Elections like a wedding contest, #fairytaleBali, trade union dissolved

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Hello everyone. It's 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, which means

that we're live in the Navalny LIVE studio. I'm Alexei

Navalny, here to discuss with you

the latest news of the day.

My nickname today is Alexei

Navalny, or "a serious man," as

Alexander Rumyantsev called me,

the co-chair of Vladimir Putin's campaign.

You see, sometimes you can even get a bit of

praise from these people.

Let me remind you that you can ask questions

on Twitter. Please send them

using the hashtag #Navalny2018, and I

will read them and answer them. And I

also remind you that today's broadcast—

today's broadcast—

we're continuing to raise money.

I thun—

Well, that was a tense moment in

today's broadcast. We're continuing to raise funds

for a new drone, one that will replace

our Volodya, this very one

that brought a lot of joy to all

Russian citizens and a lot of frustration

to various officials, because we filmed

all of them with Volodya. But now it's become obsolete,

so we need a new drone

that can fly farther in order

to overcome all sorts of

barriers and obstacles that they keep putting up

farther and farther out around the perimeter

of the properties they guard, which for us are simply

of course just sites

where crooks have invested their money. Let me

remind you that the grand prize goes to the person

who donates the largest amount

toward our new drone. We need to raise

a total of 450,000 rubles (about $7,700 at the time).

The grand prize is that the drone will be named after

that person. And right now the standings are as follows:

In third place we have user

dimon, who donated 8,500 rubles, and for now

is in line to receive our branded hat from

our store.

In second place is Kirill Yudin with 10,000; he'll get

a hoodie.

And in first place, with 18,200

rubles, is the user named Trump.

So based on the current standings,

most likely the new drone we're raising money for

will be named Trump. But then,

what is, in fact, the main

political news? What's happening in

the country? And the answer, of course,

is that in the country

there are these frantic

truly frantic attempts

to come up with something to boost voter turnout,

because the election itself isn't visible

in the form of debates, or political discussion,

or really in any form at all—nothing

shows up in the media or anywhere else. And all

week we've seen only news about how

the Kremlin decided to lure us to

the polls. And a very funny article came out in

the publication RBC, where they fairly

thoroughly described the mechanisms

Kiriyenko came up with in order to

draw people to the election. They include

actual contests, actual

some kind of

entertainment—really, it's very funny. Among

the things mentioned is one

called "Big Family Games."

"Photo at the Election" is actually

a selfie contest: we're supposed to come vote,

take pictures, and through a fairly

large and complicated selection system, there will be

winners. There will also be school referendums.

I have no idea what schoolchildren will be

deciding in those referendums—what decisions they'll make.

Maybe they'll pretend to remove principals and appoint

someone else in their place: "Let's appoint

the gym teacher instead." But I think the Kremlin is ready

to go that far in order to solve the turnout

problem. There's even some contest

called "Star Voters"—I don't really

understand it. Besides that, yesterday the outlet Mediazona

reported that referendums

really will happen, and they published

information saying that in

the Maryino district, my home district,

a decision has been made that there will be

a referendum held simultaneously with

the presidential election on merging

the Lyublino and Maryino districts. It all sounds

very strange, but it basically

confirms everything that, quite recently,

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Yekaterinburg,

told us when he said that the authorities care about nothing

except turnout, turnout alone. And to boost

turnout they'll resort to all kinds of

exotic methods, including

referendums.

Some people doubted it, but it's obvious

that Roizman was telling the truth. Let's listen to 40 seconds

of him to remind ourselves

what he told us: direct instructions

have been given to ensure the maximum possible

participation in President Putin's election and

to guarantee maximum turnout.

As of today,

the main task is turnout. Here, as I understand it,

they are planning to hold

a referendum—that is, they'll launch, they'll start pushing

a referendum on whether to remove

the Lenin monument from 1905 Square (a central square in Yekaterinburg). Let me tell

you one more serious thing: all

financial-industrial groups have been given

well, let's say, instructions—wishes

that are more serious than instructions—

to collect signatures. They will be collecting signatures

here in the region

for Putin and Sobchak.

They will be collecting signatures for two candidates.

Signatures. I think all of this

is not enough. But it's not enough simply to have

referendums and some kind of flashy contest.

Electoral, in fact—here's what I want to say.

While I have the chance, since I'm sure

the Presidential Administration is watching our

wonderful program—maybe they'll even

show a clip of it to Putin—guys, I'll

tell you how to solve your problems. I

know: you're just out of touch with ordinary people and don't

remember what kinds of contests actually

get people going—get the whole country going. So,

a selfie contest? That's ridiculous.

Let's think about it together: every one of us

has been to a contest, and it's the kind of contest that

you remember for years. It's

of course not some selfie contest—it's

wedding games.

That's the country's main entertainment genre.

I'm more than sure that

the overwhelming majority of viewers

have been to weddings, and when the tamada (wedding host) there

announces a game, everyone just

tenses up like this and thinks, "Dear God,

dear God, please, anything but

me—just don't drag me out there right now

to take part in this game." That's

what we need. I think that at every

polling station, Putin personally,

Kiriyenko, and all the others should

organize games like that, and the entire

election process—the whole election process—

should be organized exactly

like those games are run.

Then turnout would rise. For example, why drop

your ballot in like this—pull out a boring

piece of paper and put it in the ballot box—when, like in a game,

this is how we ought to

vote.

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Come on, admit it—that looks much

cooler. And how much more interesting it would be for observers

to count. They can count it, but if it's done this

way...

Still, holding a piece of paper like that isn't very

convenient. There's another well-known method of

voting that we can borrow from a

wedding.

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The pencil-in-the-bottle game—it's just

a classic. Every one of us has seen it, every

one of us still breaks out in red blotches

from sheer, horrible embarrassment

that we saw it and can never

unsee it. And at polling stations, that's exactly what we should see,

precisely that, because these

games

that we all feel ashamed of in front of each other

are very close in spirit to these elections,

because these elections are themselves a shameful spectacle.

This whole inflating of turnout—what

the Presidential Administration is doing—is

turnout inflation.

And weddings—weddings in particular—best of all

show us how they manufacture turnout.

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See? That's exactly what's

happening: on one chair, Putin,

on the other, Medvedev—they jump, jump,

jump, inflating turnout, and then—bang—

the climax, it explodes, and Putin once again

becomes president. Great, right? That

would attract people to the election, it would attract them.

And in general, the whole election process—

why is it so boring if we have such

great weddings?

If we're talking about debates, then let's

remember the famous game that I'm sure everyone

knows—the famous contest of who can

do it faster, or rather, how the debaters can pop

a balloon. That's what I think

the debates between Sobchak and Grudinin should

look like.

And

prize.

You admit that I'm right—just

admit that no selfie contests,

none of those little gimmicks they've

come up with, can replace this.

That's all. Listen, just now it was

announced last week that the Moscow

Regional Election Commission

had purchased some keychains, pencils, and

notebooks for 236 million

rubles (about 2.6 million USD).

Why? Why is any of this necessary? We're throwing away

huge amounts of money, hoping that

people will come not for a notebook,

but for a balloon, and for candidates

who, like at a wedding, enter into debate using

a balloon—and then people will go

to the polling stations, and those will be real elections

for Vladimir Putin. Beautiful—and, by the way,

as you've probably heard or read

in the newspapers, this is an official instruction

from the Presidential Administration:

to make sure there is

a festive atmosphere at polling stations. I think our

wedding traditions would create exactly that kind of

atmosphere. Besides all that, the referendum

I already mentioned—I personally

am baffled, because

it has been announced that in Maryino

there will be, in Maryino and Lyublino, a

referendum on merging these districts.

Well, apart from the fact that substantively it's

meaningless even to discuss this—it would create some kind of

super-district with a population of 500,000

people—

the question arises: how are they going to lure people

with the idea of such a referendum?

I don't really understand what the residents of Maryino

Sure, but they have to rush in order

to vote for the merger

of the districts, or conversely to vote against

the merger of the districts. And probably

the only thing one can assume is that

they’ll simply start intimidating election officials.

So Zinaida Petrovna will be saying in

her news feed, can you imagine:

“Those bastards have called a referendum — the liberals

have called a referendum, they want to merge

our districts, and our local clinic

and move Mariinskaya somewhere else, or vice versa.”

And so we have to go out and vote,

because otherwise, can you imagine,

we’ll have to take the bus just to get to the clinic.

Right, that’s true. And as far as we understand,

at the moment, based on whatever

inside information there is from government

agencies, such referendums are being planned

across the country and all over Moscow.

They just want to announce them and

present it to us as, “Folks, you’re going to have

a referendum directly in March.”

Which, by the way, is very interesting, because

a referendum is practically such a

prohibitive procedure — to hold one,

you have to collect votes,

signatures from 5 percent of the residents of that

locality — here, of the districts — and that’s

simply unrealistic, can you imagine?

There, within some compressed time frame, in a month,

to collect signatures from 5 percent of residents

and to do it secretly from us as well, so that

then directly in March they can say, “Oh, there will be

a referendum, they collected the signatures.”

Well, it’s obvious that this will be a gigantic

fraud, a massive forgery of those very

signatures. So anyone who knows how

this is being prepared, please send us tips,

and we will do our best

to catch these crooks. But apparently, yes,

come on, he’s right — this will happen all over the country,

and they’ll try to deceive us.

The idea of, “Well then, let’s

take part in referendums,” has produced a lot

of amusement. I saw on social media — after

that article in Mediazona (an independent Russian outlet), several

tweets really drew attention to genuinely

great ideas.

For example, people think that, well, if we’re going

to hold a referendum, then let’s hold

a referendum on real issues,

not on merging districts. For example,

Samara and Saratov — let’s hold

a referendum on renaming and

merging Samara, Saratov, and Saransk

so that

first, we change the name, and second,

we combine them into one region. For example, you could

merge Marino and Maryina Roshcha (Moscow districts with similar-sounding names).

Okay, okay, I see the progress bar on my jokes

has stopped because we just held — let me

clarify — am I right in understanding that we

raised the money for our drone? Apparently the fact

that it flew into the frame here made

such a huge impression. Am I understanding

that correctly?

We got a donation of 30,000 rubles (about 300 euros / 325 US dollars). What’s the name of this

person? There wasn’t one? Well okay, our new drone

will be — hooray. I mean, I’m incredibly happy. It’s a

strange name for a drone: Nebula.

But the thing is that some person just

made a one-time donation of 30,000

rubles (about 300 euros / 325 US dollars), if I understand correctly.

The investors are proposing to name the drone

in honor of the newest blac chyna oblacheno — I don’t

know what that means.

I assume that somewhere some crafty people

decided to advertise themselves this way,

but one way or another, we raised the money.

In accordance, in full accordance with

our promise, the new drone will be

named Nebula.

Maybe in some strange

language it’s a terrible swear word, or if you

read it backwards it turns into

“Glory to Putin,”

or some kind of abbreviation, but in any

case, the successor to our Volodya will be Nebula.

So, I congratulate the winner — get in touch

with us then.

Accordingly, Trump gets

our signature hoodie, and Kirill Yudin gets

a branded hat. Guys, thank you

so much to everyone who took part in raising money

for the drone. It’s not about the prizes — it’s about

the fact that this is our solidarity, this is our response

to the authorities. Together we’ll raise money for new drones

and keep filming.

Alborov is sitting right here. It’s a pity that you

can’t see how happy — happy, very

very joyful — he is that there’s money for

a super-drone. Which exact drone it is, you can

read about on his Twitter — he explains it there in detail.

He writes about it there. Let’s get back to the referendums.

So yes, you could merge Samara and Saratov,

you could, for example, merge Marino and Maryina

Roshcha so that no one gets confused. Well,

in the end, one of the

users on Twitter also pointed

out that you could hold a referendum on

moving

Kotelnicheskaya Embankment and the high-rise on

Kotelnicheskaya to the Kotelniki district.

The joke is only clear to Muscovites (residents of Moscow), but

it actually shows very well

what these referendums really are.

But I’d suggest taking a really hard-line approach altogether:

if we want a referendum and we want everyone

to show up, let’s announce a referendum on

mandatory same-sex marriage, and then people

will come out, and you can also say, can you

imagine:

“The liberals secretly collected signatures with the

help of the U.S. State Department and want to hold

a referendum, and there will be mandatory

same-sex marriages — all the men will be

counted up and married off to other men.”

And the only way to stop this

is that all across the country there will be a rallying cry, and Putin will

be shouting, "Vote for me"

and also, go to the polling stations and make sure

that we don't end up marrying men off to other men anymore

and then men will go, and

men and women and everyone else will go

And honestly, jokes aside, I

have no doubt that something like this

some hellish thing, like "you want to take Lenin out of

the Mausoleum" (Lenin's tomb on Red Square)

or something along those lines, they will definitely

use it, because they have no

other way, simply no other

way to lure people to these elections

because the elections are a complete sham. By the way,

have you noticed that almost

nowhere are there any opinion polls? Usually

before elections we're flooded with

ratings, this rating, that rating, look

at the ratings

Why are they doing this? Because, well,

obviously fake, fake

ratings—no one would believe them, while publishing

the real ratings would show people

the lay of the land in advance

After all, the Presidential Administration

put together this lineup of candidates

and created a situation in which Putin

is guaranteed to get his 70-plus

percent, because the other candidates

aren't doing anything and aren't capable

of gaining any votes. So we—I

just want to announce to you that the Anti-Corruption Foundation

(FBK)

and our voter strike штаб are starting

to conduct weekly nationwide

opinion polls. You remember that

experience has repeatedly confirmed that

our opinion polls are the most accurate

We have a methodology, and we absolutely

do not lie about the results, and we

will be doing this every week—

a nationwide poll, and I will publish its results

right here in this program

So every week, through this program, you

will get the best-quality

polling data. We need volunteers who

will take part in this. We already have quite

a lot of people who are ready to conduct surveys in the

evenings, but since we also need to survey

the country's Far East, we need people

who are ready to work

and help us. We'll teach you everything, and

we especially need help in the first half of the day. And if anyone in

Moscow wants to take part in this very

important work, please come by if you have questions

to our штаб at 13 Vostochnaya Street

It's open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

18 minutes

Come by, they'll talk with you there, and we

will figure out when it's more convenient for you to work. We will

teach you everything and send you to the call center

where, in good company, you will

take part in conducting surveys. I also

go there quite often and also

take part in these surveys, and we will

tell you about the candidates' ratings

By the way, we keep talking about the elections, the elections,

the choice, the candidates—what has been happening with the

candidates over the last

week, over the last two weeks? Because

during an election campaign, and during its

official phase, there are two especially

intense moments. The last super-

intense moment is those two or

three weeks before the end of the election

campaign—there should be debates, there should

be heavy advertising, and in general the candidates

should be working themselves to exhaustion

But in a sense, an even more

important moment is now, when candidates

have to collect signatures. Exempt from collecting signatures

are, in our case—who is it?

Grudinin, as the candidate of a parliamentary party, and

Zhirinovsky—they do not have to collect

signatures. All the other candidates, including

Putin, and first and foremost Putin, they

are actually supposed to

collect signatures. Some need 100,000

—Yavlinsky, Sobchak, Titov

some need 300,000—Putin, and then there

will apparently also be a couple of self-nominated candidates

I look at this and I'm amazed. In our case,

starting from January 2,

I and my entire штаб would have gone into

you know,

a mode like a hysterical squirrel—you've probably seen those

pictures on the internet, those squirrels

jumping around a tree screaming, "Oh my God,

this is a disaster, it's a tree, a leaf, a leaf,

it's a leaf, we have to do something!" Because

collecting signatures is very hard. We

spent a year building the system

for a year; we have штабы in 84 regions. We

understood that as soon as the official

signature collection began, we would

be catastrophically short on time. It's very

expensive, very difficult, and during

this program I wouldn't be fooling around with a drone

named Vova or whatever they were going to call

our next drone. I would simply, every

second, be saying: guys, come

and give signatures, we need them. In Moscow we've

already collected them, in St. Petersburg we've collected them, come in

Lipetsk, come in Oryol

It would be super-intensive work

—the very reason we built this whole network. And

just look at how these guys

are collecting signatures. It gives the impression

that, I don't know, kind little gnomes are

doing it for them. These candidates, you know, they

sit there with cigars

and basically do nothing. They don't write

these appeals on social media, they

don't travel around, they don't hold any rallies. As for

Putin,

an astonishing thing has happened with him

In various shopping malls, some kind of

booths have appeared, set up at different spots.

There are some boys and girls standing there, and the entire

internet is full of accounts showing that

if you stand in front of one of these booths, you

will see that over the course of an hour, two or three

people come up to it. So, signatures are not exactly being

collected

in any serious numbers. The others are not really doing it at all.

From that point of view, they are doing nothing. And yet,

this is an enormous, extremely intensive job. I

do not understand how this is happening, and I want

to tell you once again: I know that

the candidates get offended by what I say, but I want

to say that, of course, all the signatures they

take to the Central Election Commission

(Russia’s federal election authority) will, of course, be fake, and

we can see that this is exactly what is happening.

It is impossible to collect them, have them notarized,

have the signature gatherers certified, get all these

papers properly filled out,

distribute them across the country, fill them in,

sort through them, stitch them together, check every

signature, cross out the invalid ones, and send them off

here. We have done this many times. It is a very, very

complicated job. But nobody is really

doing it at all. Where are all these candidates? When I

hear that Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party) has already said that

they have supposedly collected 70 percent or

60 percent of the signatures—how did you

manage to do that in such a way that

literally no one in the country even noticed?

Without any real launch, without any visible campaign

effort. And of course, from the standpoint of

active participation in collecting signatures,

the person who probably surprised us most this week was, of course,

Ksenia Sobchak.

This made an impression on our campaign headquarters,

in particular because Ksenia is supposed to be

actively collecting signatures right now, and instead she

went off—I do not know to collect signatures or to

do whatever it is people do in Bali—and

here you can see photos from Instagram:

some hotel marked in red,

some corporate event there, maybe Anatoly is hosting it,

or maybe he is not hosting it,

but in any case, a candidate who

says, “Guys, I am

an opposition representative, I am running in these

elections,” during the most crucial and

very short period allotted for collecting

signatures, went off to Bali. But in fact,

the issue is not really Ksenia. After all, these

seriously—did we really expect

some different vision or format

for an election campaign? It is just that

her trip to Bali specifically made me think of

something. Do you remember that

hashtag—I cannot quite say it outright here—“fairytale Bali,”

I will not pronounce it as one word. It was a well-known

internet meme; everyone remembers it.

Some girl went to Bali and posted

beautiful photos of herself there, on the waves,

with her hair flowing and all that, and she

decided to use the hashtag “fairytale Bali,” but

the girl made a rather unfortunate mistake—she did not think it through—and

put the two words together, and I

thought: you know, this is actually

the universal hashtag for what is happening

in these elections. You only need to add

a little something to it: a fairytale

screw-over of all Russian voters—and I apologize, but I

could not resist. It was just sitting there

in my head, and I thought I had to

say it to all of you. That is exactly what is connected with

elections in Russia. So there is no need to

go to them if you do not want to be treated the way

that Bali meme implied.

There is no need to go there—it is shameful and disgraceful.

Why do it? Why take part in this

campaign, where Putin is guaranteed 70

percent, and all the other candidates are, well,

busy with things like this? Do we want

to be part of all this? No, we do not.

That is why I urge you to continue

demanding real elections, to continue

demanding that your voting rights be returned to you.

That means you need to take part

in our

voters’ strike by every means possible.

Simply—just encourage people not to

go.

Do whatever you can, whatever is possible,

to make sure that no one goes to

the elections. Take part in our rally

on January 28. In the description to this video there is

a link—go there, find your city, and

come to the demonstration. This is not a rally for

Navalny’s registration anymore; that is no longer the point.

This is a rally to demand that our

political rights be returned to us. It is a rally for the idea

that we must be reckoned with. It is a rally for the idea

that we are not prepared to call this

a presidential election, and that we are fully

ready for there to be real

elections, real candidates, real

debates that would take place over

a substantial period of time, and for there to be

candidates who would fight for our

votes. We refuse to take part in this,

and every single person can

make their contribution to this voters’ strike.

And listen, if they

are hanging all this nonsense up in

every apartment building entrance—you have seen those

logos,

the Central Election Commission (CEC) leaflets and papers saying

“everyone, come vote”—they are going to do repeated door-to-door canvassing,

they are going to go apartment by apartment twice over,

and your building entrance,

your school, your university, your

institution—everything will be plastered with this

filth. Of course they will spend billions of rubles

on it: “come vote, come to

the elections.” Well, if they are sticking it up in your building,

take a marker and write over it

whatever you want. If it is hanging there, or if it is in

your school or university, then take out a pen and

Write that too—tear it down, we need to fight against

them. Water doesn’t flow under a lying stone (meaning: nothing happens unless you take action).

I can’t directly call on you, I don’t know,

to damage any large structures,

because someone could already

interpret that as causing damage to property.

There are billboards up, though—for example, in the city of

St. Petersburg,

the Central Election

Commission put up this thing at

the entrance to the city of St. Petersburg, and then,

a couple of days later, someone wrote on it:

"Strike on January 28." Well done.

Well done, people of St. Petersburg—whoever did that.

That’s exactly how this should be fought, and there’s no need

to consider it vandalism. These crooks take

our money in order to advertise

this fake thing they call

elections. This cannot be tolerated; this

must be fought with all our strength.

Everyone, please take part. So, I’ve

gotten carried away and haven’t been answering your questions.

Sorry. I’m opening the feed with the hashtag

#Normal2018. I’ve received a huge number of

messages about some kind of campaign

called Flowers for the Police. Everyone is asking me about

it, and I don’t know what it is.

But after this broadcast I’ll look into it, and on

the next program I’ll tell you what

Flowers for the Police is. For now, I don’t know.

Alexander Lyapin, alright, I see it—I’ll say it.

Use the hashtag #FairytalePain.

Tell us about the preparation of lawsuits

to the district court and, above all, to the

Constitutional Court. We are preparing them, yes.

These are almost unrelated processes. I am supposed

to be in Strasbourg on January 24, and I will be there

speaking before the Grand Chamber on my

case concerning administrative detentions. There

the question will be decided whether they should be recognized as

political or non-political, but

this is not connected with the elections and not connected with

my being barred from them, actually.

Really, let’s close this topic: no

European Court or European Union is going to help

us achieve normal elections. Only

we ourselves can do that. We will go through all these legal

steps, but there’s no need to

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pay too much attention to it. Here, Yozhkin

writes angrily: are you going to answer questions today

or not? Well, I am answering. So—Flowers

for the Police, Flowers for the Police—everyone is

asking about it nonstop.

And how do we fight fraud if one

person can go around 10 polling stations and

cast votes, and what if there are 250 such people?

How do we fight turnout falsification? We won’t

be able to remember each and every one. Thank you.

Jeffrey, that’s exactly what distinguishes our

strike from a simple boycott. It’s not just

about not going to the elections—we will try to deploy

a huge number of

observers. And when I say huge,

I really mean

tens of thousands. Our election-monitoring

movements, various parties, and candidates

have done this many times, but honestly,

let’s be clear: no one has ever

simultaneously deployed an effective,

coordinated force of more than, say, 7,000

observers—8,000 at most, maybe 10,000. And if they were deployed,

it was mainly in Moscow and

St. Petersburg, first and foremost Moscow.

In the city center, we know there were as many as 8

observers at a polling station, while on the

outskirts there were far fewer. We will be

covering Bashkortostan (a republic in Russia) with observers,

Tatarstan (a republic in Russia),

Dagestan (a republic in Russia), Mordovia (a republic in Russia)—the regions where

lawlessness is happening. So that is exactly how

we will resist. We are

boycotting the election, and we are taking part in

the strike, but that does not mean that we

have shut our eyes and are doing nothing. We

are monitoring this process, we are watching

it, we are commenting on how it unfolds, we

are mocking it, and we are deploying

observers in order to

control it. That is absolutely essential. So,

Flowers for the Police—well, I don’t know what

the Flowers for the Police campaign is, but its

organizers can definitely

mobilize a fairly large

number of people.

Because everything here is simply flooded with

questions about Flowers for the Police. Trooper Harley

asks me: how do you

comment on the rumors that

Putin has long been dead and the country

is being ruled by his clones?

Well, I’ve seen the same very funny

compilations about there being different Putins, but

of course he’s not any kind of clone—that’s the real

Putin, actually. It’s just that he seems to me

to have gotten a little too carried away

with plastic surgery, and it may not

have gone especially well for him,

but there are no clones there. It’s really

the actual Putin himself.

Islam Yusupov: my mom at work—she’s

a teacher—at a staff meeting they were handing out

leaflets that said, ‘We are for

Putin.’ The principal said, ‘You must

sign this.’ They replied, ‘What if we don’t want

to sign it?’ He answered, ‘It’s already all been

decided for you.’ Khasavyurt, Republic of Dagestan.

Islam, well, the boss has decided that

everything has been decided for you—you’re for Putin. But

if the teachers say, ‘We don’t want

to sign this,’ and the answer they get is, ‘It’s been decided

for you,’

well then, if it’s decided, it’s decided—take your leaflet back.

Hand the leaflet back.

There’s no need to argue with the boss. Just

tell the other teachers—let your mother simply

say:

‘Oh, if that’s how it is, then we won’t go, then we…’

We'll tell our neighbors that we won't go.

Then I'll ask my son Islam

to come to the polling station and observe how many

people showed up. But we've seen this happen in Dagestan (a republic in southern Russia), too.

It happened there, and we did the same thing quite

recently in Tatarstan (a republic in Russia), when there were

referendums there. I talked about this

on the program. At the polling stations where we

placed observers, turnout was 20

percent, 15 percent, 10 percent, while

where there were no observers, it was again 85

or 95. So there's no need—well, not always a need—

to enter into direct confrontation unnecessarily.

You don't need to grab a boss, take away leaflets, or throw them

in his face. He's exactly the same; he's not for

Putin either. You just need to quietly and persistently

do your job: don't go, campaign,

observe. Well, and maybe flowers for

the police. Sergey writes, clarifying that it is not

the rally participants on January 28 who want

to give flowers to police officers

to show their peaceful intentions.

What do you think, Alexei?

Well, I think that's normal, and

these kinds of actions have taken place everywhere.

They've happened in many countries; it's one

of the more common flash mobs

during peaceful demonstrations, when

the authorities are trying to prove that

the demonstrators are villains from the outset, while

we, on the contrary, give flowers to the police. You just

have to be prepared for the fact that, of course,

the authorities—as on the Maidan (the 2013–2014 protest movement in Ukraine)—

did the same thing, and Ukrainians did the same, and

Serbs did the same, and in Egypt the same

thing was done too.

But in any case, you'll say, well,

overall it's not a bad action. Right now more than a hundred

cities are taking part in the January 28 action.

Once again, you can find the link in the description

and check it out. If in some cities this

can still be organized, it's still a good

idea. It's peaceful, it's a good idea, kind and

sweet. What do you think about the gambling

business in Moscow? Well, I think the gambling

business exists, despite claims that it was shut down.

We were told that it

had been eliminated; there is much less of it now,

but illegally it still exists in fairly

large numbers. The last time I was

in a special detention center, there was a guy there who

worked as a security guard at an illegal casino.

He told me quite a lot, and very interestingly,

about how it all works. But the main thing is

that, of course, all of it is

covered by the police. Everyone knows it; the

police bosses themselves go there and gamble,

and money gets kicked up to them. In other words, it's all

arranged exactly that way. There's one topic

that

the press has talked about very little, but it seems to me

that it's really very important,

especially in the liberal press,

especially among supposedly advanced people on

the internet. For some reason, they think that questions

of the trade union movement are somehow

strange and not in the least

worthy of attention. By the way, yesterday

something happened that is fundamentally

important and very clearly

shows the transformation and

mutability of this political regime.

By the way, this year, on February 1, I think,

it will be 100 years since the beginning of the real

trade union movement in Russia, when the first

trade unions were registered.

Yes, the anniversary. And now, in this anniversary year,

the Ministry of Justice has moved to liquidate one.

At the same time, the Ministry of Justice

and a court in St. Petersburg satisfied the claim

of the city prosecutor to dissolve the trade union

of workers at auto industry enterprises in

Russia—the interregional trade union Workers'

Association. This is the first time a court has

dissolved a trade union through judicial proceedings.

Why was this done? We know what a trade union in Russia

officially is, and what the trade union movement

officially consists of—the so-called

Federation of Independent Trade Unions.

It is, of course, a gathering of utterly corrupt

people and collaborators—

Putin's lackeys, who received

a huge amount of real estate from the

Soviet Union era—trade union property—

and now in front of Putin

they're ready to stand on their hind legs.

They vote to support all

bills, including those

aimed against workers. They have repeatedly nominated

Putin for president, for all 18

years. So, in other words, this is an absolutely

collaborationist organization. But in

Russia there are a few—very few—independent

trade unions, and there is one union that

really organized work stoppages and

strikes in order to win

higher wages for workers—working people,

which is what a trade union is supposed to do. And

it was they who organized strikes

in the Leningrad Region, in Vsevolozhsk,

that is, the very same people at the factory

at Volkswagen in Kaluga Region, and everywhere

where these foreign

cars are assembled, where at least some

sort of, you know, at least

formal measures are in place to pay

workers somewhat higher wages, where there is some kind of

foreign management—there, people

came together and began, quite

reasonably, in fact. They did not demand

enormous salaries; they demanded

reasonable, normal wages, organized

work stoppages, and achieved all of this. There were

attacks on union leaders there,

beatings,

and one of their leaders, Tumanov,

was beaten—he was even

nearly killed several times, and now

The authorities dissolved this trade union.

Through the courts. This goes to the point that

our struggle against Putin and against

this regime is not some kind of struggle by

you know, hipsters

or freelancers, journalists, people

in creative professions, and so on. They are all

with us, but this regime is a gang

of thieves. There you go: they are oppressing workers,

they dissolved a trade union.

It may have seemed, God, that we were just

these trendy city dwellers,

walking around with cups of coffee, and like this,

here we are, all bearded, while the real

workers demanded a pay raise. No,

you will not get a pay raise.

We'll shut the union down — and they did.

Do you know why? Because this trade union

was a real, proper one: it joined

an international trade union movement,

that's how it is organized, and they

sent them some money, because, again,

that is how the international trade union

movement works: wealthier unions and those same

auto industry workers there

were helping their fellow workers and colleagues here

in Russia, and because of that they were declared

"foreign agents," and because of that

they were dissolved. So the only

trade union — or probably the only one that

organized strikes — has been dissolved. This

actually shows how broad

our movement must be, can be, and will be,

because everyone will join us on this issue:

all the people who do not like

political prisoners, people who do not like

censorship, people who do not like

obscurantism, and people who do not like

having their labor rights violated,

who are denied decent pay,

Where else are they supposed to go — to court, to

United Russia (the ruling political party), which supports

liquidating it? The Communists, who in fact

should be the first to stand up for

workers' rights, are silent, keeping quiet.

They say nothing about it at all. Who is

speaking about it? I am. We are.

We are speaking about it. This is actually very important. I

urge everyone, first of all, to study this

situation. Second, I urge all

journalists to write about it actively,

and human rights defenders to help. By the way,

today Agora (a Russian legal and human rights group), one of the few

real, significant

human rights organizations, wrote a lot about this,

and of course I want to express

my gratitude to all the workers who were

members of this trade union.

All right, let's see what else

you are asking me. You can find out about the action on

the Zhukov Blog channel, as I understand it — that's about

flowers for police officers. Go there. Alexei,

it is very important to know the title in the Great

Punic War — I am not ready to answer

that question. Hello, Alexei

Anatolyevich, listen to the song "Russia for the Sad"

by the band Ploho. Actually,

it has often been played at my rallies. You know

that I have often spoken about this slogan:

"Russia for the Sad." Inferno overkill.

Where did the dislikes go? Did they ban everyone, or what?

Let me check. So, we have

2,394 people — sorry, 20,000

20,000 watching us.

8,000 likes. Come on, guys, use your

mouse there, click like, and then

the video will get boosted and more people

will see this broadcast. Where did the dislikes go? I do not

know, but maybe YouTube finally

banned those things that

exist — there was some news this morning

that YouTube had in fact

banned some of those Kremlin-linked

channels that were engaged in artificial boosting,

but possibly — I hope — some, some

steps will be taken. Bulat

asks: Good evening, why don't you

buy TV ads so that older people

would know who Alexei Navalny is? Bulat,

are you joking? What TV advertising?

The social network VKontakte and even Yandex

refuse to sell us advertising.

They say that they do not accept

political advertising. It is an interesting

thing, because literally

last week VKontakte ran

an ad for Sobyanin, and everyone asked them

a reasonable question: how is it that Navalny

was demonstratively refused many times over, while

Sobyanin's ad is somehow not political advertising?

And VKontakte sort of squirmed around,

mumbling vague things like,

well, Sobyanin is the mayor, so his advertising is

not political advertising.

But Navalny, since he is not the mayor and not

the president, his advertising is political.

Well, in fact, it is obvious.

They are hypocrites and cowards. For all my

love for the social network VKontakte,

its managers are now, without a doubt,

people who serve the interests

of the authorities. So, sadly, that is the reality. We have many times

wanted to buy advertising

everywhere; I think in some places we actually do,

but TV is absolutely closed to us. Maybe

you remember, Bulat — and if you do remember,

you will find an interesting

and funny story on my blog. In 2015 we

took part in elections in Kostroma (a Russian city),

Ilya Yashin took part there, and PARNAS (an opposition party); we

supported and organized that campaign, and

I went there and took part in local debates,

and we just sort of

decided, rather brazenly, to go ahead and buy

several billboards there. And one

fine day people went out

into the street and saw a billboard, and on it there was

Navalny sitting there — his photograph, if I remember correctly.

It was there, and in the end we put it up in

Twitter after all—pretty impressive, right?

People were already celebrating, joking, and

laughing. The following night, they arrived—

some guys just took those billboards

down. I mean, not just tore them down, you know,

not just ripped off the paper—they actually

told the company that had sold us the ad space

that their billboards,

their structures, were illegal, and literally cut them down

with an angle grinder. So that's how it was. Bulat, so—

someone suggests

I don't have 331,000 rubles

but we need to name the drone Sauron.

A beautiful name—Sauron, yes, a beautiful name.

Listen, we promised that we would name it

after whoever donates the most,

in honor of the biggest donor.

Alexei, how do you feel about the idea that in

elections only actual

taxpayers should take part? asks

"American Spy." That's the question from

American Spy. No, I'm against that.

There are many different theories that

there should be a property qualification,

an educational qualification, so that

only these advanced people, like,

"we're smart, we pay taxes,

we're savvy, let's not let

those louts in"—or pensioners,

"they don't pay taxes, so let's have only

us vote." In fact, that's

a flawed system. It leads nowhere good.

There must be universal

suffrage. We simply don't need

all these tricks like "only

taxpayers." When all candidates

are allowed onto the ballot, then this

simply won't be necessary. So, Zhukov's bloc—

Zhukovka—we need to figure out who this Zhukov is,

because he's flooded absolutely all the

questions. Nadezhda Baranova: "Yesterday I almost

persuaded a Grudinin supporter, and today I

successfully called the audience of the

website to strike (boycott)."

So that means I'm great, I'm great, I

did well. Nadezhda, of course you did well.

Of course you did. Each of us should spend 5 minutes a day

on this, and then there won't be

any turnout, and Putin will personally

be dancing with a pencil, dropping it,

a bottle of champagne, or taking part in

those debates with Zhirik (Vladimir Zhirinovsky) just to

attract someone, of course, with huge—well,

this program, the previous program,

has so far been watched by 380,000

people. Let's say 80,000 of them

disagree and watched it only so they could

say, "What a scoundrel that Navalny is,"

what a scoundrel.

But just imagine—even 300,000, just 300,000

people, that's far more for us

than signatures. We can actually, in principle,

get everyone to do something for 5 minutes a day,

and that's it. Leonid writes: graffiti.

Draw graffiti, absolutely right.

Draw graffiti—just don't get caught,

please. And please don't paint

graffiti on any cultural or

historical sites, or anything of value.

What do you think about the YouTube channel

Anti-Kadyrov? I don't think anything about it—I don't know it.

So, Jeffrey comes back to me with

a question and scolds me:

"You didn't answer my question. At each

polling station there will be different observers; a person

who casts 5 to 10 identical votes

will still be the same person." But Jeffrey means the so-

called carousel voting, when

people vote in different places.

Organized transport—right, this is when

a car or minibus drives ten

guys around to all the polling stations, and everywhere

they vote. We'll fight that too.

Observers are not only at polling stations; there are also

mobile observers, observers

from the Russian movement who have worked in Russia for many years, and

we know all about mobile groups there.

We know the methods for fighting

electoral fraud, so

in any case, at the very least we will be able

to document all of it. So, Viktor writes

that by training he's an environmental scientist, and what kills him

is the lack of competence of politicians, including

yours and mine, on environmental issues. Everything

gets reduced to garbage, smokestacks, and deforestation,

so when are you going to educate yourselves on

environmental issues? Well, Viktor, if you

help educate politicians on this,

at least I'm ready to learn

about this issue. It's a politician's job

to keep learning constantly, and that would be

good. But I just want to say why

politicians so often talk about garbage,

smokestacks, and deforestation: because voters

are most concerned about those things. When they

talk about the environment, they mean

the quality of food, the quality of drinking

water,

the little park near their home, an incineration

plant they want to build, and the cutting down

of forests. So politicians, after all,

are responding to the questions voters ask them.

There are a lot of questions. I have

a separate topic about registering the Party of

Progress.

Today on my blog I wrote that we are

starting for the sixth time. Can you imagine?

For the sixth time. I think that even our

opponents have no doubt

that we have real support across

the whole country. In Russia, under the law,

you only need 500 people to establish a party.

Our movement alone had them in

20 cities, each of which had

far more than 500 people, and we've been doing

all this since 2012,

since 2012, and of course we have much more

More people support us in every—

in every city, in every town and settlement.

But now, for the sixth time, we’ve gone through

absolute hell: a congress, regional

conferences, an initiative group,

separate registration for each branch,

and it’s not enough just to gather the documents.

It’s not enough to submit them to the Ministry of Justice in Moscow; in every region

you also have to register everything separately there, and

then register the branch, then collect it all, then

submit it all—it's an absolutely hellish

procedure. We’ve done it six times. Twice

with the People’s Alliance party,

then the Kremlin, through its spoiler party, stole

our name and renamed one of

the parties under its control the People’s Alliance,

taking all our symbols. You probably

remember that absurd episode.

Then we started registering the Party of

Progress, and we even got it registered, and at

one point everything was in order for us

on paper. We prepared to

take part in elections, after which the Kremlin

decided, no, that’s too scary after all—they

might actually get in and win seats in

the legislative assembly. And we would have gotten in,

of course we would have. They were right to be afraid.

They had it dissolved through the courts—not

suspended, but outright liquidated immediately.

Nevertheless, we are starting this

for the sixth or seventh time now. Why? Because we

want to take part in elections. Yes, right now

we are organizing a strike; we are calling on people not

to go to these so-called “elections,” but

without a doubt, we want to, and we can,

and we know that we are ready to win in

a legal political struggle, because

there is no party, no political force, that

represents normal people in Russia.

There is United Russia, which is a pack of ghouls, and

then there are the other parties, but at best they are

just weak and

cowardly people who do not want

to work and are afraid to say anything.

So we understand perfectly well that such a

party would have enormous potential.

That’s the first point. The second is that we really do have

a huge number of

supporters. And yes, not everyone

is comfortable with the party form of

organization. Of course, many people

say: well, Navalny, I would vote for you,

but a party—a party is always

something crooked, and any

sociological survey shows

that among all public

institutions, parties are the least

respected. People do not trust parties, and

for historical reasons: no one has ever

seen a normal, honest party.

So how can they believe in parties

if a person has lived 40 or 50 years and

all they have seen is that parties are, after all,

crooks? So in principle people are not

inclined to trust them, and we understand perfectly well

that this is not for everyone in our

huge movement of hundreds of thousands of people. But

within it there are quite a lot of people

who want a party, especially in the regions,

because they need what you might call

a legal umbrella, so that they can

join properly and be able to take part

in local elections there, in their own small

city, town, settlement, or in a

big city.

They are ready to win elections; at the very least

they are ready to fight. But if there is no party,

you can go to some

registered one, but then you have to get down on one

knee,

kiss the chairman’s ring, so to speak,

sign some paper saying you must

support someone in the presidential election,

and so on and so forth.

Well, first of all, not everyone enjoys that, and

second, I would say that almost always, and

almost certainly, a person who can

successfully take part in elections and is ready

to win them will not do that. He will not

want to bow to some people there. We are

creating a party in which you do not have to bow

to anyone. From the very beginning, everything was

built on the principles of electronic

democracy, with voting throughout. It’s not

a matter of me appointing, for example, who

goes to the State Duma—all party members

vote on that. The political council

is also elected by all party members, not

by a conference, not by the heads of regional

branches. All party members can

vote. Why does this need to be done? So that

people who want to break through

have the chance to do so. If you get into

a conflict with the head

of your regional branch, then in the parties that currently

exist, no one will

let you rise any higher.

You won’t get to, I don’t know, the party chairman

so that he gets to know you. With us,

it works completely differently.

Campaign, talk about yourself, and people will

vote for you. And even party representatives—

whoever they may be, whether it’s me or

someone else—you do not need them at all, because

you can do everything effectively on your own

if you are a good politician. So

we are beginning this registration now. We estimate that

in the first days of January

we will be able to hold the founding congress.

It is very important. Right now we are submitting

documents to the Ministry of Justice, a notice to

the Ministry of Justice, and beginning to register

the initiative group. And we have calculated everything so that

if we are registered by then,

in the next elections, which will take place on

the Single Voting Day in September (Russia’s nationwide election day), we

will be able to take part in elections in some places—I’m not

saying in all of them; there are dozens.

elections, big and small, but somewhere

we will be able to take part

we understand perfectly well that the Kremlin won't

want to register us, and there is a high

probability that they will once again

shut it down, but probably from a political point

of view, it is harder for them to do that now

because, well, everyone can see it; it's impossible

to say, you know, what kind of party that is in

Navalny's case and his headquarters there, because, well,

they don't have 500 supporters across Russia—that

would obviously make anyone laugh

even someone who is critical of us

so yes, we are doing this and will keep doing it

I'm not calling on everyone to join right now

because for the purpose of, from the standpoint of

registration, but I need a great many

people; the more people there are, the more

paperwork has to be prepared, so for now

we are proceeding on the principle of minimum numbers

so that everything can be done quickly. So again, Zhukov

Zhukov, Zhukov, Virtual Auto asks me

why not nominate as a presidential candidate

one of your own people, for example Volkov

from among your people? That's not how it works, well,

just think about it yourselves: for us, for

all of us, it sounds humiliating—someone from

our own circle, like, okay, just point

your finger at someone and we'll run off

to vote for him because you pointed

your finger at him. That's not how choosing one of our own works

that way. Volkov can

take part; he is a very effective, honest

good politician, but if you want

to take part in

it, you should not be, you should not be there

taking part just because Navalny

showed you

or because you are his wife or a relative or

his chief of staff. You have to run

a campaign, travel around the regions

talk to people—that is what

real politics is. But fiddling with this

substitution—first of all, it's ineffective

and second, it simply won't work because

well, it won't come together that way; that's not

how it works. Ivan Ivanov asks me the following

question: are you morally ready to press the

nuclear button if it comes to that? Well, if

it really comes to that, then of course I am, but the task of any

president, of any normal person, is to

think about it with horror. I think with horror, in general,

even about the theoretical possibility that

someone might be pressing some kind of buttons

but this is exactly

it—and nuclear weapons are a weapon of deterrence

they are meant so that wars

never happen at all; in principle, so far

they have fulfilled that role. I mean, again,

if aliens were to arrive tomorrow

and, I don't know, we needed to shoot down their flying

saucer with a nuclear bomb, I would press it—well, if

if they suddenly started doing some bad things

only if they were bad aliens

Navalny, are you promising to introduce visas with

Kazakhstan? And what will you do if the Kazakhs, in

response, take away Baikonur? How is that any better than

Putin?

If instead of integration with our neighbors

you are proposing conflict with them. Andrei

Ivanov, Andrei Ivanov, I am not proposing conflict with

anyone. There is a visa regime

between Russia and Germany—are we

in conflict with them? There is a visa regime

between Russia and, well, with

a lot of countries that are friendly to us

a lot of friendly or relatively friendly countries in

Europe or Asia or elsewhere, and

believe it or not, Andrei, there is still

a visa regime with them. So I propose that with

Kazakhstan we cooperate perfectly well. No one

can take Baikonur away; the status of

Baikonur is regulated differently

by agreement; we pay money for it

separately. Cooperation on this with the Kazakhs

come on, that's nonsense. They are normal people

no one is going to take anything away, and they

also look to their own interests. But a visa

regime is needed so that we can

bring migration into order. There is no major problem

with migration from Kazakhstan to Russia

because in Kazakhstan now salaries are

even somewhat higher than in Russia, but any

effort to establish order begins with introducing

a visa regime

After all, no one in Europe is abolishing the visa

regime with us, and we are not trying to abolish it either

And now Alexei asks me

about Alexander Pochinok: what do you think about

the tax amnesty before the elections? Well,

what Putin announced is of course not

a tax amnesty at all—it's some kind of nonsense. They

are effectively amnestying those who already

were not going to pay anything anyway—things like

overdue debts, closed

legal entities, abandoned sole proprietorships, and so on. No,

of course there is no real tax

amnesty there, no genuine tax amnesty at all

Grigory Savich asks:

have you been in contact with Chichvarkin? He

often mentions you and comments, including on

the weaknesses of Navalny's presidential program

We are often in contact with

Chichvarkin; I am very grateful for his

support. He sends us money and he

raises money for us in order to

transfer it to us in the end. And as for the fact that he

criticizes us—well, he isn't Navalny

Chichvarkin has a coherent

well-developed system of his own political

views. He is a libertarian, and from

libertarian positions he criticizes

our program. That is how it should work

Chichvarkin criticizes us from the right

the communists criticize us from the left; our

program is, by and large, fairly centrist

That is normal. But in the course of this

criticism, he still says that

He would vote for me, and he

identifies with it; he is part

of this movement. That is the most important thing. And

policy debates should always

exist. Even within a single party there will always

be debates between me and you,

Grigory, on some issue. We will start

discussing what we like and what we do not like,

and somewhere we will inevitably find disagreements.

We will debate them, but that does not

mean that we cannot be part

of one and the same political movement. So,

can you be called the Russian Che

Guevara? They ask. No, you should not call me that under

any circumstances, the Russian Che

Guevara. There is really nothing

close about it, not in a complimentary sense

or a negative one. In general, all these comparisons

are rather meaningless, and

there is no need to resort to them. Oleg

Vaitman asks: how will you

develop small oil towns,

for example Langepas, with a population of 45,000? I

will develop them very well, because

they are oil towns. We will leave them a little more

of the tax revenue, and they will

prosper, as happens in Norway

and as happens in the United States, where there are

oil settlements in Alaska,

for example, and they prosper. They have a great

deal of money. But why else live in

Langepas and suffer from terrible

climatic conditions if your town is not

a town that is richer than all

the others?

Well, that is often the case to some extent.

Surgut and Nefteyugansk are a little richer,

better maintained, more decent than the average

Russian city, but not as much as they should be.

Not long ago, for example, Tyumen

— but you cannot say that it is truly flourishing.

You really cannot say that it

is flourishing.

But these towns should flourish in the

literal sense. There should be

a ton of money there. That is how it should be, because

these people live there, and of course the

oil they extract from the ground

belongs to everyone, and all of us

receive some share from it.

But they should get a little more, because they

have much colder winters, because they

hardly have a summer, because they...

because their children do not see the sun. Well, this

does not apply only to oil; it also applies to Karelian

nickel and everything else. But I have already gone over

my time. Let us take one last question.

With minimal turnout, the election will still be recognized

as legitimate, and Putin will become president.

The strike only shows the low

level of support for the current government. What is the plan?

With a strike, without a strike, with whatever, with

candidates or without candidates, Putin

will reappoint himself president. Now

understand this main point: there is no such thing as

an electoral strategy here. There is nothing you can

do at a polling station to

prevent him from becoming “president,”

in quotation marks. He has usurped this power and

seized it, and at the moment when they did not

allow me onto the ballot, they kept all of us — all of us, including you — out of

the election. They made it so that

there is no suspense at all, not even

a political process, not even debates.

There is nothing. No one can go on television and

say the right things. None

of this exists. So stop calling

this an election. It is a reappointment, and our

task over these next three months

is to demand real elections. Therefore,

take part in the strike.

Do not go there, and if you do go, go only

as observers.

Persuade everyone around you. Take part in the rally

on January 28.

There is a link in the description below. Choose your

city, register, and come

to declare: guys, hey, those in power,

Putin and everyone else, you are obliged to reckon with me.

You must take me into account.

Thank you very much. See you next Thursday.

[music]