An “E-center guy” (officer from Russia’s anti-extremism police) from a NATO country, Alyosha the Putin robot, show no respect — and we’ll lock you up

[music]

Hello everyone. It's 8:00 p.m. in Moscow, which means

it means that Alexei is in the studio

Navalny with the program *Russia of the Future*.

Alexei Navalny. The big news this week

is that I am Ostap Bender's sidekick, as

the newspaper *Komsomolskaya Pravda* called me.

Though it's not even very clear which one

of Ostap Bender's sidekicks they meant — Kisa Vorobyaninov

or Shura Balaganov. Well, those are not especially

good local comparisons, but I'm glad that the newspaper

*Komsomolskaya Pravda* remembers me and

tells its readers some

wonderful stories about my activities.

This week they wrote an article saying

that General Zolotov would face some kind of

inspections, but that he was right and Navalny was, of course,

wrong to offend such a distinguished

general. We'll discuss that topic too. Let me

remind you that you can ask

— and I would like you to ask me —

questions on Twitter with the hashtag

#RussiaOfTheFuture, and then your questions will

show up here on the little screen, and I

will read them and answer you. I wanted to begin our

program with a story that, it seemed to me,

received far less coverage

than it deserved. In fact, it was the main

super-story of the week, compared with which

many other things fade into the background

if you really think about it, because

it was an illustration of who is actually

confronting whom.

Because right now, in general, we have

the people — ordinary people — and then people who do all sorts of

outrageous things. That is exactly why these

people are being squeezed from all sides:

the retirement age is being raised,

people are being forbidden to write things online,

forbidden to gather together, and in general

the state treats them like sheep, right?

And then there are the state's sheepdogs

who drive these sheep back and forth,

herding them into different pens, and generally

biting their legs or tearing them apart

if one of these sheep

dares to bleat too loudly. And these

state enforcers are part of an entire

system. You have seen them many times if

you've gone to rallies; and if you haven't gone to

rallies, you've probably seen them many times in

photographs. You come there and

there's this little guy standing there with a

small video camera. These are the so-called

well-known operatives,

employees of Center E (the police anti-extremism unit), and you see in

photos these typical people.

I spend a huge amount of

time around them. They are always trailing behind me

or filming me when I go somewhere.

Naturally, they detain me,

they process me, they escort me, and I

often chat with them there. I already know them all,

of course — well, not all of them, but I know many by sight,

and I know many by name.

And with me they most often behave

fairly politely. With most people

they behave not politely at all.

They are involved in beatings, they

repress people. That is, they believe

that the state has appointed them as a kind of

— as I already said — sheepdogs, and they watch

over us so that we do not do the wrong

things. They are Center E, the Center for Combating

Extremism, and on behalf of the

state, they supposedly know what is right and

what is wrong. They have all sorts of

experts there who will bring you to

account if you

write the wrong post. All these

famous cases over likes and reposts — that's all

Center E. These people process them all across

the country. It's a huge structure,

with regional, district,

and federal branches, and at the head of this structure

there is the chief predator, a certain General

Valiullin.

If you go right now to the website of the

Ministry of Internal Affairs, you will see

that his biography is still posted there, where

it says what a great guy he is. In

Moscow he first fought extremism, and

back in 2012, when

they were opening cases against everyone involved in

fabricated criminal prosecutions,

and carrying out numerous searches,

he was a very trusted man. He was highly valued by

the Moscow leadership and

the federal leadership as well.

Vladimir Putin was very fond of him,

constantly awarding him. Show

his biography again — there he has the Order

for Merit to the Fatherland, second

class, then he earned a few more things there,

then he got the first class as well,

and received an award for distinction in maintaining

public order. That is, at the head

of this system of state sheepdogs

stands the chief fighter against extremism,

who knows exactly what you should

do and what you should not do, and if

you do what you should not, he will

put you in prison, because he is the great fighter against

extremism. Last week he was suddenly

removed from his post,

and nobody understood what had happened

until *Kommersant* and *Lenta.ru*

published articles citing

sources saying that the general had

some kind of conflict with his wife.

I don't really want to

quote that part; his personal life is not that interesting to me.

But in short, apparently his wife, with whom

he was separating, went and wrote

a letter to the leadership, or to Putin, in which

she said: do you know that my husband,

Major General Valiullin, the country's chief fighter against

extremism, has...

undeclared real estate in

Bulgaria, has undeclared

property in Italy, and also has

a large amount of money, and it was

unclear whether that was true or not, but maybe

there were some bad actors

there just leaking information

it was impossible to verify any of it, but

the day before yesterday—literally, even yesterday, yesterday

it happened: Bulgarian journalists who

had simply read that, well,

some anti-extremism officer in

Russia was removed, and they said he had an apartment in

Bulgaria. They just checked him through

the registries, and it turned out that yes, this

chief anti-extremism fighter, the very

man in whose name they drag you into

a police van and say, “Ah, you traitor to Russia,”

“you bastard working for foreign

intelligence services, you don’t love Vladimir

Vladimir Putin, you wrote the wrong thing on

the internet and don’t obey the law”—turned out to have

this guy

had undeclared—well, not declared—

undeclared apartments in Bulgaria.

Here, you can see an extract now from the Bulgarian

registry, and there will also be photos there now.

There’s a photo of the exact place where

these apartments are located—there, you see,

a multi-story complex like that.

And he has a little place there—two apartments. One

costs €57,000, the other €125,000.

That’s almost 14 million rubles, and this guy

—hold on, while preparing just now I looked at

his declaration: he declared an income of 2

million rubles.

Two million rubles, and at the same time

he was buying apartments in Bulgaria for 13

million rubles. An anti-extremism fighter,

a Major General in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), directly

subordinate to Kolokoltsev himself, but

it’s clear that a person who is

one of those people who make

decisions in this system of siloviki (security-service officials), and

certainly one of those who

directly implements the most important

political decisions—lock this one up,

don’t lock that one up, pressure this one,

let that one go,

open 100 cases over likes, open

a thousand cases—and he failed to declare

the apartments. His house in Italy, if it exists,

but at least the press wrote about

property in Bulgaria, property in

Italy—well, the Bulgarian property was found, in Italy

it hasn’t been found yet. How he bought all this,

who was looking the other way, and why we now see

such a terrible punishment—wow,

they caught a high-ranking anti-

extremism official with undeclared

real estate and obviously illicit

enrichment. How could you buy yourself

an apartment for 14 million when your income was 2?

And besides, it’s obvious that if you

bought real estate in Bulgaria alone

for 14 million, then somewhere else you’ve got

54 million or 154 million stashed away. He was fired.

You understand? That’s how the state

decided to punish him. Apparently they’d already

been cornered—there was nowhere to go. If his wife

writes to them, “You know, my husband has

an apartment in Bulgaria,” and attaches a little extract,

attached it, and they were like, well,

as I understand it, I read that they

are divorcing, and so simply in court, in court

the wife brought these

property documents and started waving them around, saying,

“Give me this property.”

Because it had been registered directly

in Valiullin’s name, and even now it’s

still registered to him. And he was fired, and

the MVD didn’t comment on anything, and they

told us nothing, and neither

Kolokoltsev nor Putin came out to us,

bowed, and said, “Guys, I’m

2

sorry, this turned into quite a mess.

I appointed a man whose job was to chase after you

and arrest you if you did

something wrong, and he turned out, judging by

everything, to be a grand-scale corrupt official, and

I honestly don’t even know what to call such a

person. But regularly we

think, well, what real estate should we look for there?

Of course his surname came up,

since he is directly involved

in fabricating cases and persecuting activists.

Many people said, well, obviously,

a high-ranking police official, obviously

a crook, a bribe-taker—somewhere there must be, at his

dacha, in the basement, bundles wrapped in

polyethylene, some 5,000-ruble notes

stacked in packs.

But we thought we wouldn’t find any real estate, and abroad

it would be pointless to look, because

they supposedly aren’t allowed out and their foreign passports

are taken away from them. Then we thought, well, would someone really be so

stupid as to head the Center for Combating

Extremism and buy all his

real estate abroad?

Well, it turns out he was exactly that kind of person.

Bulgaria.

Italy. An anti-extremism fighter, and he still

keeps lecturing us about it. It’s just

—well, I won’t even—simply a fantastical

situation. Brilev got much more

of a reaction over citizenship,

but this hits me much harder.

Probably much harder, because I spend

a lot of time with these very people,

talking to them a lot, inevitably.

Some of them agree at first, and then you start

simply listing various pieces of

real estate.

Officials—they’re the ones watching, aren’t they, not

reading my blog.

They’re watching this program. Hello to all

the employees of the Center, and hello to your

to the former boss, and we will definitely

there is one among them they talk about, but

all of that is nonsense, none of it is that important

because, well, it’s obvious that behind you

behind all of you, in the end, stands the foreign West

so you smooth everything over there and

expose corruption—well, obviously

all the same, you know

NATO is behind you. And right now, honestly,

speaking, I can’t even remember whether

Bulgaria is among the NATO countries—I think

it is. Could someone please check?

Then just put it up on my screen, you see,

I’m curious myself, you understand, to figure it out

So, dear employees of the Center, and I

understand that it’s pointless

to appeal to your conscience, but still

please, at least next time when

you drag in some schoolkid or

student—there have long been plenty of these

recordings of how they’re hauled in for

interrogations, and during the interrogation they say, “You don’t

understand, you fool, you’re either

blindly following Navalny, and behind Navalny

stands the foreign West.” Well, it’s behind you

that the foreign West stands, and you work for these

utterly rotten, hypocritical people who will spit

on you and instantly leave for their Bulgaria

or Italy. Well, obviously, this

Valiullin was buying real estate for himself

in such quantities because he’ll retire,

pack up his suitcases full of

money, move them, and leave for a NATO country

to live there, and he’ll be there

babysitting his grandkids, and his children will live there too, and

they won’t be connected to you in any way at all

not at all. And only you, the rank-and-file employees

of the Center—I can see them, mostly they’re

they’re really just

poor souls; they have nothing except

their salary and a rented apartment, they have

nothing else. But Valiullin does have things, and

he profits off you, and he profits

off us too, yet for some reason you defend him

Of course, it’s unlikely that this newly revealed

information will lead to you

starting to write resignation letters, all of you, and

because you understand

perfectly well just how deceitful this system is. Here,

I’m being told that Bulgaria has been a NATO member since 2004

.

So it’s your leadership that lives in

a NATO country; it’s your leadership that has

NATO behind it, while we here are the very

real patriots of Russia

I’m simply calling on everyone—no, I even had this

stupid thought. I hope I didn’t jinx

myself, and, damn, when I

read it, I thought, damn, I wish they’d arrest me already

next time so I could definitely

bring this up and say it to their faces, well

to those guys who usually

grab me, haul me around, and process the paperwork

for the documents. I’d simply be curious

to look at their faces—not even curious,

really, but just what kind of explanation they’ll

construct in their heads, what defense scheme they’ll come up with, what they’ll say

—that NATO planted those apartments on their general?

apartments

That it’s all some kind of clan struggle anyway

and a hit job ordered by someone against someone? They just

your crooked general was turned in by his wife. It will be very

interesting, guys. This is important, and I

am simply calling on you

to talk about this actively, to actively

tell everyone about it, first of all

to law enforcement officers whom

you come across. After all, they

understand how this works; better than you

they understand where all this

money comes from, and they

since they too, for the most part, even if they are

involved in some petty corruption

don’t own any apartments in Bulgaria

and they aren’t allowed to go abroad anywhere

their passports are literally taken away from them. It is very

important for them to know this, and it’s very important for us

to know it too. And every time these

sorts of conversations begin

—murky and suffocating—in the police station

when they lean on you and say

something like, “Don’t get confused, you’re not

a patriot if you go to rallies,” well, don’t

look down at the chair—look them straight

in the face and say: “No, you’re not a patriot. You

answer for your boss with apartments in

Bulgaria.” That’s it. The entire Interior Ministry system

owes us an answer, and Putin owes us

an answer too. And the Anti-Corruption Foundation

—we will demand that, first of all, we be

given an explanation

of what happened there with Valiullin, and we will

say that it is not enough

just to fire him. Sorry, then explain

where these apartments came from, with what

money he bought them, how much he had there, I don’t know, in

remaining balances in his bank accounts

or whatever else; how all of this in general

was somehow missed by the FSB and everyone else there

the Interior Ministry’s internal security service. This is

very important—let’s keep that in mind

and

deal with these people, because

for the ordinary Russian whom you and I must

persuade so that he

always votes against Putin and against

United Russia, this is an absolutely

unbeatable argument: show this

police mug, yes, and show

his apartments in Bulgaria, and the person starts

voting smart, while the authorities want

us to vote stupidly. And here I

just want to say that they

are, of course, terribly, terribly frightened

right now. Ah, I see you’ve written to me in huge

letters

I forgot—if it turns out the general’s wife

Valiullin

I don’t know your name, but if you’re watching this

program of ours, we just really want

to take a look at his house in Italy. There’s also something

written there about Bulgaria, too. So far, no one

has found anything, even though you

may have kicked us out—we’d still take a look. We have this

system called the Black Box. Right now

it will appear on the screen. So if you go

there, and if you work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) system

and know something about this Valiullin, or about

other police bosses

who own vacation homes abroad, or have some

other unexplained income—well, for heaven’s sake,

please write to us. It’s completely

anonymous. Remember that we won’t be able to contact you

after you upload all this to us.

We do not see who sent it.

So if you want us to

get in touch with you, leave some kind of

throwaway email address and leave it for contact.

But please, one separate request

from the investigations department: for those who, for

those who don’t have any kind of super-

secret information, please don’t write there just to

spam the inboxes endlessly, damn it, with just random

newspaper articles about some kind of corruption.

We already read all those articles anyway.

So, General Valiullin’s wife, if you want—

if your husband has offended you—please write to us.

Send it here, and we’ll show his Italian houses.

We’ll keep showing them until he

gives them to us—well, anyway, returning to

Smart Voting,

you probably already know that our website

has been blocked. It happened in an interesting way.

Of course, we expected that as soon as

we said there was this great

system with which we would strike at

United Russia candidates, we would be organizing

in effect, in every district, something like

a referendum on trust in the party

United Russia, and we would vote

in a consolidated way, all together, for the one

strongest candidate, in order to

knock out the United Russia people and get independents

elected—or whoever, really, it doesn’t matter exactly

who gets through, the main thing

is to destroy United Russia’s monopoly.

So basically, we were prepared for a

long, months-long discussion in order to

convince you that this could work, and I

had planned in each episode

to explain it to you,

to tell you how it could work, while

you would doubt it, not believe it,

ask me all sorts of questions, and I would again

explain it—and then, bang, Roskomnadzor (Russia’s state media and internet regulator)

explains it better than anyone, because they

simply, in a completely lawless way,

went ahead and blocked everything. And they

did it very cleverly—Roskomnadzor and

that Vadim Ampelonsky, whom I

talked about in the previous program, who had just

gotten out from under a criminal case,

when he and crooks just like him

were putting fake people on the payroll at

Roskomnadzor and collecting salaries for them—well,

he got let off the hook.

After almost two years of investigation,

he came back to work and started blocking things.

Some complaints supposedly appeared from people saying that we

were collecting personal data, after which

Roskomnadzor files a lawsuit not even against

the registrar, but against some damn

company that owns

this domain extension, .world, which we have

because of 2019. So they go after

the registrar that handles the .world domain,

and the court orders our site blocked. It sounds

wild, but the calculation is obvious, because they

are sort of suing some obscure

company located somewhere outside

Russia, who knows where, and our

site gets blocked, while we are not even a party to the case.

We are not summoned, we are not informed.

The domain belongs to me personally—to me,

Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny.

They’re basically saying: Navalny, we blocked your

site, but you have absolutely nothing

to do with this. You can’t come to court, you

can’t review the case materials,

you can’t even demand that

the site be unblocked. That’s how they, back when they

blocked the investigation about Nastya Rybka,

did it in roughly the same way.

Deripaska apparently paid for all those

rulings from the Ust-Labinsk court

in Krasnodar Krai (a region in southern Russia). Here, Roskomnadzor itself

is doing roughly the same thing

already in Moscow courts. For now, we have made

a mirror of this site. Right now

you can see a different domain name, but this is just

a temporary solution, because obviously

Roskomnadzor is now going to block this site too,

and after that we will still

come up with some kind of systemic workaround. But

while we’re working that out, I want to say that

here is the best confirmation that this

system can work: the authorities are afraid of it.

United Russia is afraid, Putin is afraid,

Roskomnadzor is afraid. So go there and

register right now, and

in general, follow how the

Smart Voting project develops. It is

the only opportunity

and the best strategy for

defeating United Russia candidates in elections. I’m not

saying this will happen on a massive scale everywhere,

but in the September 2019 elections

we will try this for the first time

primarily in Moscow,

St. Petersburg, and other major cities. If we have

a sufficient number of people,

something will definitely work out.

United Russia will suffer because of it, so

register—and Robot Borya or Robot

Alyosha, which robot do you like more

best?

Channel Two liked the robot—Borya, no...

No doubt you're saying right now, damn, yeah...

We've seen this a hundred times before, we've seen it...

A hundred times. Well, please give me...

a chance to enjoy...

retelling this story, because it's...

great. Vladimir Putin, after all, has...

this trendy new thing—technology. He's...

become our high-tech guy.

Before, he was all about oil and...

used to say we'd create an energy...

superpower. Then he got interested in...

weapons and other things, saying that a breakthrough...

could come in the defense industry.

And now he's our Elon Musk, and just...

recently, at a meeting with some...

students, he said he's very...

interested in genetics and artificial...

intelligence. Artificial intelligence is...

wonderful, and Channel Two showed us...

what Putin-style artificial...

intelligence looks like, because there's a special...

Putin forum specifically...

held on Putin's orders. It's...

called Pro...

Trajectory—well, you know, some new...

some letters...

some in small print, some big...

I mean, it's all very trendy.

Almost like rap, right? And at this forum...

they're supposed to demonstrate some cool...

things, and TV comes there—but they have to...

show something.

So they showed Robot Boris. Let's enjoy 38...

seconds of a report by the TV channel...

Rossiya 24 about Robot Boris. It's quite...

possible that some of these kids will devote themselves...

to robotics, especially since at the forum they...

have the chance to look at the most...

modern robots. I...

I love math.

But I also want...

to draw, and emotions...

Stop it. But Robot Boris has already been taught to dance...

and actually does it pretty well.

Footage.

And everyone immediately and unmistakably exposed this...

ridiculous Rossiya 24 report, because...

we all saw the film *Guest from the Future* (a popular Soviet sci-fi TV miniseries).

Remember? There was the robot Werther there, and he was...

exactly like this one. He also said, "I love...

music"—that was his line back when it came out in '86.

But now it's just...

different from 1986 only because...

Robot Werther had this kind of...

silver suit, and then just...

a human head. And now they've even...

added a helmet, basically. So of course everyone immediately found...

that this thing wasn't a robot at all, and...

not even Robot Boris—it was Robot Alyosha (Alexei).

It's a thing called...

the Alexei robot costume. It's sold on...

the internet, by the way, for 250,000...

or 200,000 rubles—that is, these guys just...

bought a robot costume and dragged it to...

an exhibition that's supposed to showcase the highest...

achievements of Putin-era science, high...

technology,

genetics, and artificial intelligence. Well...

obviously, the people at Rossiya 24...

they could see perfectly well that this...

person dancing around was just a person in...

a robot costume, but they still actually had...

the nerve to present it as...

a high-tech robot. But the best part...

wasn't even that turn of events, but...

after, for two straight days, the whole...

country...

was rubbing Rossiya 24's face in it,

they aired a report saying that this was...

the enemies mocking this, this...

this tiny little mistake. Well...

a tiny mistake—just passing off a person in...

a robot costume as a robot. And you won't...

believe it, but actually the most...

amazing thing...

was that even in the report about how they, well, deceived...

everyone, they managed to drag Ukraine and the Ukrainian media into it.

Which, apparently, were especially...

mocking them. Let's enjoy one minute...

of Rossiya 24 explaining to all of us that...

none of what happened really matters; what matters...

is remembering once again that there are enemies, and...

especially in Ukraine.

The Robot Boris shown on Rossiya 24...

turned out to be a human. Viewers exposed...

the vile substitution: a dummy was passed off as a robot.

These are just a small fraction of the headlines...

that the Russian press—and not only Russian press—

devoted today to the career-guidance forum...

in Yaroslavl, ignoring reports from the scene and...

the event itself.

Naturally, the opportunities that...

the event opens up for schoolchildren were not...

noticed; they preferred to sneer at...

some of the wording. The main...

complaint from certain kinds of outlets was...

that the state television company...

allegedly wanted to mislead its viewers...

by supposedly presenting, under the guise of an advanced...

example of modern robotics, in...

its Yaroslavl report, a person in...

a carnival costume. It sounds absurd, but...

quite a few internet pages were devoted to the topic.

Some even carried out a whole investigation,

seriously analyzing video footage...

and proving why what was on screen was not a marvel of...

technology but a live performer. Naturally...

the Ukrainian press quickly picked up the story...

and the tone of those publications was...

mocking.

They preferred not to notice the opportunities, but...

preferred to sneer. And right...

Well of course we preferred to sneer.

Guys, you really did present, as the most...

modern robot, to us...

a person in a robot costume. Preferred...

to sneer? And look, this isn't even...

It’s just days of reporting mixed with demands for apologies, yes, that’s what it is.

And then there’s this aggressive defense

of their own position: that it’s actually them

being mocked all over the internet.

They say people are noticing the opportunities that

have opened up. What opportunities, exactly, have you opened up for us?

What have you opened up in the field of high

technology — the chance to dance the Skibidi dance?

Is that what counts as high technology now? It’s just

an absolutely astonishing thing, of course, and I assure you, guys,

there will be more and more of this.

In fact, I’ve just been asked by

Streltsov: “Alexei, what can you say about

the latest cutting-edge developments from Skolkovo (Russia’s state-backed innovation hub)?”

The falling taxi, well — and we’ve already discussed the robot hoax.

There will be more and more of this

because that’s their fashion now, right?

They’ve failed at absolutely everything,

and it’s impossible to prove to you that we’ve

built some factories or anything else,

because you’ll just shake your head and say,

“There’s nothing there. There’s still that broken

road that’s been there for 30 years, and it’s still

just as broken.” And they’ll tell us that

somewhere out there, there are these amazing

technologies. Well, the best example is Rusnano (the Russian state nanotechnology corporation),

an absolutely failed

structure that nevertheless devours

tens of billions of state

rubles, and Chubais regularly comes out

and says, “You must apologize to

business, to the oligarchs, to me — and we

invented things.”

And over there they created and implemented cool

nanotechnologies — not just so tiny that

you can’t see them, but they’re there, guys.

Believe that nanotechnology exists, and it will keep

developing. They poured piles of money into

Skolkovo, into all sorts of their various zones,

free economic zones,

high-tech zones — and this is the very

same flying taxi story too.

A stunning example: with great fanfare,

at Skolkovo — Medvedev’s favorite pet project

— they also dumped in tens of

billions of rubles into this little

oasis where high technology was supposed to

develop, while across the rest of the

country people would still be trudging through mud

like geese — but here, of course,

technology would flourish. And then they

showed the flying taxi — for 18 seconds.

[music]

[applause]

[music]

First of all, I just have a question:

Guys, why is this a taxi?

It’s just some kind of drone. It’s bigger than the

drone we use to film the dachas of people

who steal, sure — but in these so-called high

technologies, if this is really a taxi, then who exactly

is it for?

A taxi for Lilliputians? For tiny little

dwarfs? A taxi for French

bulldogs? I mean, whatever it is,

it has to be something small.

Whatever flies in that taxi, because it’s just

some contraption of that size.

A human being is not going anywhere in that taxi. And if

it fell into a snowdrift, then what even is this? And this

is being presented as a curious interim

result of investing a huge

amount of budget money into all of this.

At Skolkovo, Medvedev probably held about 300

meetings on this; deputy prime ministers

have been dealing with it; roads to Skolkovo

have been laid; new

electrical substations have been built; officials are constantly

hanging out at conferences — they held countless

events on innovation, so many different

business coaches spoke there, so many people

talked about the great breakthrough that

awaits Russia — and in the end, what they showed us was, well,

you know how cars drive around with that thing on top,

that box on the roof rack — what do you call it,

some kind of space-age pod? A roof box,

where you can put skis or something — well,

they attached a drone to that roof box,

it fell into a snowdrift, and they tell us this is

a flying taxi, a prototype of a flying

taxi. And these are exactly the kinds of technologies

we’ll keep seeing here until

these people leave the Kremlin,

because they’re incapable of inventing anything else,

despite the fact that, of course,

in some areas Russia

absolutely can and should be at the forefront

as a major power. We have plenty of programmers,

and

our mathematics is still very advanced.

There are still some remnants

of education left, some

remnants, though very few now, of

the developments of the 1970s and 1980s.

There are still, after all,

people who knew how to make things with their hands,

with their minds, or invent things — and we

deserve a little more than this

taxi. But for now, this is all they can

offer us — this, and the wonderful

robot Boris, which in fact

turned out to be just a man in a costume.

So, Geralt the Unicorn asks again:

“In every program, how can we effectively

fight propaganda? Should we switch to

posting leaflets?”

Geralt the Unicorn, there is no single

most effective way to fight

propaganda. The cheapest way to fight

propaganda is the internet, and that’s what I do.

I host a program, and it gets watched by half a million

people — sometimes a little more, sometimes a little

less — and it costs relatively little.

I can raise that money online. Leaflets

are more complicated in terms of organization

and logistics, but they really are very

effective when it comes to reaching, say,

pensioners and all the people who can’t

the internet, so we do everything earlier

actually, I was really into

leaflets—there was a special project like that

called The Good Machine of Truth, and we constantly

think about bringing it back, and we will bring it back

but the best way to fight state

propaganda is if you simply

talk to people yourselves, or

show them, show them clips from this

program. Vladimir asks me:

"Alexei, there’s a question. I’d like to know

your opinion about Mir cards. Do you think

they were created specifically so there would be

a way to collect taxes from the self-employed?"

Vladimir, I think Mir cards are primarily

meant to

process public-sector employees—the very people who

were forced, compulsorily,

to switch to these Mir cards, despite the fact

that there was major resistance, there were

many scandals, and as I understand it, all

civil servants, all people who receive

money from the state in one way or another

are being transferred to these Mir cards. But also

with an eye to the possibility that suddenly

we might be cut off from the global banking

system, SWIFT, and then supposedly these

Mir cards would work. In fact, they won’t

work. I won’t lie—I haven’t studied it closely,

but judging by how aggressively they’re being rolled out,

there is definitely a corrupt

component. When I see that

the state directly requires everyone to buy

something—I don’t know, Arbidol (a Russian antiviral drug) in pharmacies or

Mir cards at bank branches—I

immediately think someone has stolen something there.

Thank you for saying that. We’ll

take a close look at what’s going on with these

Mir cards. Of course, I’m also often asked

about my favorite subject,

General Zolotov, our valiant

army general, and people ask: "Alexei,

please explain what’s happening there, because

it really is a complete hellish mess by now.

The FSB is checking something, there was talk at first,

then someone denies it, someone else confirms it—

honestly, I’ll tell you, I myself

don’t fully understand what’s happening right now in

the National Guard (Rosgvardiya). What’s happening there most of all

looks like that famous

picture on the internet—well, probably not just

a picture on the internet, but those

stages from some scientific concept,

the stages of acceptance, where there was

denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and

acceptance. What’s happening now

with Rosgvardiya—if you remember, at first

there was denial, and General Zolotov—but we

released a very simple investigation and

showed that groceries in stores cost

less than what Rosgvardiya was paying wholesale for them.

Now, you can argue about that, of course, but still

out came our brave general, our

man with a double helping of gold on his shoulders and on

his forehead, and said that

up

none of that happened, nothing was overpriced,

you’re all lying. Give me a few seconds

so you can remember those wonderful

moments. I want to say that in your

statement, with regard to me,

you made insulting and slanderous

fabrications. And you know, in officers’ circles

that kind of thing is not simply forgiven, and

since time immemorial, scoundrels were beaten and

challenged to duels. Gentlemen, nothing stops us

from reviving at least part

of those wonderful traditions." In other words,

he disagreed so strongly that there was

even a one-ruble overpricing there that

he invoked officers’ wonderful traditions.

Then some strange

bargaining stage began,

because

RBC published materials saying there was also some kind of

FSB inspection. We were looking into various

potatoes and cabbage, whereas a much larger

contract in the FSB, as the press writes,

and as the FSB itself states,

at the same time involved

the procurement of sausages and meat, and well, they

found that all of it cost several

times more—sausages and frankfurters, which is

actually funny: the FSB had sausages,

while we had side dishes—potatoes and cabbage.

We didn’t look at those contracts; the fact is, they

were much smaller. We looked at the big

contracts, and then some strange leaks started coming out

that the FSB had essentially directly declared these

contracts corrupt—that is,

it effectively confirmed our information.

But then Rosgvardiya moved into

what seems to be the bargaining stage, because they

published on their website today

a press release saying that, it turns out, there is

an inspection into alleged violations. They do not acknowledge

any violations, but this inspection already

involves everyone: the FSB, military

counterintelligence, apparently checking

whether spies were involved in the procurement of frankfurters and

sausages—as if American spies came in and

beamed rays at Zolotov so that into his

head came the idea: let’s buy onions

and sausages

at much higher prices so we can steal

money from it. So now counterintelligence,

the antimonopoly service, and the military

prosecutor’s office are all checking it. In

the press release, Rosgvardiya wrote that

nevertheless, much about the situation is all

incorrect, all wrong, and

so any investigation—or rather, this

apparently means I’m covering for certain

corrupt officials. Apparently. I don’t know

whom they meant, but that’s already the

bargaining stage, and at the same time they’re in the

depression stage, which was expressed in the fact that

they sort of seemed to admit that

There was a violation; the FSB (Russia’s Federal Security Service) acknowledged it.

There was a violation, and the very next day after that

Zolotov sued me over it, which

is what it means. But I can interpret this demand for 1

million rubles (about tens of thousands of U.S. dollars) in only one

way. That is, once information started appearing in the press

that the FSB

had confirmed all these facts in effect,

and by then it was impossible not to confirm them again.

Several months have passed, but if you

go to a store tomorrow morning, you will see with your own

eyes that onions, potatoes, and

cabbage in any local store cost

several times less than what the National Guard buys them for.

Rosgvardiya (the Russian National Guard). So apparently in this

situation, Zolotov simply started flailing about and

didn’t understand what to do. And, well, as in any

confusing situation, the thing to do is sue

Navalny, because that’s the encouraged

behavior. When they come to him there

and ask, “So why did the general steal so much?”

steal?

He stole so much that there was a whole

uproar across the country, and your entire

National Guard is discussing what money you used

to build your houses. And he’ll say, “Oh, that’s nonsense.

But at least I

sued Navalny. He’s our common

enemy. Come on, better help me

win this case against him, because if I don’t

it’ll look as if Navalny

defeated the state, and that cannot

be allowed.” Now they’re going to pull some

interesting stunt over this.

It’s funny that quite serious legal firepower

has been brought in, because at the same time I’m being sued by

this very

“Druzhba Narodov” Combine (“Friendship of Peoples” combine)

— an astonishing outfit that received

all these contracts

and is headed by a former subordinate

of Zolotov — and they didn’t hire just any

lawyer. You know, it’s a Crimean structure,

so you’d think they just picked some guy from Crimea — but no.

They’re represented by the famous lawyer Pavel Astakhov? No — by the well-known attorney Padva (Henry Reznik/Padva-level celebrity lawyer context).

One of the most famous, yes. You see, here I am with him in

court taking a photo, because Usmanov

— the oligarch Usmanov — hired Padva too

to sue me over the film

*He Is Not Dimon to You*, and that was the only

pleasant moment in that whole process. Well,

after all, it meant I had a chance to deal with a celebrity lawyer

and interact with him while he was

sort of on the opposing side. So

now this Crimean combine has hired

Padva, while Zolotov himself has hired an even

more “impressive” guy. If Padva is

a genuinely respected lawyer — and I regret

that he works for all sorts of oligarchs and

crooks — then Zolotov hired

simply everyone’s favorite: a lawyer named

Shota Gorgadze, whom I

of course despise, but to whom I will be eternally

grateful, because it was thanks to his

stupidity that the meme was born back in the day:

“United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves.” I was on

some radio broadcast

and they asked me, “What is United Russia?”

I said, “United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves,” and

then this [__] went to United Russia

got a power of attorney from them and declared

that, as a member of the United Russia party,

he was suing me over that phrase.

The phrase became a meme. Later he chickened out

and never actually filed any lawsuit.

But all that discussion

of course ended up meaning that for

several years we hammered

United Russia

with that phrase. So yes, quite a

merry crew.

A merry crew will be suing me.

By the way, it’s funny that this Gorgadze

— I don’t know, a lawyer is a lawyer, he

obviously has some kind of license — but he

goes around everywhere claiming he is a Candidate of Legal Sciences

(roughly equivalent to a PhD in law). Dissernet (a Russian anti-plagiarism community) checked his

dissertation and couldn’t find it anywhere. Even

today, the radio station *Govorit Moskva*

— quite pro-Putin, by the way —

called him and said, “Man, where is

your dissertation? What are we even supposed to

make of this?” And he said, “First you prove that you are

journalists,”

and then I’ll prove that I have

a dissertation.” These are all stories from the lives

of very, very rich people — very

very disgusting, obscenely rich

people. All these Zolotovs and

meat combines, Druzhba, and Gorgadzes

— these are all rich people living very well. But

let’s talk about our people who are very

poor. Those who follow our channel

know that right now we are helping the trade union

of doctors — it’s called the Doctors’ Alliance — and

we are making reports about the results of their

what you might call raids on hospitals. That is,

some doctors, some kind of workplace collective

at a hospital, write to the union:

“Guys, come and protect us,”

because things here are a total nightmare.

It’s supposedly a rich region, a rich

state; a lot of money is allocated to healthcare,

and Putin keeps saying that

enough money is being allocated

to healthcare, that everything is funded,

that there’s enough money. But here we have nothing.

They don’t pay our salaries,

there are no medicines, and on top of that they’re firing us.”

And today we released three reports of this

kind, and your

feedback really matters to me: do you like what

we’re doing? It seems incredibly

interesting and right to us to help

the union, to help those very doctors

whom corrupt people in their own field are pressuring

and tormenting. Let me show those of you who haven’t

seen it just over a minute from that.

the video we released from that

report, and then I’ll tell you something very

interesting about what is happening right

now, just a few hours after

we released a report about a visit to

the Yegoryevsk

district hospital in the Moscow Region

which, by the way, is the wealthy Moscow

Region. You’ve probably seen online as well

this absolutely monstrous news about

how in Blagoveshchensk, a 63-year-old female patient

had her post-surgery stitches dressed with

ordinary office tape, and

well, of course that’s horrifying. Maybe

they didn’t have some super-expensive

cancer drugs, but what, did they really

not even have basic dressing supplies?

Apparently not. They’re wrapping up elderly women with tape

like that.

Their stitches, you could say. Fine, maybe over there

in Blagoveshchensk, way out in the middle of nowhere, they don’t have

the money. But here things are supposed to be better.

But as it turns out, at the Yegoryevsk hospital in

the Moscow Region

the situation is no better. Let’s take a look.

Here, at 1 minute 22 seconds:

Doctors and medical staff

of the Central District Hospital in the city of

Yegoryevsk contacted us and told us

that the hospital has no medicines,

doctors are quitting, and other medical

workers too. Our film crew and I

came to find out what is going on

here. What is happening? You are violating

the law, because your behavior does not

fit within any normal standard of conduct.

Something about migration... never mind, don’t

repeat that later. Anastasia, please tell us,

do you have all the medicines? You said

that you had to buy the medicines, that she had to buy

her own, right?

What exactly did you have to buy—for IV lines?

Trental, syringes, and the IV drip system—you

bought that yourselves too, for about $500?

You bought it yourselves, is that right?

The hospital doesn’t have it—buy the medicines yourselves.

For the purchases... well, that’s how it is.

This means there are some kind of

issues like that. What’s your last name? Garik?

That is completely unimportant. As we understand it,

the situation in this hospital

is the same in every department. You

just saw for yourselves what is happening in

this hospital.

There are no essential medicines,

not even IV systems,

and there have been some strange staffing reshuffles.

Our union is taking this situation

under control, and we will do everything possible

to ensure that patients in this institution

receive quality medical

care.

It’s 2018: genetics, artificial

intelligence, robots, Boris—or Robert—or whatever,

I don’t even know what else. And Putin

puffing out his cheeks and saying that

everything is fine with healthcare in

the Moscow Region. Meanwhile, the hospital has no

medicines.

No medical supplies either. You saw it yourselves:

a person has to buy their own IV drip.

I mean, this is just beyond absurd.

What’s more, watch this report

in full—it even made the trending list

on YouTube today, by the way.

There’s also an absolutely incredible

situation connected with the fact that, well, there is

a hospital—the biggest one in the district,

naturally—and of course there is a morgue, and in

the morgue there used to be

a company that handled all those

funeral services.

Then the chief physician came in and

pushed out those guys who

had been working in the morgue and put his own people there, naturally.

The cost of funeral services went up and, well,

basically, he set up a scheme to profit from the dead.

He also created this kind of monopoly in procurement at this

hospital. For example, there is

a purchase of a microscope for 10 million

rubles (about $160,000), while they can’t buy IV drips

or even basic medicines. But

of course they absolutely need a microscope for 10

million rubles. It’s obvious why they’re

buying it. So, the way events are unfolding

is that, naturally, everyone

has gone into overdrive. They can’t exactly admit it,

but this isn’t just, you know,

Navalny

running around public squares saying something.

Here you go: the doctors’ union

is saying it, the doctors themselves admit it,

the patients all admit it too. In Yegoryevsk,

you could probably ask anyone and they

would say: yes, that’s exactly how it is. And now

a film crew from the Russia-1 TV channel (state television) is on its way,

and will be filming tomorrow. And the doctors are telling us

that right now, tonight, to this

hospital they have started bringing in equipment,

bringing in medicines—just hauling everything in

en masse in order to

demonstrate

to state television that everything

is fine, that everything is in place,

that no one is being fired,

that no one is making money off morgues,

that everything is just wonderful and perfect. Well,

thank God for that—let them bring it all in.

Of course they want to engage in

window dressing, but at least

they will bring medicines into the Yegoryevsk hospital,

and in that sense we are very

pleased with our cooperation with

this wonderful union, the Alliance

of Doctors, because it is effective. First, we

made a report there and filmed the chief physician. Second,

we made a report there and filmed the deputy

chief physician, and both of them were

So, top officials are apparently involved in some kind of

strange commercial dealings, and

they were also simply harassing the workforce, well,

and now we’ve finally done a report: in

the Yegoryevsky District, free

medicines have appeared. I don’t know how long they’ll

last, but we’ll keep doing this, and if

you know any doctors,

medical staff, please

draw their attention to the fact that there is this

great trade union. It really is

independent. Of course, it probably won’t be able

to handle the complaints of everyone in need, but

maybe someone, using this

union as a model, can create their own and do

the same kind of work in their own region, where we

will never make it to — to the same

Blagoveshchensk, for example, we won’t be able to fly there,

the tickets alone would cost so much that this

union would need a huge amount of money. We just don’t have the money

for that, let alone for flights. But someone

maybe in Blagoveshchensk or in

Khabarovsk could do something similar,

make the same kind of videos, and put pressure on

the local authorities, because if you don’t apply pressure,

nothing will happen — there will be no free

medicines. And the next topic concerns

the fact that I want to announce once again, publicly:

I will not delete the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*

from YouTube, despite the fact that tomorrow

I

am being charged under three administrative protocols under the new

latest law

named after Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev

and Mikhail Boyarsky. Don’t be surprised,

because it was Mikhail Boyarsky’s son,

Sergei — such a vile,

nasty little creep who was put into

the State Duma because his daddy is

a wonderful actor, truly a wonderful

actor, even though he talks terrible nonsense and calls Putin

a god. But he’s a great actor — I even

went to one of his concerts once, where everyone

sang “Green-Eyed Taxi” in chorus (a famous Soviet/Russian pop song).

But his son is just a completely

finished, disgusting crook who introduced

a bill under which, if you do not

remove from the internet information that

someone there doesn’t like,

Medvedev and all those other

United Russia members, then you won’t just be

fined — they can also jail you first for

10 days, and then bring criminal

charges against you. And so tomorrow I reach

the first stage of that process: they begin

holding me administratively

liable, and who knows, maybe tomorrow

right before New Year they’ll want to lock me up for

10 days. That is a very likely

scenario. I

just want to say once again that I am not

going to delete the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*

and I’m very curious why

the state is now so actively rushing around,

with the bailiff service dealing

only with me, protecting these two

wonderful people who have become

the main

plaintiffs. So, first: the oligarch

Usmanov, who is formally the one

suing me to demand that I delete

the film *He Is Not Dimon to You*. He is carrying out,

apparently, Medvedev’s interests. Second, there is this

businessman, Sergei Mikhailov. If you

Google this Sergei Mikhailov, you

will see that in every other

article he is described as the leader

of the Solntsevo criminal group. He is demanding that I

delete a post

discussing whether Putin gave him a watch

or didn’t, because on his website

it said that he had

a personalized watch from Putin.

Then that was denied, but nevertheless

we found a decree showing that Putin

did give him a personalized watch, and apparently Peskov

confirmed it. So, in short, there is

Mikhas (Sergei Mikhailov’s nickname), there is Putin, there is the watch — but they want

this not to exist on the internet, so that you

forget this information. And if, well,

if you don’t delete it voluntarily, then we’ll

put you in jail for 10 days. I am not going to delete it,

because it’s true. I don’t know

whether he gave him the watch or didn’t — I don’t know,

whether Mikhailov is the leader of the Solntsevo

criminal group or not,

whether it still exists to this day,

whether

the Solntsevo criminal group exists — but I

do know, I can see from the documents that Putin gives

a watch to a certain citizen, and that

citizen is described by everyone — including the Spanish

police — as the leader of the Solntsevo

criminal group. I want to talk about this

because it seems to me that this is

important for public opinion,

just like the entire film *He Is Not Dimon to You*.

The numerous dachas and palaces — all of that

matters. And despite the fact that

they are trying to forbid us from talking

about it, we will continue to talk

about it. But we have to admit that the other

side — the side of this wonderful

man who is not sitting next to me right now —

is, of course, coming up with newer and newer

absolutely brilliant ways

to protect themselves and to

shut

us down, to silence us. And this week

they introduced a bill that I honestly

wouldn’t even have expected, because Senator

Klishas, together with co-authors — some

people from United Russia,

deputy Dmitry Vyatkin, and also Senator

Lyudmila Bokova — introduced a bill.

You can see it on your screen right now — it says

that people should be arrested for up to 15 days

for disrespectful materials about society.

and the authorities online, and fine people for it

disinformation. So I’m curious: when you

show that robot Borya, which

is in fact just a person in a costume,

that’s disinformation. So all of this, this whole

Rossiya 24 (a Russian state TV channel)

should be fined, for example. That’s it, and

given 15 days in jail for it. When you

talk about the ‘crucified boy’ story on Channel One (a Russian state TV channel),

should everyone there be arrested for 15

days? I think Senator Klishas will tell

us no, they shouldn’t be arrested. But

those who put out videos on the channel

Navalny should be arrested, for a very

simple reason: Senator Klishas knows what

he is protecting. And please find

that piece from as far back as 2014, where we

talked about this wonderful

man. I know him; I can’t say that

very well. He studied with me in

a parallel group at the university

of Peoples’ Friendship. I was in law school,

and he studied there with me. And basically

all of this senator’s achievements

come down to the fact that while still

at university, he got a job at the Ministry

of State Property, where he worked on

the privatization of the Norilsk

Nickel enterprise, and together with Potanin

he effectively stole Norilsk Nickel,

and then right after that he got a job

working for Potanin,

where he became a multimillionaire. And now he

doesn’t live in just some, not even in

Norilsk, and I doubt he even goes to

Norilsk, where

orange water runs through the streams because of

pollution.

Instead, he lives in Switzerland,

near the city of Locarno. Please pull up our

2014 report: we photographed

these Swiss properties of his, and

Senator Klishas, with manic persistence,

even refuses to declare the full

land plot. All the while he states there

that he has 500 square meters of land,

but we can see in the Swiss registry

that it says 975

square meters. So the man is simply

lying to us consistently. In other words,

he has real estate in Switzerland, everything is

fine for him, but he just doesn’t like that we

talk about it. That’s why he wants to lock

us up for 15 days. Well, not you—me.

He wants to lock me up for 15 days so I won’t

bring up Norilsk Nickel, so I won’t

bring up all these schemes, so I won’t

keep asking where all these

clowns got

their houses in Switzerland, so I won’t talk

here about

that general from Center E (Russia’s anti-extremism police unit) with apartments in

Bulgaria. After all, this is all absolutely

information that discredits

reality, discredits the authorities, and in general

it’s interesting, actually. Today on Facebook

I saw something that hadn’t even occurred

to me myself: this bill is

absolutely similar

to the statute that was adopted under

Nicholas I (Emperor of Russia).

Nicholas I, that is, the famous Nicholas

‘with the stick’—and there it plainly, explicitly

said: ‘Any reproduction of writing is prohibited,

not only that which is inflammatory against the government and

against the government and

its decrees,

or the authorities, but also that which weakens

the respect due to them.’ That’s really

it: many, many years have passed, but these mugs

still want to jail us simply

because we weaken the respect people have for them.

You’re supposed to respect General Valiullin,

you’re supposed to respect Zolotov, to feel

reverence—not even respect, but

almost piety toward them. And if you don’t,

we’ll lock you up for 15 days. And

I’m also curious about one of my

favorite characters—he spoke out today

about the authorities.

If I tell you that one person called

a governor an idiot, you’ll say,

‘Come on, Alexei, you’re usually into that kind of

thing—tell us it wasn’t me.’ Well, you’d probably

assume it was some other

opposition figure, someone furious and very

unrestrained in his language, who called

the governor an idiot. But let’s listen

to who this fine fellow was who delivered

such an accusatory speech today

against the authorities. A few seconds—here he is.

The drunks in the Khakassia region elected

so,

an idiot as governor. Everyone, everyone, everyone

understands that he’s [__], nobody

cares. He’s an open [__], in such a

completely manifest way.

So, the lawyer for the local Communist

rag in Khakassia, Sashka Kaskad—well, not really.

Not exactly. Yes, that’s his opinion. Well, no, and

not only his—it’s true, the Khakassia newspaper calls him that.

There you go.

Mikhail Leontyev, the press secretary—he’s not even

just some press secretary for some

organization; he’s a major board member overseeing

communications, receiving many, many

millions of rubles from the company

Rosneft (a Russian state oil company), a state-owned company, and

there he is, coming out and saying to a governor elected

by the people in a competitive election,

having beaten his rivals—he says he’s [__].

Someone might object: well, you yourself have also

called governors idiots. Yes, I have.

I don’t work for Rosneft. Besides,

I think that, generally speaking, people

have the right to call governors

idiots. But the thing is, they are adopting

a special law saying that if you call

the governors from United Russia can call you an idiot

and get away with just 15 days in detention, something like that

some perpetually half-drunk creep from the company of

Rosneft, living off our money, well

of course he can

but an elected governor, if someone doesn’t like him

to say, as he puts it, [__], that’s

an outright idiot, and then blah blah blah

blah blah and so on, because he knows that

nothing will happen to him for it; he can

insult anyone he wants, he can

show any degree of disrespect

as long as he dances around United

Russia, that’s how it will be. If they pass this

to be honest, I’d even like this

law to be passed

because it will become my favorite law

it’ll be so interesting to watch its

enforcement. As for me personally,

I’ll probably have to spend an additional considerable

amount of time under arrest

because I will continue showing disrespect

toward all these representatives of the authorities, toward

all these untouchables and officials, all

the rest of them, because, well, he really wants

to punish, for example, disrespect toward Nikita

Mikhalkov — you’ve probably seen his

interview that he gave to Yuri Dud (a Russian journalist and interviewer)

It’s a great interview overall, watch it, and I

just noticed two things

first, Nikita Mikhalkov told us

that Europe is dying

you see, and there sits Nikita

Mikhalkov, sighing, and saying, “Yura,”

“Europe is dying.” Let’s have 23 seconds of

dying Europe and the still-living

Mikhalkov

It’s a metaphysical question, I

feel it that way, I see how humanity is betraying

itself, so to speak, itself from within, I see how

Europe

is dying, simply dying from

the inability to say either yes or no

There he sits, a man who once acted in the film

*A Cruel Romance*, and then

slipped into the role of Sergei Sergeich Paratov

and never really came out of it. There he sits, only

he’s taken off the cap and wrapped some kind of scarf

around himself in a French style, and says

“Europe is dying.” That’s event number one

Event number two: the weekly

*Sobesednik* publishes information for us about

the Mikhalkov family’s house in Spain

worth €4 million, you see

damn, I can see that humanity, of course,

is devouring itself, and yes, Europe

is dying

I’ll tell you all about it later, later

I’ll make a bunch of films, using your

money — state budget money, after all, that’s what he uses to make all

his films, and they’ve all completely flopped, though

then he’ll sigh again, get on a plane, and fly to

Spain, and once again look out

the window and say, “Yes, Poland

is dying, Germany is dying, France is dying,”

“and now we’re approaching Spain, which

is dying too, by the way. Now let’s go

swim in the nice pool. Show them this

photo — though it’s only from

Google, so it’s not very large

A big beautiful house with a great

pool, but in dying Europe

can you imagine how hard it is

for Nikita Mikhalkov to swim there and

indulge in thoughts that all of this

is dying — while only in Russia, back home somewhere,

there still

flickers some kind of life thanks to

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a little bit

and of course to a considerable extent thanks to Nikita

Mikhalkov and his mighty, mighty intellect

The last thing I wanted to say about

the main opposition figure in Russia — who do you

think the main opposition figure in Russia is?

Not me. The main opposition figure in Russia right now

is this member of the United Russia party

Oleg Kozhemyako, who is running for

governor of Primorsky Krai, and this is

absolutely astonishing, because you

know the Primorye story very well: there

they elected a different governor, a Communist, and

Ishchenko — he actually won the election, after which

the whole thing was rigged and Ishchenko

was not allowed onto the ballot, and instead they dragged in

this Kozhemyako

And understanding that everyone in Vladivostok is

furious and won’t vote for

a United Russia candidate, won’t vote for

Putin’s nominee, won’t vote for

Putin’s ideas, this Kozhemyako is now running

just an ultra-opposition campaign. In

Vladivostok, he officially has

posters hanging up saying: “Return federal money

to the regions.” It gives the impression that

it wasn’t Kudrin, Siluanov, Putin, and Medvedev

who took regional money into the center, but

some other people, as if

the Communists had done all that

In other words, he has completely taken over all

the points of that Communist’s platform and

is now out there demanding a reduction in the

retirement age

despite the fact that his own party raised it

He’s a total mega-opposition figure

He even stated that, well, the federal

authorities had somehow made a mistake, had acted

incorrectly, because the capital of the

Far Eastern Federal District they

made Khabarovsk, and he criticizes

the federal authorities and demands that

the capital be moved to Vladivostok

And the most astonishing thing is that the authorities, and Putin

personally, said: “Ah yes, yes, yes, you know, we were so

wrong, but you’re the right kind of

opposition figure,” and now they’ve launched

a procedure under which they really will

move the capital of the Far Eastern District from

Khabarovsk to Vladivostok. Just don’t think, by the way

By the way, this is just a meaningless

piece of paper saying “capital of the federal

district” — what, is that not obvious or what?

The capital of the federal district is where

all the security agencies are — police, FSB officers (Russia’s security service),

a whole mass of bureaucrats, a whole mass of buildings,

special infrastructure.

Billions were spent to house everyone

in Khabarovsk.

And now, just so this

Kozhemyako, pretending to be an opposition figure,

can get elected, they need to spend several more

billions to drag all of this over to

Vladivostok. Well then, they’d have to move everyone,

resettle them, give them official service

apartments, and place their children in

new daycare centers and new schools, and

so on and so forth.

And all of this is being done in order to deceive the people

of Primorsky Krai and get Kozhemyako

elected. I’m addressing the residents

of Primorsky Krai: it doesn’t matter whether you

support me or don’t support me —

support yourselves. You were insulted,

you were humiliated. You voted, you elected

a person, and after that the election was stolen from you — they

spat in your face.

The person you elected wasn’t even allowed

to take part in the election. They only let Kozhemyako and some

clowns in. So go back again to those

polling stations, and of course you know better than I do

just how ridiculous all these

candidates are — Kozhemyako, the rest of them,

the fake stand-ins — but on principle alone, go

and vote for a runoff, vote against

Kozhemyako, vote for any other

candidate. I was almost going to urge you

to boycott this non-election.

It really is not an election, and maybe I

would be more inclined to boycott it,

but here we are simply following

the strategy declared by the main player himself,

namely this

Ishchenko, the man whom the Communists

and the voters elected

governor. He called on people to go to the election

and vote against everyone, but it doesn’t really matter

whether in practice you vote “against all”

or for any other candidate — you

should vote against Kozhemyako.

So I think it is right to support

the strategy he announced and say that

yes, in this situation, definitely come

and vote. And even if, in that previous

election, you did not vote for Ishchenko

but for the United Russia candidate, you still ought to have

some sense of your own

dignity. You cannot allow these

people to just come in and say that

they’ll decide for you whom they’ve taken away — to hell with them.

Now they’re saying, “We’ll redo everything.” So come out and

vote against him.

And I’ll end the program with an interesting news item.

I’m often told that I

only see the bad, the negative, or that I

deliberately go looking for it and ignore

the good. Well, something good has happened

in the city of Kazan.

The chairman of the United Russia faction

in the city council has become the director of the zoo,

because the previous United Russia leader

was sent to prison.

He was jailed. So let’s drink to the hope that

members of United Russia are either in the zoo

or in prison. See you next

week.

[music]