Why Abyzov was jailed, what’s happening in Ingushetia, and Kokorin and Mamaev

[music]

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

means we’re live with the program

*Russia of the Future*, and I’m Alexei Navalny

— or “Alexei, who steals grants,” as

the media in Novgorod Region called me this week

.

They got offended, along with their

governor, because we supported

the medical workers’ strike there — and we supported it

gladly, because

the medical workers won. I’ll say a little more about that

during the broadcast. Let me remind you that you

can ask me questions using the hashtag

#RussiaOfTheFuture. Post them on Twitter; they’ll

put the questions on screen, and I’ll

answer them without any censorship, without

any special selection of those

questions. You can ask

me anything. I’ll start with the fact that

today was an awesome, amazing day.

It’s always an amazing day when you’re

surrounded by a lot of people

who are on the same wavelength as you. And I

spent today with exactly those kinds of people

— today and yesterday. Yesterday we had a kind of

working meeting, and today we

re-established our party, Russia of the Future,

for the ninth time. Guys, for the ninth time, I

held a founding congress for the party.

We had people there from 56

regions — real, live people. I think

no one has the slightest doubt

that we have a large, active

regional structure, that we have

more than 500 supporters, which is what’s required

under the law on political parties. But

even so, our party is not being registered. For

eight times in a row we were denied; now for the ninth

time we’re submitting this application, and

that’s great. We’ll keep doing it. We are

completely confident in ourselves. We understand

why they won’t register us: because we would

wipe out United Russia. I mean

not just us, our party — all of us together,

you and me, all the viewers of this program — we

would simply crush them. And, well, essentially

that’s what the Kremlin is afraid of. As a kind of

reproach, people often tell me, “Well, you’re

wasting your time on nonsense with this party.

You should be doing other things. It’s obvious

they’re not going to register it.” First of all,

the situation can change. Second,

the fact that we’re trying to register a party does not

mean that we aren’t doing other things —

fighting corruption, or

holding rallies, or anything else. We have a

multi-track strategy, as always.

We do a lot of things, and we keep adding

new projects — new directions, whether it’s

trade unions or Smart Voting — but

we never abandon the old ones. If we’ve

decided and said that we would seek

party registration, then we do it. And

huge thanks to all the great people

who support our party

and came to the congress today. It was really

wonderful and great.

There are two extremely gratifying things I want

to mention. Gratifying, because I don’t like

United Russia, I don’t like Putin, I don’t like

Medvedev, I don’t like Sobyanin,

and it gives me great satisfaction when the fight against them

becomes very concrete and very

specific — real political struggle

in real elections. In our

political system, which is generally so constrained,

what can we do? We can hold rallies,

we can, here and there, on

the air, criticize them, we can release videos,

but from time to time we can

enter into direct confrontation with them in

elections. I’m always in favor of that kind of confrontation.

I did it myself in the mayoral election; I did

it in the presidential election, where I

wasn’t allowed to run. But still, you have to admit,

there was a confrontation there. And in September there will be

elections in several regions,

including Moscow.

And today Lyubov Sobol announced her candidacy.

You all know her very well. She is

one of the longest-serving employees of the Anti-Corruption

Foundation, and I’ve known Lyuba for many years. She’s

excellent.

She has an excellent background: she graduated from the law faculty

of Moscow State University

with honors. And with that degree with honors,

she didn’t go work for some corporation — she

came to the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation). Back then, there was no big team; she

joined RosPil (Navalny’s anti-corruption procurement project). She

investigated corruption in public procurement.

She’s a superb candidate, and she is running

in the city center — that’s Arbat,

Khamovniki, and Presnya. And not only those

residents, but all Muscovites in general

— and really the whole country — if, if we

manage to get her elected there as a deputy,

she’ll be a great deputy, because Moscow

is always a national-level story. Let’s watch

a short clip.

Let’s watch a bit of Lyubov’s video, where she once again

in her trademark voice tells

us that she is running in the election. This is

Lyubov Sobol: “In September, Moscow will hold

elections to the Moscow City Duma.

And I’ve decided to take part in them, in District 43.

That includes the Arbat, Presnensky,

and Khamovniki districts. I decided to run because

I want to stand against corruption and

the lies of the current authorities. At the Anti-Corruption

Foundation, that’s what I do, but elections are

an opportunity to make our voice sound

louder, and I want to use that

opportunity. Today we launched a website for

preliminary contact collection for those who

live in District 43 and are ready to support me

in the election. The link to the site is on the screen

and in the description. I understand that collecting

Collecting signatures, and the campaign itself, will be very

difficult.

But I’m ready to do it. I want to say

to Sobyanin and the other United Russia members everything

that I, and thousands of Muscovites, think. That’s why I’m

running for the Moscow City Duma and asking

for your support.

You’ve seen the link — go there and sign up.

Why am I so excited

and spending so much time on this? In the previous

program I talked about Mylov; now I’m

genuinely speaking with enthusiasm about Sobol.

Because politics is always

a confrontation between specific people, and it’s

great when there’s a candidate about whom

we know that she isn’t afraid.

They injected her husband with some kind of

substance — they ambushed him outside his building,

gave him a shot in the leg, and he blacked out. We

understand that this is being done by Prigozhin, the

so-called “Putin’s chef.” Sobol has been investigating his

activities for many years. Now she has

organized a class-action lawsuit for

the parents of the children who were

poisoned by rotten food supplied by this

same “Putin’s chef.” She’s going to wage

a real battle, and of course that

makes me happy. And I know for sure that

at least one election

campaign, I know for sure, is going to be uncomfortable

for them. There’s also Sobol, so that makes two

election campaigns where there will be

a genuinely brave, not cowardly,

candidate who will tell

the blunt truth and will truly

fight. And that’s just great,

you have to admit — even watching it is great.

I’m simply calling on everyone

to take part in all of this. Those who live in the

district should, of course, give their signatures.

Those who don’t live in the district should just follow it,

I don’t know, repost information,

support them, chip in some money. That same

Sobol — just look at how interesting things are

with the lawsuit she initiated.

Already now she has

forced Prigozhin to pay 300,000 rubles

to those parents whose children

were harmed, if they agree to withdraw

their lawsuit. In other words, she

organized a collective court complaint, and

now they’re going around to all these parents

and saying: we’re offering you, from Concord,

300,000 rubles if you withdraw the lawsuit. Like,

of course we didn’t poison your children, but if

you’re willing to drop it, we’ll pay you

300,000 rubles. You can look at her Twitter;

all the documents confirming this are there.

What’s more, now they’re already

offering 5 million rubles to break up

this lawsuit. They approached one of the parents

and said that if you make it so that everyone

pulls out,

we’ll pay you 5 million rubles.

But it’s great when politicians do

things like this. He thought he was

very cool, all-powerful — this “Putin’s chef”.

Everyone knows him; he has contracts worth 139

billion rubles.

Today, Proekt (an independent Russian media outlet) published a great

investigation about this crook. They

analyzed not only his Moscow

contracts for supplying food products

to social institutions,

but across the country as a whole, and

found that it’s the same story everywhere.

Everywhere, it’s the same: here they found

polyethylene, there worms, here some kind of

spoiled products.

This is in Leningrad Region,

Kaliningrad, Pyatigorsk, Tver — in other words, he

supplies low-quality products across the entire country

and has received 139

billion rubles from the state,

from us, from you and me. And he thought he was

really tough, super-mega tough. Then along comes

some Sobol, and she starts genuinely

kicking this man around so hard

that he’s forced to go around trying

to bribe people, paying them 300,000

rubles. Isn’t that great? It is. So

let’s follow these amazing

adventures

of Sobol, Prigozhin, and Sobyanin, and everyone

else.

And especially — by the way, I

read something this week,

a very minor news item, but I happened to see it on

Facebook and thought I should tell you about it

as an example of just how far, how utterly far,

these authorities have descended into absurdity.

So, Sobyanin — you know that he is actively pushing his

renovation program, and as part of it

they spend enormous

amounts of money on PR, feeding us a stream

of lies about how wonderfully the renovation is going.

And I saw that on social media people noticed

and started discussing how Sobyanin

came to a housewarming party for the Merzlyakov family,

or the Kurochkins, somewhere on Shchyolkovskoye Highway.

So Sergey Sobyanin arrived, and

in the traditions of the Soviet Union, they

show us: oh, an ordinary family, and to them

comes the mayor. They open the door: hello,

Sergey Semyonovich, we weren’t expecting you. He

says: hello, Kurochkins. And they

lead him inside and say: thank you, Sergey

Semyonovich.

Look what a wonderful apartment this is.

A two-room apartment.

Here we have linoleum, and here

parquet. Would you like some tea, Sergey...

we’ll make you some tea right away. Come in.

And they show us all this sickly-sweet garbage,

what a great guy he is, what a

wonderful, improved Moscow — and people noticed

it.

But strangely enough, in quite a lot of detail...

They show an apartment with lots and lots of

rooms, supposedly for a big family, like this.

An expensive kitchen.

But there’s no washing machine, and then

they show that the kitchen is arranged in such a

way that there’s a microwave with curtains hanging

over it, so those curtains would catch fire if someone

used the microwave. And there are other

small details that show this is

not a real apartment.

They really filmed it in a showroom. They either

set up some kind of separate apartment, well,

or they had just specially furnished

an empty, nonexistent apartment where no one

named Kurochkin lives. And I don’t know, maybe

some Kurochkins do physically

exist, but maybe their surname isn’t, I don’t know,

Kurochkin or Vasichkin — but I mean, it’s a complete

absolute fake.

Good Lord. With a city budget — a budget

of 2.5 trillion rubles (about tens of billions of U.S. dollars) —

you still don’t have any real Kurochkins, their

real apartment? Let their apartment

be less beautiful, maybe a bit

run-down — like a real apartment belonging to

real people. But no, damn it, they’ve taken

their lying to such a point, they’ve reached

such a level that you can’t even call it perfected —

there’s no imperfection left. My team

exposed it instantly. It’s just

the degree of contempt they have for us is such

that their PR people say: come on, give us some Kurochkins,

let’s just grab

some people, drag them into a showroom or some

apartment, and film an ideal tea party there

in an ideal apartment. And that’s what they did.

Well, they need to be hit back for this, they need

to be hit back — Sobyanin and all these scumbags and crooks,

the United Russia members sitting there in the Moscow City Duma

need to be shown: no, enough already,

stop doing this crap. For that we need

people like Sobol and Melkova.

I hope other candidates will appear too.

For that, we need

Smart Voting. Register right

now. If you live in Moscow, in Moscow or in

St. Petersburg, or in any region,

register right now, because

we have to knock United Russia out, and in order

to knock them out, the only

way is to vote

in a consolidated way. When everyone goes off in different directions,

you vote for yourself, you

vote for some other nice

candidate — we all together must

vote for one person, and then we’ll

pick off the United Russia candidates. That’s the only

way this works. Now I’m being asked here

a question.

Fini Kulise Nicula — I see a user with

that name — asks: why so many party congresses when

there’s already a lawsuit? Meaning, why do you

keep holding congress after congress when

you can appeal to the European Court?

But we have appealed to the European Court many

times. But the European Court takes years

to deliberate. Just because the name

Navalny appears in the complaint doesn’t mean

the European Court will consider

our complaint any faster.

There will be a decision, and we have no doubt that

it will be in our favor, because this is

absolutely blatant lawlessness. But we don’t

know how many years it will take, and we

still keep declaring, time and again, that

we have the right

to register our party.

Sergey Kapitonov asks:

Could they arbitrarily refuse to register

Lyubov Sobol? What do we do then? They absolutely could

refuse to register Lyubov Sobol arbitrarily, but

what’s more, I don’t want to demotivate anyone,

including Lyubov Sobol.

I think that outcome is likely,

because they’re afraid of fair

elections in this district. But I hope that

the residents of this district will understand that this is

the best option for them, and they will support

Sobol.

Does Sobyanin want someone in the Moscow City

Duma sitting there who

will go for his throat over those same

food supply contracts? Notice that

for several months now, Sobyanin has

basically been getting dragged by Sobol, and he

stays silent.

He hasn’t said a word. He only said something like,

“I’m taking the situation under personal control,” but he

says nothing about the supply contracts

for food, because it’s a scheme, because

it involves billions of rubles, and Sobyanin is

benefiting from it too.

Does he want Sobol

to win the election? Of course not. So

will they try to keep her

off the ballot? Of course they will make such an

attempt. But our task is to fight back, and our

task is to defend our candidate.

In any case, the task right now is

to collect a huge number of signatures,

and launch a powerful election campaign.

Well,

if there’s a refusal to register or something else,

then we’ll make a separate decision. I

think that, of course,

all of Sobyanin’s and United Russia’s hopes for the

Moscow City Duma elections are tied to the fact that, first,

they will falsify the results. For that they invented

online voting,

which is completely beyond public oversight. And

second, they will try not to

register candidates, because they’re

simply afraid of them. But in any case, we

must carry out our threat and

nominate strong candidates, and where we don’t

have strong candidates, support

through Smart Voting, well, simply

opposition candidates, even if they’re not quite as strong.

cool

like Sobol, but at least we

know they’re not United Russia members. Well then,

let’s talk about

arrests. Of course, the main news this

week is that this one was jailed, that one

was detained — it’s enough to make your eyes dart around.

There’s so much to discuss, and it’s just

so satisfying that they’re devouring each other, and not

a single one of them deserves even a drop of pity, because

we understood they would start eating each

other alive. We told them: you bunch of

crooks, you think you’ll always

live like this — we’ll be the ones getting jailed,

while you keep making money, because

the system supposedly protects you from us.

But the grass under your feet is running out.

Autumn has come, the economy has fallen, and

the easy pickings are drying up, the feeding base

is shrinking, and the guys have started eating each

other, and that’s wonderful. Let them eat each other. Let’s

start from the other end. The latest

arrest is Ishaev — that is, Ishaev and

Abyzov are two symbolic cases that

have happened. Let’s start with him, the former

governor of Khabarovsk Krai.

If you live in Moscow or St. Petersburg, in

the European part of Russia, the surname may

ring a bell — like, sure, we’ve heard it

before, but who the hell knows where

it’s from — somewhere way out in the Far East.

But if you live not only in

Khabarovsk Krai but in the Russian Far East

in general, then you know that

Ishaev is like Luzhkov in Moscow (Yury Luzhkov, former longtime mayor of Moscow).

If they arrested Luzhkov tomorrow,

it would mean roughly the same thing for

the entire Far East, because

Ishaev is that kind of monster who sat there since

1991 — Yeltsin appointed him back then.

He’s just a completely thieving face,

the kind of guy who ran everything — basically a gangster and

a murderer, I’d say — who did whatever

he wanted. His son seems to be just the same.

Reports say he was detained too. It’s that kind of

brazen family of entitled rich kids.

Some time ago, his grandson committed

let’s take a look — the grandson looks very

colorful, what a stylish little dude.

He caused a traffic accident.

The victim in that crash suffered serious

injuries. That’s Ishaev’s grandson right there,

a street racer type, naturally.

Of course, he got away with it. The criminal case

was closed because they supposedly

reconciled with the victim — meaning they simply

paid the victim off.

Obviously, they used administrative leverage

to pressure the police. So this is the kind of

family that did whatever it wanted.

But what kind of clout, for example, in Moscow — in

Khabarovsk Krai?

After all, Ishaev had been in power since ’91.

He has some substantial

support base. So why was he arrested?

There’s the official version, and there’s the real

version. I don’t really doubt that

the real version — and I’ll say this too — is

true.

Because, among other things,

the official version sounds genuinely

ridiculous. In the latest news, at first they said

it was about timber or something, that he

stole wood — like, he stole timber.

But that’s not actually what the criminal case is about.

It was stated that the injured party in the case was

the company Rosneft, and this

Ishaev, after he was removed from the post of

governor, was made presidential envoy, and

later became a vice president of Rosneft, and

he leased out, for the company’s representative office,

a building in Khabarovsk to Rosneft that

belongs to him through some

intermediaries. And this building has an area of, you won’t

believe it, 284 square meters.

I mean, come on, you have to admit that’s genuinely funny.

The guy was stealing for years

and years, by the millions and millions, and now they’re

charging him with leasing something out at an inflated

price.

Some ridiculous, pathetic office somewhere

in Khabarovsk.

I saw some angry posts from some

Kremlin guys: Ishaev leased out

a building in Khabarovsk

at the price of a Moscow building — my God,

what a shocking crime. Well, of course, that’s

complete nonsense. Sobyanin lays paving tiles in Moscow

at four times the price, spending

billions on it. Rosneft buys things

at roughly four times the price — so what building are we even talking about?

So why was he arrested?

Ishaev was arrested for the elections, because the governor

matters, he has some kind of

authority and still possesses

major levers of influence in Khabarovsk Krai, and

you remember that in the last election there was

a conflict between United Russia and not-United Russia,

and Khabarovsk Krai was one of

the regions where the United Russia candidate,

nicknamed Horseshoe — surname Shport — lost badly,

in a landslide. And here you see Ishaev and Shport

in this photo. And, as usual, all these

regional crooks and bosses often

pull this kind of stunt: there was a setup where

Ishaev is a United Russia man, he sort of

seemed to support the United Russia candidate Shport,

but in reality he supported the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia)

candidate Furgal, who in the end

won. Everyone knew it then, and everyone knows it now.

And in Khabarovsk Krai everyone knows it, not just

some grand political strategists,

just ordinary people. And what we’re seeing now

is a kind of public flogging.

They’re arresting him, and apparently the investigators

— I heard — are coming forward with a proposal for

house arrest, which also seems to me

to confirm this — it supports this

the version

if they had really wanted to either

jail him to boost Putin's ratings, or

for some other reason, they would at least have

gone after him properly. It would've looked angry, brutal. But here they're simply

showing all the other governors

a straightforward public flogging: oh, so you didn't

support our United Russia candidate, you were playing

some kind of political game, well then

sit in jail for a while.

So sit there. You'll be pushed away from

the feeding trough. You thought you were some heavyweight

and basically untouchable? No such thing.

No one is untouchable — you have to back our people.

Why? Again, because Smart Voting

works. I mean, before,

it wouldn't even have occurred to someone like him

to think of it

to pull off this combination — to somewhat

support this one

but in reality somewhat support

that one, because with United Russia, Putin

and everyone else used to get, bang, 60 percent right away

automatically. But now, no — now it's the opposite: if

you're not from United Russia,

bang, people will hand you 34 percent right away

because they don't want to support United

Russia. That's why Smart Voting

is working now, and all these kinds of things

are working, and the Kremlin is very afraid

that the elite will start, start playing

this kind of double game.

Anton, I see people are asking me: Alexei,

why are Abyzov's own people putting him in jail? Let's

talk about our

Mishanya Abyzov. This really is a very

interesting thing, a symbolic thing.

How does a man who was minister for Open

Government, a close associate

of Dmitry Medvedev — don't forget, Abyzov

headed Dmitry

Medvedev's council of supporters. You're probably laughing now

because, in principle, something like

Dmitry Medvedev's council of supporters

— or Dmitry Medvedev supporters בכלל — is

very strange and funny. But that's how it seems now

after our film *He Is Not Dimon to You*

(*Он вам не Димон*, an anti-corruption documentary). But in 2011 — or rather, in

2010, when Medvedev was still

president — he thought he was quite

a big deal, and he had this council of supporters, and

Abyzov was one of his closest

guys.

And now something very funny happened: as soon as

he was arrested and people started paying

a lot of attention to it, Medvedev — who has

a VKontakte account — removed him from his friends list

within an hour. I mean, really —

good Lord, what petty people. But

he headed your council of supporters. You

came up together with some kind of

idiotic Open

Government project and ran around with this Open

Government thing. A lot of people probably don't

remember, but there were meetings with bloggers

and all sorts of gimmicks — all this 'open'

government stuff.

Medvedev really loved it; it was his thing.

He was all about openness,

about open data, and they were all running around there

together. He could at least have waited a little — I mean,

why throw him out of your friends list within an hour?

Why did his own people devour him?

Well, basically,

the question we need to answer right away

is this: should we feel sorry for

Abyzov, who at first was super-cool

and now has fallen to just 'Mishanya'? If you've seen

the coverage of him in court and in the tabloids, they

actually describe a fairly

disgusting phenomenon, when journalists

under the guise of public monitoring commission members

slip in there with a camera, and the next

day headlines come out saying, 'Abyzov gave

his first interview from detention.'

But anyway, they went in to see him,

and he

while talking there with

them, was mumbling something half-asleep — he'd been

interrogated all night, and the guys with the

camera were saying, 'Come on, Mishanya,

stand up and answer the people.' And so, from

being Medvedev's super-cool friend, Misha

Abyzov came crashing down. So the question is:

should we pity him? Well, look, he doesn't

really look like such a horrible

nasty stereotypical official — not like Sechin

or Ishayev. He seems more like

an unshaven, likable

and fairly easygoing person.

I spoke with him once on the phone

or maybe even twice. He's probably the only

minister, the only high-ranking official

I ever talked to when we

submitted our initiative on combating

illicit enrichment to that very

Open Government.

The phone rang, and they said: it's Abyzov himself,

the real Abyzov, not a prankster. We actually

spoke quite politely, but he said

— well, he didn't explain why our bill was bad;

I explained to him why our

bill was good. He didn't understand anything.

I mean, he was basically playing at

this kind of democracy. Should we

feel sorry for our Mishanya? No, we shouldn't. I don't

feel sorry for any of them, and especially not for him, because

I want everyone to understand very clearly:

understand this.

Abyzov is a terrible thief and a corrupt official.

I mean, the guy literally stole everything.

Absolutely everything — anything that was lying around,

anything that wasn't nailed down, and even things that were.

He worked at RAO UES (Russia's former state electricity monopoly), and even by RAO UES standards

— and that was basically a thieves' outfit

under the leadership of the thief Chubais — even there

he was considered completely lawless. But

as a matter of fact, what they've jailed him for now is

What I described back in 2017 may

be something some of you remember.

At the time, there was a huge

scandal in Novosibirsk: utility and housing service rates were sharply increased.

They went up dramatically, and a rally was being prepared there.

It was being organized by

my colleague sitting next to me, Sergei Boyko, and I

came to that rally and spoke there, and in order

to help the people of Novosibirsk, we

did a small investigation and showed

Abyzov's real estate in Italy.

Back then,

he had an unfinished building there, and I

briefly described what the scheme consisted of.

Abyzov being summoned to court in Siberia—let's

remember.

A one-minute flashback to 2017, where I

talk about what is now being

presented to us by the Investigative Committee

as some kind of major revelation: Abyzov—

the Italian estate of a minister

in the government of the Russian Federation

—Mikhail Abyzov, the very man

who owned the entire energy sector

of the Novosibirsk Region, and now there is

an energy monopolist there, Sibeco,

which, broadly speaking, is the one raising

the rates. This monopolist is part of

Abyzov's holding through a chain of companies.

Through these

Abyzov-linked Novosibirsk energy companies,

you can trace a direct chain to the offshore structure

that owns the Italian estate.

We are looking at a plot with an area of 346,000 square meters

and an estimated value of about

750 million rubles.

The houses range in size from 200 to 630

square meters. Next we see

a tennis court.

We go around it, and immediately we are

greeted by a private golf course,

and behind it, vineyards. Right there

there is a fountain, and here is another one a little

farther away, right in the middle of the area in front of

Abyzov's houses. Slightly to the right, we can see

a huge covered garage

for about 15 cars. And of course, what kind of

estate would it be without its own

artificial pond?

I don't know what the FSB (Federal Security Service) and

the Investigative Committee were investigating there, but everyone knew this.

And it is confirmed by documents. We

knew it, and we told you about it two years

earlier. The entire energy sector of the Novosibirsk

Region—a huge chunk of the energy industry—

belonged to Abyzov, and he acquired it

through corrupt schemes, tariffs, and so on.

Everything worked for him. He simply

siphoned money from everyone, and of course he had

a scheme for moving that money abroad,

and he moved it out. And now, suddenly,

we are being told

by men in blue peaked caps, "You know,

it turns out Abyzov owned the entire

Siberian energy sector, received money from

inflated tariffs, sold something there

to the state, and moved the money abroad."

Abroad.

Really? And we, supposedly, had never

talked about this before? Even though this

Italian estate was registered to

the very same offshore entities that owned

the energy assets. And now

Abyzov

is being arrested and dragged off to prison.

Actually, what is really interesting is how he

became a rich man. He was

one of the young billionaires, and in

the Russian Forbes list they didn't much like

writing about him, because he was that type of figure:

pleasant on the surface, and at the same time close to Putin, because

he seemed relatively young,

and all our so-called liberal

intelligentsia—really pseudo-liberal—

that super-mercenary glamorous crowd—

absolutely adored Abyzov. How did this man

make his money? I'll explain briefly

once again, so that no one

is under any illusions or feels sorry for him, because

already a whole flock of various

charitable foundations are ready to post

bail guarantees for Abyzov, and Anatoly

Chubais and so on and so forth are involved. Don't

feel sorry for these people. How did he become rich? Well,

there was the gigantic energy system

of the former Soviet Union, in Russia, and it

was reformed by Chubais, who created for this purpose

the Russian Joint-Stock Company of the Unified

Energy System. And there was a separate piece

called Novosibirskenergo. It did not

fully belong to RAO UES because it

was large, very valuable, and very important.

And a large block of shares there belonged

to the local authorities, the government

of the Novosibirsk Region, and together with Abyzov they

set up a very simple scheme. Abyzov was

a local crook who handed out all sorts of

bribes to everyone. They created

artificial debt: he supposedly supplied

something to certain enterprises

in the Novosibirsk Region.

They failed to pay once, and then said,

"We can't settle with you,

so let's give you shares in

Novosibirskenergo instead." And they did. And that is how

he became the owner of all of it.

After that, he went to work for Chubais.

Anatoly Borisovich (a formal Russian first name and patronymic). And now one

of the unpleasant things is that everyone is

discussing Abyzov, but if we need

to find the person without whom Abyzov

could not have carried out these schemes and

stolen billions,

then if we want to find that person,

we need to look at photographs

from that same Italian villa. Who is standing there?

What people are there at that

villa? Well, the very same beloved...

Anatoly Borisovich

together with his wife in Tuscany at

Abyzov's villa, they are holding glasses of

champagne and discussing something. This,

this is exactly that organized

criminal group that stole everything. So,

when Abyzov had already started working under

Chubais at RAO UES (Russia’s former state electricity monopoly), as his deputy. About

this, Nilov wrote in detail in an article

he published, but overall this is a well-known

story. Anyone working in

the energy sector will confirm it for you. Abyzov

was engaged in

privatizing service companies. That is,

say, there is generating capacity,

roughly speaking, there is a power plant, and there is

a company, or a part of this

power plant

that handles servicing, repairs things,

the workers there who fix things,

but they are needed all the time, because things keep breaking down.

It’s a huge enterprise, and they decided:

let’s privatize all of it, and then on the

free market, within the framework of

competition,

other companies will appear, and then

there will be outsourcing, and the price

for these services will go down. Great idea. Abyzov was

in charge of this, and he really did

privatize all these service

companies.

And then, six months later, it turned out that

oops, they had all ended up with him.

I’m not exaggerating here — that is exactly

what happened. There was a deputy chairman who

oversaw the privatization of service

companies, and somehow they all

ended up in his personal ownership.

Then, some time later, he

bankrupted them, but in fact his

billions came precisely from that.

He simply stole everything, and all these

people — let’s look at the list

of those who came there for him

to post surety for him: Arkady

Dvorkovich, Anatoly Chubais,

Natalya Timakova. Then the philanthropists

got involved as well: Ksenia Rappoport,

Nyuta Federmesser, Chulpan Khamatova.

For some reason, I have not seen these people

posting any

sureties for anyone more or less

decent. Though, in my view, Khamatova did for

Kirill Serebrennikov as well,

she also submitted a surety there.

But for the Bolotnaya defendants (participants in the 2012 protest case), or for

ordinary people who were unjustly

put on trial, they did not post surety. But for

this complete crook, they do — and then they look on with wide

eyes, with tears standing in their eyes.

This whole situation perfectly shows

the sadness and horror of modern

Russian charity — or rather,

of the big charitable foundations. There are

many wonderful, amazing people

working there, and of course they

do a lot of good. But overall, the essence

of Russian charity

has been that people like

Abyzov steal a billion, and then

allocate 7 million rubles to charity

(about $75,000 at recent exchange rates), and we are supposed to say, oh my God,

God bless him, thank you,

thank you so much, Misha,

you philanthropist — and then kiss this

Misha and say, what joy, what

happiness. No, guys, we need to look at

this differently.

We need to remember that he stole a billion,

and we would not need any charity

at all, and all these children would be treated for free

— these kids.

If these people did not steal and

loot so much. That is why I am talking about this

for so long and in such detail. I hope

that all these people — I mean, I have no

illusions about Dvorkovich, Chubais,

Timakova, and, Lord, Voloshin was there too,

posting surety for Abyzov — well,

it is completely pointless

to appeal to their conscience, and of course they are the same

as Abyzov — members of his criminal

group. But these philanthropists

— come on, guys, you should be ashamed. I

understand that over there in Italy, together with

him, you hang out and drink champagne from

crystal glasses, but you should be

ashamed.

To post surety for this

disgusting swindler and thief. And at this hearing

there was another absolutely astonishing

thing. When I read it,

I just cried. So, they were discussing

the issue of house arrest as a preventive measure. Well,

naturally, the investigators were saying something like

lock him up, and the lawyers were saying no, don’t lock him up,

let’s do house arrest — which is normal enough,

that is what defense lawyers are supposed to do.

But then this phrase was said:

you know, let’s place Abyzov under

house arrest, because he has

apartments in Moscow and a dacha in Barvikha (an elite suburb outside Moscow),

because — and this is a direct quote from

Mediazona’s live coverage — because

summer is approaching, it will be hot, and it would be

preferable for Mikhail Abyzov to spend the

summer

period at the dacha. I do not know what

happened in the courtroom at that moment. I hope

the judge simply burst out laughing, and

even Abyzov himself, I hope, laughed too.

And then I realized where I had actually

heard something almost word for word like this before. I mean, really,

what great people writers and

poets are, how perceptive and precise

they are in capturing things about Russia, because

this whole “well, let him be under arrest,”

“but at a dacha in Barvikha” — that is practically verbatim.

quoting a famous poem 12

seconds, you all know it: "There is no war, I will accept anything"

I will accept exile, hard labor, prison, but

preferably in July, and preferably in Crimea

yes, yes, that's exactly it, I will accept anything

exile, hard labor, prison, but preferably in

July, and preferably when it will be hot at the

dacha in Barvikha (an elite suburb near Moscow), simply amazing, simply

unbelievable. As for—I see

questions. Zak Saturday.

Why did Abyzov call Medvedev when he was being arrested?

Artyom Loshchin will ask me. Well, I don't know

whom exactly he called there, whether he did at all, but with that kind of

opportunity, whom else was he supposed to

call?

He headed the supporters' committee for

Medvedev.

I doubt it. When he was arrested—I've been

arrested many times, as you know—

you don't really manage to make many

calls. I think I myself would hardly have

been able to do it quickly, but I think that

of course he did turn to Medvedev

but it didn't help him. Why was he

jailed? There are many theories. It seems to me

that some of them are completely idiotic, such as

the idea that it was somehow meant to boost Putin's ratings

or that it was an attack on Chubais. More likely, not on

Chubais.

I think it was about a narrow circle—that Abyzov had been

servicing them financially for quite

a long time. I have a very simple explanation:

it's called redistribution. They are

simply dividing up among themselves what has already been stolen,

what has already been looted. As I said, the feeding

base is shrinking. I often talk about

how everything in the country belongs to a thousand

families—well, about a thousand families—and

that whole pie is shrinking, while at the same time

things are getting worse and worse from every side.

The economy is declining, and if people's incomes

have been falling for five years in a row, then

people spend less and buy less, so everything

contracts. And those thousand families somehow

don't have enough.

They used to want to buy houses of 5,000

square meters, and now they have to tighten their belts

and buy ones of 4,500 square meters instead.

square meters. And I have no doubt there

was just some ordinary little conversation there

between some, I don't know, FSB officers

or oligarchs or Putin's friends, and they

ended up having, in a sense, a rather

"fair" conversation, like, well,

we seem to be short on money.

That Misha, Abyzov—well, he's a thief and

a crook, after all. He blatantly stole energy

assets, cheated everyone in the

market, and nobody likes him anyway. So let's take

everything from him. Would that be fair?

To take everything from Abyzov? And anyone

would answer: of course, that would be fair.

They can take everything. What's more, I

would say that, in fairness, taking everything from

Abyzov would be justified. It's just that this should not be done

by some other crooks. In fairness,

Abyzov, together with Chubais, should be

put in the dock for this

put on trial for this

corruption.

Then all of it should be returned and put back

into the market, into the market economy, so

that these would become genuinely normal

private assets belonging to normal

businesses.

They were former top managers of RAO UES (Unified Energy System of Russia),

who had been executives and then became

owners. So they

judged it according to their own underworld-style notions and reasoned as follows:

well, this businessman is a crook,

a con man and a scoundrel, and on top of that he lives in Italy.

Is it fair that he has all this?

It's unfair. Let's strip it from him, let's take it.

Then they will seize it

and sell it to some

Fridman or Vekselberg. This is being discussed

very actively.

Not just discussed actively—they have

official legal disputes between

Vekselberg and Fridman on one

side, and Abyzov on the other. Maybe

they ordered something, maybe

they paid for something—something like that. But the point

is, this is

redistribution: they take from one

another what was stolen, and the thing is, everything

was stolen. That's exactly the point: from the standpoint of their

own notions, some people are sitting there—

Putin's friends—and for any

asset, whether Lukoil or, I don't know,

Surgutneftegaz, for anything at all you can

say: come on, is it fair that it belongs to

him, to that oligarch over there? It's unfair.

Let's take it. If we take from anyone, the

public will support it. Will they

be happy that this person's assets are being seized?

They will be happy.

That's how Putin's system works. Here

there is no secure

property ownership. They devour one another, and

that's wonderful, because

first of all, once again, it is karmic

retribution for all of them, and especially for Abyzov,

who was a public figure and who

declared that our law on combating

illicit enrichment was somehow this

bad thing, unnecessary, unnecessary, and

impossible to apply. You remember—well,

some of you remember this story—

when Putin was running for election, he said that

the public should be allowed to submit

a bill, and that it would be necessary to collect, that is,

100,000 signatures. We rather quickly

collected 100,000 signatures for two

bills: one banning

officials from buying expensive cars costing

more than, say, 2 to 2.5

million rubles.

And the second point is about combating illicit

enrichment — that people who cannot

explain their wealth should

be held criminally liable, and

Abyzov was exactly the kind of person

who went around saying — and this is a direct

quote — that right now

Article 20

of the anti-corruption convention

is optional for adoption and does not fit

with Russian law because

the Constitution enshrines the presumption

of innocence. They set things up very nicely for themselves.

And I liked the article under which we

could ask, “Mikhail, explain after all

how it was that you, as a manager, ran

a huge chunk of Russia’s

energy sector, and then suddenly

became its owner? That is probably

illicit enrichment.” And Mikhail

Abyzov said that we did not need such a

law, and he thought he was untouchable,

while we would keep getting thrown in jail for 15 days at a time

and the system worked only for him. And

now he has seen that this is not so. And once

again, my formula for all these people is:

we should give them exactly as much sympathy as

they gave

to those who were jailed arbitrarily

and when people were tortured. However much sympathy

all these systemic liberals — from

Chubais to Abyzov, all these Dvorkoviches,

Voloshin, and all the rest — contributed, that same amount of

sympathy should be given to them when they

are jailed. And they will be jailed, because these

people will devour one another and take

from each other those very stolen

assets. So that your

proletarian hatred may flare up — especially since

the next topic is proletarian

hatred — I want to show you a video. It

just came in today. It is 51 seconds long.

Kaliningrad is a major city. In one of the

districts — no, wait, I am mixing it up,

I was mistaken — it is the town of Sovetsk

in Kaliningrad Region. Well, anyway, in

one district of the town they connected gas, and

now I will show you 51 seconds of what

a ceremonial

event for the launch

of gas looks like. They lit a gas flare, and

in 2019, in Kaliningrad Region,

which is, after all, located in Europe

and is our outpost there, and in

some sense even a showcase — look

at this and stop feeling sorry for Mikhail

Abyzov, because it is precisely thanks to

Mikhail Abyzov that in 21st-century Russia

the launch

of a gas connection to a district looks exactly

like this. At the gas launch and flame-lighting

ceremony, taking part is the governor of Kali-

ningrad Region, Anton Andreyevich Alikhanov,

Deputy Chairman of the Government

of the region, Alexander Semyonovich Rolbinov,

[music]

It is funny, but it is also awful: ruined

shacks, nightmarish shacks, mud — this is

just unbelievable. Poor people are standing all around.

It really looks like some kind of horrific

ghetto.

The governor’s Mercedes, the governor himself,

and some other bureaucratic mugs with him

are standing there, and “zavalinka, zavalinka, Rus’” — a little song

about old Russia. Good Lord, why do we, why

do we live like this and put up with all this? But

this really looks like

one of the most horrifyingly Russophobic

videos — a video about this government’s hatred for

its own country. The governor arrived in

his Mercedes,

in a Mercedes, to this

unpaved, filthy lot.

They connected gas there, do you understand, in 2019, and

they are ceremonially opening it with a song about

the zavalinka (a traditional bench by a peasant house), for heaven’s sake. In a country with

an unimaginable amount of money, this is how

we live — thanks to all these

wonderful oligarchs. And many people consider these

remarks of mine to be proletarian

hatred, that I am somehow stirring up

hatred toward the rich by showing, say,

someone’s villa in Italy — that this is incitement of

hatred toward the rich. And I was reproached for this

by the famous TV showman and star Maxim

Galkin, in fact one of

the most famous people in the country.

Speaking on the program “Hard Day’s Night” (a TV talk show), after

that we

had a bit of a polemic

on Instagram. I actually

give Maxim Galkin credit for the fact that he

did engage in that debate

instead of, like many others, pretending

that such a person does not exist.

Let us first watch 57 seconds of

Maxim Galkin on TV Rain (Dozhd).

Navalny has chosen for himself such a clever

path.

It fits so well with the proletarian

subconscious of the masses, because after all he

is playing on Bolshevik proletarian

hatred. In reality,

even when he exposes officials, he is still playing

the pipe of hatred toward wealth, that is,

it is all obvious — he says, “This one

acquired his wealth illegally,” but forgive me,

there are all sorts of ways people can grow rich,

and all kinds of things happen. But wait a second, with all

due respect for the work

of Alexei Navalny,

when he accuses my

television colleague Vladimir

Solovyov over his real estate, I

have a question: why are you accusing him?

He brings colossal ratings to his

channel; his channel, Rossiya-1, sells

advertising much more expensive thanks to

the existence of Solovyov on Telegram, he owes him

he owes him regardless of whether it is

a state channel or not, to pay

big money, and Solovyov has the right

to use that money to buy—playing the tune

of hatred toward the rich

What tune the hell am I supposed to play?

When I see this whole song and dance about the village bench

and I see this monstrous poverty

every day, and at the same time Abyzov with his

Italian estate, and all these

well,

Chubais-types

and Dunya Smirnova (Avdotya Smirnova, Russian filmmaker) with whom, how they

walk around there with a wine glass amid all of this

all sorts of people like Chulpan Khamatova (Russian actress) walking around—well, you

can call it

proletarian envy, if you like

call it whatever you want, but I’m talking about the fact

that yes, I really do find it somehow

deeply unfair that these people

robbed everyone here, and then here they are

sort of setting aside for us

some pennies so that, well, there

some of your children, who will be

luckier, can get into our

charity foundations and get treatment there

and

but overall, of course, you continue

to make us pay—let the Novosibirsk Region

keep paying an inflated tariff so that

Abyzov can keep getting money. That is

my tune. If that’s proletarian hatred, I don’t

mind, by the way. Back then as well

people in Novosibirsk already fought it off thanks to

Boyko

thanks to the people who came out to the

rally; even then the mayor, the Communist

Lokot (Anatoly Lokot, former mayor of Novosibirsk), by the way, ended up supporting this

rip-off operation and supported Abyzov then

but if you want, I played in front of him

yes, I played the tune of hatred toward

wealth—I showed that Italian

estate of Abyzov’s, and somehow they

backtracked. Not enough, but still

I find it not just unfair but

disgusting, and I will never stop

talking about it, and yes, I will keep stirring up

hatred toward these people who

became rich unjustly and unrighteously

who got rich simply through

theft. As for

Vladimir Solovyov, basically our

further argument with Maxim Galkin (Russian comedian and TV host)

came down to this: he says, well

fine, officials are officials, but why are you

going after Vladimir Solovyov, because he is

a top professional, he has high ratings

and he brings in a lot, a lot of money

to his channel. Even when I objected and

said that he brings in nothing—the money

for the channel comes from us, because the channel

Rossiya-1 is deeply unprofitable, and you and I

pay 17 billion rubles a year (about hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars) there

to keep this thug outfit afloat

including the disgusting Solovyov

Galkin said, well, still

he gets ratings, so that means

he’s a talented host. I noticed

that many people started nodding along like that

even Sobchak (Ksenia Sobchak, Russian media personality) came in and wrote: yes, I

don’t agree with him, but what a talented

Vladimir Solovyov he is

So, well, this is going to be a strange

video, because I’m going to be sitting in the corner

of this video now. I can’t do otherwise, because

the Rossiya-1 channel sends us strikes

if we cut out clips of Solovyov and his

disgusting lies, so under the rules

of YouTube, if I sit here like this

in the corner of the video, they won’t be able to

hit us with a strike. But I’d like to show you something about

Vladimir Solovyov’s professionalism

Many have probably noticed this

in his programs, in particular

Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, he invites

all kinds of monstrous

trash

who call themselves experts. This

monstrous trash lies monstrously, and Solovyov

nods along with them. But here is one absolutely super

super lie that really caught my attention

Let’s watch 45 seconds, and I’ll sit in the

corner—just wonderful

“In response to a Western journalist, our

great Russian actor Yevgeny Leonov

was asked, ‘Have you ever been abroad?’

‘Sure—Poland, Czechia, Germany.’

‘As a tourist?’ ‘No, in infantry.’ But this, this is

an objective fact, yes, it is recorded in

that very interview for Western mass

media.”

“Why?” “I went on foot.” “Ivan Vasilievich, one

moment—an objective fact, yes,”

“recorded in that very interview for

Western mass media.” And

these bastards are just lying to your face. It’s the comedy *Thirty-Three*

Probably many younger viewers of this

program haven’t seen it, but people

my age and older have all

seen this comedy, without exception, and know perfectly well

that first of all, Leonov is one of the most

famous—possibly the most famous

Russian actors

He did not fight in the Great Patriotic War (the Soviet term for World War II on the Eastern Front), because

he was too young then. He

worked at a military factory, and this is

a famous dialogue from the Soviet comedy

*Thirty-Three*, about a man who had three

teeth

so everyone thought he was an alien

and these scoundrels took this dialogue

and presented it as if it were an interview, meaning

an interview with Leonov—an ‘objective fact’

that he supposedly told foreign journalists

and Solovyov, the greatest professional, just

goes, ‘Yes, yes, yes, that happened, that happened.’

Now that’s professionalism.

the endless lying he engages in

taking advantage of the fact that all the real ones were pushed out

Parfyonov was kicked out, Kiselyov was kicked out, who

the good Kiselyov was kicked out, Savik Shuster was kicked out

no, all the others too—Svetlana Sorokina and

and so on and so on

all of them were gradually

driven out—some moved to Ukraine, some

gradually simply stopped working there

as journalists, some went to YouTube and

have done quite well there, like Parfyonov

and he continues making documentary

films there and so on. But when they were all

on television, Solovyov was there too, but he occupied the place

he was supposed to occupy—he was of no interest to anyone

just a [__] third-rate host, and

now, since he has no one to compete with

there he is everywhere, on every program, as far as

I can tell, he’s already peddling this garbage of his every

evening. Why? Because he’s ready

to lie twice as much. He’s ready to lie and

to nod along, saying that a dialogue from a famous

comedy was actually a documentary

interview that was given to foreign

journalists. This vile

clown, this so-called expert Kulikov, the

next day—since it really caused a stir—

he was pressed on it and told, well,

you’re lying, and he admitted it, saying,

I misspoke, then remembered—but that

doesn’t change the meaning, because it’s

a cultural archetype.

But the fact is, that ‘slip of the tongue’ was just

unbelievable, you understand—he simply lied.

And this Putinist

expert tells us all this was somehow about

cultural archetypes. Vile

disgusting crooks. So, what is happening

in Ingushetia (a republic in Russia’s North Caucasus), in Ingushetia?

Is there an uprising in Ingushetia, or

unrest in Ingushetia? In Ingushetia

something is happening connected with the fact that

people have had enough—they were insulted, humiliated, and they

did not calm down and did not fall silent, because

the last protests there were four

months ago, and they were connected with the fact that

part of Ingushetia’s territory was handed over

you can’t even say it was handed to the Chechen

Republic

but more specifically to Ramzan Kadyrov, and

no one explained what had happened. There were

protests, and in various ways they were

somehow shut down

people were deceived, strung along, but

then they came out again and acted quite

aggressively. Let’s watch a few

videos, and when you watch them

you understand that this really is

serious. Let’s play 49 seconds—this is Magas,

the capital of Ingushetia—this is what’s happening there.

[applause]

uh

uh

[music]

yes

uh

how

And someone might say that this is

outrageous—throwing chairs at

police officers. But I would say, you know,

what’s outrageous is that they were even

being dispersed at all. Why the hell can’t the residents of Magas

who live there, in Ingushetia,

why can’t they gather in their own

main square and ask a question:

Explain why part of our territory

was handed over to someone.

They have every legal right to do that, absolutely.

Absolutely. Why should you disperse them, and

should they be throwing chairs? How else

are they supposed to react to lawlessness?

What’s lawless is that across the entire

republic, mobile internet was shut off.

I mean, that’s just some kind of extreme

boorishness, so that people couldn’t

contact each other, send these

videos, and among other things make it harder

for these videos to reach the rest of

the country. Someone called all

the major companies there

the ‘big three’ telecom operators and said, you know,

cut the internet, and they said okay and

cut the internet. People, apparently, paid for that.

There are service terms and conditions.

Half a million people live in the republic.

How can they just go ahead, without a court

order, and switch off the internet? But they did. Go ahead,

watch this 27-minute clash that

is happening there, which shows it

from a slightly different angle—just look at what they’ve

driven these people to. Twenty-seven seconds, let’s roll it.

[applause]

[music]

38,000 people are watching us live

right now. I hope that among them there are

at least some residents of Ingushetia

whom I absolutely want to support and

express my solidarity with, because you

see, we—we’re not in Ingushetia, you

have never been there, just like me, for example, yes, you

don’t know exactly what’s happening, but we can see

some very simple facts.

Part of the territory has been transferred. No one explains why.

Everyone more or less understands that there’s either

oil there or something else—someone wants

to make money, and as I already said

earlier on this program, it’s simple:

Kadyrov wants to make money for

some of his oil people or someone else; he

made a deal about it with Yunus-Bek Yevkurov

but then come out and say it openly: you know,

we decided to make money off this territory

but we’ll share some of it, so to speak,

with you. After all, only 500,000 people live in Ingushetia

altogether—we’ll do something for you. But

no, instead they were told: just shut up.

And this Yevkurov comes out and starts up this

that so-called Caucasian masculinity

it was basically this idea that here in the

Caucasus, you must not go out into the streets, and that it's

beneath the dignity of a real man,

to go out there and demand something.

Apparently, what is worthy of a real man

is quietly selling off part of your land.

And now,

what's most remarkable and absolutely right is that in

Ingushetia, the people taking part in these

protests are already putting forward political

demands. They are demanding Yevkurov's resignation,

they are demanding the dissolution of the government, and they

are demanding the return of direct elections for

the governor. In other words, they are demanding

democracy, popular rule. They are demanding

that their voice be returned to them. So, well,

of course their demands are right. When

they come out and block the Kavkaz highway, well,

we understand that, of course, some people are stuck there,

and

and probably for those who found themselves in that situation

it's extremely unpleasant. But what else are they supposed to

do? Those 30 seconds while they

block the Kavkaz highway

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

And these videos are nowhere to be seen, and on

television they aren't shown, even though in reality

the republic is in an uproar. I mean, for a republic of 500,000

people,

these are very, very large and significant

protests. They matter to all of us.

By the way, there's a very widespread

opinion that nothing will ever work out in Russia

because there is this supposedly terrible

Caucasus, where people are supposedly even more

corrupt, where the tradition of corruption

is supposedly even stronger than in the rest of

Russia. That is partly true, because

the Caucasus is indeed even more susceptible to feudalization,

even more so. But look: in Ingushetia

they are demanding democracy right now. In five

days, a new rally has been scheduled; it will be on

Monday, and I hope that many

people will take part in these processes,

in these protests, and will achieve some kind of

democratization, will get answers to the

question of why part of our

territory was given away. But what's interesting is that when

something similar happens in Moscow, it is

the opposition that does it, and look—immediately there are

criminal cases, detainees, 15-day jail terms,

1,000 people locked up. In Ingushetia,

that isn't happening, and once again we see

a very different approach to all

the national republics. Look at what

is happening now in Yakutia. In my previous

program, I spoke in detail about the unrest

that broke out there after

a migrant from Kyrgyzstan

raped a local resident, a Yakut woman.

And there, it was precisely this kind of ethnic protest;

it was specifically Yakuts who entered into

confrontation with migrants. And an absolutely

incredible thing happened: the president

of the republic said today, essentially, 'free

of migrants.'

If some Russians here in Moscow

demanded a city free of migrants,

criminal proceedings for inciting hatred would immediately

be opened against them. But there,

the president of the republic does it, and nothing happens.

More than that, he issued a special decree and

closed off a number of

sectors of the economy so that

migrants could not work there.

In fact, strictly speaking from a legal standpoint,

governors do have such powers—though not

such broad ones. They can restrict

foreign labor, but first of all,

this does not really apply to the former

Soviet Union, so those very

Kyrgyz migrants, in theory, cannot be restricted that way. And secondly,

well, secondly,

what happened there is unprecedented: they banned them from working in

food service, hospitality, and so

on. So in effect, they are trying

to make Yakutia free of migrants, and

it's impossible to imagine any

official making statements like that or doing things like that

about any Russian region. But in Yakutia,

when they were faced with an ethnic

protest—an ethnic protest against migrants—

you can't exactly start talking about 'Russian fascism,' can you?

It's inconvenient, so everyone pretends

that nothing of the sort is happening. Well,

in fact, what they are doing

in Yakutia right now is a strange thing that

will lead nowhere. But we

understand why they are doing it: they need to

calm the residents down, so they are simply

telling them stories like, 'We've

passed a law, so there will be fewer immigrants,'

but across the whole country we are supposedly

saying that migrants

are hardworking, industrious, that there are no

problems with them. Still, in general, I would like

to see migration restricted overall, and at least

a visa regime introduced with the countries of Central

Asia. We have conducted many

surveys on this topic: 85 to 86 percent of the population

would support the introduction of a visa

regime. But that is not happening, it is not

happening.

Instead, there's some kind of absurdity with the construction of

a wall, like in *Game of Thrones*, between

somewhere—that is, a virtual border between

Yakutia and Kyrgyzstan—and a wall is being erected there.

It's complete nonsense, but it's happening

when they feel the need to throw the public a bone, well.

So once again, we’re seeing this kind of data.

Quite disgusting.

We’re seeing some pretty disgusting double standards right now.

More than thirty-eight thousand people are watching me right now.

I’ve already gone a little over my one-hour limit.

But I still have a couple of topics left, including one about Anya.

I want to tell you about her, because in the country—

a new mayor has appeared, and her name is Anya Shchukina.

Shchyokino.

And that’s actually really great, no—

no irony here: a 28-year-old woman has become the mayor of—

the city of Ust-Ilimsk, for one simple reason:

people there hate United Russia.

When the United Russia members

removed the main candidate for mayor of that

city, from the Rodina party, people simply, out of

principle, said: “Oh really? In that case,”

“we’ll go and vote for 28-year-old Anya from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia).”

And they did vote.

She was elected with 44 percent against 37 percent.

They beat the United Russia candidate and made her mayor.

Why? Because people spontaneously organized

that very “smart voting” around a candidate.

They said, “Fine,”

“we’ll concentrate on one person and elect”

“that person. It doesn’t matter who she is, it doesn’t matter”

“how old she is — any person is better for us”

“than a United Russia candidate.” So this spontaneous

voting in Ust-Ilimsk worked.

It works everywhere for us, and we need to keep doing it.

And we need to keep doing it, because the reaction from

United Russia was just priceless.

One former head of the local branch of the Young Guard

in that very Ust-Ilimsk

wrote a post on VKontakte, I think.

He deleted it pretty quickly, but he wrote it.

Because he wrote what he really thinks.

This is what a United Russia member thinks about people. I’ll quote him directly:

“People, residents of your own city, you don’t

understand what you’ve done. You don’t know a damn thing about

politics. You are a very limited

herd.”

“If you don’t understand that, then you’re [__] and”

And this is what United Russia is telling us.

You don’t know how to vote, you’re

[__] and a limited herd, so

stay in your stall.”

“And we know who should be mayors, who

should be governors, and who should

run the energy sector, and so on, and so

on.” That’s it.

Register for Smart Voting.

So that this person—

well, so that he understands that he’s the one who belongs

[__] — he’s the one who should be driven into a stall, not

normal people. As for Kokorin and Mamaev, I

haven’t said anything on this topic while it was

being discussed everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.

Because, among other things, I absolutely

believe it was right to hold them

criminally liable.

Because they really did start

a fight. But now the case is already heading toward

trial, and I wanted to draw your attention to

the following: let’s take a look. It was a fairly

ugly fight, to begin with.

Let’s look at those 26 seconds of what

Kokorin and Mamaev actually did.

Basically, drunk, wasted thugs

completely numb from their own

sense of impunity, jumping someone.

But this may sound strange, and yet I

now actually want to speak up in defense of

Kokorin and Mamaev. They’ve been held

for half a year. What’s more, I just

read about it.

I hadn’t realized the scale of it. There were, well, two

episodes — you saw them — and basically

all the court is examining is these

two episodes you just saw: 26

seconds. There are 18 investigators on it — 18! What is

that supposed to be? Both of them

should get 15 days. I know absolutely nothing

about Kokorin and Mamaev, and I’m not

into football.

To my shame, if you ask me

which team Kokorin and Mamaev play for, I

have no idea. I don’t know whether they’re good

players or bad ones. But I can see that these two

drunken hooligans started a fight and should

be held criminally

responsible. Both of them need to be punished.

But they’ve been kept for half a year in pretrial detention.

Eighteen investigators have been assigned; they’ve turned it into a show

for the whole country. A lot of people can’t even

get criminal cases opened

when their apartment has been robbed,

when someone has been raped, when someone has really

been beaten — or lightly beaten, as happened

in this video — and

no one deals with those cases either; there aren’t enough

investigators. But here, apparently,

you can assign a team of 18 people

to investigate something for half a year.

And now there’ll be a trial, a long trial, and they’ll

keep showing us Kokorin and

Mamaev endlessly — footballers, scandals, all of it.

Blondes and brunettes — they’ve turned

justice into some nasty, vulgar

farce. Kokorin and Mamaev need to be punished,

and then the person who assigned 18 people

to their miserable case

— a case that isn’t worth

a damn thing, and that a magistrate could have resolved

in a single day — should be jailed too. That’s how I think

it all should work. Remember, there used to be

a section called “And Everyone Laughed”,

in Soviet Pioneer youth magazines,

they really, really loved that kind of thing. And

a truly remarkable episode happened in

Bashkiria (Bashkortostan), where

where, by the way, such an accomplished crook as

Radiy Khabirov is running in the election,

and he tells us that he pays

good salaries to doctors, good salaries

to nurses. There was a great

meeting of the staff at a maternity hospital there.

And let’s take a look at what people there actually said.

reacted to

the words about what their real

salaries are

27 seconds doctors no she the latest UNIAN

atolla at 60–65, obstetrician 35, and 4 she 20

[music]

people aren’t laughing at jokes, they’re laughing

at the information there and at what their

salary is

you heard the figure, 21.3, they

say junior medical staff get 21.3 — that

means that a nurse, an orderly, or

a feldsher (mid-level medical practitioner)

on paper, on average, gets 20.13, and

people burst out laughing

because it’s obvious that they actually

earn somewhere around 15 — that’s poverty right there

you see, this is where it comes from — these are interconnected

vessels: Abyzov with his villa in Italy

Ishayev, Putin, Medvedev, all the rest, and

the people who laugh at salaries of 21,200

to 21,300 rubles because they dream of earning

21,300 rubles. I wish that in this maternity hospital

people would also — I don’t know — organize some kind of strike

because in Novgorod Region

we helped the strikers, and they won

in fact, really, there now

they called off the strike because, because

they held firm under pressure, and most of

their demands were met, or almost all

the demands were met. But as for what I need

to say about holding strikes — it turns out yesterday there was

a nationwide Russian strike

by truck drivers. Today on Twitter

by chance I saw in the news that

they were staging a strike — they were driving at

low speed somewhere, and about this

absolutely nobody wrote anything, nobody knows, and

I just wanted to say to the truck drivers, to the

truckers’ union: guys, seriously

are you in kindergarten or what? If

you’re carrying out an action like a strike

if you have hundreds of

thousands of people taking part, come to me, I’ll talk about it

at least hundreds of thousands of people will

hear about it from my program, we

will make sure that many people in the country

find out. Because to hold

a strike in such a way that nobody

hears about it is, at the very least, ridiculous

that’s why they don’t care about your demands

you can justify it all you want, but from

blocking some road in the middle of nowhere on

Rublyovka (an elite Moscow suburb), nobody’s life got any worse

so before doing things like that

a strike, properly, against the system

against Platon (Russia’s truck toll system) — come to us and we’ll help you, and

we don’t need anything from you in return. I’m not

going to ask you to go around there with

placards for Volny or anyone else

you want to support, and most importantly whether you support Putin or not

within the framework of your strike

that’s all — we’ll help you completely

selflessly. I want to end the program

with a very funny story, a rather amusing

story from the city of Belgorod about the new

you may have seen it, but I still want to

show it. There, the city mayor was being inaugurated

was taking office, and, and let’s

listen to this music — he came out at 21

seconds, for the greeting and oath-taking

the floor is given

to Golda, well, and to Yuri Vladimirovich, I ask everyone

to stand

[applause]

[music]

where was the lightsaber? That’s what was missing

— Star Wars. But the continuation of

this story is even funnier because

the Empire Struck Back, and that

same music — which was good, because he didn’t

come out to the dun-dun-dun-dun theme, he

came out to the Rebels’ march. But after that

the head of the department

of culture, who apparently was responsible for this

event, was fired because

well, everyone laughed about it on

social media. So in this way, it turns out

that in the end the Imperials fired

the poor victim — the rebel who

played their anthem. I just want to say

you can’t take things with such beastly

seriousness. So they played music from

Star Wars, everyone laughed, everyone

noticed that there is in

Russia such a cool city as Belgorod

why they fired the person is unclear

therefore I call on the authorities of Belgorod

Region not to give in to the Imperial

stormtroopers and to reinstate the person

who played that great Star Wars

music. And many thanks to everyone who watched

see you next Thursday

[music]