A fight against United Russia, fascist police, Putin will restore Notre-Dame

[music]

Good evening, everyone. It’s 8:00 p.m. in Moscow, which

means the live broadcast of the program

Russia of the Future

is on the air. Its host, the permanent host, is Alexei

Navalny.

Or a cocaine addict—I read in

one of the Kremlin media outlets a whole

investigation with a video claiming

to prove that because at some

meeting on the street I quite often did

this, and sort of this, it

means I’m a cocaine addict.

Energetic gesturing and emotional speech

are something of a trademark style of the blogger,

which is also being adopted by his

associates. But his slimmer face and

glassy,

motionless stare raise questions.

So when you’re overweight, they mock you for being

fat; when you lose weight, suddenly you’re

a cocaine addict. Very interesting.

It was very interesting to get acquainted with that.

Please send me your questions with the

hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture on

Twitter, and I’ll answer them as

the program goes on. But I’ll start by

urging you: if you live in Moscow and

you’d like to come to a meeting with me

and other wonderful people,

please come on Monday

evening. Registration runs from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

Please come to this meeting. It’s

important. It’s not just some kind of

well, just cool candidates for the

Moscow City Duma, some kind of

institution you don’t really understand. In fact,

no, that’s not the case. And I want to begin the program

with this: so far I haven’t really managed

to get across this important idea that these

elections in September, which will take place in 22

regions, could be quite

important, because the political

structure of society is changing. And at this

meeting on Monday, we won’t just

talk with you—and I’ll be very happy to speak;

I’d very much like to speak in Moscow,

I haven’t done that here in a long time.

But I haven’t been able to, because Sobyanin (Moscow mayor) is somehow

very sensitive about making sure that in any

hall we rent,

some FSB goons immediately show up and say

no, you can’t do it here, immediately

terminate the rental agreement. But so far the venue

is holding out. In the description to this video there is a

link.

If you follow that link, you’ll

be able to register. If you don’t

register, you unfortunately won’t get into the meeting,

because there is a limited number of

places. So, this won’t just be

a meeting with great people, although

the people coming with me are indeed great.

This is the start—the practical start—of our

new strategy, which will lead to the fact that

you and I will really take the fight to United

Russia. And right now you’re waving your hand and saying,

“Oh, come on, he’s been fighting United Russia

three times a day for many years.”

But now we’re going to do it a little

differently, and the overall situation is very much

working in our favor. Right now, in local

elections—and of course you’re not

following them, because naturally you couldn’t care less

about, say, the fact that in Nizhny Novgorod

Region there were recently

elections for city duma deputies.

Of course you’re not following that, but I do follow

such things, because in these kinds of

elections, United Russia always and everywhere

used to win. Always and everywhere.

Single-member districts; on party lists

they might give something to the Communists, the LDPR,

or someone else, but in single-member

districts, where you vote for a specific name,

it was always a United Russia candidate, because there was this

Putin majority there—35 to 45

percent—and it was always their candidate,

big and fat, while all the others were

small. But now that’s no longer the case. And just

half an hour before going on air, I

read a report by a certain well-known

representative of the Golos movement (an independent election-monitoring group), whose name is

Roman Udot. He writes there precisely about

the elections in Nizhny Novgorod, saying that

United Russia lost them completely. And the conclusion

he draws is that Smart Voting

works. At the same time, strictly speaking,

in these elections there wasn’t any

direct organization of that Smart

Voting in the sense that we didn’t

send out a list of names.

There, people basically see: aha,

a United Russia candidate—so we need to vote against him, for

some other candidate, and they shut out all

the United Russia candidates. Moscow and St. Petersburg first and foremost,

but other regions too—

Khabarovsk, Irkutsk—

there will be elections there. Our task is to

hit them hard. At a minimum,

well, or deprive them of their majority in Moscow.

We must deprive

United Russia of its majority, and at this

meeting on Monday we’ll talk

about how we’re going to do that. And we can

do it. And maybe some of you

noticed a chart, a kind of

electoral polling, which is actually

the main—the most important—political news

of this week. But simply because

because

the Russian media don’t really understand

what counts as the main news and what doesn’t,

they didn’t pay much attention

to it. A Kremlin-aligned

outfit called Russian Field (Rassel/RC Comment in the original speech) released

some polling of its own, also Kremlin-friendly,

about how exactly

People in Moscow want to vote for whom?

Which candidates will Muscovites vote for? I’m

talking about Moscow, but this concerns

absolutely all of Russia, so guys,

listen to me carefully on this.

Let’s look at this chart. Here in

Moscow there are 45 deputies now, and

45 deputies will be elected.

Right now, 38 United Russia members are sitting there, so

that is, United Russia has an absolute

majority

and controls everything there. But this year

look at what Muscovites are saying their

preferences are: an independent candidate —

37 percent of the vote, United Russia only

22,

the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) — 20, and non-parliamentary parties — 20.

What conclusions do we draw from this chart?

Conclusion number one — it’s kind of unrealistic,

but conclusion number one is that if we and

the so-called non-systemic opposition joined forces with

the communists and divided up the districts, then we would

win 100 percent

of the districts. Out of 45 seats, all 45 seats would belong

either to the communists or to representatives

of various systemic parties, and I

of course understand that for the Communist

Party it’s rather complicated; it has some

kind of relationship with the Kremlin. Nevertheless,

I want once again to clearly call on

dear Uncle Andrei and all

the KPRF leadership and rank-and-file KPRF activists:

guys, look at this chart and

understand that in September there is a chance not

just to deprive the majority of its majority,

not just to take away from United Russia its 100

percent of mandates. To our

anxious liberal

public, I want to make this appeal:

guys, please don’t

once again shift this into some kind of

discussion about Stalin — whether they’re Stalinists or whatever.

The communists are what they are, running around with their

Stalin, but our tactical

task in our strategic struggle

is that we need to knock out

United Russia, so we will have to

vote for the communists. We will

vote for the communists — that’s smart

voting. Think about it. Show that

chart again, please. Conclusion number

two that we should draw from this

actually is this: you remember that it was

a Kremlin outfit

that spread this information, so

I think that in reality the numbers are even more

in our favor.

All this means that this time

United Russia will not run openly as United

Russia. They will nominate various

vice-rectors of universities, representatives

of charitable organizations, school principals,

chief doctors of hospitals, and so on — that is,

people who will say, well,

no, no, we’re not from United Russia,

we just, you know, love Sergei Sobyanin

and for some reason here we’re

being supported by administrative resources — I don’t know why. For some reason

janitors are putting up leaflets for us, we don’t know why.

We don’t know why the housing office is working for us and

spreading our information, we don’t know why.

We don’t know why parents at kindergartens are being forced

to meet with us — it’s just some kind of

coincidence. We’re not from United Russia, we’re just

very respectable people here, vice-rectors

of universities, and in some ways we even agree with

the party of power, United Russia. That’s why this

is called smart voting. Our

task is not to let ourselves be played, not to let

ourselves be deceived, because Sobyanin can see that

United Russia itself won’t get through,

and he will put forward relatively respectable

people whom it won’t be all that easy for us to

criticize harshly.

And we have to do one simple thing:

understand who the viable

candidate is. This Monday I will be

appearing with the most promising

candidates.

But it won’t be 45 people; it will be the core,

the key candidates who, if

they get through, if you and I engage in smart

voting, then they will form

some kind of core of an opposition

movement in the Moscow City Duma, or the core

of a majority, a new ruling majority

in the Moscow City Duma

if it’s possible to reach some kind of agreement with

the communists. But in all the other forty-

five districts, in all the other 40-odd

districts, we will act

smartly. We will support Yabloko candidates

where Yabloko candidates need support; we

will support communists where

communists need support, even

despite the fact that they may not

enter into a coalition with us — we ourselves will enter

into a coalition with them, because we are ready to hold back

our own interests, some of our

grievances, and our personal relationships, because

we need to smash the hell out of

United Russia. I really want this because

in fact, just the viewers of this program,

given the very low turnout that there will be

across the country, the viewers of this program

if all of us work hard enough,

are enough to take away from United Russia, overall

across the whole country, 15 percent

of the mandates.

And if we bring in even more people, then at least in

the big cities we will deprive them of

their majority. So once again,

sign up for this meeting, which

will take place on Monday. There is a

link in the description. Unfortunately, without registering you will not

be allowed in. And come talk with me

and with the most wonderful people whom we

will put forward as our, as our battering ram.

to ram into it rather than get blocked

No, I’ll stand behind them.

and say, “Come on, guys, push harder, Adam.”

Ilya Yashin, come on; Volodya Milov there too.

Forward.

Well, and I’ll tell you about this

program of mine, and let them work—they are, after all,

our candidates, after all. And what

United Russia is doing, by the way, is important.

What matters is that United Russia is no longer just sitting

still, and they’re doing some supposedly very important

good deeds so as, well, not to

lose all those votes. That’s very important.

I’m also following all these supposedly very important

good deeds. We need to understand how to relate

to them. So, Dmitry Medvedev here

has, you could say, made a breakthrough. He

announced that there would be a substantial

increase in child-care benefits.

Let’s watch 40 seconds. The party leader

of United Russia, the official leader,

is promising voters a breakthrough. United Russia

will help. We are once again putting this question to

the government.

You also said that it is necessary to have

a new decision. What decisions should we expect from

the government so that the amount of the

compensation payment

is no longer just 50 rubles a month (about $0.80). This

payment was established

by decree of the President of the Russian Federation in

1994. A great deal has changed since then.

We believe it is right to consider the issue

of a substantial increase

in the amount of this benefit, and to do so starting

next year.

We heard “substantial increase,” yes, but

how much is that—30 percent, 40 percent? Will that help?

Even if they raise it by 100 percent—but before that,

the most important thing was actually already said in the question:

the child-care benefit

is 50 rubles—that is,

about 1.5 rubles a day. That’s what they pay.

And now they’ll say, “But we

raised it by 20 percent, by 15

percent.” But on this issue, we are going to tear United

Russia apart, as the saying goes, like Tuzik tearing up a hot-water bottle (a Russian idiom meaning to rip something to shreds).

And they need to be torn apart, because they’re sitting on

trillions of rubles, while their promises in

practice really look like a mockery.

Just like the regular pension indexations, which

when translated into absolute figures mean, say,

an increase of 20 rubles, 30 rubles,

150 rubles—and yet they say they have substantially

increased child benefits.

Well, formally speaking, right now it’s

1 ruble 66 kopecks a day. They’ll raise it

substantially, and it’ll become 2 rubles 66

kopecks a day. Well, go on—if your child is a little short,

there you go, 2.66 a day—buy the child

some buns with it, and while you’re at it,

some diapers too. That’s an important thing. This is

social policy? It’s daily robbery, and

its social significance cannot be overstated, even in

the richest cities, such as Moscow.

Even if a person has enough

money and doesn’t need any

child benefit, we will still simply

talk about it. We will say to you:

you may not need it, but others who were not

as lucky in life as you are—they

receive 1.66 a day, or 2.66 a day

after the increase, after the

colossal, super increase. They do not

even get 5 rubles a day. Do you want

to vote for United Russia? If you don’t,

then take part in Smart

Voting. I see I’m being asked, and in

86, please tell me:

is the new electronic voting from the Central Election Commission

not a response to your Smart Voting?

Very clever question—I don’t know whether it’s from a man or a woman

asking me, but of course yes. What are

Mayor Sobyanin and the Central

Election Commission doing here? They

introduced electronic voting. This thing

looks absolutely unprecedented.

You can hardly vote in real elections over

the internet almost anywhere, even in the most

advanced countries. Only in Estonia does this

exist in full form. Nevertheless,

in Russia, where the authorities hate the internet,

they suddenly introduce this very electronic

voting, and I have no doubt that it

will be introduced precisely in those districts where the authorities

have the biggest problems and where the most

hardline opposition figures are running—the kind

like the ones I just

showed you in the picture, the kind who

will be meeting with voters on

Monday. Let’s recall how events unfolded.

Sobyanin said, and

the Moscow City Election Commission

said, “You know, in Moscow we need to introduce

electronic voting.” The CEC said no,

it’s impossible, it contradicts

federal law—and yes,

it does contradict federal law. And they

had been against it their whole lives, and then suddenly, after

a week—well, apparently someone went there,

Sobyanin went to the Presidential

Administration and said, “Guys, they’ve got

Smart Voting there, and they’ll wipe everyone out. We’ll

remove candidates, we’ll do something strange, we’ll

falsify things a little here and there, but they’ll

still wipe everyone out. So we need some kind of

mechanism.”

The main solution would be—well, as far as I understand,

the main solution

is that they will hook up

electronic voting, which

cannot be fully monitored at all.

Does this mean that we, well,

that Smart Voting is useless?

Of course not. After all, first of all,

it will only be introduced in certain districts,

not across Moscow as a whole. Second, well,

all the same.

The scale of the fraud has certain limits.

You can tack on maybe five

percent. You can’t tack on 25 percent.

In any case, we have to

make life harder for them, because if we don’t

do anything, then they’ll just get away with it

without any problems, and we

— you have to admit — won’t work ourselves to death

by spending the day before the vote

calling on everyone: come on,

register through our link, and

here’s the candidate’s name — let’s all vote

only for him, and then on

election day, go and vote.

You have to admit, it’s not exactly some huge

amount of work, but it absolutely needs to be done.

Something very interesting is also happening in St. Petersburg,

where there are municipal elections as well,

elections.

For governor too — not like in Moscow, where there is no

gubernatorial election. In St. Petersburg, that same

rating I showed you

— the Kremlin rating — also showed

the possible ratings of the governors. Let’s

take a look — it’s very interesting. You can see

— let’s just not look at

those guys at the top, because obviously

Kalmykia, obviously Bashkortostan — well,

I mean, there are basically never any real elections

there. And Beglov, who is running in

St. Petersburg, is in second-to-last place

with 43 percent. That means if the election

were held now, there would be a second round in St. Petersburg, and in

the second round, we understand that Beglov

would most likely lose, because he’s

some kind of clown, a bizarre creep,

who talks all kinds of nonsense and, well, basically

engages in very ridiculous, purely

PR. I’ve told lots of stories here about

Beglov and his little shovel antics, but now it’s just

the sheer number of examples of how, well, how they

are running this campaign in general, what kind of

people these are,

it’s just off the charts. Look,

it’s very funny. I saw this on the Telegram

channel Rotonda, which covers

the St. Petersburg elections.

So, Beglov’s standard system is this: he needs

to boost his mentions on Yandex

to get to the top of Yandex, so he has to create

a whole bunch of

fake media outlets, and in those fake media outlets

praise himself.

Sobyanin did this too. So for Sobyanin, in order to make it look like

“Sergei Semyonovich looked

to the left” rank first on Yandex,

“Sergei Semyonovich”

and “ate some porridge” rank second on Yandex,

why? Because there are hundreds — without

exaggeration, hundreds, maybe even thousands — of

media outlets,

supposed media outlets that belong to

Moscow City Hall, and all day long they

churn out these formulaic articles:

“ate some porridge, looked left, looked

right, how Moscow has improved under Sergei

Semyonovich.” But Beglov is even dumber

— much dumber than Sobyanin’s PR people —

and apparently he simply doesn’t have enough

people to write these articles, and so

something hilarious is happening there, because

they got caught doing this. I mean, if you

just copy-paste the exact same article

over and over, Yandex isn’t stupid — it

will take one article for its algorithm

and ignore the rest. So

Beglov’s people brought in a robot.

Everyone loves robots these days, so they

brought in a robot that rewrites

the text of the article so that it wouldn’t be

the exact same thing. And there we see

expressions appearing like “Pert,”

“the Petrodvorets region,” “the present little day,”

“copied creation” — that is,

meaningless articles written by some kind of

nonsense words. It’s simply

a text generator. That’s what Beglov is doing

in St. Petersburg right now.

It’s

basically just these trips, ribbon-cutting

ceremonies, and a PR machine that simply

with the help of a text generator

drags all of it into the top Yandex results. That’s

elections in the Russian Federation for you. So of course,

of course, we just need to go out and wipe the floor with

him. And for that too, you have to admit, we need

Smart Voting, and we must

take part in it — especially in St. Petersburg,

because

when it comes specifically to the

gubernatorial election there, it’s very simple: vote

for anyone except Beglov. There will be other

candidates there — they may not be especially

good, some of them may be decent, some may

of course be pretty awful guys,

but it doesn’t matter: anyone except Beglov. And one

more funny thing happened with him.

As part of these trips of his with

ribbon-cuttings,

again, he’s dumb, his PR people are dumb, and they

do dumb things. When they arrive at

meetings with people or for ribbon-cutting

events,

there are journalists there, of course, and to the journalists they

in advance

hand out a sheet of paper where it’s not just

the main points of his speech that are written down, but also, like,

the “tough questions” that people are going to ask

him, along with his answers. In other words,

someone has simply written a script.

There are already prepared people who

will ask these questions, and they, well,

they just printed it all out — that kind of

simplicity is worse than stealing — and handed it

all out, and told the journalists, “So,

a man of such-and-such age will ask you

there

this question,” and they’re all dutifully asking it.

why, in some kind of state or whatever

Beglov replies to him, saying it's unsatisfactory

and you, specifically regarding this script

our mustached guy

hero who wants to lead the second-largest

city in the country by population

just keeps rambling on and on about this thing, well

let's take him on; as for

the municipal elections, I see there are

questions. Go to SPB. Here we have

several thousand people who are actively

participating

sign up, come to the meetings

come to the training so that in

St. Petersburg we can also clear out

United Russia. We understand that there will be

they'll remove candidates from the ballot, but not all of them

they won't remove everyone; we have to win there, and already

we are working very actively through

an introductory meeting has already been attended by 800 people

307 candidates for deputy positions

have gone through the training, and we have held 52 events

in total. So if you want to be

a candidate, register as a candidate. If you want

to be a voter, register as a

voter. Why have I been talking about this for 23 minutes already?

I've been talking about this topic because this isn't just

some small election; this is a real

situation that has become very favorable

right now, and in these September elections

despite the fact that all of us have long

felt like there are no real elections left

we really can land a blow against Uni-

ted Russia if we stop being stupid and

act

smartly. That's why I'll keep talking about this constantly

Also, since I have taken on

this obligation, and I will

fulfill it

to cover all labor-union

activity and strikes. So, I was sent a note about

a hospital

that very hospital where there had been a strike

where the doctors' demands had supposedly been met

they were deceived in the classic way: they were

given a pay raise of 10,000 rubles (about 100 euros) at first, for everyone, and then

once things died down, the local authorities

the local crooks looked around and said, well

since they've called off the strike, we'll

cut their pay back again. Classic. Well

good for these doctors in Nizhny Novgorod

region—Novgorod region, sorry

they're genuinely great. Let's just take a few

seconds—they sent a video, 28 seconds, saying that

they are resuming the strike. Just look

at them and ask yourself

why

the authorities can't, damn it, buy them this ambulance

service equipment and raise salaries to at least some

minimum level. Quite simply. 20

seconds. Medical workers in Okulovka

due to the failure to meet demands for

higher wages for the workers

of the Okulovka ambulance service and the workers

of the local central district hospital, a decision was made

to begin an Italian strike (work-to-rule action) on April 22

The strike will continue

until the workers' demands are met

at these medical institutions, in accordance with

participating in the strike. Good for them, really

like pioneers, all properly taking part

in the strike. People sometimes write to me, saying, well, you

are dealing with boring nonsense, covering trivial

topics

I don't think this is a trivial topic, I don't

think it's some isolated case. I know for sure

that this kind of strike movement

is the most effective. First of all, there is

simply statistics on strikes and

the fulfillment of strikers' demands

and Russian, pre-revolutionary, and global

strike statistics, and I think in 75 percent

of cases it ends with people

getting what they want. So don't be cowards

my dears. These people aren't afraid, in

that very Okulovka in Novgorod Region

good for them, and let them grab that governor

who deceived them and cheated them—but this time

they'll take him by the throat. So if you're doing something

write to me. Even if

it may seem like a small issue to someone, I will

cover it. I see I'm being asked an excellent

question: how do you tell a genuine

independent candidate from a sneaky

United Russia one? That's the whole point of Smart

Voting: we'll tell them apart for you. You won't

be able to sort it out yourselves. Even in Moscow there are 45

districts, and in each district

there are a bunch of candidates, maybe 10

candidates: a United Russia member, a half-United Russia type

a spoiler candidate, some fake democrat, one claims

to be opposition, another also claims

to be opposition. We will analyze all of this carefully

and honestly tell you: this is

the independent candidate for whom

it makes sense to vote, or this independent

candidate, or maybe a Communist—because over there

they clearly came in second. We won't just

name a person; we will explain

why we chose them. But the idea is

that you have to trust someone

Trust us. We will analyze all of this

and tell you whom to vote for, because

everything else, everything that came before

just doesn't work, this whole idea

that democrats should unite—they don't

unite. No democrats ever

unite with anyone, so there's nothing else

left. Trust us, the guys from the team, and

we'll choose decent candidates, and you

know that we won't back any

clowns or fakes; we won't choose them where

there are candidates from the systemic opposition

We'll say honestly: they are from the systemic opposition

different things can happen with them, but in

any case that's better than a United Russia candidate. So

Sasha Nogin from Nagorny also asks

Alexei, tell us how one can do it on one's own

To promote the voting campaign, if your acquaintances

have already run out and the campaign has no flyers,

no, Sasha, your acquaintances have not run out.

Keep explaining to them anyway that they must

take part in this. Let your acquaintances

campaign among their other acquaintances. Flyers, we

might make them toward the end of the campaign, because

you see, here’s the thing: this is also how everything

is set up. The candidates will be nominated, and then

city hall will take a look, and some of them—we

if we make

flyers with you now saying, “Vote for these

candidates,” not all of them will even be allowed onto the ballot.

So the specific names will

only become known much closer to the end, and

we simply won’t have time to make flyers with you then

in time.

+ Sasha, the point is that for us

the internet is enough this time; it’s just that

we have to persuade people. Here, in this

program—yes, right, people are tired of hearing about it, but

about the right to vote—but

I’m still going to keep talking about it. You see,

in the mass media somewhere

you won’t read much about it, because

they need a prompt; they don’t understand that this is

something important. But when

there are three weeks left until the election, they

will start writing: well, there’s an election, some kind of

this and that, something unclear is happening. But

you and I are not observers of this

process—we are participants in it. You’re not

blocking anything, there’s nowhere to retreat, but still you’re

fighting against United Russia, and I’m fighting

alongside you, so

we simply have to keep pushing this issue

and imposing it on the agenda, because for now, unfortunately,

it still isn’t really resonating that well with society as a whole.

Society... 24, 1,800 people are watching us. I

still want to say a few words

about Notre-Dame. It was the main world news story

of the past week, and

it is terribly sad, naturally.

A monstrous fire. But in Russia, these

reflections of the fire over Notre-Dame really

seemed to awaken an enormous

number of crazy people here.

What happened in itself is

a universal human tragedy. It’s as if

the Colosseum were blown away by the wind tomorrow, and some

lunatic in a bulldozer—a very

large bulldozer—or someone came and

blew up the Colosseum. Would that be only a problem

for Italy and Rome? Of course not. It would be a problem for all of us,

for our children, who otherwise would never

get to see it. And really,

when I said that the image of Notre-Dame

had awakened the crazies, there really were

several types of them. One type of crazy person

was, first of all, these sort of

pro-Putin idiots. I see them

writing, “To hell with the French,” and so on.

What do the French have to do with it?

This is something that was built 800

years ago, and it is beautiful. It belongs just as much

to you as it does to the French. The French living today

themselves

have, broadly speaking, the same connection to

the builders

of Notre-Dame as you and I do. It is

a universal human treasure. So a person

who says something like,

“Screw the French, who cares,” is

simply a fool. If you haven’t managed

to go to France and see it, then at least

your children or grandchildren might go

and see it—and you’d want them not to

miss that chance. The second group of strange people

that I wanted to say a bit more

about are, on the contrary, those

who were so affected—well, not inspired,

but horrified—by the sight of the burning

Notre-Dame that they seriously started

here in Russia

collecting money. For example, German Gref

announced that Sberbank would create

a relief fund for Notre-Dame, and even

the Ministry of Culture of the Russian

Federation said that they would

start collecting some money and

send money to Notre-Dame. Then they

said that apparently they would not be collecting

budget funds. And here there are

two things. First, I wonder whether German Gref

and the Ministry of Culture have seen

the condition Russia’s own monuments are in.

They’re horrific ruins, every other one of them.

Maybe not all of them are that ancient

or of such great cultural

importance, but come on, let’s be honest:

Notre-Dame matters to us deeply on a human level,

but it is located in a very rich

country called France.

How much money was raised in the first three days

for the restoration of Notre-Dame?

1 billion euros.

Is 1 billion euros a lot or a little?

Well, I’ll tell you this: the entire targeted

federal Culture program—in other words,

basically the whole culture budget, this entire

multi-year federal targeted program—

is 100 billion rubles,

which is roughly the same amount as was raised for

Notre-Dame in a week. Thank God they

raised it; good for them, and good for everyone who donated.

We love you, we embrace you—but what business do we have butting in?

We shouldn’t be butting in anywhere. We are not

a country like France; compared with France, our own

cultural monuments are in terrible, terrible

shape—ruins. Let’s just be glad for

the French that they have businesspeople

who are not like ours—these

half-baked oligarchs who think all money

must of course be invested in a football

club.

They have two options: they have a billion, and they’re itching

to spend it, so it’s either

a football club or a yacht.

That’s all—they have no other options.

Idiots—I’ve already said it twice.

Idiots—let’s call these people what they are: crooks.

No, this is a former Russian oligarch.

A party official of the great...

A former Komsomol functionary (official in the Soviet youth organization), and now she has...

...money, a yacht, and a football club.

A football club, a yacht.

In France, there are decent wealthy people.

They step in to save Notre-Dame, and from that...

...they get publicity out of it, everyone is happy. We don’t have that here.

We don’t have anything like that. It would be nice if German Gref...

...just reached into his own pocket...

...and sent his $500 to Notre-Dame.

After that, he could have Sberbank set up a fund...

...to help Russian cultural heritage sites.

Because for us, things are very, very, very bad.

You can see it yourselves—these cathedrals, churches...

...museums, everything imaginable.

A huge number of their storage facilities are in...

...terrible condition, and the books are rotting.

Exhibits are being kept in conditions...

...that are not the conditions they’re supposed to be kept in here.

We have a couple of showcase museums...

...that are mostly well funded.

But everything else is in a monstrous state.

Let’s give money to that instead.

What Notre-Dame? Notre-Dame is in wealthy France.

In France. And third, of course...

...there’s a category of people who were...

...all worked up by it.

The glow...

...of Paris—these are the people who, right from the start, on...

...our television, said this meant the death...

...of French civilization. Ksenia Sobchak writes...

...that trade unions and leftists...

...have brought my beloved Paris to the point where...

...Notre-Dame burned down, imagine that. Let Manya (a colloquial, slightly mocking female name) into Europe...

...so Manya arrives there...

...and says, “Well, my Paris...”

...my beloved...” and starts lecturing those heartless...

...trade unions.

“You’ve done everything badly here, and...”

“...that’s why Notre-Dame burned down. Now I’m going to...”

...teach you how to live.” I just want...

...to say that in fact France...

...is good, and...

...Paris is good because there aren’t many people there with...

...such cannibalistic views as...

...Ksenia Sobchak’s in particular. Though really, it’s not so much about Sobchak...

...as about this whole...

...giant crowd of strange...

...wealthy Russians who...

...go to Paris and think that...

...it ought to live by some...

...rules they cobbled together from reading...

...the only book they’ve ever read, *Atlas Shrugged*...

...which is the one book they’ve read in...

...their lives. Fortunately, in France there are...

...a huge number of people who...

...believe that trade unions have rights, that people...

...can go on strike. In France there are huge numbers...

...of people who believe that...

...people shouldn’t be fired easily. I just...

...read her post carefully—she complains that...

...it’s impossible to live there...

...and impossible to fire anyone. Well, that’s exactly why...

...that’s how things work there. You all...

...change with every shift of the wind. In any...

...French café, if you walk in, you’ll see...

...a gray-haired old man and a gray-haired old woman sitting there.

Everyone says, “How lovely.”

But a Russian pensioner—that’s just poverty, apparently.

Look at French pensioners.

That’s considered charming—they’re sipping coffee there...

...they’re eating tartare, drinking coffee...

...they eat tartare because they were paid...

...a decent salary, because that salary was defended...

...by trade unions, because...

...there is a fair system there.

France doesn’t have a small number of problems...

...it has a very large number of problems, but...

...still, those hellish social-darwinist types who...

...say, “Let’s ban everything for everyone here...”},{

...and whoever is rich is right”—they are in...

...the minority there. People care about one...

...another, and that’s why things are better there. And those who...

...want that kind of social Darwinism—well...

...let them stay here with Putin. And so...

...in this group, of course, the most hardcore...

...guys are the ones predicting doom for everyone.

These are also the ones looking for a conspiracy, and of course...

...the best video on this subject is the one I...

...want to show you—40 seconds, 40 seconds in which...

...a Russian researcher...

...has discovered what really caused Notre-Dame to burn.

Honestly, the event itself isn’t all that remarkable, and...

...now France has added this...

...arson attack on the most famous Christian cathedral.

It’s all supposedly the work of Masonic conspirators too.

Let’s break down what supposedly happened in the end.

So, originally Notre-Dame de...

...Paris...

...was a temple to the pagan god Jupiter; Christianity had absolutely nothing to do with it...

...there wasn’t even a trace of Christianity there before...

...the “Jewish Great Revolution.”

On the pediment of the temple there stood...

...images of pagan gods, which...

...the revolutionaries destroyed, and in their place...

...they installed their own Jewish patriarchs.

The pagan... then came...

...the revolutionaries changed it, but of course...

...now it’s obviously a Masonic conspiracy...

...that arranged such terrible things, burned everything down...

...to cover its tracks. This is from the category of videos...

...that absolutely enraged us over the past week.

It drove us mad.

It really is infuriating—not even the video itself so much as...

...the consequences of it all are awful...

...My beloved Kuban (a region in southern Russia)...

...is a zone of absolute lawlessness, and Sochi, which...

...well, basically even...

...is territorially part of Kuban, though they always...

...like to think of themselves as separate. Nevertheless...

...it’s the same kind of lawlessness. A man sees...

...a man named Stanislav Andreev.

He is filming police officers who are loudly...

...swearing profusely, and he calls them out on it.

They say, but you're police officers on duty,

on duty, shouting loudly all around there.

What's going on, after which they start talking about him and

say, "We're in charge here, and you shut up."

They grab him by the arms and accuse him of

the most absurd thing—you barely even

make a remark to us, and for that alone

it means you're planting drugs, and

now we're taking you to the station."

But

this man, whose phone they were trying to take away,

they didn't

turn it off. That is, they started pressing

the buttons, but it stayed on, and

now we can watch 53

seconds

of what a police officer in Krasnodar Krai (a region in southern Russia)

is,

what a police officer in Kuban (the Krasnodar region) is like, and how

people who say, "We're

the ones in charge here," behave.

[music]

"Quickly, your documents—what are you doing here?

Leave your bag."

Journalists,

a gang of bandits in uniform—they

beat him. They started beating him—note

carefully: when they led him onto the

police department grounds,

that is, they didn't just drag him off into some bushes

somewhere—they grabbed him and thought,

"So where can we beat him, where's

a safe place to beat a person?

Of course, on police department property.

In the yard or somewhere else on the premises,

with cameras everywhere. I mean, if you've been to a police station,

every square meter is under video surveillance,

and they're kicking him with their feet.

They drag him into the corridor for detainees.

"Get on your knees. We're in charge here," and

so on. Well, a criminal case has already been opened there,

a criminal case has been opened against these

people, simply because one of

them, as I understand it, after taking the phone,

didn't turn it off, and then for several days

didn't check whether there was a recording or not—and that became

the only reason.

If it weren't for this recording, in Kuban

this man would never in his life have obtained

justice. And the subsequent actions, by the way,

personally confirm this, because

the lawyer for these

rank-and-file police officers—these brutes—

who beat an innocent

man—proposed closing

the case through reconciliation between the parties and told

the press that the police officers are ready

to apologize, but only so that the case

will be closed. I mean, they just beat you

while on duty, kicking you, and now they're ready

to apologize—but not publicly.

Publicly? Come on, who are you? We only

just

kicked you.

But apologize publicly? No, that would be too much.

In private, sure, we'll

say, "Sorry, brother, it's not us,

that's just life, that's how everything works here in

our beautiful Russia of the future." The police station chief

will be fired in

the beautiful Russia of the future. What is needed during the transition period

is to thoroughly purge the entire

Krasnodar police force. But in general, in

principle, the Krasnodar police

need to be subjected to total

inspections and a purge, because they are a gathering

of bandits, just like the prosecutor's office, just like the local

FSB (Russia's security service). Yes, they are simply real

bandits and lawless thugs. If there are

decent guys there, probably, then on the whole,

overall,

especially the leadership, they are genuine

monsters.

They terrorize people there, they kill

people, and it's impossible to find any way to stop them.

What is really needed there

is some kind of real special operation.

You can't solve anything there with small reforms

alone. As for the country as a whole,

we need police reform, but in

Krasnodar Krai, what is needed is a truly harsh,

harsh purge. He took money, but he was

very honest. Something that made a huge

impression on me

this week was the speech, the final words,

of the former governor of the Komi Republic (a federal subject of Russia),

who was imprisoned in that very

Gayzer case.

There they constructed some whole

criminal group around it, and eventually it reached him, and

his final words were this. And since

our FSB and now the Investigative

Committee have adopted this new habit of

charging everyone not just with some

offense, but with participation in an organized criminal group, that

effectively means they can be sentenced to up to 20 years,

and this is the new

trick of our law enforcement

agencies. They prove nothing; it's

complete nonsense. Of course there are bribe-takers

and crooks sitting in the dock, but the very

way the case is built has this particular feature:

the "criminal group" is attached in a completely arbitrary

way. But these officials, they

understand that they'll get, get, get—sorry—

up to 20 years. And his speech was simply

something else.

"Comrade Stalin, a monstrous

mistake has occurred." I'm telling you now,

I'll play it—it's 1 minute 40 seconds, but it's worth

it. It's pure drama. And this same

governor was one of the most brazen

people around; over there in Komi he pressured

everyone indiscriminately. Yes, they were just

real bandits, basically,

"restoring order" in their own way, and now

people just like that have chewed you up a little,

and for years they were shaking people down for all sorts of things.

money and positions, and just look, he

there are such absolutely priceless gems there

astonishing ones

They gave me money, but I didn’t want it.

The money I received was of no use to me,

I didn’t need it, so I gave it away to people...

Let’s listen to how the former governor

the once all-powerful Putin-appointed governor, when

those very same people he backed, the ones he

falsified elections for,

he shouted for them, campaigned for them,

are now devouring him.

Let’s listen to the words he’s using now.

How he’s speaking now.

Before being elected to the post of head

of the republic,

I had no practical work experience in

economics, so I chose to trust my

acquaintance, businessman Alexander Zovut

Lin, who took the initiative in

selecting candidates for the posts of my deputies,

ministers, competent specialists

capable of

putting the budget process in order over time.

...whatever it took.

Information that the people recommended by him

were using this position and public service

for their own interests—in 2009, I

made an attempt to correct the situation.

I appointed as my deputy

a retired FSB general—Ty Upala Detali

Mikhailych.

For that, Grubin, in rather harsh terms, gave me

a dressing-down over the phone.

In 2010, the head of the Komi Republic became

one of Zarubin’s associates, according to the newspaper.

Chislo Makha.

As for the money, I still want to mention one

fact.

You may doubt it—or maybe not—but this is

actually true, and I said so later.

The money I received later

was given away to people very generously,

because I practically had no need for it whatsoever.

30,000 people are watching us

live, and it seemed important to me

to play this recording, and I hope everything was

clearly audible. But just so you

understand once again, first of all, how things work there,

and also what ridiculous excuses these are—here he is,

taking money from some local

businessman, and saying, “I understood that

taking this money was wrong, but I was afraid

that refusing would offend him.”

So, of course, he didn’t want to, but

they were giving him money, and it would have been awkward to refuse,

so he took it. Then he goes on

to say that he didn’t need the money, so he

gave it away to people, but...

How did it come to this? And the most astonishing thing...

I won’t torture you with all of his final

words at the end—what this

man says.

A United Russia member, an ardent Putin supporter—he confesses

to everything, and, well, sort of

repents. And when a person

repents, you’d expect him to say, “Forgive me, people,

forgive me, good people, forgive me, residents of Komi,” but instead

he says the following: “For all the time

that I have been in this terrible situation for

me, every day has been for me

a huge pain and shame—shame before

the President of the Russian Federation,

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who believed in me

and supported me, and it turns out I did not live up to his trust.”

So he was robbing, together with

all of his United Russia crowd,

the people of Komi for many years, and now he’s ashamed

before Vladimir Vladimirovich

Putin, who, by the way, while

this program is on air right now...

While you were watching the video with this governor,

this former one, I already managed to read the news that

Vladimir Putin, meeting with

a representative of French business, said

that Russia would

be ready to take part in restoring

Notre-Dame. Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

We’re so happy to hear that.

Especially happy are those people who, as I said

at the beginning of the program, receive

child benefits amounting to

1 ruble 66 kopecks a day (about $0.02). Very happy,

too, are the directors and staff of crumbling

museums. Happy too are the nurses earning

14,000 rubles a month (about $150). Everyone in the country is happy. We’ll be

restoring Notre-Dame. They’ve already raised

a billion euros there—come on, really, good grief.

Russia is a generous soul; there’s enough for everyone.

What was it—$100 million to Kyrgyzstan

we gave the other day? A spectacle of unheard-of

generosity. We’re handing things out to everyone in the world, and now

we’ll throw more money at Notre-Dame too. But if

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, at

his meeting with French businessmen,

had said, “You know, I have this

acquaintance, the cellist Sergei Roldugin,

and by some completely accidental

set of circumstances, he ended up with an account somewhere

in the British Virgin Islands

or in Panama—in Panama, yes, from the Panama Papers—

with $2 billion in it. Don’t

think that it’s my money; it’s not

my wallet, it’s just money, and I’ll ask him

to transfer it.” But no, he doesn’t want to transfer his own money.

Instead, it’s once again coming out of

the budget to help Notre-Dame. When are we

finally going to help ourselves, for heaven’s sake?

It’s simply unbearable to listen to this. A noble

cause, restoring Notre-Dame—the wealthy

French Republic will restore it.

Presumably some wealthy Russian

citizens can donate too. But the impoverished

Russian people should not be donating

anything—not a single kopeck. That’s

my position. Perhaps it

may seem to some people not entirely

right, but this is not the time—we have to

To show moral support, let's

light it up in the colors of the French flag, I don't know,

shine beams on it, and make all Russian buildings

in those colors, or something like that.

We don't have the money to stop

Notre-Dame from burning down, except, well, except for those who

are rich themselves — the oligarchs,

some Russian ones. Let the Forbes list

give, if they want to, give to

Notre-Dame. By the way, on the Forbes list

my favorite deputy — I'll be talking more

today about the most disgusting deputy

my absolute favorite United Russia deputy

is, of course, Yevgeny Fyodorov, who

gave us all the phrase

"United Russia is the party of crooks and thieves." Well,

or rather, he prompted it — it was during

a debate with Fyodorov, so I will always

be immensely grateful to him for his contribution to

the fight against United Russia. He's the most

fervent supporter of Vladimir Putin. He

heads the NOD movement,

which argues that Putin really needs

to be given extraordinary powers,

apparently so that he can simply, by his own

decision, send any amount of

money for the restoration of Notre-Dame. He explained

in a recent appearance that

Putin is not fighting the oligarchs because

we're not ready yet. We've been waiting for 20

years already, but

the oligarchs are such a toxic force that Putin just can't deal with them.

Let's listen.

A United Russia member explains why Putin doesn't

fight the oligarchs.

As for the oligarchs, a decision has been made for now

not to touch them until we're ready,

because it's a very powerful group, it is

very tightly knit, and working with them

requires... well, it can't be done

all at once, in a civilized way, but it

doesn't work. They stay in place because

they are a major force, and quietly like this

you can't deal with them. And besides, they're not

within the country's borders.

[music]

There's nothing you can do with them.

It says there that they are not subject to

... oligarchs.

Of course, if someone really gets on their nerves, they get removed.

What an amazing exchange. I mean, just how much

do they take everyone for idiots — even their own

supporters? He says: well, Putin doesn't fight

the oligarchs, but how is he supposed to

fight them?

Indeed, how can he fight them? But look at how he fights

those who hold

one-person pickets, how he fights those who

came out to protest in Ingushetia,

and everyone else. Somehow that works just fine.

But with the oligarchs, no — Putin just can't manage it.

Not at all. Too weak for that, apparently. So

just forget that oligarchs exist,

and live with them. That's United Russia's position.

Here's a great figure, a figure that I really

liked this week,

which actually shows that

it's not only the oligarchs so beloved by

deputy Fyodorov who are really

driving Russia forward anymore.

Recently, the media published data. They

calculated the contribution of the Runet economy — the contribution

of Runet to Russia's economy came to

almost 4 trillion rubles a year (about $43 billion USD). That

is equal to the contribution of the

largest company, the main

state-owned company in Russia, Ros

neft, which has swallowed everything up.

And it's very important for us to understand, guys,

that usually people assume that

there are some main oligarchs, the main

economy is in oil, some

big-faced, gray-haired, stern

men, and then there are even oligarchs of the

internet, all sorts of nerdy types,

sitting on designer chairs.

Because nobody ever thinks of it as

the real thing — YouTube, some games,

that's all trivial. But no, it isn't.

Now Runet is already comparable in scale to

oil. I think that in terms of real contribution, considering that

all that oil money

is to a large extent taken abroad, the real

contribution of Runet to the country's economy

is much greater than that of the oil industry.

And our state, and Putin, are making us

poorer because they are not allowing Runet

to develop. And there was an absolutely fantastic

performance this week by

our favorite, Mr. Zharov from

Roskomnadzor,

who, speaking at a conference, talked about how

he blocks Telegram, and he said there

the following thing, well:

"We're blocking all of this, and now I'll give the exact

quote: we are still identifying IP

addresses on which Telegram exists,

and blocking them periodically. You've probably

noticed on your smartphone

that it loads more slowly."

I like that, you know — it's such a

conversation among close friends, like: guys,

you're all sitting here, every one of you has Telegram

installed on your phone, and you can see that sometimes it's

faster, sometimes slower — that's because we're working on it.

Even though it's supposedly banned.

If you've banned it, then presumably

your government officials

shouldn't have it,

should they? But he openly

admits it: Putin is doing some kind of nonsense there,

we're banning it, we're spending

millions of dollars on it, but of course

everyone still has it installed. And he says it

without any embarrassment: all of us, guys,

communicate via Telegram, and we're blocking it,

and we coordinate the blocking of Telegram

by communicating with each other through Telegram, well.

This is, of course, the absolute height of hypocrisy, and I

really liked Deputy Levin, who

while speaking when they passed, passed in the third

reading the law on isolating the Runet (the Russian-language internet), which

will cause enormous, truly enormous damage to all

of the Runet.

He amazingly said that this is

basically a contribution to security. Let's

listen to 43 seconds of this scoundrel.

Absolutely independent

sociological companies that

monitor the internet have estimated the losses

our economy would suffer from the fact

that the internet would be down for one day.

So, colleagues, that estimate

puts the losses to the Russian

economy from the lack of functioning

high-quality internet in Russia at simply

20 billion rubles in just one day

(about $220 million USD today), while the funds being

allocated today

amount to around 20 to 30 billion rubles

in total to ensure stable operation

in the event of such threats overall.

So all the expenses that this bill will entail

are not expenses, but investments in the future.

You see, he declared, he explains that

they are putting into this isolation of the Runet

20 to 30 billion rubles, and that's good.

It will be an investment in the future because

if suddenly

Martians or reptilians block our

internet, we'll wake up in the morning and

open the tap, and there's no water in the tap, and in the

laptop

there's no internet, and then the damage will be even greater.

As if Zharov or, you know,

Deputy Levin would help us if a reptilian

from the planet Nibiru switched off our internet.

I mean,

they're stealing 30 billion from us, and for those 30

billion

they will make the internet in Russia

slower, they will damage

internet companies, they will pay less

in taxes, they will pay lower salaries, and we

will all become a little poorer. For what?

Who the hell knows what for. So that, so that

they can block a YouTube

channel? Good luck with that. Let's be honest: all of this

is needed so they can block

certain specific things that they

still can't block. They can't

block Facebook entirely; they want

to block YouTube accounts entirely, but they can't.

They want to block several

channels, so everyone has to become poorer.

Everyone has to pay

because, well, Putin doesn't like what is being said

about them.

One of the people who very clearly did not

like what we said today

is our deputy Slutsky, the most disgusting

member of the State Duma (the lower house of Russia's parliament), truly

one of the vilest, and we simply

think he has thrown down a challenge to us, because

I've already made so much about this Slutsky.

After he harassed

journalists, he became one of the best-known

State Duma deputies who receives

only a deputy's salary, and yet

he practically bathes in penthouses

and Maybachs.

It seemed like he should have been a bit more modest, but

at least now, after

all the spotlights are on you,

well, come on, Slutsky, at least be

a little smarter. No, the man went and bought 3

Maybachs, after which we decided

to publish his expanded

declaration,

from which we saw how he gets

this money. I think you've seen

that video, so to remind you,

here's a one-minute-nine-second excerpt about

Slutsky.

Lidiya Dmitrievna, a pensioner,

Slutsky's wife,

owner of 3 Bentleys and a 600-square-meter

penthouse in central Moscow, really gets this pension.

So where did the

Bentley come from?

Here's where: the Bentley was bought for 28

million 200 thousand rubles

(about $310,000 USD), of which the pensioner paid 3 million 200 thousand

herself,

and borrowed 25 million.

A 25-million-ruble loan for a Bentley, and it was

given to a pensioner with an income of 18,000 rubles a month

(about $200 USD). How is that possible? That money was

received by Slutsky's wife as a loan from

a certain M. Yu. Yuskevich.

And he did it just like that: a

10-year interest-free loan. Yuskevich,

a 34-year-old gentleman from

Baku. And now let's see what this

mysterious man does, and right away

we see his company, LLC Akkord Spets Stroy,

which in 2018 alone, in the very year

it generously loaned money to the deputy's wife,

won a tender worth 33

billion rubles (about $510 million USD).

This is just staggering, shocking, but

in some way even impressive. They talk so much

about fighting corruption,

cleaning house, and so on. But damn, they

actually write all of this down in official documents.

Just imagine if you

were some official, and you were given a bribe of

25 million rubles, and then you took a sheet of paper and

wrote: yes, a builder—his surname is right there—

a major Moscow developer gave

my wife an interest-free loan of 25

million rubles, and I bought a Bentley with it.

And there in the State Duma, Volodin (Vyacheslav Volodin, the Duma speaker)

looks at it and says: right, so he received 25

million and bought a Bentley.

Fine, everything is legal. How is that possible?

There is one—they came up with something a bit more elegant.

A scheme, but everyone knows Slutsky is a crook.

And there’s his old man, Resin, sitting there,

still one of the chief mafia bosses,

one of the main mafia bosses in the construction sector.

They were pulling the same tricks together with Luzhkov (former mayor of Moscow),

and now they’re stealing in exactly the same way together with

Sobyanin, Khusnullin, and that whole

gang.

This guy gives 25 million rubles

for a Bentley, and bang—gets a contract worth 3

billion rubles in return. I mean, it’s just so

blatantly obvious. They literally

wrote it into their own disclosure. I just don’t

know what would have to happen. That’s why,

when people ask me whether it will be hard

Alexei,

to fight corruption in the future—the answer is:

very easy. Very, very easy for me

to fight corruption, because based on

this disclosure alone,

I’ll put away both Resin and Slutsky right away,

and this Yeshua guy, and all the others who

wrote up the contract. They spelled all of this out.

This is exactly

what an organized criminal group looks like.

If someone gives you an interest-free loan

of 25 million rubles for 10 years,

tax inspectors will be all over you,

because that’s income

in kind: if someone gives you money

interest-free, then basically

that means you’ve effectively been

given income, because money

has value—they lend it at interest in

banks. It’s obvious that this is

a disguised bribe. It’s not even that

well disguised, and yet they still wrote it down,

and everything is fine for them. Now let’s see how

the State Duma (lower house of Russia’s parliament) will

wriggle out of this—Volodin in particular, and

Zhirinovsky, and everyone else—because,

it’s all written down right here. It’s not just

some ordinary document handed to us from

Rosreestr (Russia’s property registry) and so on, and the Duma tells us

it doesn’t know what this is. But now the whole thing,

strictly speaking,

is based on a disclosure form

that is sitting right there in the State

Duma. So keep an eye on what

happens.

Novaya Gazeta (independent Russian newspaper) published something great today.

Gazeta.

It’s basically scenes from the life of the new

aristocracy. Medvedev, our favorite,

has a head of security. You all know about

Putin’s head of security, all those golden

palaces and so on. Well, Medvedev has one too,

—our head of security is

this kind of

general, Mikhail—General Mikhail Mikheev.

And Novaya Gazeta filmed his house.

Let’s take a look at what the house of this

general from the security services looks like.

In theory, as a general, he should be under scrutiny from the FSB and the Interior Ministry,

and Medvedev himself, of course, and all the various agencies

tasked with fighting corruption.

They know that this general has

a dacha of this size. Novaya Gazeta

first filmed it from above.

How did they know it was his

dacha? They brought him a letter,

like a postman delivering mail from Novaya Gazeta.

Let’s watch. Sources told us that

the head of security for the country’s number two official, General

Mikhail Mikheev,

has settled in an elite village outside Moscow.

After reviewing documents from

Rosreestr,

we found no property registered directly to General Mikheev, but next to

FSO (Federal Protective Service) land in Razdory,

we found a plot belonging to Natalia Mikheeva,

measuring 1 hectare (10,000 square meters), and we also found

a sizable mansion in the classical

style, with two wings and columns,

with an area of nearly 1,500 square

meters. A house of similar size in this

area costs more than 1 billion

rubles. To determine whether the general has anything

to do with this estate, we decided

to deliver a letter in his name

right to the gates of the gated community.

Hello, delivery for Mikha—

Mikheev. Hello, guys, there’s a delivery here right now

for Mr. Mikheev.

Delivery. Could you come to the gate?

Please sort this out—someone will come to you now.

He’ll come over to us. Be so kind, driver,

to hand over the correspondence—the delivery.

[inaudible]

That’s right, boss.

[applause]

The man built an enormous

palace—a gigantic palace on

Rublyovka (an elite area outside Moscow). It’s all right there,

all nearby. All these FSB generals live there.

Here’s the guy responsible for fighting

corruption—he has a palace like that. And here’s

the guy responsible for security—he has

a palace like this. And they all

go over to each other’s places for shashlik (barbecue), and they’re trying

to form this so-called new aristocracy,

whose foundation is

illegal enrichment.

Naturally, can we really expect an anti-corruption drive

from people lower down—from the subordinates,

from, say, this general’s underlings,

from Medvedev’s ordinary security guards, from

some police officer riding around in

a patrol car? They look and say:

what’s this, these huge chambers with columns?

Oh, that belongs to a top general. Where did he get the

money? It’s obvious it’s bribes, obvious

that it’s corruption—and open corruption at that.

By the way, we will demand

that at the very least they answer

the question. I think Novaya will demand an answer too:

where did he get the money for all this?

About the money—let him answer, or let him say so.

I don’t want to answer that question, and in

closing, I wanted to talk a little about

politicians and going abroad, and I kind of

have a personal reason to

discuss it, because there has been a fairly

pleasant

event in our family: my daughter

who is in 11th grade, was admitted to

Stanford University. The admissions process

is a stressful period, and I remember my own

admission—it was all fairly

painful. Back then it was still Soviet times

(the USSR era).

But now, as I’ve seen, it has become

absolutely no less painful—if anything,

even more so: a ton of exams, a ton

an unbearable number of tests, all sorts of

papers, and everything else.

Nevertheless, she got in. I recorded a short

video—let’s listen.

Hi everyone, Dasha Navalnaya here.

And today I have a small

announcement—small, but quite important

and joyful. For the past few months,

all I’ve been doing is sending applications to

admissions offices and, with my heart in my throat,

waiting for replies.

And today I want to share with you

some very happy news—my own

joy. I did it—yes, yes, I got into

Stanford University. I’m incredibly

happy about it, and it’s an enormous honor for me. I

will try to be a good student,

to learn a lot of new things, and when I return

back to Moscow,

to become a useful member of society. This is actually

a good reason to

discuss the overall situation in Russia

with Russian education, and in general

to discuss whether politicians’ children can

study where they want, where they cannot study, and I’ve

received quite a lot of questions.

Questions came in asking why your Dasha went

to Stanford University rather than somewhere else.

And the answer is very simple:

she went there because—let’s

look at the rankings, the global university rankings.

I would be very happy

if, among the first—if in the top

five, there were Russian universities. But we see

that Stanford is here in

second place in the global

world ranking.

Let’s look for where the, mm-hmm, best

Russian university is—it’s in 95th place. That’s a very

sad story. But Dasha applied to

a large number of

universities and sent her

documents there. If she hadn’t gotten into Stanford,

she would have gone somewhere worse, then maybe

somewhere even worse, applying here and there, and then

well, maybe she would have gotten into somewhere in

Russia. But you must admit, it would be rather

stupid if you got into a university

ranked number two

and then chose not to go there, and instead enrolled at a university

ranked 122nd.

The point is that, in fact, by now

there is no such thing as

American universities, European universities, and

Russian universities—there are global universities, and

we can see that for us things are very, very

grim in this respect. But if the best Russian

university is in 95th place, and beyond that in the

top 100 there is nothing else—though in the

top 200 there are a few decent

Russian universities—three in the world’s top 200, and

whether it’s two or three Russian universities,

it’s a fairly catastrophic situation.

It simply shows how badly

we are spending our money in the wrong place, because

a university is not just about students, right?

It is a research center, a center

of progress. And it turns out that in Russia we

currently have no centers of progress. Why not?

Because United Russia members (the ruling pro-Kremlin party) are sitting there.

Take any Russian university—pick any one.

Take Sadovnichy, for example, same story—United Russia. What

is he doing? Developing his university? No, he is

with Putin’s daughter

developing some kind of

project where they will build

real estate and make money from

that real estate.

That is what, unfortunately,

Russian higher education has degenerated into. By the

way, Medvedev, my favorite, had

a very sound idea several years ago: why not

select Russian students and

if they can get into

the world’s leading universities, no matter

where they are located, Russia would

pay for them and send them there. When I myself

was at Yale University, I saw

a huge number of, for example, Chinese students. The thing is

that the Chinese

send students abroad by the tens of thousands. They have

flooded American universities,

Swiss ones, universities around the world—wherever you like—because

that is how they scoop up knowledge.

But for some reason Medvedev did not

develop that program. Instead, they started pouring money into

these strange

funds and strange projects at Russian

universities, which unfortunately do not work for

education—they simply work for

siphoning off that money. It is very

sad. One separate thing I wanted

to say—it shocked me, really, it’s just

a curious fact that will

again be about Putin. Back when I was still

at Yale, a woman from the

admissions office came up to me and said, “Alexei,

why is it that so few people apply from Russia?”

I said, “Well, isn’t it obvious why?” She

said, “No, it isn’t.” I said, “Because you are

very expensive, and in Russia simply no one

won’t be able to pay, and over there it’s $50,000, $70,000, or even $80,000

a year just for tuition.

your wonderful universities. And she looked at me

with these wide, bulging

eyes and said, “You have this idea

as if you were living back in 1950.”

Eighty percent of the students at our

university don’t pay a single

kopeck for tuition. I mean, yes, if you go to the

website, you’ll see tuition listed at $50,000

or, at Stanford, $80,000.

But they don’t actually pay it, because

the university

pays for those students itself. Right now, the way

these major centers are financed

works like this:

wealthy people—like our oligarchs (ultra-rich businessmen with political ties), except they don’t

buy, as I said earlier today,

football clubs; over there, they

consider it prestigious to donate to

universities. Universities have oceans of money, and

I was curious to see how all this

actually works in practice. So she got in, and of course

there was no way I could pay $80,000

for tuition. I thought there would be some

fairly complicated system—that you’d

have to apply for some kind of scholarship,

submit piles of documents, or ask for a tuition grant.

But over there it’s all super simple now.

You just send the university directly

your documents. So I went to the bank and got my

account statements showing three years of transactions,

and my wife got the same

statements.

We sent them over, and the university replied:

“Yes, you’re basically poor, and your family income

is less than $120,000 a year,

so tuition is free for you.” In other words,

even with what is actually a fairly

decent income by my standards in

Russia, for an American university

that income is considered low. And if you earn

less than $60,000 a year, your

family’s student will even

be fed, housed,

given free accommodation and free tuition. And we keep

calling this terrible capitalism.

The main thing is to get in, and then the university

will pay for you. And this is the kind of

system

we should absolutely be striving for. We should

be striving to make our education system

structured

on a global scale, so that foreigners would come here too,

and so that we ourselves might even

pay for their studies

because what matters to us is that talented

young people simply come here,

talented kids.

So, honestly, I’ve said many times

that I don’t see any problem

with the children of officials, United Russia members (the Kremlin-backed ruling party),

and so on studying abroad or anything

like that. Education is wonderful. What I

do see as a problem is hypocrisy: when you

run around shouting, “Our education

is the best in the world,” but then send your own children

abroad. Or when you run around shouting that this

godless West—this “Gayrope” (a derogatory Russian propaganda term for Europe)

—is full of who knows what, assaults, just

I don’t know, a child is born and immediately

they force them into entering a homosexual

marriage.

Horror! Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris is burning,

which means

the decline of Europe. But at the same time, you

send your own family to live in Paris.

That’s the hypocrisy. And our Khabarovsk штаб (regional campaign office) this week released what I think is a perfect

investigation this week,

one that, it seems to me,

illustrates not just corruption, but also

monstrous hypocrisy. Please watch it.

I’m not just promoting it

because our Khabarovsk office released it,

but because it’s genuinely an incredible story.

The former mayor of Khabarovsk sat for nine years,

basically, in Khabarovsk itself,

and it turns out that all that time he was stealing money.

He invested that stolen money in

the United States and bought six houses in California there.

At the same time, in order to

keep his green card,

it turns out that in Khabarovsk he

was living only 160 days a year; he needed

to spend 190 days a year

in the States so as not to lose his green card.

He lived there, while at the same time being a member of

United Russia, serving as mayor of Khabarovsk, and

making statements that America

would destroy us. Let’s listen—it’s very

interesting and funny—how this

crook calls on people to rally around Putin.

The whole world is more

—to emphasize, the entire so-called leader of the world

community—is unhappy that Russia

has become, in almost every respect,

Huge sums go into the budget of the United

States—out of four trillion,

800 billion, correctly, goes to the Defense Ministry.

Or they don’t like the fact that today already

—[unclear fragment]—

and the president can decide, who is

the most strong-willed

for our country.”

A man who—well, you just look at this in

amazement and think, damn,

what a guy. Over his entire time in public service,

if you add up his income, it comes to about $1

million. And during that same time, while he

was telling these fairy tales about how

the Pentagon,

America wants to seize us, and only

Putin will protect us, he invested $6 million

—which we understand perfectly well where he got from—

in America. He would give speeches and

talk about how awful Americans are,

after which he would get on a plane and fly back to

his own place there.

He had a house in California, in San Jose, for his son.

In Washington State, he would fly to America and live there.

for 190 days a year, and then

he would come back here so that, with United Russia,

he could steal and tell us about the terrible

America. Let's watch a small excerpt from our

investigation by our штаб (campaign office) in Khabarovsk.

Let's watch it. The full version is about 40 minutes long.

Find it and watch the whole thing — it's great.

For now, here's a minute of it. In 2004, the mayor's wife,

Leonora Maksimovna Sokolova, bought

in Irvine,

a house for 623,000

U.S. dollars. In 2005, she bought another

house in Irvine for $680,000.

The deal was done using the same scheme:

$200,000 was paid upfront, and for the rest

they took out a 30-year mortgage, but a year later

the loan was paid off in full. And in 2007,

Leonora Maksimovna and her younger daughter

Elena bought a third house in Irvine for

$750,000. In 2014,

Elena needed a home of her own

in a suburb of San Francisco. The house, 153

square meters (about 1,647 sq ft), cost Elena

Sokolova

more than $1 million, and now

realtors estimate the house at nearly

$1.5 million. Probably because

the family was growing, they bought

a second house in San Jose in April 2018.

The house, with an area of 108 square meters (about 1,163 sq ft),

cost nearly $1.2 million.

The mayor's son, Alexei, also

needed somewhere to live, and in March 2018

he bought a house in the U.S., in Washington State: 180

square meters (about 1,938 sq ft), 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, for

$660,000. While studying documents from

Khabarovsk City Hall, we noticed

that Alexander Nikolaevich Sokolov

to put it mildly, rarely showed up at his

workplace. We decided to calculate how much

time per year the mayor of Khabarovsk was away.

Every year, Sokolov consistently

was absent from work for approximately

six months.

One of the conditions for renewing an American green

card is that its holder must reside

in the United States for at least 180 days

per year. I'm genuinely curious how this

was arranged. He's the mayor of a major

city, and the leader of the local United Russia party,

and they'd say something like, well, what's his name,

some Nikolai Palanych or whoever,

"Come on, we've got a United Russia

political council meeting here." And he'd say, "Guys, I can't,

I need to stay here until the end of the week

here in the States, in San Jose,

and then I'll come." "Fine, we'll move the meeting,

but first

come speak at a rally in support of

Putin, then back to America, then to the

United Russia political council,

then for half an hour to Khabarovsk City Hall

to do a bit of governing, and then off again for a month,

disappearing into San Jose. And

this went on for years. Well, if the head of

our штаб (campaign office), Vorsin, found all this and

released a film about it, then surely the

Khabarovsk branch of the FSB (Russia's security service) couldn't have failed to

know. The man was simply

crossing the border — they would obviously see

that he was crossing it constantly, that while

serving as mayor of the city and as a United Russia man, he spent most

of his time living in America, that he had a

green card. Of course they knew.

United Russia knew all of this, but they

went to rallies

and to their meetings and told everyone

how terrible it all was. And when there were

the "He Is Not Dimon to You" rallies, those same people

in Khabarovsk — those crooks — were arresting people and

saying that your rallies

— I remember Khabarovsk very well, it's a protest-minded

city — that your rallies

were paid for by the United States.

That was being said by that very Sokolov, a fraudster,

who at the same time

was pulling out money, sending it to San Jose, and

flying there himself to live. I can imagine how

he laughed about it with his wife and his

children, retelling those

stories about how the State Department and the CIA

were financing protests in Russia. Watch the

investigation.

Subscribe to Smart Voting.

So you can vote against United Russia. I'll finish

— yes, I'll wrap up with

an absolutely astonishing story. So, in the

Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (a region in northern Russia),

you know, that Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug —

swamps and tundra, and basically nobody

lives there, just a tiny number of people.

Practically no one. And there's a local

resident there named Eiko Serot, and he's a

local activist with a protest mindset.

And not long ago there was some kind of

brutal murder of a man named

Nikolai Krotov, or something like that.

And really, it's lawlessness there. The indigenous

population is tiny — damn it, it's just

a few hundred people, this indigenous

population.

And they are demanding fishing quotas be granted to them

and that employment be provided.

In short, they are demanding that the murder of this

reindeer herder be investigated.

So he decided to gather people in the tundra and

discuss it, and on March 27 he gathered 36

reindeer herders and fishermen — note, in the tundra.

I mean, it's quite a funny

picture, like something out of a joke: there in the tundra,

36 fishermen gathered. And what does our

government do? Nobody was bothering anyone, but they

were just standing there in the tundra.

They opened a case over an illegal

rally — that is, an illegal gathering in the

tundra.

The reindeer herders and fishermen—I wonder what exactly

they wrote there: "obstructing citizens' passage"?

That ambulances can't get through, that they blocked

traffic for reindeer, or what?

That they insulted the memory of Marzhi's mother, or...

Who could you 36 reindeer herders possibly have inconvenienced in

the tundra? Did they get in Putin's way, Vladimir

Vladimirovich's?

United Russia's, and this whole government

that simply can no longer leave anyone

alone?

Including reindeer herders and fishermen, whom it will

cover with this wave of abuse, and which will keep

coming after you. You can run from it to the tundra, and

even there they will come to you and say: "You are

obstructing citizens' passage."

So there's no need to run from them; we need to

meet them here in Moscow and in St. Petersburg

wherever you live, meet them there.

Register and take part in Smart Voting.

Let's give them a fight. We have an anniversary this

coming Saturday.

Well, actually, today.

This is our anniversary program—it's been exactly two years

since the program first aired. It used to be called "Navalny

2018," and now it's called

"Russia of the Future." I think it's a great

thing we've created, even though the outcome wasn't

obvious. I am tremendously grateful

to all of you who watch this program.

I'm tremendously grateful to our entire close-knit

team that makes this program.

It seems to me that with its help, we are breaking through

censorship a little, and we will continue

to do so. Thank you all very much. Until next

time.

[music]