pensiya.org, "How lovely, they’re out in the streets" and the electro-recaller

[music]

Hello everyone. It's 8:18 p.m. in Moscow. Alexei is in the studio.

Navalny, or irresponsible politics,

as Valentina Matviyenko called me.

Well, she, of course, is a responsible politician,

and at her briefing

where she was talking about how important it is

to raise the retirement age, she scolded

irresponsible politicians who

only want to hold rallies,

and refuse to meet Russians halfway,

who are longing,

longing and demanding that their dear government

please raise the retirement age.

Valentina Ivanovna, please, it's too low.

We're working—raise it for us. So there you have it.

So she scolded us. Today we'll also spend quite a bit of time

talking

about the retirement age. I want

to remind you that you can ask me

questions with the hashtag #Navalny2018. Please write

to Twitter,

and I'll answer them.

Today we're raising money; for that

there's Super Chat, and there's also

a special thing below that you can find

on YouTube. All the money will go toward

paying fines for various good people

who take part in rallies. I wanted to begin

today's episode with some good news:

to say that, guys, for the first time in

a year and a half, finally,

it has happened that none of the staff

or activists from our headquarters across the

country is under arrest, because

I got out, Kira got out, our press secretary Ruslan Shaveddinov got out,

all those people

all those people

whom I showed you in

the previous program—they were released from

rather lengthy arrests of 25 to 30

days, and we had almost reached the point

where—bang—there was nobody in jail.

But Zakhar Sarapulov from the city of

Irkutsk seriously let me down—let all of us down,

when he came to a May 1 rally in his

hometown of Irkutsk.

And this is what he looked like when he came—he was holding

a duck.

You see, he came with a rubber duck, but

obviously, by doing that he immediately

turned a cultural event into

a sharp socio-political one, and that's exactly

how the police wrote it up, and then the court

—a judge, imagine, a judge in a federal

court, with a robe and a big

salary—issued a ruling

saying that when a person came to

a May 1 rally with a duck, he of course immediately turned the May 1 rally

from a cultural event

into a socio-political one.

So she—or he—slapped Zakhar Sarapulov with 8

days of arrest. Because of our Zakhar, I can't

—sorry—say that

right now we have nobody

in the cells. So we're waiting for

Zakhar to get out, and maybe on the next

program, I hope, I'll jubilantly

say: guys, for the first time in a year and a half,

this

has happened, and none of our people is sitting in jail

simply for going out into the street. Meanwhile,

this comment—how lovely, isn't it?

Out on the streets—that's the main thing. At least, from what I've tracked

on social media

over the past week, while the World Cup is going on

in Moscow and St. Petersburg and other major cities,

everyone is just enchanted: my God, look,

there are Peruvians on the streets, Brazilians,

people from various exotic countries in

funny outfits, literally running

through the streets of Russian cities, and this is

something everyone likes, it's great. No, I'm not

joking at all—it's genuinely great.

But there were two such videos I really liked.

This is Peruvians in the central square

of the city of Saransk. Let's watch

and enjoy 30 seconds of it.

Ah.

Yes.

[applause]

Ah.

It's great, really great. I myself

retweeted this video on Twitter

with the caption: Great—how beautiful Saransk is.

With all due respect to Saransk,

it has never been this beautiful. Peruvians,

non-Peruvians, whoever—they walk through

Saransk, and they feel good, and we feel good,

and the police feel good, and the people who

sell ice cream are doing great, and those who

rent out hotel rooms—everyone's happy. We

enjoy it and rejoice, and you just

watch this video and your face

just spreads into a smile. Another 30

seconds—let's watch how the Swedes

walked through Nizhny Novgorod. And these were not

some Swedish invaders reaching

Nizhny Novgorod.

These were cool people walking down

the main street, enjoying themselves, and we

were enjoying it with them. Thirty seconds of

Swedes in Nizhny Novgorod.

Well, it's freaking awesome, right? Forgive me

for the expression, but it's just

awesome. They're walking, and it's great. We

are enjoying

something almost unseen in Russia: when city streets

actually belong to the people

for whom cities are built—to people. Right now,

the most popular place for

taking photos in Moscow is Nikolskaya

Street.

It has spontaneously become this kind of

pedestrian-only street

where people walk along the roadway, and everyone

loves it. And there's one thing

that darkens this enjoyment we're experiencing.

it all comes from how great it is

how wonderful it was on the streets of Russian

cities—the fact that in two weeks, just a little

a little later, no one will be left

and for stepping out onto the roadway

you can be jailed for 15 days or locked up for

30 days

foreigners can do this; right now we can

live and rejoice there because foreigners are here

because this Putin government, United

Russia

they want to throw dust in people’s eyes and

show how great we are, how

good-natured we are, how friendly we are, well

that’s supposedly what we’re like, yes—but as soon as

the foreigners leave, no, Kolya, you can’t

and you can’t either, Masha; it means you’re not

allowed even to stand on the sidewalk with a one-person

picket—not for a celebration, not for

joy, not for political demands

not for anything at all. As soon as the foreigners

leave here, this holiday

ends, and the city once again belongs

to Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich

to Boris Rotenberg, Arkady Rotenberg,

to Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, and to everyone

else—and no one else is allowed to be there

I would really like this wonderful

feeling of enjoyment and pleasure from

the fact that people simply go out into the streets with

any demands, with any

demonstrations, to somehow remain with us

even after

the foreigners leave Russia, so that we still

have at least some sense of our own

dignity grow a little, and

we would say to ourselves: why can’t we

go out in exactly the same way? Look

at June 12 last year—people

were arrested, detained, dragged into

police vans because they were doing the same

thing: they were walking with the flags of their own country

but Mexicans walk with theirs, Swedes walk

with theirs, and on June 12, Russia Day, we walked

with our Russian flags, and

for that, people were arrested. So we

must make sure that during

championships and during any

festive or protest events

the streets belong to the people, and everyone will be

better off for it—police officers included

and the people themselves. Dmitry Navosha, editor-in-chief

of Sports.ru

Sports.ru, sorry, one of the leading

sports websites, later

wrote something interesting that I saw on Facebook

in Nizhny Novgorod

there, on some little lawns near the Kremlin (city fortress),

he says, people are lying there in jerseys

that clearly show they’re Germans or from Brazil

who came here; the police don’t bother them. But if lying there is

someone who is identified

as Russian

they immediately come over and say, right, come on

get up off the grass, please go somewhere else

this should not be happening; this is what

we need to eradicate, because what kind of

beastly attitude toward ourselves is that?

Why is it that we’re not allowed? Even if you look at those same

football fans

look at how our

fans are treated

all of YouTube is full of videos of them being

shocked with stun guns

held for hours in those sections at

stadiums, with these huge

massive lines where it’s impossible

to get through—how they’re treated overall, like

subhumans. And now how we love

foreigners—we kiss them, we hug them. I

flew in yesterday, and there were many

Mexicans, many Icelanders, and all of them

were being welcomed at the border, and there were a lot of

border guards sitting in their little booths

and there were no lines at all. Maybe

I just got lucky, but at least I didn’t see any

lines, and it was really great. And they, well, they

were all energized, and you feel it too

as you come in, and you feel proud of the country, of how

they see this country, how they

are encountering it, and you understand that now

these Mexicans

will go to Nikolskaya Street, grab some beer

hang out, and say what an awesome

country Russia is

let it remain just as awesome for us too

That is the most important thing

we are working for, what we are defending in

the course of our political struggle: so that

Russia will always be like this

and belong not only

to foreigners when they come here

to hang out, but also to us in our ordinary

lives, because we also want to

hang out, and live, and

protest, and walk around however we like

and protest too, because unfortunately there is plenty

to protest about, unfortunately. Now, about

the cups

the most attentive of you noticed that

it says pensiya dot org

some of you saw in the description

that it says pensiya dot org, and I will be referring

to this website, to this domain name

for a long time to come, not just in

the immediate future, in the next few

months

because this is one of our key

campaigns. Those who follow our

work know that we are constantly

involved in campaigns concerning

pension reform, when the state

first once and then a second time

stole our pension savings, we

made a special website, we also collected

signatures, we organized a mass appeal to

members of parliament. And now we are calling on everyone

regardless of your political views

regardless of your views, I often say this phrase, but I

would put it even more sharply now: even if you voted for

Putin, I don't care.

Come here and join us.

Because your leader deceived you.

You voted for him because

he said, "As long as I am president, the retirement

age will not be raised," and he deceived you.

He betrayed you, he robbed you, so

come here — we're collecting signatures here, and

this, it seems to me, is a little more

meaningful than all the other signature

campaigns, although they are useful too. For example, the petition

on Change.org gathered more than two

million signatures.

That's wonderful. And 100,000 people

voted — that's very good. But we want

not only to collect a lot of

signatures, but also to create together with you

a huge machine for putting pressure on

officials and deputies who do not want

to listen and are trying to raise the

retirement

age, because 95 percent of people

are categorically against it, but they are still

raising it anyway. They are telling us:

we don't care about Russians — this is what we want to do.

Here's what we want to do: you register on the

website and provide your address, at least

down to your city. We don't need your house number, we don't

need your apartment — just

your city, so we can put pressure on

officials. What are officials afraid of, especially

deputies and politicians? That you will stop

voting for them. And even more, they are afraid

that you will vote in a coordinated way

against them. So we are taking

the first step toward creating this machine of

coordinated voting against them in

any election at any level — whether it's a

local deputy,

the State Duma, or a governor,

whatever it may be. We will send you an email

saying that in your area

some people are running in the election. We are not

registered as candidates ourselves, so vote however

you like — for this one, maybe for that one — but

for this guy

or these two guys, do not vote

for them under any circumstances, because he or his

party supported raising the retirement

age. I call on everyone

to register and take part in this

initiative. Please note: on this website

there is no Navalny name there, and there is no

photo of me or of our Party of the Future of Russia.

This is a shared project, and it is outside

party politics — not apolitical, but

political, of course — just outside

ideology. We want to fight those

people who are robbing us, who

in this way

are brazenly acting against us and, well,

to put it mildly,

are behaving outrageously. Look: it was

announced that there would be some kind of

rallies across the country,

everyone got stirred up, the petition got 2 million

people, and then Valentina Matviyenko (speaker of Russia's Federation Council)

— let's watch her short video, 56

seconds.

When

she was asked about it, she said: no,

there are just some troublemakers out there

making noise; we must not delay, we

must do everything necessary to pass it

right now. Fifty-six seconds of Matviyenko.

Matviyenko.

Indeed, a very active public discussion has unfolded

around the discussion of the proposed bill on

the proposed law on

pension reform. Colleagues, when

some call it a law on raising the

retirement age, that is incorrect — it is a law on

pension reform.

Simply going out into the square and saying, "We are

against it," is irresponsible politics. As for

whether perhaps it should be postponed — no,

it cannot be postponed. If the authorities act in

that way, it would be

irresponsible on the part of the authorities, because we

openly

explain and say why this issue is overdue,

why it is necessary,

why it cannot be postponed, why

it is impossible

to remove responsibility from ourselves and place

that responsibility on those who will come

in five or ten years, when it will lead

to a whole range of even more serious problems.

It can be discussed and adjusted, but it must be adopted.

It must be adopted without delay, in the autumn of this year.

It must be adopted without delay, in the autumn

of this year. Just look at how hard-line they are,

how determined they are — you can't intimidate them with anything.

So let's register

here, and all of Valentina Matviyenko's allies

will be subjected to this kind of public rejection.

If you want, we will vote in a coordinated way

against them. I'm not saying that

right now who you should vote for — we are not going

to give you recommendations on whom

to vote for. But there is a list of people against

whom we must vote and act

with all our strength so that, well, they do not

keep acting so brazenly. Of course,

Valentina Matviyenko does not want to postpone anything.

She has her pension, she has her

salary — around 500,000 rubles a month, probably more.

Her pension will be

something like 450,000 or 300,000 rubles, but even without

a pension everything will be perfectly fine for her, and she has no desire

to delay anything. If you

are watching, she doesn't want to postpone anything.

And if you are watching this program from, say, the

Novosibirsk Region, Sverdlovsk Region,

or Altai Krai,

you will die before reaching retirement age, because

the life expectancy of men in these

regions, in a large

in a large number of regions of Russia, in

the Samara Region

it is 65 years. These people will work

until they die, and this is the phrase I will

keep repeating constantly. I urge you not

to forget it. I will keep recording videos. They

are offering us all this, they are offering

to make us work until we die, and we will see nothing

from our pension contributions

because that is simply the kind of

life expectancy we have. So come in

guys

register, send this to your

grandmother, send it to your grandfather

post it on the forum, write

about it, explain this idea to people, why we are

doing this. Everyone who supports the pension

reform, the increase in the retirement age,

will get these black

balls from us, will get votes against them from us

and let that be some kind of

threat to them, so that somewhere, in the sense that we

in Irkutsk, a person from United Russia (the ruling political party) is celebrating

and

as a deputy from a single-member district, he

will think about whether he wants to be in United

Russia, whether he wants to support

the retirement age increase, because

it will mean that when he goes out into

his city, in his district, as a deputy, and

thinks, well, everyone has probably already forgotten that I

once supported raising the retirement

age

everyone in his district will get an email, those

who register here at pensiya.org

will receive emails

saying: don't vote for this guy, vote

against him. And at that moment it

will hurt, he will feel bad, and he will remember it

This is very important, because closer to elections

you understand, they will all suddenly become wonderful, like

that Party of Pensioners, you know, at

every election they shout themselves hoarse: we are for

pensioners. They are especially active in

the regions

during elections, they outright

deceive old people, saying, we are

the Party of Pensioners, we will defend your interests

but this Party of Pensioners

today adopted a statement saying that it

supports raising the retirement

age

Crooks, crooks, scoundrels, and we

made this website so that no one

would forget what crooks and scoundrels they are when

they run in some regional legislative assembly

election, we will send emails: do not

vote for these villains, because

they deceived you. So it is very, very

important to come and register. A lot of people

ask me about the rallies

what kind of confusing thing you did with

the rallies, filed applications there, did not file them here

Let me explain very simply: the main

mechanism of pressure on the authorities is

of course taking to the streets, and we

have called and continue to call on everyone to go out

into the streets and take part in any

protest actions against the increase

in the retirement age. Right now, because of

the World Cup, in those cities where

the championship is taking place, there are much stricter

rules for filing applications. Frankly, we

do not recognize these rules, we do not give a damn about

these rules, but the Anti-Corruption Foundation

and our party do not want

to pull the blanket over ourselves and

make ourselves the center of attention. We proposed

to everyone publicly, I said publicly once again

that we are ready to participate with

everyone

with libertarians, with trade unions, well

in principle, trade unions make the most sense

because I am a little surprised by their

passive behavior, but I hope they

will still be more active here

I mean, of course, real

independent trade unions, not that

Federation of Independent Trade Unions, those

crooks supporting United Russia, that is

the so-called Confederation of Labour and

the Free Trade Unions there, which in fact

really defend the interests of working

people. There is no need to be afraid of that phrase, and we

are ready to take part in their actions, and we want

them to be involved and take part in our

actions. Well, actually, it is not even right

to say their action or our action, this is all

a common action. So for now we have organized

first in 20 cities, then that

number increased to 33

cities, because we have democracy

Some people said to us:

we have a small city, but we will still go ahead

and file an application against

the increase

for a rally against raising the retirement

age, because, well, a lot of people

are asking for it

and now 33 cities have submitted such applications

in seven cities these rallies have already been approved

by the authorities, and in these cities, as

a first step, we

are organizing them. I invite everyone

to join these protest actions. As for

the largest cities in Russia, these are

the same cities where the

World Cup matches are taking place. There, well, we will

act according to the situation. Some will

do it as early as July, like everyone else

we will hold them together with them

the trade unions seem to want July 18. In my

view, it is not worth dragging this out so long, but

overall we need to approach this soberly. We

will hold them more than once, in July, in

mid-July, and in September, because

The government is firmly set on

stealing these pension savings.

It is determined to push through a rise in the retirement

age, and that is why we will still need to make a great deal of effort.

We will still have to take many more steps. We are not going to

rush; we will try, together with

everyone. Frankly, we understand

that when we submit an application to the authorities,

it is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. But that is not a problem.

In that sense, we are not proud people. If the trade unions

have received official approval, we will come to the trade unions' rally.

We understand that there, on whatever

stage they may be afraid to let me or

representatives of our headquarters speak —

that is not a big deal.

What matters more to us is the common cause, not whether I

personally stand on stage and shout

some slogans at you. This is a big, long-term

campaign. Come in and register right

now. Let me answer some

questions on Twitter. A reminder that with the

hashtag #naval2018, Aleksandrova Rosio

asks how the party registration is progressing.

The documents are ready. I think tomorrow

we will submit the documents to the Ministry of Justice. We have already

held the federal meeting and held

a meeting of the regional branches.

We already have a sufficient number; I

saw these boxes of documents lying with the lawyers.

We are ready.

Once again, we are going to demand registration

for the party. Our documents are absolutely impeccable. I

think that even our opponents

have no doubt that we have more than

enough people to register a party. For a

federal party in Russia, 500

people are required.

In most regions — in fact, probably no one —

doubts that we have 500

people in every region.

So, we are beginning this round.

Alex RM asks, in connection with the protests

against the increase in the retirement age,

whether there will be unauthorized protests in Moscow

or whether it would be better to go to nearby cities.

But also bear in mind that Moscow is hosting the World Cup,

so, well, first of all, I do not think

that the championship is an obstacle to this protest.

The libertarians filed an application for July 1; they

seem to have already been refused. I do not know whether they are prepared

to hold an unauthorized protest

or not, and in general I do not think — you

know my position — that protests can be

unauthorized. Nevertheless, there is

this view, this opinion, that, well,

holding them right during the championship

is probably not very good because,

well, because there they are, those cheerful

Mexicans walking along, and here we are

doing something — it seems to me this is a bit

far-fetched. But of course we are very

constructive in our approach, so we are also

taking this into account, and a large

number of different forces are discussing all of this.

We are discussing it together with them.

So in Moscow, follow the updates.

In any case, in all cities where there is no

World Cup, especially the largest ones, we will hold protests.

They will take place on July 1. Be sure to come.

Promote them as much as possible. Make sure

that as many people as possible turn out.

Soblaznitel asks whether

during the last Great Lent (the main Orthodox fasting period before Easter), I managed

not to yell at anyone even once. Well, yes,

he probably knows that before every Great

Lent, which I try to observe,

I set myself a goal not simply to

stop eating meat, yes, I

try to demand something more difficult of myself,

for example, not to yell at anyone

even once. Unfortunately, I did not manage that.

That was during the last Great

Lent.

Vera Lugovskaya asks what to do

if your city did not submit an application for

a rally — for example, should you go from Moscow to Tver?

No, there is no need to go from Moscow to Tver. There will be a rally in

Moscow; from Moscow you should support

the Tver rally and all the others there

by promoting them and urging

people to attend. But follow the news, in Moscow as well.

Of course, in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, and in

Yekaterinburg — anywhere.

There will be rallies. Probably even in those

cities where there are World Cup matches,

some people will say, well, we want

to hold a rally. Again, we have

a democratic organization: if a headquarters

decides that it wants to hold one anyway,

they hold it. We do not have a situation where I

can forbid them. So just keep watching

and in your own city, come to that

rally. And she asks whether

the headquarters are doing calculations on this issue.

Yes, they are doing some work on it; in particular, on pensions we

will keep working, and we are doing a lot of work

on this topic, namely on the pension

and pre-retirement age.

And of course I cannot fail to mention one

of the vilest and most disgusting people —

Dmitry Kiselyov. And not only the vile and

disgusting Dmitry Kiselyov — this week we learned

that he also has

an equally vile and disgusting wife, perhaps

even more vile and disgusting, because

on the website of RIA Novosti (a Russian state news agency),

a state agency, this

very wife

posted some absolutely

astonishing piece — not just an article,

you could call it a manifesto of crooks and thieves —

about how the retirement

age has to be raised, and those who do not want that, who are afraid of it,

are these infantile people who

do not want to work, they are all like that,

and

they are losers, and they are somehow constantly

offended — there is clearly something wrong with them.

If you smoke and drink, you won’t live to see retirement. I...

I strongly recommend that all of you, guys, go

to the RIA Novosti website and read all of this

so that, well, in a way, you can also

get charged up, charged up with some kind of

righteous anger, so that you have

more motivation to send this

link everywhere, because you—don’t forget

just don’t forget not to simply read

the article

by Dmitry Kiselyov’s wife, but then go

for example to my blog and look at

the apartment where Dmitry Kiselyov lives

himself, together with his wife. It’s the residential

complex Legenda Tsvetnogo, right on Tsvetnoy

Boulevard. If you go out there, well,

just turn your head and you’ll see the most

luxurious, the most beautiful building in that

area, an apartment in which costs, well,

some millions of dollars, and we

published information about it. There’s even

the purchase contract for this apartment.

Dmitry Kiselyov, together with his wife—

people who have done nothing

good in this life, who are simply, well,

a meaningless burden sitting on our

shoulders, who eat and drink and buy

apartments at your and my expense, drank vodka

there—apartments for 162 million rubles (about $2.6 million at the time)—and

now, you understand, they tell us that

well, those who speak out against

raising the retirement age are somehow

resentful losers who really ought to

stop whining about it and just work harder.

9,800 people are watching us

right now.

Let’s move on. By the way, I’ve still got

these 43 seconds on this issue.

Dmitry Kiselyov—43 seconds of how

the federal TV channels suddenly started

aggressively pushing for raising the retirement age.

And these are the same people who only recently were praising

Putin and saying what a great guy he was

because he didn’t want to, he refused to raise

the retirement age—and then suddenly Putin

changed his mind.

Obviously he changed his mind—there’s no money.

So they’re going to raise the retirement age, and all

the same people on the federal TV channels

started zealously saying: let’s raise it,

let’s raise it. Forty-three seconds.

The government is proposing to extend

working age. Russia is joining

this global trend. In recent years,

pension changes are necessary. We need

an active life position from the older

generation. We need to build a modern

economy—a great economy. The proposed

solution turned out to be surprisingly

mild—I’d even say

gentle.

Now, who benefits from this?

Young people benefit. Older people benefit too,

because the age is extended

at which they can work, be useful, and

earn, in any case, more than

their future pension. ‘I want to retire,’

and they say, ‘No, listen, you’ve still got—Dad, you’ve still got’

‘another 13 years.’ Just amazing, yes, really.

Just wonderful for everyone. Who benefits from this?

Young people, pensioners—and again, excuse me,

for repeating this phrase, this

figure over and over: 40 percent of men do not

live to retirement age. That is,

they die before reaching retirement.

And these brazen scoundrels tell you

how this benefits everyone, how it benefits everyone. So we’re

going to take away their money, then. They spent their whole

lives working, they paid those damned

pension contributions.

An enormous, gigantic amount is taken from every

salary as a pension contribution, and I’ll

get nothing.

Their heirs—their children, grandchildren—won’t

get anything either. Everything will go

to Dmitry Kiselyov, so that we can

buy him a fancy apartment.

Why is it, generally speaking, that people here retire

earlier now, or want to retire

earlier? Well, you probably have

a grandfather or grandmother who is

retired, a parent who is retired,

maybe you yourself are retired, and you’ve hardly

ever heard someone’s motivation

when they said, ‘Well, actually,

I’m still full of energy and in great shape,

it’s just that I’m tired of working, I’m tired

of working, I don’t need much money, I’d

just like to, I don’t know, smoke a cigar

sitting on a bench, or I just want to, you know,

go on a drinking binge, retire, and

drink a bottle of vodka every day. Well,

I’m just tired, I want to be

a pensioner.’ You’ve hardly ever heard

exactly that kind of motivation. That is, people

of course don’t really want to work, but they’re

poor, and they are forced to work. They retire

because they no longer have the health for it,

because they’re too weak, they’re

ill, and very often already disabled at

that age. But listen, here, by age 60

most people have some degree of

disability—both men and women. When

we discuss the retirement age, for me

this is important, and I want to say it

so that this becomes

one of the key topics in the discussion

of the retirement age here.

Our healthcare system has collapsed. From 2000 to

2015—the Putin years—the number of

hospitals, as government experts themselves

calculated, fell from 10,700 to 5,400.

The number of hospitals dropped. Our education system—

well, excuse me, our healthcare system,

education too—but our healthcare system,

it has sunk absolutely through the floor, and I

actually have, well, on this subject,

a personal story that just...

What has really struck me over the past two weeks—well, you

remember, those

Kremlin crooks splashed me with *zelyonka* (a bright green antiseptic), burning my eye.

I almost lost it, and until the moment when

I was allowed to go abroad, I was able to

have surgery there. But overall,

my eye was saved by our Russian doctors

at the eye disease institute, and this

federal institution is located in

central Moscow. It is constantly packed,

absolutely full—you can never just walk in. And that is exactly

why you constantly see these elderly

people, of retirement and

pre-retirement age, getting treated for

their cataracts there, and whatever else

the most common conditions are there—

glaucoma, cataracts—yes, glaucoma too. Among

older people, the place is completely overcrowded.

And now they are breaking it up. Last

week there was some furious picket when

20 patients there simply

burst into the hospital shouting, “Don’t

you dare fire our doctors, don’t

you dare dismantle our staff.”

By the way, I received a notice here

that they sent me

saying that despite the World Cup, and

frankly, to hell with the World Cup,

tomorrow, June 22, about

six people will gather at the eye disease institute—

patients and doctors—who again there

plan to storm into the hospital and

demand that they stop destroying

the team that works there. So I

kind of wrote back to them: guys, this always

sounds very harsh, maybe

even like an exaggeration—“they’re dismantling

the staff.” Maybe they are not dismantling

the staff, maybe it is some kind of planned

downsizing or something else, but perhaps something

reasonable is happening. And in

response I was told: “Well, Alexei, if you

think something

reasonable is happening here, first of all, have you seen the lines

we have there?

And second, here are two documents showing how they are

breaking us up. Let’s look. Document number

one is a notice. If you

look closely at the screen, you’ll see—yes, it

says there:

to a junior research associate,

an actual doctor, a person

who holds a fairly high

position, they say: “We are laying you off, but

if you don’t want to be laid off, here are

your options: you can take a job as a lab assistant

with a salary of 7,000 rubles (about $75), or take a job

as a cleaner with a salary of 4,000 rubles (about $45). Let’s look at

another notice just like it.

Please: head of the scientific

organizational department. Well, presumably

the head of a scientific-organizational

department is still someone who has

some expertise. The same thing is being

offered: choose between

accountant for 11,000 rubles (about $120),

lab assistant for 7,000 rubles (about $75), or cleaner

for 4,000 rubles (about $45). This is Moscow.

This is the city of Moscow.

This is not Altai or some, I don’t know,

region where the cost of living might be

a little lower. This is Moscow,

where that money would not even cover transportation.

And this is happening there right now, and

that is why I do not need any kind of

abstract proof, you know,

reports, or anything else. I can see how these

research institutions are being destroyed

right now, and the doctors who made sure

that I am not sitting here with one

some kind of

glass eye—those very doctors are now being

transferred into lab assistant and cleaner jobs with

a salary of 4,000 rubles (about $45).

How is this happening? I just do not understand. Fortunately,

there are some people there who are ready

to protest. But this is happening all across Moscow,

all across Russia.

If they slash half the hospital staff from

10,000 to 5,000, that

is happening everywhere, constantly. So

the question is: with healthcare like this, in

what condition, in what shape, will people

be by age 65? They will be

wrecks. In fact, by 65 they will not be in any

condition at all, because half

of them will already be gone.

Once again, once again, guys, sorry that I

keep hammering this number endlessly, but

go to Google right now and type in “average

life expectancy by region,”

and you will see a big table.

There will be 83 or 84 entries there, and you will see

Dagestan with high

life expectancy,

Karachay-Cherkessia, Moscow—high

life expectancy; mostly

the Caucasus regions and the south. And then you will see

that the average life expectancy for men is

64, 60, 62.

That means these people do not live to reach retirement, on

average, including because

the healthcare is monstrous, except in

the biggest cities. Although, as we have

just heard from the example in Moscow,

it is basically impossible to get

quality medical care. So we have to

fight. This is not something abstract; it is

a concrete struggle for your rights. That means

pension.

org—it is written here in the video description.

Go there, sign yourself up, become

part of this machine that will

fight the crooks and thieves. Let me

switch over and answer some tweets.

From Anastasia: “Well then, we are waiting—soon

another palace built with pension

money will surface.” Absolutely. Absolutely.

They are cutting these pension payments.

Because there is no money—but where did the money go?

Well, it went there too—into corruption, these

the money was simply looted from the budget, but

again, a basic calculation shows

if we take the number of

working-age people, if we

take those who are paying pension contributions

right now, then we will see that

already now there should be enough for everyone to get

a pension much higher than it

than it is, but it is lower. Why?

Because that money was stolen, including

the fact that it was turned into palaces. Palaces

do not appear out of nowhere. They cost

tens of millions of dollars, and those

tens of millions of dollars were taken from you and me

and taken by Volodya Fedorov.

The State Duma has passed a law that will help

convicted prisoners reduce their sentences.

But it forgot to calculate how many inmates

this will affect. It is the right law,

which was finally passed in a much

softer form. They passed it so that

if you are being held in a SIZO (pre-trial detention center), then for you

it counts toward time in a penal settlement

as one and a half days. In other words, if you spent one day in a SIZO,

then that one day is counted as

one and a half days in a colony, in a general-regime colony

while in a penal settlement it is one-to-one.

And, I think, in a strict-regime colony as well

it is also one-to-one, but that is completely wrong.

Still, this will affect

quite a large number of people.

I just think the State Duma was unable to

calculate it because only

the FSIN (Federal Penitentiary Service) has that data, and in general, throughout that

prison statistics system there is some kind of huge

chaos and madness.

But at last this law has been passed, because

people are being kept in these

pre-trial detention cells for years.

Before, they would sit there for five or

six years; even now they are kept there for years.

Obviously, being locked in a cell is much worse,

much harder, and much more harmful to

your health—people lose their health there—than in

a general-regime colony. So this is

fair; it just should have been counted

even more generously.

Alexei, how would you comment

on the situation with Leonid

Slutsky and Utkin? Well, I already

commented on it. I am very sorry, of course,

but Slutsky...

You probably—we unfortunately cannot

show you a clip of that video because

it will get banned, because all rights to

the match belong to FIFA, and

that is very strictly enforced. I will show you

a few seconds from the match here, not

to show the match itself, but

to show how Slutsky had this kind of

play on words there—'Navalny football' and so on.

There is this term, 'Navalny football,' and anyway

you get the idea: everyone is running somewhere,

all together, attacking very fiercely, and so he

just used the similarity in sound

of the name and surname and said it that way.

It was interesting to watch their 'Navalny

football'—it was such a harmless joke.

Now Slutsky has been removed from

commentating on Channel One matches.

The official explanation is that

his contract expired, but that is ridiculous because

obviously Channel One knew about

Slutsky's other commitments, and this could not

have come as some sudden move.

I think, I assume with one hundred percent certainty,

I do not know for sure, of course. Slutsky, possibly

and commentator Utkin suffered because of this.

I am very sorry about that. How

can I put it—I apologize to Leonid

Slutsky, even though I did not really do anything. In short,

I am very sorry it turned out this way. I

feel awkward—that is the right word.

I feel awkward before Utkin and before

Leonid Slutsky. I hope everything

will be fine for them, and I hope that someday

we will end up in a normal country where

you can say any surname however you like

and nothing will happen to you for it. Alena Anikina,

Alexei, what question should be asked to Putin at

the Big Challenges event at Sirius, to catch him in

a lie? Sirius, as I understand it, is a school in

Sochi where various talented children ask

Putin questions, where last time

a wonderful girl—I do not remember her name—

asked a question and basically caught Putin in

a lie. She said: why is the number of

state-funded university places shrinking? Putin lied

and said that the number was not shrinking,

the number of state-funded places at universities.

I also released a video about this, and

there are statistics showing that Putin

is lying. But here is the thing: catching Putin in

a lie

is very easy. Ask him even about

the retirement age: if you spoke so confidently about

it, then why did you lie? He

lies endlessly. Again, the entire internet

is full of examples of how Putin lies

constantly, about everything. The thing is simply

that you will ask him a question, and he will lie again

in response, and by then your microphone will already

have been taken away. So to all Sirius students I

would advise either asking the question

in such a way that you immediately tell him:

'But please do not lie, because

when you answer this question, you usually say

such-and-such, but that is not true'—or

else try afterward, so to speak, to catch up with him

and say, 'But you are misleading us right now, so'

Just keep in mind that he always has

the same standard manner: at every

call-in show, he simply lies

in response to the question and then moves on to

the next question. No one can

to pin him to the wall, because, well, because

that’s just how it is — just recently there was this

sensational kind of

review. They called it sensational because

it was simply an Austrian journalist, and

he was telling Putin, basically, you’re living

now in a different situation. Putin

was trying once again to dodge

the answers, squirming around, but all of it

looked like an Austrian

journalist beating up a baby, because he

was simply catching our old man Putin

in lies.

But just now, here’s a question, as I can see:

“Navalny’s daughter” — and she’s not actually Navalny’s real daughter

Navalny’s real daughter is writing to me

that right now she’s supposed to be taking some kind of

online course, doing

self-education, and just now there was some kind of

message saying he flew away.

My mom loves Putin — how do I explain it to her?

Well, okay, for example,

ask your

mom: “Dear Mom, they raised the retirement

age for you to 63.”

Please tell me, can a woman like you —

young, beautiful,

healthy, or maybe not so healthy — at that

age find a job? At 60

years old, or even at 55, can a woman in

Russia over 55, even over 50, find

work for herself?” And your mom will say — because she’s

a real person — “Sweetheart,

no, unless it’s as a cleaner.” And that’s where

you need to work on her a bit and say,

“Well, you can see then that Matviyenko (Valentina Matviyenko, senior Russian official) is lying, and

Kiselyov (Dmitry Kiselyov, pro-Kremlin TV host), and everyone else, and your Putin too, when

he says that here

older people can find jobs and everything’s fine,

that women here at 55–60, women at 60,

are all so energetic and healthy that they

really want to work.” This time

it was crystal, crystal clear — I didn’t quite manage to

catch the rest.

Electric torture marks — I want to

tell you about electric torture marks

again. There are probably already ten thousand

five hundred people watching us now; you’ve probably

of course heard about this astonishing

story from the city of St. Petersburg

which has effectively now become

the torture capital of the Russian Federation.

It’s not only the cultural capital, but also

the capital of torture, because the local

FSB directorate — they absolutely do not

care anymore, they literally torture people

— people who are sitting in jail simply on

fabricated criminal charges, in order

to beat confessions out of them. And quite

recently we were reading

testimony, case materials,

statements, court complaints, where young people and

young men who had been grabbed in order

to invent some kind of criminal or

terrorist organization — they wrote about

how they were tortured with electric current:

one wire to the genitals, another wire

to the head; or one wire to the tongue, another

wire to the ears, and they shocked them like that. When

a person is shocked with electricity, on the body there

remain these so-called electric marks —

basically little burns, these

tiny dots. So they were tortured, and afterward

they showed: here’s how we were tortured, here are the electric marks.

After all, all of this can now be documented, and

they described all of it, and doctors wrote

that yes, these were electric marks.

And then the investigator told them:

“Mosquito bites.” And then the court said,

“These aren’t signs of torture, these are

mosquito bites.” And until very recently it was

impossible to believe, but now we

know for certain that this torture is happening, and

the whole system — the prosecutor’s office as the oversight

body, the courts, and the St. Petersburg authorities —

they are covering for this group of

hellish sadists that has formed

inside the St. Petersburg FSB. Though, to be fair, this

organization has never exactly been known

for gentleness of manners.

But simply torturing people with electric current,

just ordinary people, so that they

confess to

some ridiculous, fabricated

crimes — and for everyone to know about it

and not even be ashamed of it — that is something

truly beyond the pale. And then we have

Scientologists. You know, there are such people —

Scientologists are people who go around

knocking on doors,

wanting to talk about God. You can

call them a sect, and you can

call them religious people, or you can call them

religious fanatics, whatever you like. In general,

they’re fairly harmless guys, but

they’re obsessed with religion — there are lots of people like that — and

they have the right to practice their

Scientology.

As long as they’re not harming others — and they

aren’t — but anyway, a criminal case was opened against them.

They were declared

an extremist, an extremist

organization, even though this Scientological

church exists quite legally in many places

and has millions of members.

And the documents, the case materials — in the volume with

the interrogation records — these FSB goons

there, or whoever from the Investigative Committee, they

published them, and there were some amazing

things in there, because right there in pencil

there were notes written like this:

which witnesses were useful, which local witnesses

were bad, others had written — well,

it was clear there was no extremism. And the most

astonishing note, of course, was:

“Knows a lot but keeps quiet. Before interrogation — electric

torture marks,” you understand? Well, of course there

someone will laugh now, ha-ha, hee-hee.

they came up with a funny name for it: electro

"electro-memory," but guys, just think about it

basically, this is how they live, and they write to each

other, passing around these little notes

saying, "let's torture this person

with electricity," and in practice, I assure you,

the sight of a person being tortured

with electric current

is extremely ugly, the whole thing

looks awful. I probably haven't tortured anyone

with electric current, and

but I have an idea of it — I've spoken with

people who

were tortured. It's something that

is practically impossible to endure, it is

unbearable, and for the human

body — this is what it looks like: if you've

ever watched some film about fascists and they

are torturing someone there, and you think, damn, I

would strangle him with my own hands — that's

exactly what people in uniform are doing in

the city of St. Petersburg, and they leave each other

all sorts of these notes, so

I really want to say this so that

all of us understand very clearly

who these people are. By the way, all of them,

those who torture people with

this so-called "electro-memory," have fairly

high pensions, and they will retire not at

65, but at around 40 or 45, because

their work is considered, you see,

hazardous working conditions. Well, of course — when he's

there, beating someone with those

electrodes, it's such a huge, huge

strain, you know, on the eardrums

— you could go deaf. Hazardous

working conditions. Or you're beating him and

his head is shaking and saliva is flying

everywhere — unpleasant, you see. There you are

standing there in uniform with epaulettes, and all that

saliva from the people you're shocking

with electricity is flying at you. Hazardous working conditions,

so you need to retire earlier, and

meanwhile you'll retire at 65 and you'll

get a miserable pension, and in fact you probably

won't even live long enough so that more money can be

paid to this kind of "defender"

of the Fatherland who beats someone

with an electrode, and then once a year, when

he watches a concert for Police Day or

FSB Day or something like that, he stands there

under a portrait of Dzerzhinsky (founder of the Soviet secret police), and the song

"Officers, Officers" is playing

— "your hearts are in the crosshairs" — and he stands there

with vodka, saying, "Let's drink to

officers' honor," and starts in on this as if it's our job

because, well,

otherwise I'd go home, but I still have

this so-called "electro-memory"

to deal with — some Scientologist is sitting here, caught

because he believes in God, and of course I have to

hook him up to

a few volts or amps so that

he doesn't think that faith in God or

walking around in white clothes in Russia can

just go unpunished like that

It seems to me that in Russia right now, and in the media,

we talk far too little about this. We need

to talk about it, because it destroys

the law enforcement system, the security system.

Where, in a society, this kind of thing

happens, and only

Mediazona and people on the air at

Navalny LIVE talk about it, nothing good will come of it

at all

Torture happens in many places. Someone will object to me:

"Well, they tortured people in America too." Yes, of course they did,

in Abu Ghraib prison

and in the CIA's secret prisons. But what a

scandal it caused. President Obama

said he would shut down that

prison, tried to shut it down, and failed,

incidentally. But there were fierce debates at

the Senate level. The woman who was then

chosen to head the CIA had to explain separately

whether she supported certain

interrogation methods. And they weren't even talking about

beating people with electric current — they were talking about the so-called

waterboarding, where a person is held under it

and water is poured over them; physically, they cannot

die or suffocate from it, but they

have the sensation of

drowning. It's agonizing. That too is torture.

This is used, and it is discussed at

the very highest level — all the media discuss it,

all the politicians discuss it. But here, somehow, it's as if by magic

electro, electro

"electro-memory," electro

"memory," and nothing happens

there — "electro marks," as if mosquitoes bit them

I'll answer a few more questions

Konstantin Akhmatov writes: right now, service in

the security agencies is a stain for life. They don't

Let's not make it quite so

absolute — there are different kinds of people

It's a big system, and there are different people in it.

But of course, it must be noted that

for example, in that same, let's say,

St. Petersburg FSB

can you call all of them

terrible executioners? Probably not. They don't all

torture people with electric current.

But they all know that there is, say,

office number such-and-such, and in there is

some guy — a captain or a major or

someone — who tortures people

with electric current. He has there

that little field telephone machine, and clamps

or some kind of device to make it easier

to attach it to a person. They know

this is happening, and that unquestionably makes all of

them participants in the crime. D Rot writes:

How exactly do you plan to punish

those guilty of torture and prevent new

cases of torture? Dear D Rot, I don't need

to invent anything

We open the Criminal Code and read everything

there about cruel treatment, about

abuse of official position under

exceeding official authority

as for torture, these are all specific articles

of the Criminal Code, so I don’t need

to make anything up. It’s just that when people

come and say, “Excuse me, we have

here all the medical documents,”

“we were tortured in the beautiful Russia of the future,”

the prosecutor will not justify all this and

say, “Oh, most likely you were just

bitten by mosquitoes.”

He will say, “Good Lord,” and run

to demand that a criminal case be opened.

The investigator will open a criminal case,

and the case will then be sent

to court, and there will be jurors sitting in that

court

who will be shown photographs of the victims,

electrical burn marks and injuries,

and witnesses will testify

and explain how they were tortured, and if this is

documented,

then those jurors will probably put

themselves or their own children in the place of those

children who were tortured, or in the place of those

religious fanatics there,

Scientologists, whatever—whether they are good people

or bad, whoever they may be, you cannot

torture them. They will put themselves in their place, and the jurors

will say the word “guilty,” after which the judge, on the

basis of the law in force, will sentence all of these

people

in accordance with the law to eight, nine, or ten

years in a general-regime penal colony

or a strict-regime colony, because that is the kind of

punishment torture should carry. If you

are vested with power and you torture people, well,

then of course you are a dangerous psychopath, an abnormal

person, and your place is in prison, mister.

What should deputies’ pensions be like?

And what about ordinary people’s?

Both deputies and ordinary

people should have decent,

high pensions, corresponding to the

overall economic situation in our country. If

we look at oil prices overall,

what dividends state-owned

companies and

private companies ought to be paying, and how much

we actually still have

in terms of working-age population, we can see that

pensions should be much higher for what are called

ordinary people. That is, a pension of

20,000 rubles a month (about $220) as a minimum—again,

that more or less follows simply from

the current figures, even though right now it is much lower,

around 16,000, 17,000, 14,000 rubles, whereas it should be 20,000 based

on the sums that are already going into

the pension fund. As for deputies’ pensions,

they should be proportional; they should not

be so enormous. Every

deputy,

if he is a good deputy, a representative

of the people, represents maybe half a million

people in a district.

There should be a high salary, and there should

be a high pension, but all of this

must be proportional. There cannot

be such a monstrous gap that

some people simply do not have enough for food. If one person

gets a pension of 14,000 rubles, and another gets

250,000, well of course that is absurd.

Quite simply. What progress has the project made?

Rustam asks—well, Volodya Fedorov asks.

Thank you for that question, Volodya.

Last weekend we dedicated it to the project

RosYama (a civic road-pothole reporting project), in many cities across Russia.

Several thousand reports have been filed; today I already

saw the first reports.

Officials have started moving and patching

things up, so RosYama is very much alive and

developing. Take part in the Ros

Yama project. Not all Russians are destitute, not all

Russians are so poor; some Russians are

getting richer. I would like to end

my program

with my favorite—one of my favorite

Russians. It is not Vladimir Putin; probably

my even more favorite Russian is

of course Igor Shuvalov, about whom our

foundation has published a large number of

investigations. There was one really memorable

investigation that really stuck

with me because while I was recording it, I had on

this very table a little dog

—a corgi—that I was petting during the

investigation, during the actual recording

of the video. I was talking about how corgis like these

belong to old man Shuvalov,

and how he uses his privately owned

jet to take them to dog shows, and he

and his wife, in different countries, spend

40 million rubles a year (about $440,000) on that alone

just to transport dogs to

shows. And it seemed to me that somehow

the plane itself, after all, costs 50

million dollars—I said 50

million dollars for the plane—and

I hoped to shock everyone, and probably

I did. But Igor Shuvalov

did not stop there. He probably

thought, “Damn, Navalny still hasn’t

really shocked people with the price of my

pricey, elite

50-million-dollar plane,” and last

week we saw media reports

showing that Igor Shuvalov

has acquired a new plane that now costs

70 million

dollars. An official who for the last

many, many, many years worked in

public service and has now moved to

a state bank is buying himself

a 70-million-dollar plane. In what other

country could this happen?

But even just from a basic logical standpoint, even

if we assume that he had money

before he entered public service, still...

It’s unlikely that, if you’re a deputy prime minister,

you could devote so much

time to business that your

assets would grow so much that you

trade in your super jet worth 50

million dollars for an even more super-duper

jet worth 70 million dollars. Nevertheless,

in a country called Russia, this

does happen.

Everyone knows about it; some

media outlets write about it. Obviously,

officials know it, and Putin knows it. Those very

FSB officers know it too, with their electrodes and

all that other stuff.

But nothing happens, and the only hope is

in us. And we need to say, among other things,

personally to Igor Ivanovich Shuvalov:

Dear Igor Ivanovich,

we are not prepared to hand over our pension

contributions so that you, our dear man,

can buy yourself a 70-million-dollar

jet. {URL_1}

Sign up, sign up — we are creating

a system that will help everyone

vote against these crooks and

thieves and scoundrels. On July 1, there will be rallies in

many Russian cities — take part, and

we’ll see you next Thursday.

Bye.

[music]