him.

Jacks writes: "In Moscow, a programmer

can easily make 150,000 to 200,000 rubles,

and I’ve received offers like that myself.

At that level, everything is expensive." Jacks, of course, in

Moscow a programmer can make 200,000 or 250,000

rubles, and there are quite a lot of people in Moscow

who make 500,000 rubles as well.

But let’s roughly estimate how many

programmers there are among us, what percentage of the population they are,

and what percentage of the population

earns those 150,000 to 200,000 ruble salaries.

I’m not disputing in any way that there are many people

— thousands, hundreds of thousands of people — with very

high salaries. But I repeat: for

the citywide average to be 92,000

rubles, that means that if not half,

then at least a third of the people around

us would have to be earning significantly

more than 92,000. It really doesn’t seem to me that

that’s true. Pavel Volodin: "Alexei, in

your platform you propose

a minimum wage of 25,000 rubles.

How is that supposed to be paid by small

business owners in the regions who have 12

employees and are glad to pay 16,000, because otherwise

their businesses will just shut down?" Excellent question.

Pavel Volodin, that is exactly why we

are proposing a comprehensive solution to this

problem. On the one hand, yes, absolutely, I

believe that for a full working day in

Russia, no one should earn less

than 25,000 rubles. That should be the minimum wage,

and that is the kind of minimum that is set

in any developed country. On

the other hand, small business owners

quite rightly say to me, "Come on,

you want me to pay 25,000

rubles officially, on the books, and then taxes will destroy

my small business. Or right now I pay

16,000; if I start paying 25,000, that will destroy my

business." That is why we are offering business

— especially small business — a different arrangement. We

are saying: guys, we will free you from

all taxes except the basic

patent fee, from all permits,

from accounting paperwork, from all sorts of

endless forms, from endless

administration of your business, which

costs you money, costs you

time, and distracts you enormously.

So this is a kind of new agreement

between the state and business: no one

earns less than 25,000, everyone receives

their salary officially, on the books, but we drastically reduce

payroll taxes, so that this doesn't

simply ruin you, and we

will free you from 99 percent

of the administrative burden. We will free you from

corruption, we will free you from bribes,

so they will stop going into someone's pockets.

Alexander asks Alexei: monetize your

videos—they're very popular. I would

actually be glad to; I'm ready to watch all the ads to the

end. It would be a decent donation to your campaign.

Thank you very much, Alexander.

We are thinking about it, but honestly

speaking, we're afraid. I don't know—if at the

beginning of this program there's an ad, and at the

end of the program there's an ad, and

one more in the middle—then everything here will just

be interrupted.

And there will be ads. Still, well, I'm running

for president, so I can't advertise

black caviar all over Instagram, I can't

do things that a

presidential candidate isn't supposed to do, and I can't

go around left and right selling some

product, saying as I sit here,

"This episode is brought to you by..."

"Likhvar Erlenberg should be jailed—and by the way..."

by the way, buy a plane ticket from

such-and-such airline." Well, that would

sound a little strange. But still,

we are not dismissing the question of monetizing videos,

because we do need money.

We have to maintain our studio, we

have to maintain our organization, and our

fundraising is being seriously hindered, so

we will use every method. On the

Navalny Live channel, sitting across from

me, is our producer Oksana,

and she has a notebook full of assignments. One of

her assignments is to run an

experiment with monetization. Maybe

it will be on *Cactus*, maybe on

Volkov's show, maybe on mine, although

I'm a bit scared. I'd rather they try it

on *Cactus* first—if it fails, then they

will be to blame for everything, not me. We'll

try it and see how it goes, but

honestly, for now we're just afraid.

We don't want to, because we may not raise

that much money, but there will be a lot of shouting,

a whole lot of outrage. So, I have a lot

of questions here. You know, about animal rights activists—

Katerina asks me: "Alexei, do you

know about the animal rights activists who are

on hunger strike near the State Duma (the lower house of Russia's parliament)?" I do know.

I know about the activists who are on hunger strike outside the Duma.

I know that

Igor Talkov's son came and played guitar for them,

and was detained. And there are quite a lot of

people there standing in solo pickets,

and

the authorities are constantly trying to

have "explanatory conversations" with them.

In other words, the police are acting against these

animal rights activists,

and I don't understand why, because the law

on animal protection was introduced a long time ago.

Public opinion in this country is absolutely consolidated

in favor of animal rights activists.

Everyone is against animal abusers; everyone wants them

to face criminal prosecution, and

frankly, it seems that even United Russia

is not against it, as far as I understand, and

Putin and Medvedev are all in favor of this animal protection law,

but for some reason it

has not been passed for years. This is, by the way, another

example of the sheer absurdity

and meaninglessness of the system: even when there is

a general consensus—when everyone

supports adopting the animal protection law—

the system nevertheless

works in such an idiotic way

that the bill just sits there and is not passed.

Animal rights activists come there,

go on hunger strike, and they are simply arrested there—

the police detain Igor Talkov's son.

It's harmful. But as I've said many times,

this system cannot do anything

good, even if internally a consensus has formed

that this should be done, that it is a

good thing.

They still cannot do it,

because it is simply no longer structured

in a way that allows it. Unfortunately. Alexei, were you

at the Depeche Mode concert in Moscow?

Boris Newman asks me. "Your answer to this question

is very important

not only to me, but to a huge

number of Depeche Mode fans in

Russia." Boris, I was at the Depeche Mode concert,

and I even posted photos from the

Depeche Mode concert on Instagram—there is proof.

So please, all you many

Depeche Mode fans,

vote for Navalny.

So, what else? There are 118 new

questions just in the last few minutes. So—

"Good evening, Mr. President Alexei

Navalny." I like being addressed that way.

Alex Bass asks: "Teachers are paid

92,000 rubles, while the children of pensioners

pay 120,000 rubles

for tuition. What should be done? And what about state-funded places?

I got it—this is a question about state-funded university places and

about

the cost of education. Indeed,

quite often we see situations where

the cost of education is fairly high, while

teachers still receive rather

little. Honestly, I believe

that the state's priority should be

free education for everyone.

And that is the right thing to do; it is beneficial

for the state in the long run, because

as I have said many times and will always repeat,

if people receive a good education, they

will pay more taxes tomorrow.

"Alexei, if they don't let you run in the election, what

will you do?" asks Andrei Shpagi.

So what am I doing? I’m demanding that they not shut me out.

Andrei, because when they don’t allow me

to run in the election, they’re not only hurting me,

they’re hurting you too, because you won’t have

your own candidate this time. More than that,

if you accept this,

you will never have a decent candidate.

That’s why we are demanding that I be allowed

to take part in the election, and we have every right

to demand that. On this same topic, Sergei Babichev asks the following question:

“Alexei, how would you assess

the likelihood that your candidacy will be allowed

to participate in the presidential election?” Look, I’m not

going to calculate the odds. I look at

the Constitution and see that it clearly,

in black and white, says that I have the right

to take part in elections. So for me,

the probability of being allowed is 100 percent. As for what

they think over there, I don’t know. Beka

Nurgaliyev writes: “Alexei, if you become

president, may I move to Russia? I’m from

Almaty.”

Just keep in mind, Beka, that I probably won’t be

very popular in your country. Still,

I do intend to introduce a visa regime with

the countries of Central Asia. But if you

come here and work properly,

welcome. People who come here

and work honestly will receive

all the necessary documents, and everything

else they need. If they pay taxes, they are welcome here.

Now, about Russian Post (the state postal service).

Neomara asks: “Although it’s a state-owned

company, what would you do about Russian Post?

”

Salaries there are very low—certainly not

92,000 rubles a month (about $1,500 at older exchange rates), and the quality of the postal

service is correspondingly terrible. Thank you

in advance for your answer.” Russian Post, first of all,

needs

transparency and an audit, like all

state-owned companies, because it’s

an absolutely monstrous feeding trough (a source of corrupt enrichment). Do you remember

the story about the former head of Russian Post,

who awarded himself a multi-million-ruble salary,

while ordinary employees there

have catastrophically low wages.

The salaries there are simply ridiculous,

and there are still wages of 15,000, 17,000, 20,000

rubles a month. Besides that, overall it is

a very, very

backward structure. But under the current

state, which is itself generally

backward, there is no way Russian Post

can really be developed. But it seems to me that we simply

need to look to best practices,

for example, Germany’s postal service,

which is state-owned yet works efficiently.

We need to see how everything is organized there

and do the same. Greetings

from Tbilisi.” Greetings to Tbilisi as well.

“Alexei, will you do a joint video with

Mikhail Svetov? It would be very interesting

to watch the discussion.” Svetov has appeared

on *Cactus*, and he came on Smirnov’s program,

if I remember correctly. It was very

interesting, and a lot of people watched the program.

We’ll keep inviting him in the future.

Yevgeny writes to me:

“Today RBC (a Russian media outlet) reported that the highest average

salary is in the oil refining sector—

more than 500,000 rubles a month. That says

a lot.” Well yes, it does say a lot.

The average salary in the oil sector is,

naturally,

quite high. It would be strange if it weren’t.

Of course there are people there who earn

more than 500,000

rubles a month. But I strongly doubt

that this is really the average salary in

the oil refining sector.

Because if that were true, then based on that,

quite a lot of people there would have to be earning

700,000, 800,000, even 1 million rubles a month.

It seems to me there still aren’t many

such people.

Though in general they should be earning

substantial money, especially those

who work in the far north and similar places,

so to speak. But still, we’re talking about

the average salary here, in

Moscow and in Russia overall. Of course, yes,

programmers can earn a lot of

money.

Some top-tier, highly advanced

engineers are earning a lot in Russia now,

architects too—not all of them, but some are.

The oil refining sector too. But I don’t

know—write to me on Twitter.

A chef in Moscow earns 1 million

rubles a month—yes, some do earn 1 million

rubles a month. But

still, how many chefs in

Moscow are there at that level—30, 50, or

even 300—in a city where 10

million people live? How many chefs would there have to be

for the average salary to be

92,000 rubles a month?

Kirill Tomana asks: “Please tell me,

what will you do about the company

Mail.ru?

The company is squeezing game developers dry,

and it has an almost complete monopoly on game

servers.” Well, if we see a monopoly,

we will break it up and fight it.

As for Mail.ru,

with Mail.ru, first of all we will

have a serious conversation about why

they are engaged in censorship on

the internet, why they are carrying out this censorship

online. We will clarify these issues with them.

But of course, we will be

careful and gentle with all

representatives of business,

including Mail.ru.

And understanding that this may sound a bit like

I’m asking out of idle curiosity, but could you

disclose what salary…”

you personally and your immediate

circle. Gleb Malyshev, really, you are not

anything like Dud (Yury Dud, the journalist/interviewer), not one bit, because to blow

in your interviews, you should either ask that of

people who are trying to hide it. You

can go to the FBK website right now and you

can see who works with FBK,

what they look like, see their photos,

the average salary there, and all

the other data: how much money was raised,

what it was spent on. But we are the Anti-Corruption Foundation

and we have to be transparent,

so we clearly disclose what our

average salaries are.

As for FBK, I do not receive a single kopek from it,

and never have. I am

a donor to FBK.

And I earn all my money as a lawyer. I have

my own sole proprietorship.

An individual entrepreneur. When in

court they always ask me things like,

"Navalny, place of birth, year of birth,

place of work" — I say, sole proprietor.

Navalny, sole proprietor Navalny. I provide

legal services, but right now I am primarily

focused on the European

Court of Human Rights.

If anyone needs those kinds of services for

money, come to me. For a lot of

money, I will write you an excellent complaint.

Vladimir Putin — let's talk about him. And

I got a ton of questions asking, well, when

is he finally going to announce his candidacy, what exactly is going on there?

Some very strange things.

The election is just around the corner — three or four

months away, and January, which

obviously doesn't really count. Vladimir Putin just

keeps silent. And just recently at Valdai

he was asked again: man, when are you going to

announce? What's going to happen? Are you

going to run a campaign?

Let's listen. We have about 17

seconds of his answer. Here it is:

"As you may have noticed, this year at the Valdai

Club we are not asking you the question that

used to be asked often at the Valdai Club:

"

"You know, Yegorov, are you planning

to...? We need to wrap up." Well, you see, it's all

so playful. You know, the president is acting strangely.

After all, there is an election, and it would probably be

logical if the voters — the citizens of

Russia —

knew a little more about the plans

of the country's president regarding

his participation in the current election

campaign. But he somehow doesn't want that; he just

keeps joking around — ha-ha, hee-hee.

And then there are these little tossed-out

bits of information which, in my view, are rather

ridiculous. What does it mean — Medvedev will

be blocked? They give you these kinds of

answers too. But it seems to me everything is much

simpler. All this intrigue around the

nomination and all these tricks has a

simple explanation, which is

this, my friends:

President Putin has nothing to say to you. He

simply doesn't. Because what is he supposed to say? When

he announces his candidacy, he has to deliver some kind of

programmatic speech. He has to present a

policy document. He has to

say: I have been president for the last

several years, these are my achievements, and

therefore I am running with another program for

a new term. In 2012, his

main idea was the so-called

May decrees. Who even remembers the May

decrees now? That was the thing about teachers and

doctors,

public-sector employees, having to receive salaries

no lower than the regional average salary, and

so

those May decrees were how they secured

their victory. They raised salaries; there was

room to do it. Just look at the price of

oil in 2011, 2012, 2013 — $120

per barrel. Huge amounts of

oil money were pouring in from every

direction, so they could do things like

that. But then the price of oil fell — not

catastrophically, but now it's around $62

a barrel, and that's it.

And that bubble burst. So

what can Putin say now?

If he tells the population, "Guys, I was a good

president, I was a good

president, and your salaries were rising

in recent years," then all those 145

million people — or at least the 80 million

who are actively working — will just grab

their hair and start screaming

in horror, because that is such an

obvious lie. The level of real household incomes

has been falling for four — now already five — years in a row,

and Putin has nothing to say about that.

He has all that stuff — war, Crimea,

and all that foreign policy — and he will

of course endlessly repeat the phrase,

the sacred line: "They started respecting us again in

the world," which does not correspond in the slightest

to reality. But that line

is fed so effectively to the public through

television.

But where people can tell

truth from lies,

when it comes to Syria, fine, you can spin all the tales you want,

you can show screenshots from a

video game on television and say,

"Look at what the Russian Aerospace Forces are doing there,"

or "Look how we took down the Americans," or

"This is proof of something, that

something is being done." But no matter how much

you tell a person that their

average salary in Moscow is 92,000 rubles (about $1,500 at the time),

they will simply tell you: no,

that's not true. I know that's not true because

here I am, here is my wife, and I have

Relatives—I know that’s not true. You

can say as much as you like, just like in the report, in

this one it says,

talking about how food prices rose by 1 percent

over the past year. But

anyone will tell you—well,

we all love you, Vladimir Vladimirovich,

thank you, Crimea, whatever, Ukraine,

Banderites (a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainian nationalists), but it’s not true. That 1

percent is a lie, and he has nothing to say

about the economy—he can’t say anything.

There has been no protection,

no support for entrepreneurship; none of it happened.

Nothing that was written in

those famous columns of his—remember,

in 2012 he wrote somewhere,

there was a column in *Vedomosti*, one in *Nezavisimaya Gazeta*,

some drivel in *Rossiyskaya Gazeta*,

and in some other newspapers there were various

campaign promises of his—and not a single one of them

was fulfilled. His last

presidential term was an absolute

failure. The earlier ones—you could say

they were failures too, just less so; there was

oil.

There was a lot of money then; he himself was

simply lucky, and that large amount of

oil money

led to some growth

in people’s standard of living. Now his

government has failed completely.

He has nothing to say, so Putin

will undoubtedly drag this

out until the very last moment. So I

don’t know whether it will happen in late November,

or in December, but they

will try to do it as late as possible

so that all of us spend as little time as possible

discussing his old promises and the new

promises, when he comes out again and says,

“We will remove administrative barriers to

business.” We’ll look at an article from 2012 and

see that this was already promised back then, and everything has only gotten

worse. When he says, “We will reduce

the share of the raw-materials economy, the extractive sector

in our economy,” we’ll see that

all of this was already being said quite recently, in

2012, and that it was all complete

lies. And he doesn’t want that discussion, he

doesn’t want those comparisons, he doesn’t want

us pulling out

articles from *Vedomosti* from 2012.

He doesn’t want pensioners discussing

his policy statement claiming that in

Russia inflation is supposedly 3 percent, even though

everyone knows inflation is not 3 percent.

People go to the store—it’s all lies and

manipulation. So, as I already said, they

will delay all of this as much as possible and will

try to talk about foreign policy.

There will be two things in this election

campaign: endless discussion of how

you got up off your knees and how the world now

respects us again, and there will be the endless Putin team

in every possible form. There will be

athletes,

hockey players skating around him

in circles, figure skaters doing

triple toe loops around him, and cultural figures

saying, “My God, what a

saintly man he is, everything is so

wonderful with our theaters.”

Like Alexander Kalyagin, who practically

said today—the head of, what is it properly

called, the theater union,

or whatever—basically the head

of the organization uniting theater

figures. Right now, when

Kirill Serebrennikov is under house

arrest,

and the director of that theater, Malobrodsky, is

sitting in a cell, he says to Vladimir

Vladimirovich, “You’re so great, the theater

community loves you very much and always finds

common ground with you.” In other words,

monstrous hypocrisy.

But that’s how it will be, and all these performers,

just famous people from television,

will be photographed with Putin in various

combinations, and everyone

will be discussing

foreign policy. That will be

the election campaign, and that’s why it

will be delayed. That’s why, by the way,

they announced something completely—well, anti-

constitutional.

They said that the federal address would be

delivered next year. That directly

contradicts the Constitution of the Russian

Federation. That cannot be done. That is exactly

why, incidentally, the lawyers of the Anti-Corruption Foundation

did a really smart

thing: they appealed to the prosecutor’s office so that

the prosecutor’s office would issue a warning—there is

such a formal procedure, a warning—

to Vladimir Putin, telling him that he does not

have the right, neither this year nor in 2017,

to deliver his

address in 2018, because it is supposed to be done once a year.

So let him do it—but he doesn’t

want to, because he has nothing to say. That’s

how it will be, that’s what will happen. The team—

all this talk about Medvedev, I see

many people asking about Medvedev—it’s

complete nonsense, it seems to me. Maybe I

don’t know, after three more programs like this I’ll

be saying, “Wow, they really are

putting Medvedev forward,” but I don’t believe it.

Putin’s team is being assembled, and it is being assembled by

the presidential administration. All these

hockey players are being dragged in there, paid for, and now

Kudrin has already joined this Putin team and

joined his campaign headquarters. In other words, all these

structures are being put in place there; it’s just that

right now they

are muddying the waters so there will be some other

context for discussion, so everyone starts discussing

Medvedev again, and some other things too.

They were discussing just how badly Putin

has failed over the past few years in

governing the country. Alex Boss, why

does Putin say that young people are the future

of the country, when tuition costs 120,000 rubles a year

per year (about $1,300-$1,500), and for young people studying for 3-4 years

there are no state-funded places? Why are they lying to us? Why

isn't he keeping his promise?

The promise from 2012. So Alex Bass, with his

question, explained why Putin does not

want to announce a presidential

campaign right now. But what will he answer Alex Boss?

He'll answer with nothing but his usual lies.

You've probably seen my video where

I showed a clip of him arguing with

a girl in Sochi at some

youth forum. She asked him exactly

the same question: why is the number of

state-funded university places shrinking? And Putin

without batting an eye said, 'You're wrong,

young lady, the number of state-funded places

is growing.' That's a lie. Everyone knows it.

Absolutely everyone. The official statistics

show it directly. But here's what he will

tell you, Alex Bass: he'll keep giving

the same kind of answer. He won't answer the question.

He'll say something like this:

'You ask me: tuition costs 120,000

rubles a year, people study for 3-4 years,

so why aren't you keeping your promise?

Young people are the future of the country. And he'll tell us: 'Alex, you

are wrong, the number of state-funded places is growing.

'We will increase the number of state-funded

places constantly, and we are proud of our

young people, and we will raise young people

despite the sanctions, despite the fact that

the West is tightening the noose around Russia, and no matter how much

NATO countries move closer to our

borders.'

'We still believe that young people are our

future. And in America they still lynch Black people.'

I'm simplifying, but watch any 'Direct Line'

(Putin's televised call-in show). He seems to have said there will be

another Direct Line sometime soon,

in the next few days. Watch it - that's exactly how it

will go. Any question about corruption

or broken promises will once again get

'And in America it's even worse.' That's all

it ever is.

Andryukha asks: what are you going to

do about parking in Moscow? Will you

abolish paid parking?

Andryukha, the paid parking system in

Moscow is simply implemented terribly - it's ugly and

wrong. But in a huge city like

Moscow, where 10 percent of the country's population

lives and space is limited,

of course

it's impossible not to restrict vehicle access

to the center. So paid

parking absolutely should exist - that's the experience

of every major city in every developed

country. You just have to approach it intelligently.

But paid parking in

the center is one thing. Near my home, in Marina

from my windows I can see

paid parking. But what for?

People park there - there are no traffic jams there, there is no

major problem there. Why is paid parking

needed there at all? It's just that in

Moscow City Hall there are people sitting there

who, let's put it plainly, have a rather peculiar

understanding of urban development and

a rather peculiar take on urbanism. And

besides that, they lie constantly. They

Why is the paid parking system

developing so badly, and why is the whole

system for fighting traffic jams developing

so inefficiently? Because they proceed

from the assumption that everything is fine for them, and

the Moscow mayor's office seriously tells us

that as a result of some of their measures

the number of traffic jams has decreased

by several percent. But that's a lie. It is

completely obvious to everyone that it's false. We

even did a special investigation

where we showed that the Moscow mayor's office

manipulates data and lies when it says

it is successfully fighting traffic jams. But

they don't just do the wrong things - they claim

that these wrong things are effective and

keep doing the wrong things.

So the lying is endless, and it

creates problems with parking.

So yes, paid parking - especially in

the city center - is necessary. It just needs to be handled intelligently.

That's how it should be approached. Alexander Babiy

says: 'I make 92,000 rubles. That's a tricky move -

everyone immediately thinks, so that's how much

people earn, while I'm just some

guy who has to not just work but

slave away.' I don't agree with you. That's

not how it works. More likely it works

the other way around: he thinks, 'Wow, I tried here

and I tried there, but somehow I can't find anything

for more than 65,000 at all.

'So it turns out people make 92,000 rubles.

'Better not work, not slave away at all,

I'll just go on a bender' - excuse the expression.

That's probably how it works.

There are a huge number of questions. Sorry, I'm

getting 50 new questions every minute.

And Mel Kerimov asks: 'Alexei,

in the Beautiful Russia of the Future

will the number of business inspections be reduced?' Yes,

Emil, yes, yes, yes. Right now in Russia, every year

there are two million business inspections.

Most of them are unscheduled. I honestly

don't even understand what they're inspecting. I would reduce

the number of business inspections by 500 times

at a minimum. You could cut them by 200 times immediately,

but the overall plan would be to cut them by 500 times,

because, really, what on earth are they

even checking? I don't understand. 'Alexei,

what will you do with all the

corrupt officials, and also with the deputies of the

State Duma (the lower house of Russia's parliament)?' asks

Mikhail Solomentsev.

Corrupt officials and deputies of the State

Duma are, broadly speaking, pretty much the same as

other people. As for corrupt officials, we will

do what is supposed to be done with them: we

will send them to the defendants' bench.

Now, on the subject of Putin, and one more thing about

Putin—a missed question related to

Putin. Let's talk instead about President

Mugabe, because, as in the poem by Mayakovsky

(a famous Soviet poet), when we

say one thing, we mean Putin;

when we say Mugabe, we mean him. What is happening now is a very

interesting thing that is happening

right now in Zimbabwe. There has been

something like a military coup, although

the current government and the military

are saying that no military

coup took place. Be that as it may,

Robert Mugabe, who had been in power for 40 years,

has been removed from that very power,

and, as far as we understand, has now been placed under

house arrest, and a new government has come

to power. Why is this so important for

Russia? Not at all because the same thing

could happen here too. After all,

comparing Zimbabwe and Russia directly

would be very wrong—they are different

political regimes, first and foremost. And

the role of the army there is completely different. In

Russia, even in the Soviet Union,

the army and the security services—although people did not talk much about it—

did not play a major

political role; they were not

some independent factor

in politics. Politics was always run by

the political nomenklatura (the Soviet ruling elite), and the army and security services

were subordinate to them, part of that

nomenklatura, but they did not play

an independent political role. In

Zimbabwe it is different, as in many

African and Latin American

countries: the army is a kind of

independent political force.

It could remove a leader. But for us, what matters now

is something else: the debunking of myths

about those very approval ratings. Because

at any meeting, in any conversation,

someone will обязательно tell you: well, how can you

possibly fight Putin? It's completely pointless. If you

run against him in an election, it's

meaningless—after all, 86 percent of people

support him, the whole country, it turns out,

supports him.

Of course, I don't know such people myself, but still—

look, everyone around him seems to support him.

The polling says so. More than that, we

conduct our own polling, and we

can get the same figures too. But right now,

when you ask a person a question like

"How do you feel about Vladimir Putin?"—"I approve,"

that is the expected answer, the socially

acceptable, socially approved answer.

Of course I support Vladimir Putin,

because you cannot say otherwise. And

the same thing was true in Zimbabwe for

many, many years. So let's

just—I'm curious—

what do you think Mugabe's approval rating was in 2015?

I have it written down here:

back then, his approval rating

exceeded 90 percent. In the most recent

election, how many percent did Robert Mugabe get?

A lot, a lot of percent—

far more than Vladimir Putin

got in 2016, and that was quite recent.

By the way, Robert Mugabe unveiled

a monument to himself, and we laughed at it,

the whole world laughed at it. But inside

Zimbabwe, just like our United Russia (the Kremlin-backed ruling party),

people said: how great, how wonderful. Yes, he

has the right to unveil a monument to himself because

people really do

support him; they have rallied around

their national choice. And in February

2017, President Mugabe's wife—

quite a character, and apparently one of

those responsible for what happened next, the

coup—literally said

that Robert Mugabe's approval rating

was so high that even if we

put his corpse on the ballot,

that corpse—dead Mugabe—would

defeat any living opposition candidate.

It was the same in Russia, and even more so, and all

the polling confirmed those numbers, and

it really seemed clear that with such

support, there was nothing you could do.

He had been there for 40 years, he was 90 years old, but in

fact people supported him, because

there were reasons for it: once, he

won the anti-colonial war, he drove out

the occupiers, and then drove out the white

farmers.

He was like our own version of repeated Crimea-style triumphs,

something like that, and so we all

support him because he is our

national leader; he led our country

to victory over colonial conquerors

and imperialists, and it seemed that everything

was great and that absolutely everyone

supported him. So what happened to

those ratings? Literally, not even in 24

hours—in six hours.

The army came, put him under house

arrest,

and where were the people who were supposed to

pour into the streets to defend their

president? Where was even that same

nomenklatura?

Because when this

coup happened—or whatever you want to call it—when

Mugabe had just been removed, he had

a party there, and he also had this

youth organization, which mainly

spent its time

terrorizing various opposition figures

and intimidating everyone around them.

These people declared that, well, we...

We support Bob—his league, yes, that’s right.

The people will support him; we will, to the very last

drop of blood, defend him to the death. And then what?

A few hours later, they said

they were already declaring that there had been no

coup.

Only corrupt

dishonest people who resisted

arrest were detained, and now they are in custody—that is,

that’s all.

This is all from a statement by the party that had just

sworn loyalty to Mugabe, declaring how faithful it was

to him and his wife. So, my friends, it is very important for us

to understand that these ratings

mean absolutely nothing, and these are

ratings of emptiness, ratings from yesterday,

from a day when they seemed to have everything.

But the population simply doesn’t see anyone else.

Because Mugabe sat in power for 40 years—for 40 years we

saw no one else, and you don’t know

any other presidential candidates.

We don’t know them, so we say: yes, we

support Mugabe, because he’s the only one

we know. With Putin, it’s roughly

the same thing. He has been in power for 18 years, but at

the moment something happens,

whether aliens abduct him or something falls on

his head—royal or otherwise—

or if he is placed under house arrest,

Sergei Kuzhugetovich Shoigu, or I don’t know,

Lavrov, or anyone at all—any person from

that same Putin clique of his—

United Russia will say the same thing, and

President Putin’s approval rating, do you hear me, will

instantly become zero point zero percent. Just like that.

That’s how it always happens. It has happened in every

African country, in every authoritarian

country.

So that’s why we should not be

intimidated or even impressed by these

ratings. They mean nothing.

Stop believing them, stop repeating after

all of them, because right now in our

country any official has ratings like that.

Look at governors’ approval ratings.

They’re all at 80 percent. Look

at the ratings of the presidents of Central Asia—

they’re all at 90 percent. What does that mean?

Nothing. There is nothing to fear in this. It

means that we simply have to do

our job. Their ratings will collapse

very, very quickly, because they

mean nothing. Just five days ago, the rating of

President Mugabe was enormous.

So enormous that the airport in the city of Ha-

rare

was named after him—that airport

after Mugabe. They did it with such ceremony,

and explained that, well, we simply could not

give the airport any other name,

because the president’s approval rating was so

huge, such an enormous rating, that everyone

had to accept it.

They had to, guys—the population wanted it so much that

they had to rename the airport, and

five days later everyone ran out and

painted over that new sign:

“Mugabe Airport,” because suddenly

there was no rating at all—the people were demanding

something else. Don’t believe these

fairy tales.

We need to mind our own business, and when we

do that work, these ratings

will collapse even without a military coup—

any of them—simply because, well, because

we are right. All right, I’ve been talking so much about

Mugabe.

Let’s look at your questions.

Alexei, when you become president,

will you strip Putin of his Candidate of Economic Sciences degree

(roughly equivalent to a PhD in economics)?

But does Putin actually hold a Candidate of

Economic Sciences degree? I know that he

had, so to speak, an academic dissertation, and they caught

him plagiarizing, but I’m not sure

that he is a Candidate of Economic Sciences.

But President Navalny would not be able to strip

anyone of an academic degree, even if it was

fraudulently obtained. That is still the job

of the specialized bodies that make up

the academic community. We will make sure it is done honestly, and

those councils that

will consider questions of plagiarism or

the complete worthlessness of certain academic

works—as in Medinsky’s case—

they will decide those matters there. Whether they rule on his case or not, that is

their, their, their business. Yulia Avdeeva asks:

An interesting thing—a schoolteacher writes

that her husband is a deputy (member of parliament),

and with his salary the teacher pays only for

her personal driver.

And she came to work at the school simply

so as not to sit at home, but to keep herself

busy with something. Well yes, Yulia, that’s right: deputies

have a great life in Russia, and that is why

well,

that is why they cling to power. And indeed, the average salary of a

deputy, and the average salary in

the country, and the salary of this

teacher—well, they probably give some average figure like

92,000 rubles (about 92,000 RUB)

—we simply need to understand how

that figure is produced, and understand that

in reality it is not like that at all, and we are not

satisfied with this situation—not the arithmetic of

salaries, and not specifically this

nice little arrangement: a husband who is a deputy and

a teacher with a personal driver. Alexei,

Rosario Agro asks: how will you

protect us from the corrupting influence

of the West? We’ll build a wall and make, what,

Poland and Belarus pay for it,

as old man Trump says. But no, how will I

protect you from the corrupting influence

of the West? Let

your family or your teachers protect you, if

some people think there is such a corrupting influence.

The first foreign trip in the capacity of...

the presidents of the United States and China, maybe Ukraine for

Ivan Ivanov is watching this very jealously.

Ivan Ivanov asks: I understand that

they are watching very jealously, so I

do a simple thing: I open the papers

and look at which countries we have

the largest trade turnover and the most important

economic relations

and cooperation with, and I see that it is

the European Union, so I think it is

I assume it will be one of the

European countries. And Ivan George Lynn

writes: December 1 is coming soon — pay your taxes and sleep

peacefully. What is going on with the tax

system? Property taxes and

land taxes arrived — instead of 15,000 rubles, they charged 30,000 rubles.

We dug up my father's old papers and it turned out

that for three years he has been paying for land

that is not his. Ivan, this really is

a huge problem. For example, I received

a notice for transport tax on

a car that has not been mine for many years. This is

not an isolated case now — these are extremely widespread

cases, and they are sending out tax bills

for taxes people have already paid: tax on

property, tax on cars, and so

on. This is completely widespread. Bozhena Rynska

came to this studio; she was also billed for some kind of

taxes as well,

from the Pension Fund, I think.

And she is waging a holy war there against

the Pension Fund, which really is

completely unlawfully issuing

additional charges. Moreover,

when you catch them

issuing these unlawful charges to you, they say:

you know, we have no compensation mechanism.

We cannot return it; that is not

provided for. So next

year we will simply credit it to you.

So basically: give us your money and we

will use it for free, interest-free,

and next year it will be

counted toward your taxes. This is a widespread thing the

state is doing now. They have already tried to explain it,

saying that all of this

is happening as a result of an error. I do not believe

in any errors. It seems to me that on

such a scale

it cannot be a mistake. Ilona Yudina

asks how I feel about the fact that in

educational institutions there is

anti-Navalny propaganda, where children are being told

that you are a thief, and that

if you became president of Russia, it would be

very bad. What do you think, Ilona, about this?

How do I feel about it? I support it, I like it

— well, of course I feel about it

negatively, and once again I call on

all schoolchildren and students who hear

such things

to film it — just film everything and post it online.

Whenever this comes to light, every time there is a huge scandal in that

educational institution. We

have even seen a teacher in Ivanovo Region

dismissed for this. So I feel

very negatively about it. It is absolutely illegal.

So let's just film it.

Campaign news: let me say a little

on this topic and thank everyone who

came to meet with me. Last week I was in

Volgograd, Izhevsk, and

Smolensk.

Smolensk was very interesting. There,

the stage was practically stormed by a United Russia member,

the rector of the local

[music]

local institute of physical education. We have

a very short clip — let's

watch it, of this man in Smolensk

running onto the stage and what he said.

Of course I will say it: here on this heroic

land,

this heroic land where every centimeter

has been soaked with the blood of our ancestors, our fathers, and here

this Mr. Navalny wants

to sow division in society. You see, in your

mind you do not even have an idea of what

the country could become

if it were led by such people.

Well, it was very interesting — you saw the audience's reaction.

The man ran off the stage fairly quickly

when I started asking him questions about

corruption — specifically, corruption

in his own university. And about his own corruption, one

could simply ask the man: well,

all right, we are standing on holy land,

Smolensk land really is holy, really

watered with blood — but why are you stealing

on this land? I am standing on this land

and speaking with people quite

openly. Some may be against me, they

may be for me.

You ran up here onto the stage; you also have

the opportunity to say your piece. But why are you

stealing here, on this land, from these people?

And just like that, he was blown away as if by the wind.

Very interesting. Thank you very much to everyone who

came. This week we are spending

several days working on the program,

so this week I will not have

any major trips. Next week we will have even more.

I will try, over

three days — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — to visit 4

cities at a minimum. For now I am not

saying which cities, because as usual everything

can still fall through; everything for us is still

very difficult and complicated. In Izhevsk,

we held a meeting on the grounds of a

homeowners' association. Great guys gave me their

space; I talked about this

in detail. And now they have all been

fined 28,000 rubles, and our coordinator

was fined too. And in

Volgograd, our coordinator was jailed for 15 days.

Our coordinator, Alexei Volkov, was jailed because

the meeting lasted 20 minutes longer than

the police thought it should have.

So everything is working against us.

More and more strongly. But we’re pleased with what’s happening,

because our campaign

is going better and better, and more and more people are coming to

the meetings. It’s already very cold now.

Right now we were planning a meeting there, well,

for example—I won’t say which cities,

but I’ll be going somewhere where it’s -15°C (5°F), and the question is: will people

come to a meeting in -15°C (5°F)? And

how will a two-hour meeting go

in -15°C (5°F)? Even so, we’re still going to

hold it, because that’s the job

of a candidate. However many people come, that’s how many

will come. Just dress warmly

so I don’t freeze you all out—that’s

very important. Let me—I've got one

minute, and I still want to say something about

the results of my one-million-ruble contest,

which we wrapped up today. We literally have

a minute and a half for me to

show you a clip from the video that was published today

about the winners of our

contest. I think this is very

important. Let’s watch this short

video, and then I’ll say again why it’s

so important.

Third place: 42 points and 200,000 rubles

go to the channel “Mari Govori”.

From Nizhny Novgorod. She currently has 27,000

subscribers—subscribe, let

that number grow much bigger. On this channel,

serious topics are discussed with a large dose

of irony, and sometimes they even sing.

If the one called tsar is in charge of the gang, then

the metropolitans are the richest here, and yet everyone is afraid

all the same... Second place:

43 points and 300,000 rubles

go to Arslan U.N. from the city of Chelyabinsk.

Literally a week before the announcement

of the contest results, the guy went through

a pretty sad situation: his

phone, which had the passwords to his accounts, was stolen. After that,

his channel with 30,000

subscribers was immediately deleted. But Arslan

isn’t giving up and started a new channel, where he already has

more than 8,000 subscribers.

Subscribe to Arslan. Hello, dear

Russians, my name is Arslan, and this is about the 20th time

I’ve started recording this video, because

it has to begin with the phrase that

I no longer have a YouTube channel, and I no longer

have a VKontakte page, because

someone deleted them today. And our

winner: 45 points and half a million

rubles go to the city of Saratov,

because that’s where the channel

“Interjections of Politics” is based. They already have 57,000

subscribers, and it should be much

more—they’re genuinely very cool.

I hope our prize and our support

will inspire the guys, and they’ll become even better.

This is what real urban

problems look like. This is Saratov: they built

an embankment, then a fire truck drove over it,

and this is what happened. The answer to the question of why

this is so important is simple:

just remember what was happening with Russian

media, the news media, two years ago or a year ago, and

what is happening now. And the answer is: everything has gotten

much, much worse—and it will get worse.

As Sergey

Smirnov likes to say in this studio, that’s because we can see that

the destruction of the media, repression against the media, is one of the

priorities of state policy. This

law about declaring everyone

foreign agents—now they’re going to

shut down all of them, all those—I don’t know—

TV companies or those who broadcast on

the internet, anyone who is in one way or another connected to

some kind of

foreign money. Or they’ll try—I have no doubt—to shut down

some good,

essentially Russian media outlets

that are simply based abroad,

like Meduza.

I have no doubt that they will pressure these

media outlets, they will destroy them.

As for television—even

internet television has practically

ceased to exist, even in the regions.

There’s almost nothing left. Not long ago there was, say,

something in Krasnoyarsk,

and television there was completely crushed. And the role

of YouTube channels, for all their drawbacks—I

understand, this isn’t real television,

it’s kind of makeshift and underground, and just people

talking heads speaking into a camera,

saying some strange things, and fairly

obvious ones too, joking with pictures the way

I do—but its role will

grow, because it will be

the only source of information,

the only source of truthful speech. And

what’s very important is that these people on the internet, on

YouTube channels, are not afraid. Unlike

many journalists,

even good journalists, they are not constrained

by this fear, by attachment to

an editorial office, by fear of lawsuits.

That’s why it’s very important to encourage things like this.

As best I can, I try to encourage them,

and I will keep encouraging them. That’s why I’m raising

this one million rubles. You can

take part—check my blog,

there’s also a Yandex Wallet, you can send money there too

so that these three

winners can receive this money, so that

they can build new studios and do

better work. And going forward, we’ll keep

encouraging everyone, because we can beat this

television machine, beat Putin’s ratings,

we can do it, and we can do it very

effectively. But for that, we need

tools, and a YouTube channel is

one of the most important tools of this

kind. That’s why I’ve supported all this, and

I will continue to support it. Many thanks to all

512 channels that took part in it.

the competition, and I warmly congratulate everyone

the winners, and especially the three finalists

thank you very much, I’ve already gone over

the time. Thank you for watching, and I

hope I answered some of your questions. I

did. See you next Thursday, bye

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