Text version
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Hi, this is Navalny with a special bulletin.
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A special edition, because thanks to our
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work, none other than
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Alisher Usmanov has become a video blogger — one of
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Russia’s richest oligarchs, one of
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the richest people in the United Kingdom, and, in
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our view, a bribe-giver, a corrupt man,
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a fraudster and a crook. He recorded
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a video address to me in which he says
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that he is the most honest man in
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the world. And he wraps it all up with this idea:
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“Lyosha, you will answer to me.”
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Dear Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov, of course
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I will respond. And I will explain point by point, and I will remind you
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and tell everyone else
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what a crook you really are. And I assure
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you that my words will be more
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convincing. But so there can be no
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talk that I am responding from a channel
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with a large number of subscribers while you
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are a beginner video blogger, on my channel I
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want to publish in full the address to
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me by Alisher Burkhanov — sorry, Alisher
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Burkhanovich Usmanov. Watch it and wait
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for our response. Thank you. Good afternoon.
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Alexei Navalny, my name is Alisher
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Usmanov. I mean that our lawyers
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will now sort things out in court, while you, as
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always, will turn this into a deceitful
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PR stunt and fill people’s heads with nonsense. Still, I decided
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it was necessary for me to make this
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video address to those people who
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may still think that you are telling
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the truth. Their opinion matters to me.
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Especially since I have a much
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deeper connection to the internet than you do. I do not
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just use it — I develop it. I think it is time
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to call you what you really are.
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Especially since you yourself have long
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been asking me to do that. You say and
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ask that Alisher Usmanov call you
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a scoundrel. So now, sit down
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comfortably. I will try calmly, without
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rushing, to explain to people why that is
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exactly what you are.
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A scoundrel, in my view, is a person
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who knows no other way than to speak filth about others.
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You possess this skill
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magnificently — to a degree that even exceeds
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all human norms. You lie that I am
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a criminal and that I am trying to hide the fact that I served time
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in prison. Let’s start there. I have
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nothing to hide. Unlike you, I spent years in
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prison, and on charges that were genuinely
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for theft of socialist property (a Soviet-era criminal charge),
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which I did not steal, and for a bribe that I
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never gave to anyone. Once again, you
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said that I served time for
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rape. In other words, with this
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manipulation of legal articles and words, you immediately
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wanted to erase the line between a person and
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a monster. You shout on every corner that you are
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being harshly persecuted by a cruel government. Oh,
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how cruel it is.
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Why, you spent a whole 24 hours in jail — one
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night, from what I heard. So under such a
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cruel government, you spent in prison
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one night, while I, under a gentler government, for absolutely
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nothing, served six years on a completely
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nonexistent case. By the way, they say you
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completed some kind of law courses there,
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all the more so at such a prestigious institution
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as Yale. Apparently, you clearly were not studying
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science there.
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You were preparing for the political career that
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you are trying to pursue today.
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Because if you were a real
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lawyer, then you would know that
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a person who has been fully
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rehabilitated — and not at his own
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request, but by decision of the country’s Supreme Court —
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is not
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a criminal. If a person is rehabilitated
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on the grounds of the absence
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of the elements
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of a crime, then of the two of us, the criminal is
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you.
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Today you are under a court sentence
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and serving a suspended sentence.
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Moreover, you also violate
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administrative rules. Now, moving on.
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You lie when you say that the source of my
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wealth was the largest privatization
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deals.
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That is a lie. You say that I took,
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stole Soviet mining and processing
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plants. The loans-for-shares auctions, as far as I
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remember, ended in the 1990s. For your
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information, I never took part in a single one of them,
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nor in any subsequent
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privatization deals either. You have generally
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chosen an unfortunate target for
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discrediting the image of a Russian
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businessman — this is not the case. Our first
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deal in 2004 was a record one, and
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the amount we paid for
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Mikhailovsky GOK (a mining and processing plant) was more than
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$1.5 billion, of which
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$500 million was raised by us, the shareholders, ourselves
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from our own funds, and $1 billion was given to us
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by a bank, and we repaid that loan
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on time.
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By the way, after that, the Lebedinsky and
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Oskol plants we bought
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for 2.5 billion Swiss francs in
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200_.
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I want to say that you are lying
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when you say that we received for free
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from someone, by chance, as a gift,
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all these assets. Not to mention that
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there are other assets in which I
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invested — the deal with MegaFon,
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Mail.ru, with
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Odnoklassniki and VKontakte — these are certainly
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not Soviet enterprises, and this is certainly not
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theft. All these investments, Alexei, I
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made in 2008, and the amounts of all these
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transactions are reflected in these documents. You, as
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you always lie
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whether
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always
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to the previous owners of this business
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to private individuals, to legal entities, now
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about jobs—when you lie, you
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you lie yet again that I did not create
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a single job; you simply don't, don't
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know, because over 10
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years of my leadership of these
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enterprises
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in technology and infrastructure
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of the enterprises, more than 800 billion rubles were invested; do the math
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using the average exchange rate and you'll understand how much that is. It's even
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awkward to say, and this
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modernization—was it funded by the Soviet
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government? Maybe by Gosplan (the Soviet state planning committee), or maybe
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someone left me the Party's gold (a reference to alleged hidden Communist Party funds)? Or maybe
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after all, it was I and my partners who
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did it. Exactly. All the time you
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... Fine. I don't understand what grounds you have
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to speak like that
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The only participation in a
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state auction we had was in
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2008, when for the right to
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develop the Udokan deposit
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we paid, again, a record amount
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half a billion
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dollars, and it was the largest deal
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with the state outside the oil and gas sector
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After that, we invested almost the same amount
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in development and technical
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documentation
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and today we are already moving into industrial
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development of this deposit, by the way, with
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partners. Besides that, the most important thing is that you
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lie that I do not pay taxes in Russia. And
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where do you yourself pay taxes? Do you even
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pay taxes? As for me, I pay taxes
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only in
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Russia. I want the people you
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lie to
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and mislead to know that I declared 2.7 billion rubles
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in taxes. And over 10 years
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I paid almost half a billion dollars
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if converted at the exchange rate. By the way, regarding
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the rest of the funds that trouble you
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so much, I also want to
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say this: I sense the terrible envy of a loser
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and a failed businessman who started
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his business with kickbacks on small
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deals, apparently scheming
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I did a great many deals abroad on the
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stock exchanges of other
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countries—in London, in
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New York. I paid excellent amounts
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in taxes on that, as I
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said, and the profit I
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earned there amounted to more than 4 billion
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and a half dollars. So, out of that money
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in addition to taxes, I gave another billion
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to charity and simply
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to helping people
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Are those bribes too? But as for the rest, if
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you are very
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interested, I simply want to
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explain this to you so you wouldn't be jealous: I bought
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everything I have, including
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a wonderful yacht and an airplane, because I
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actually live happily, Alexei, unlike
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you. You lie. And next, when you
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say that I give bribes, you
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should understand: bribes are not registered with the
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Registration Chamber
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they are not paid openly, and money is not transferred from one's own
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account. You really should stop reading
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books on real estate, land
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ownership, and so on. Because in
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them it sometimes happens that people are paid not
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only for making a deal, but for
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not making one. And this whole story with
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the land and the house is a huge, many-year
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multi-stage, so to speak, saga in
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which there were
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different sides, and I had to pay not because
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the deal happened, but so that it would not happen
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between them, and each one had to be paid
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one with assets so that he would give up
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the profit he wanted to make on his
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money, another with loans and money so that
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he would cede the land, and in the end
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everyone got what they
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wanted—that is what this was about
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by the way, all the registration
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documents are publicly available. But as for
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the commercial terms of the deal
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I do not consider it necessary at all to report to you
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—that would be too much honor. And in general, you
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should really investigate more deeply somehow
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for example, Alexei, you
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claim again something untrue: that we have no mines. Well,
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you could at least have found out that we employ
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miners, and by the way the salaries of these
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miners are much higher on average than in the
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region—by as much as half—and much higher
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than in other regions of Russia, although in
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principle it is impossible to understand how one can
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compare wages in Russia and the United
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States of America, whose economies differ
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by a factor of 10
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times in scale, purchasing power, and so on
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and other factors. If, with this
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low level of understanding, you intend to go
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into politics, I think that is very dangerous. You
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will definitely make a mistake somewhere, so
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please apologize. Stop pulling
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scattered facts out of context and constructing
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a picture that suits
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your life. To someone like
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you, it is impossible to prove that I am a criminal
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that I am a thief, that a man who throughout his
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life got everything for free, because unlike
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you, my dear, I paid for everything
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with my own labor
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abilities, and honesty, by the way. And you will never
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in your life be able to slander
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me; you don't care anyway, even if
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...
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For this video, know that I am Alisher Usmanov.
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An honest businessman, an honest man.
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Above all, the goal of people like you is this:
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Alexei Navalny is creating an image
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of a Russian businessman who knows how to do nothing
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except steal, who is incapable of anything else,
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unable to create anything. And that is also a lie, and
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your attempts to slander me are like a little mutt barking
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at an elephant. Shame on you, Alexei Navalny.