Text version
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then he does this, and he comes running like this
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to sort out problems. Hi, this is Kira.
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Recently we published
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an investigation into how the deputy prime minister
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of the government, Prikhodko, spent his vacation
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on oligarch Oleg Deripaska's yacht, in the company
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of escort girls. The story is simply
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unbelievably simple: we happened to notice
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Prikhodko in one of the videos, checked
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the dates, routes, eyewitness accounts, and there it was:
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the investigation was ready. All the information came from
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public sources.
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And the infamous video itself had been sitting on
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Instagram for six months. And immediately we were attacked by
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an army of conspiracy theorists. We read every kind of thing:
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that this was some cunning game
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by Deripaska's competitors, that the video had been
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planted on us,
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that Prikhodko was a random victim of a new
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oligarchic power struggle, or conversely that this was
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all the Kremlin towers (rival factions within the Kremlin), that someone was trying
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to use our hands to remove him from the post of
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deputy prime minister. And of course
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the classic claim that there was no yacht at all,
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that it was all Photoshop, staged, made up,
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lies.
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We read all of it, sometimes laughed a lot,
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sometimes got angry, and in the end decided
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that we needed to close the issue and speak with
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the direct participants in these events.
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Nastya Rybka, the woman thanks to whose Instagram
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we were able to conduct our investigation,
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as well as her coach and mentor Alex
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Lesley agreed to give us a detailed
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interview and answer all our questions.
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Hello, Nastya. To everyone who bought the books—
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interesting. As for Deripaska, you met him
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on the yacht, right?
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For the first time. So, what general impression
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does he make? A cool, tall guy,
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stylish, well put together, with blue
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eyes.
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Kind of charming, smiling. But you didn't
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know who he was at first? At first I was stressed, it's
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just that, anyway, he's an attractive man,
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cool, you can tell—there's charisma,
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you can see it in the person. I mean, he behaves in such a way
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like he can do anything, you can just see that
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he's in his element. And when a person carries himself
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that confidently, women fall for him.
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He's just my type of man. And
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how many times did you meet? I mean, you
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saw each other on the yacht, and then? Well, after that we
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met again. How many books were there, roughly?
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About the books.
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It's interesting there, as I understand it, the story is that
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and
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there's a first book and a third book, and there are also two more,
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but they weren't published, so there are two,
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so it turns out you dug up a lot there.
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Also, one acquaintance of Alex's, a political scientist,
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read this book and said, if you
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publish it, I'll kill you. So at first the book
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was project three, it was about Switzerland, and
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the second one was apparently about Krasnodar.
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Right, so you actually saw him
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three times? Yes. After that
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nothing new. After Switzerland we somehow
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still kept in touch. He, I don't know, corresponded with
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you? He called me—over the whole time
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he called me once in my life, when he came
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to pick me up. So basically, once in my life
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I got a phone call from him. We talked a lot
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right up until the end.
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Well, if we're talking about direct communication, then it was a long time ago.
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But through other people, through others—yes. And if
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you mean that I wrote something and he
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read it and responded, then that was
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the day before yesterday.
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And what was that? Well, I wrote there
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a private message.
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As for the yacht, regarding your acquaintance—
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your acquaintance.
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I should say, actually, that in your book
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you described all those transfers very well,
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so we really still had
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to spend quite a long time figuring out
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that it was Norway. But it really was Norway,
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right? Back then it really was
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Norway, but we changed the places so that it
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wouldn't be too obvious, so as not to
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set anyone up. Besides the places, am I right that you
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also changed all the names of
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everyone? All of them? Well, not
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not all, not all—just the ones we weren't too lazy to change.
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Because if you change absolutely everything, it
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but we were just trying, as our
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what's it called, the person who edits the book,
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who reads through it and checks it for
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mistakes, whether the sentences are properly
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constructed—the proofreader, right, the proofreader—
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she said it would be better if
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people didn't get confused, so there should be only one
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name. I mean, if in the book it's Nastya,
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then let her be just that. But why Oleg
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became Ruslan—I honestly don't remember, I, I
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honestly don't remember why. Actually yes, we
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thought about it for a long time, and
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or maybe just picked something suitable. I don't remember
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why we landed specifically on Ruslan.
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That's what we chose. And Papa—why did Papa end up as
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Papa? Well, that's what they call him—Papa.
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Several times you say that he is Deripaska's superior,
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his boss. How was that
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clear? The way they spoke to each other, or
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something else? They spoke differently, like people
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who work in the service sector—they don't
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switch between formal and informal address, you know?
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Because later, well, we got that impression.
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In that sense. But in general, from the way he treated him, you could see it.
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You know, Papa has this thing: he'll do
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this, and Deripaska immediately comes running like,
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to sort out the problem. So it seemed
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as if he really were the boss.
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Yeah, or some kind of person—you know how it is,
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that kind of thing happens. That's why at first
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the girls and I genuinely thought he was his father,
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because sometimes that's how people act toward their parents.
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they relate
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I mean, like when someone has strict parents, for example
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if you compare it by age, back then
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who the hell knows, it kind of looks similar, but
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it doesn’t really add up somehow, I mean, well
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age-wise, like he could be his father at first
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we thought he really treated him like a father
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because it was kind of like
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toward a strict parent, or how a lot of people behave
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with their parents as adults, and with him
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there was this very deferential attitude; Prikhodko had security guards
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specifically his personal ones, and he was basically there
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alone; there was security that drove us around
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back and forth, and there was a head of security who
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carried my suitcase and then bitterly
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complained about it, saying that wasn’t what he had
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trained for, but there were some guards, yes
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but really it’s the kind of thing you see in any
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wealthy household, not just theirs, it’s basically
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everywhere, probably; that’s just how it works
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that’s the custom, that kind of etiquette, I mean
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you don’t see the servants when, say, people arrive
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on shore, or when they
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went somewhere, left, and then
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came back—you could see a whole boatload of
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security there, yes, and they all
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report to one another, there’s that hierarchy, but in
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everyday life you don’t notice them at all
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An unfair question: Oleg, do they understand that you’re
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taking photos? Because it’s unclear—he often
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looks somewhere outside the frame
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well, let’s put it this way, I’ll show you
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damn, you need a teleprompter for this
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let’s just say he has this favorite
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pose—he does this; I didn’t photograph it
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they make arrangements with Elsie; this fear of yours needs
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to be treated. I was running after him around Krasnodar
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like around an entire house, trying to catch him
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he’d lock himself in the bathroom, and you’d yell
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they were also taking pictures on the barge, someone clearly
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I mean, there are shots where you
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are just sitting next to him; I had you framed
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at some distance
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and that VIP girl was just filming for him
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we just got caught in frame by accident; it only seems like
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I don’t know, it seems like people like Deripaska
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should be worried that these photos
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might get published by someone
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or something like that, but clearly, if he
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saw that he was being filmed, I wouldn’t be afraid
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he’d ask what the photos were for, and I’d say, for
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posting on Instagram. ‘I don’t believe you,’ haha, and I
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would take them and post them to Instagram right in front of him
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haha, and that was it—they wouldn’t do anything
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One more question about the yacht and about Prikhodko, I mean
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you write in the book that
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a girl named Ksyusha complained to you that she had
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sex with him—seriously, so
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Prikhodko was sleeping with girls on the yacht?
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Let’s put it this way: nobody forces anyone to
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sleep with anyone. You’re sounding a bit
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strange right now in the way you talk about girls from
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escort services, because there are escorts for 5,000 rubles (about $50–55)
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who, I don’t know, are in whatever kind of
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terrible conditions, and who knows what’s being done
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to them, but there are also girls who are genuinely
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educated, beautiful, and signed with
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modeling agencies, who can
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carry on a conversation on any topic
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who are genuinely capable of
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interacting with men at any level
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I’m sorry, but that’s an art
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and those are the kinds of people they recruit for the yacht
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There’s no such thing as being obliged to go
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have sex with someone; it’s just that
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the girls want to have some kind of relationship
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with these men afterward—some want
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financial support, some want gifts, so
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most of them, in the end, don’t
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refuse sex, because they get something extra
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out of it. And everyone wants Deripaska
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they want him even for free
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Prikhodko was less lucky in that respect
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if he had, like Deripaska, worked out
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every day, not boozed it up, kept himself
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fit and in shape, then he’d be wanted like that too
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that’s just how it is, colleagues
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because, of course, it’s obvious that
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to go places with them
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the girls are ready to do certain things, well
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not that they’re being made to—no one forces them
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it’s a conscious decision on their part, but in the sense that
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apparently they wanted something out of it
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when it came to Prikhodko, and she understood that she needed to
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basically get something through sex
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basically, that’s what all the girls do
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in Moscow—should I go on?
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go on
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Was it only that one girl, Ksyusha, who
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decided to go with Prikhodko?
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Why just Ksyusha? Let’s just say that everyone
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understands that people of a certain
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status and wealth, even if you don’t
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know who exactly they are, make you think, ‘Damn, I wish I had’
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slept with Prikhodko, honestly
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I mean, that was my mistake
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people were telling me afterward
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‘You fool, you should have gone for it’
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which means, for some reason
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my boyfriend was a very jealous guy, and he
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just needed something to trigger his jealousy
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so that he’d start behaving normally
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but I didn’t have the nerve for that, because
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I really liked him, only with
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other men it was different
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I mean, with men who were
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less important to me
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who I didn’t like; with this one I tried so hard
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to be careful, gentle, delicate
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God forbid I hurt him somehow
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but as a rule, softness is weakness
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He’s an interesting guy, really
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more than others, he has more
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masculinity, more of those qualities.
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He behaves like a real man, really
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the kind of man you want to see in movies, you know
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don’t think he’s some kind of...
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Creepy or something else? No, he knows how to do it.
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To present the middle of the century—well, that's just how I'm learning.
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I didn't like the drying one, so I don't know what he...
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I won't like it—I just don't remember right now, but...
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Are you still in touch with anyone else from those...
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girls who were on the yacht back then?
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Do you still keep in touch somehow?
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Ksyusha came to the *Euro Trash* presentation.
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We text, but not to the point of actually meeting up.
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We live very far apart.
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But I know who's in the lineup now.
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The modeling party crowd there is partly the core group.
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Anyway, I always know who's in the group.
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Well, basically, nothing about him has...
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changed compared with then—there was some scandal, I...
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A scandal—this weekend they were putting together a party.
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In Moscow, by the way, so... but Oleg...
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They were putting together a party. I know that everything, everything...
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is still going on, everything's fine, everything will stay like that.
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So you won't change anything, I mean, well...
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Just like rich men drove expensive...
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cars and flew on their private jets...
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just as there were girls at the parties, there still...
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will be. That's normal, it's all fine. Family...
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If I were a rich oligarch, I'd also have...
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20 naked...
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male strippers dancing in front of me. Damn it, you were...
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on the yacht, filming and filming and filming, but...
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you only posted it after...
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almost a year—the first flash drive...
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from that whole operation had still been kept, then I...
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deleted it, and for no particular reason I...
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deleted it.
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Maybe I just snapped, or something like that.
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We were playing it that way because we didn't want...
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the person to get scared and for something...
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to happen to our relationship. It was just...
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about getting him hooked, you understand? When...
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once you've already hooked a person, then...
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he starts thinking to himself, "She can't...
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manage without me," and then you can...
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do pretty much anything. But before that...
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point, you have to behave very carefully.
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No, but it turns out that you did see each other...
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You saw each other when *Euro Trash* happened, right?
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You describe how you met, and...
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so that would have been January 2017, right?
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And after that, you barely communicated and didn't...
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see each other—just texted. And then you...
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start posting everything in the summer. It's just...
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strange that it was specifically in the summer that you suddenly decided...
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to publish everything. The book came out.
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We were actually planning to catch him at the...
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economic forum in St. Petersburg (the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum). We were going there...
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we were definitely planning to go there, but then it just...
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worked out that way—we didn't rent a car there, basically...
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thank God, this [__]... anyway, the girl doesn't call...
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the girl who was already there. I didn't have my passport, so I...
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couldn't fly. We had something even crazier going on there...
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there was a whole crowd there, practically a hostile takeover.
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of your St. Petersburg forum. My friend...
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calls me and says, "Listen, he'd better..."
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Basically, here at the forum—at the forum—we...
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I see him. I say, basically, let's go...
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give him this book—we're heading to this...
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St. Petersburg forum.
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My friend had just taken this book out...
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of her handbag, and basically she gets escorted out of that...
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forum.
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There was some kind of... it was a mess. He...
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got scared. Tell me about the street, because it's not...
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clear what kind of street that was—I saw it, no...
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Tell me what happened.
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I went up to him—Ksenia was telling it—and I...
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just said, "This is simply Alexei's student..."
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of Raima.
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She was telling all of this, writing up that report...
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They were working something out there.
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It only became closer after...
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this situation fed into it. He read it, he started...
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Did he end up reading the book or not? Well, did you read...
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the book about yourself? Well, I'd have read it to the end...
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Logically, yes. That's what it was for—you just create...
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intrigue. Any intrigue can't just exist on its own—it has to...
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be hooked onto a person. That's Alexei's...
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technology. So you wouldn't...
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be interested in any intrigue that doesn't...
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concern you personally. But if the book concerns you, then...
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you can simply give a person...
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a book and say, "Look, this book has a character...
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who looks like you," and the person will...
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read it, looking for similarities. If you give...
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someone a book about himself, of course he'll...
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I mean, that's his choice.
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Those photos were posted...
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basically as, well, another technique...
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of seduction, of course. By the way, this is about...
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Navalny's investigation, actually.
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the yacht—asking about the headquarters, I mean...
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It all started when other hunters...
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came into our top group. Then you recorded a video...
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saying that you would find Alexei Navalny...
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and make him notice you with sex. First we recorded...
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the video, and then the girls went to the headquarters.
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Because the video was recorded right away, when...
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there was sex on the embankment, in the house. Why...
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wasn't I there? Because I had flown out. We...
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first recorded the video, and then the girls...
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went to the headquarters.
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And do you know how it all started? It started with...
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your followers coming and pouring...
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soda over our books at the *Euro Trash* presentation and...
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saying they were from Navalny.
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After that, we decided we'd expose him.
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There you go—that's the cause-and-effect chain.
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connection.
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They should thank me—I have 90,000 followers on Instagram.
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Are they basically grateful, or is it just... I mean...
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I've heard a lot of different...
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conspiracy theories saying that...
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supposedly anti-... anti-Prokhorov-style...
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forces sent you to our headquarters so that...
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Navalny would notice and launch an investigation, and...
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It was just that two boys came to the...
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*Euro Trash* presentation, poured soda on our books...
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and started shouting that they were from...
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Navalny.
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And do you know what this all really started from?
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There was a big demonstration in Moscow, and we...
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So they spun the demonstration to make it look like...
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Basically, we showed up with signs saying, "We're for sex."
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Something like, "at dawn everything gets stolen," that kind of thing, basically...
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They knew about it, and those guys who...
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were organizing it...
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the ones who were running the demonstration, basically, and...
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they framed it like, "Look how many...
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people came out in support of us," but for us...
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it was just bullshit, we were just...
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laughing about it.
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But those boys took it seriously
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as a personal insult — Navalny's followers
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of Alexei Navalny — and then the next...
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I guess a few weeks passed...
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and they came to his presentation...
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poured something over the books, over our legs — fine, they doused them...
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The books, fine. Friends, then we'll speak to
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you differently. Bring your
16:56
leader here. We were genuinely racking our brains...
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over this — it's pretty strange. One thing is...
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with someone like Egor... but another thing is...
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why Navalny is even needed here, I mean, obviously...
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in politics... We just decided that
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Navalny's followers have a lot of
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aggression, which just means they simply...
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well, bluntly speaking... I mean they...
17:14
aren't getting enough sex. I think you also...
17:16
seriously thought that these...
17:18
Deribasovskaya-style positions of the new...
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Russia — definitely United Russia deputies (the ruling political party) — are...
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basically just some guy who, secretly from
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his wife, wants to sleep with one of our huntresses...
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He's Alex's student; sometime around 2005 and...
17:42
2010 he completed some training there. If
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he knows that Alex has these "huntresses,"
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he periodically falls for one of them
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and then walks around waiting like that.
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That's why you probably noticed
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that Nastya several times
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turns to someone off-camera
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who keeps prompting her
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what to say — that's her coach, Alex Lesley.
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He can probably be considered
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the real organizer and mastermind
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behind this whole story. Well, if we've decided
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to dot all the i's,
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then we definitely need to talk to him.
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Please tell me, when I was preparing...
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I mean, studying your biography, I saw that you...
18:36
also came from the Republic of Belarus.
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That's right? Not from Moscow? Well, look...
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I left when I was 18, yes, and after that I practically didn't...
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You enrolled in the Mechanics and Mathematics Department,
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the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics.
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Yes. That seems to impress you a lot, but to me...
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it seems very hard to get in, and even
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harder to study there.
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I want to say that I was admitted through an academic Olympiad competition too.
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That's how I got in. I went there in March,
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they have a preliminary Olympiad there,
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and I wasn't prepared at all, basically. And when
19:06
I got a 9 on the written exam,
19:10
that was a very high score by...
19:12
by the standards there, and everyone...
19:14
was kind of stunned because I hadn't
19:16
prepared at all. On the one hand, you...
19:18
became interested in science, and that was what...
19:21
for everyone — or at least for many — became
19:22
a surprise: it turned out that...
19:25
Skolkovo (Russia's innovation hub) ... and so, what's happening now?
19:28
The same thing is happening, everything is moving forward, we...
19:31
are continuing the project. This project has already had
19:34
four investors drop out before me, but before
19:38
I started carrying it myself
19:40
seriously, financially, around 2012.
19:42
From about the moment when we
19:44
joined Skolkovo, I said we wouldn't
19:46
use migrants or anything like that, simply because
19:48
that takes a huge amount of time, and we don't have it.
19:49
We don't have the administrative resources for that here.
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We only have scientists and engineers. So what exactly are you
19:53
working on now? Well, it's this kind of project...
19:54
Right now we're already at the final stage
19:56
of launching a plaster-based cardio monitoring system.
20:01
When we were starting the project with Yevtushenkov,
20:04
I gave him a report in which I pointed out that
20:07
the number one problem in the world is arrhythmia.
20:10
It's the number one problem because
20:12
it's behind most heart attacks.
20:14
Then after that comes... well, I mean...
20:18
the heart is supposed to beat evenly.
20:20
To put it simply for ordinary people,
20:23
if an arrhythmia starts, that's a big
20:24
problem, and a large share of deaths
20:27
are caused precisely by that —
20:30
arrhythmia, and only then heart attacks. Now, you told me before the interview...
20:33
before the interview that Skolkovo had started
20:35
the procedure to revoke your resident status.
20:37
Yes, that's true. How do you feel about
20:41
Skolkovo now, and in general, do you connect all this
20:43
with it? Obviously... you know...
20:47
The Eksmo publishing house decided to stop
20:49
publishing the book. People are just afraid.
20:52
People in this country are afraid of everything, they really
20:55
are afraid of everything. People are afraid to make a peep.
20:58
I mean, and I'm sure that neither Deripaska
21:01
nor Vekselberg had any idea whatsoever about
21:04
this whole story.
21:06
I'm sure they have completely
21:07
different things to do
21:09
than pressure us,
21:11
small people like us, and squeeze us out of somewhere
21:13
like Skolkovo. My God, it's just people...
21:16
People. Take Eksmo, for example — no one there...
21:19
came in, no one threatened them, no one from above
21:21
leaned on them or hit them over the head, I think.
21:23
But we're doing our work as before.
21:26
Yes, I mean, nothing will change for us.
21:28
The only thing is, maybe we won't have to submit reports
21:30
to Skolkovo, which is very good. How are
21:32
sex training and science supposed to go together?
21:35
Well, sex is as much a science as anything else.
21:38
Really, people don't pay any attention at all
21:41
to these kinds of things,
21:44
specifically to questions of sex education.
21:47
Just look at how much the state spends
21:49
on war, and how much it spends on love.
21:52
for sex
21:53
That is why the world needs
21:58
research in the field of sex, absolutely
22:00
and the world needs the promotion of it
22:03
further sexual
22:05
education for the public, because people
22:08
are completely uneducated, while
22:11
those in power—look how interesting this is—the entire elite
22:14
the whole ruling class is absolutely educated on
22:16
this issue
22:17
absolutely all of them, every single one, know perfectly well
22:20
they know perfectly well. That whole story there about Prikhodko—you
22:22
do you think this is something new for them?
22:24
They all know perfectly well themselves
22:26
everything about Prikhodko. They know everything about each
22:28
other, basically. It’s just that there is, well,
22:32
between the different strata, sort of, some kind of
22:34
let’s say, a certain code, yes, they don’t
22:37
say: why reveal such things to the people?
22:40
Why is that necessary? They’ll go crazy
22:43
from it. They shouldn’t be given that information, and
22:46
they’re right, yes—the people aren’t ready for this
22:49
information, not really ready to know
22:52
how the elite lives, because people
22:54
would be completely blown away
22:55
And do you yourself think that what Prikhodko
22:59
did there on that yacht was corruption, a bribe?
23:01
What happened with Prikhodko, let’s put it this way, what
23:05
the fact that the man, apparently, that Prikhodko was on that
23:07
yacht—that’s just the way business is done right now, at present
23:11
that’s the existing model, and it won’t
23:14
change. That is, to conduct negotiations and, as it were,
23:17
use beautiful women in order
23:20
for them to create the atmosphere, yes, so that
23:22
to, well, grease up that person a little
23:26
who comes in, so that he relaxes and
23:28
then—yes, well, fine, but still
23:30
Prikhodko is a certain
23:31
high-ranking official, meaning that for him
23:33
it’s not just a matter of moral
23:35
limits, but legally
23:36
established restrictions. He cannot
23:38
accept bribes from oligarchs; he cannot
23:40
vacation on their yachts; he cannot
23:42
use their gifts and things like that
23:44
I mean, the fact that he ended up
23:47
on Deripaska’s yacht
23:48
and obviously had sex with the girls
23:52
who were there—does that count as corruption?
23:54
That’s their life, you understand. I, I
23:58
I think this was blown up specifically
24:01
in that particular way, yes, by drawing attention to
24:03
it. But you understand that this is happening all the time there
24:07
I mean, they always live like this
24:10
For them it isn’t a bribe, because
24:12
they always live this way. It’s their lifestyle
24:14
And you, I mean, for some reason, focused on Prikhodko
24:18
only because of one yacht, but they all live like that there
24:21
they all live that way
24:21
No, I don’t believe everyone lives like that. It’s just that
24:24
here, specifically here, there are photographs
24:26
they got caught
24:27
A little secret has just been revealed here, namely
24:29
that you only have data about
24:30
Prikhodko. But you understand that this simply
24:32
means that you were not given the total
24:34
global data on the entire elite and the whole
24:37
political leadership of the country. That does not
24:39
mean it doesn’t exist. It’s just that
24:41
journalists are very tightly controlled
24:43
I think that Deripaska has, Deripaska has
24:47
connections with all the political elites
24:49
of the world, yes, and that’s no surprise—they do business
24:52
they conduct affairs. Let’s say that these
24:54
Deripaska companies are very heavily
24:56
tied to politics, very heavily, and not
24:58
only to politics but to the military as well, simply because
25:00
aluminum is
25:02
used everywhere, and he not only has
25:04
those ties, but surely also with defense
25:06
ministers—personal ties with all of them
25:08
contacts, and
25:09
otherwise, well, how would he conduct business?
25:11
Right. So when you ended up with
25:14
what was essentially kompromat (damaging material) in your hands, from the point
25:17
of view of the general public
25:18
kompromat on two very influential and very
25:21
wealthy people—on Deripaska and on
25:22
Prikhodko—did you have the idea of taking it further
25:25
and selling it to someone?
25:28
We didn’t see it as kompromat at all
25:31
not at all, yes. We didn’t present it as
25:34
kompromat. We still have so much video—you can’t
25:37
imagine how much different material there is—and it’s all
25:39
on the internet. We didn’t even see it as
25:42
anything special; these were Periscope broadcasts, yes, and it’s all
25:44
on the internet. We didn’t attach that kind of
25:46
importance to it, like: here you go, this is kompromat. Even
25:49
if someone offered us right now, saying, come on
25:51
guys, let’s make money from
25:53
kompromat, you’re great at it
25:54
we would say no, because we’re not
25:56
interested in that. What interested us was simply
25:57
who these people were. As a seduction coach, I was
26:00
interested in how they could be
26:01
influenced, and for us—for me—the
26:04
value lies not in the story
26:07
of Prikhodko’s politics, not in the story with
26:09
Deripaska, but in those methods that
26:11
worked on an oligarch, yes, that she
26:14
used—a girl from Belarus simply
26:16
did it, and he responded, and he
26:19
became interested in her, yes, and he was basically shocked
26:22
by her—she completely blew his mind
26:24
It’s important to say: there’s a lot on Periscope, and
26:26
you post everything right away, but specifically the material from
26:28
the yacht was posted almost a year later, and
26:30
moreover, if you look at Instagram
26:33
first, first Nastya posted it
26:35
there in June, and then, I think, in October, and
26:38
what I mean is that there was a large
26:39
gap, and everything was posted in portions
26:42
and the captions became increasingly
26:44
explicit. At first it said
26:45
Ruslan, then Oleg was named. So
26:47
why, why not all at once? Look
26:50
I’ll tell you how it really happened
26:53
So, we were seducing, seducing
26:56
They were seducing Oleg, yes, and she was writing it all down.
26:59
Later, at some point,
27:02
she said, basically, that they had to do something already.
27:07
Nothing was working on him anymore, she said.
27:09
She said it was time to reveal the game to him.
27:12
So when she said it was time
27:14
to reveal the game to him, she decided to find
27:19
him herself.
27:20
And they found out that at the economic
27:22
forum in St. Petersburg
27:23
they put together entire teams there
27:26
to go, and Nastya was planning to make her move on him, and
27:28
then something happened.
27:30
Either they couldn't get a car, or
27:32
something else happened, and it wasn't Nastya who ended up there.
27:34
A girl named Polina ended up going instead.
27:38
She boldly went up to give him the book on Easter Day.
27:41
She approached him there; he was surrounded by
27:43
Nabiullina (Elvira Nabiullina, head of Russia's Central Bank) and some others.
27:46
Then there was a post-banquet reception afterward,
27:48
after the economic forum.
27:50
So she gives him the book, he takes it,
27:52
looks at it, and his eyes go wide.
27:55
He was in shock and said something to security.
27:58
Security escorted her out, and then she told Nastya about it.
28:01
"Nastya, can you imagine his reaction
28:02
to Nastya's book?" She said, "What do we do? We need to
28:06
reveal everything now, because he's going to
28:08
be afraid that I'll somehow
28:09
use it against him." But then she
28:11
posted that funny video on her
28:13
page and all that, la-di-da.
28:18
[music]
28:23
Rabbit.
28:24
Only one
28:26
person who was involved in those events could understand it.
28:29
For everyone else, including you, it wouldn't make sense. And why did she
28:32
do it in exactly that way? Because
28:34
she wanted him to relax, and then what happened was
28:37
the sex on the embankment, and then they were jailed.
28:39
And in jail they were badly mistreated there.
28:43
Inside the jail itself, they were treated normally,
28:45
but they were told, "You're never
28:46
getting out of here again." And Nastya, in
28:51
a phone call, told me, "Alex,
28:54
we have to ask Oleg for help at any cost.
28:56
Through Instagram, basically. I asked, "What
28:59
should I do?" She more or less explained to me
29:01
what to do, how to ask him for help so that
29:03
he would respond. I wrote it literally,
29:05
word for word, exactly as she relayed it. The girls
29:08
put it out there.
29:09
After that, his lawyer immediately got in touch,
29:13
the one who handles situations like that, and with her—well, with
29:18
our lawyers—there was a meeting.
29:20
The lawyers met, and accordingly
29:23
it was said, basically: let her
29:26
delete that post about this story,
29:29
because for us it was openly like,
29:32
"Oleg, help us, and we will, so to speak, help you
29:35
in return, and we'll figure out
29:38
whose order this was," because it was clearly someone's
29:40
order from above to shut them down, meaning
29:44
they served their seven days there,
29:46
and there was no further prosecution,
29:48
no criminal case afterward, thanks, I believe, to Oleg.
29:51
That didn't happen. And accordingly, by then
29:56
from her own mouth, and amid the wave
29:59
of hype at the time, on the back of all those Metro (a Russian newspaper) stories,
30:02
Metro News and
30:03
Express Gazeta (a Russian tabloid newspaper), and so on, they all
30:05
reposted the story that it was Oleg
30:08
Deripaska.
30:08
After that, it was already, well, under
30:11
publicity—it had already been published,
30:13
so there was no point denying it or
30:15
hiding it. So she was already openly
30:17
writing there about seducing
30:18
oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska's properties, and so on.
30:20
I see. All right, but when did the idea first come
30:22
to write a book in the first place?
30:25
The diary—the first one—right away, immediately. Do you know why?
30:29
I'll tell you why. We didn't even
30:31
invent that; it's a standard move
30:34
for any student: first, seduce the person
30:38
by setting up a game for him; second, reveal the game.
30:42
You have to build emotional swings, meaning
30:45
does he love me, does he not; does he want me, does he not, and so on.
30:47
That whole pattern. Plus,
30:50
in dramaturgy there's a climax,
30:51
a turning point, a moment of catharsis, and
30:54
so on. And that moment,
30:57
that moment is standard. So when she
31:01
came back, the first thing that had to be done
31:03
was the report. That's the rule with us: the report is always
31:06
written while everything is still fresh,
31:08
while you still remember it all. So she took all her
31:09
notes.
31:10
That's just classic, in our seduction practice.
31:13
So she took all her notes and created
31:16
a real report that, by and large, was understandable only
31:18
to the person involved, and she wrote it all down.
31:20
And on top of that, she decided to turn it into
31:22
a book and publish it so that the
31:25
impact would be even stronger. The book came out.
31:28
No one knew about it—well, he knew, but
31:31
she kept leading him through some kind of game, back and forth, and then
31:33
because she decided to
31:35
reveal him there, to push it further, that's how
31:38
it all came out. But again, there wasn't the same kind of
31:40
reaction as there was after Navalny (Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition politician), meaning
31:42
when all of this was dug up, Oleg took it with humor.
31:45
That was his attitude toward it. All right, I've gone through that part.
31:48
Back then I was talking about that; now let's move to another topic.
31:50
About Navalny—and more specifically, about the headquarters. Nastya
31:54
said in an interview that some guys came to
31:56
your presentation and said
31:59
they were Navalny supporters, poured
32:00
soda over the books, and left. But there is video.
32:05
I have it.
32:11
[music]
32:17
[music]
32:22
And in it they don't say anything about
32:27
Navalny.
32:27
The thing is, with no one else—absolutely no one else—
32:30
were there any stories at all involving
32:32
conflicts, because the theme
32:34
of our event was positive and cheerful, about...
32:37
Sex and all that, for us, is basically, like...
32:38
We and politics are completely different spheres.
32:41
We’re not connected to them in any way, and we don’t plan to be.
32:44
Yeah, some people there said they were from...
32:49
Navalny. Or rather, no—they definitely...
32:53
No, definitely not. You can hear it in the video.
32:55
She says the video should show...
32:58
that they were saying no...
33:00
not Navalny.
33:00
And then after the rally, after Navalny’s rally...
33:09
she says there were messages somewhere...
33:11
saying they’d find us on the day, on the very day...
33:15
of the rally, and on the day, she says, on the day...
33:18
of the presentation. There was some correspondence about it somewhere.
33:20
But she says there’s some correspondence somewhere.
33:22
And why did they decide they were from...
33:25
Navalny? Because somewhere there is...
33:26
a message thread where they said, basically, that you shouldn’t have done that,
33:29
and that they’d find you afterward, basically.
33:31
Well, actually, I want to say that yes...
33:33
these were some kind of, honestly, idiots...
33:35
who...
33:39
Did you see them at the rally? They say...
33:43
that they even know who they are. They apparently...
33:46
got into an argument with one of our people and tried...
33:48
to start a fight, and then later they found them, basically, yeah.
33:51
So we did a little investigation: they...
33:55
argued with one of ours, and then they...
33:56
tracked them down somewhere—Trishina recognized them, but...
33:59
in general, you can find them and ask.
34:01
They’re already in the video—you just need to find them.
34:04
Ask them: where are you from, guys?
34:06
Were you acting on someone’s orders or not? But maybe...
34:09
maybe they were just activists who decided...
34:11
to restore justice or something like that.
34:13
Could be. Most likely that’s what happened.
34:14
Because I don’t think she was even really aware of...
34:16
the whole story. That would be the simpler explanation for...
34:18
him—it was all news to him, even for him it was...
34:20
actually big news.
34:21
But it’s just strange that some, well...
34:23
that some random, unclear people showed up...
34:26
and were obviously saying they weren’t from Navalny.
34:28
They insisted they weren’t from Navalny because...
34:30
Nastya recognized them, and after that...
34:32
out of that whole scene came the idea of coming to our...
34:35
headquarters. No, the idea of going to your headquarters—so...
34:42
I’ll tell you how that idea came about. One...
34:46
of my friends...
34:47
invited me once and said, listen...
34:49
let’s put you forward for president...
34:51
I said, okay, fine.
34:52
I have a principle: always say yes. He...
34:55
said something about politics and then said, let’s...
34:56
run for president.
34:57
Well, why not? Put me forward—sure.
35:00
I said okay, and he invited me to...
35:03
there was some kind of—where was it again?—some...
35:09
political discussion event, and there was also...
35:11
Bogdanov was there too, Tsvetkov, and...
35:15
it was at the Artefaq club, yes. He invited me to this political...
35:18
club, Artefaq, and said: come and say...
35:20
that you’re going to be president in the future, Igor.
35:21
So I came to this club, Artefaq, and there...
35:24
at that very moment in the club...
35:26
there was an active discussion about what to do with...
35:30
Navalny. I don’t know who they were, whether they were from...
35:33
United Russia (the ruling political party), or leftists, or just some people...
35:35
I don’t know. Back then I didn’t understand politics at all.
35:37
So I went there simply...
35:39
to stir things up. I looked at this whole circus and...
35:42
said: listen, this is insane.
35:44
And they were also saying that something had to be done...
35:47
about Navalny, that they’d start bringing...
35:49
people into the streets, and then everything would go to hell.
35:51
I went up on stage and said: friends...
35:53
you see, you people are just not getting enough sex.
35:56
You just need to have...
35:58
sex. They were very afraid there would be bloodshed...
36:01
that Navalny would bring bloodshed to the country, and...
36:03
Nastya naturally made a video saying that she...
36:05
didn’t want that to happen. And when she...
36:08
came out, it was the same question: what do we do now?
36:11
After the “sex to the embankment” thing, there was hype around it...
36:14
back and forth, and the question was how to use that...
36:15
how to make use of it, what to do. So: let’s go to...
36:17
Navalny’s headquarters too. Her goal was also...
36:20
specifically to attract and seduce young women.
36:23
Oh, yes, and you know another thing...
36:26
they almost tracked him down in France...
36:28
Journalist: you wanted to meet him in France...
36:30
There was even some kind of operation there.
36:32
They asked me to distract his wife, I remember.
36:35
I remember they found out he was with his wife and said...
36:37
Alexei, go distract Yulia, and we’ll deal with Navalny...
36:39
we’ll attack him somehow when you...
36:41
Journalists had practically already sent us...
36:43
the location. They had even...
36:46
offered someone money for...
36:47
Navalny’s location, and so on.
36:49
And they were in touch live, and when they...
36:52
said, once you find him, basically, go ahead and attack him.
36:54
Him. But anyway, getting back to the headquarters—am I...
36:58
understanding correctly that the political strategist was...
37:01
Sergei Tolmachev, the one who, well...
37:06
suggested the idea that I should run in the election?
37:08
Before that, he was originally my student.
37:13
Actually, you know what the story with him is?
37:15
I’m telling you, he has much less to do with United Russia...
37:17
than he does with this whole scene. He came in...
37:20
as a political strategist. All his life...
37:22
for 20 years he worked for the authorities. He...
37:25
worked on Putin’s campaigns and others too—I honestly don’t remember well.
37:28
To be honest, I don’t remember. In Ukraine too...
37:31
he worked on someone’s campaign there. But he’s a generalist political strategist...
37:32
that is, he can work with...
37:34
any client. And then he became a deputy.
37:37
And after that, well, he was in...
37:40
Civic Platform, then in United...
37:42
Russia, moving back and forth, and so on.
37:44
And of course, he still is...
37:47
someone very close to this whole topic.
37:49
Because he also does training sessions.
37:50
But was the idea of going to the headquarters his idea?
37:53
At first, no—the idea of going to the headquarters was ours.
37:56
And when we told him, he said he was all for it.
37:58
Great, let’s do it, basically.
38:02
And after that, he was kind of waiting there...
38:06
So after the headquarters, he himself was waiting for Roza.
38:09
Look, in fact, for him this was
38:12
a nightmare, a catastrophe, that he had been
38:14
found out.
38:16
He really did not want this at all, because
38:19
well, how was he supposed to explain this now,
38:21
right? He was waiting there for Roza,
38:26
because he was dating her at the time, and
38:29
they had agreed that when he finished
38:30
working, he would come pick her up, and he
38:32
picked up the girls and the armband and went there,
38:36
back then.
38:36
There were also journalists there, journalist
38:39
journalists from Life.
38:41
Life journalists, that is, those are the
38:44
people who knew that our story was
38:47
high-profile after the embankment sex scandal, and
38:48
a huge number of journalists from Life had
38:51
attended my training sessions. We wrote to all
38:54
the journalists, and to Life, I ran to
38:56
Vintovye, and
38:58
Channel One, basically everyone who might
39:00
after the sex-on-the-embankment story, that we were going
39:01
to storm Navalny’s headquarters. Come on,
39:03
let’s pin them down, and whoever, whoever would.
39:04
Well, basically, the initiative came from us,
39:07
not from them. Though Life, of course, I think
39:10
when they found out it was Navalny, they wanted
39:12
to go after Navalny, so that is probably why
39:14
they went right away, once they realized that something
39:16
interesting would happen there. And a couple of personal
39:20
remarks from me at the end. I do not know
39:22
whether you got the same impression,
39:23
but it seems to me that the story about the vacation on
39:26
the yacht can safely be considered closed.
39:27
There are no loose ends there, no planted
39:30
girls, no spy equipment, none of that.
39:32
There is a girl who sincerely believes
39:35
that she is a huntress and is seducing
39:37
an oligarch, and there is an oligarch who perfectly well
39:40
sees that he is being filmed and knows about the book
39:42
but pays it no attention.
39:44
She posted it, and he posted it online; there was no point
39:47
in getting involved, and this story would have remained
39:49
unimportant, especially to no one really, well
39:51
except Nastya, if not for Prikhodko
39:54
accidentally ending up in the frame.
39:55
However, I was left with mixed feelings
39:57
for another reason: why did the huntress still
40:00
come to our headquarters and get involved in politics?
40:02
I am simply afraid
40:03
of turning into the same kind of conspiracy theorists I
40:05
complained about at the beginning. However, I cannot help but
40:07
notice that the story of the conflict with
40:09
Navalny’s supporters
40:11
is literally falling apart at the seams, and there is somehow
40:13
far too high a concentration of these
40:15
United Russia political consultants near
40:17
the huntress: Milov, Tolmachev, Zhulik,
40:20
Bogdanov, Tsvetkov from Officers of Russia, and Life
40:22
News constantly around her.
40:24
Well, most likely, I would venture to suggest
40:26
that these political consultants came up with it
40:28
or at least nudged Lesli
40:30
and the girls toward the idea of trolling Navalny,
40:31
pulling a small dirty trick, simply
40:33
causing some mischief and then showing it on Life
40:35
News.
40:35
Well, that is what Kremlin political consultants are like:
40:38
nothing they do turns out especially well.
40:41
They wanted to curry favor and cause trouble, but
40:44
you know what it turned into. Watch our
40:47
investigation, and do not believe conspiracy theorists
40:49
or political consultants, please.