Navalny on the senator’s shooting incident, Otkritie Bank, and Putin’s villa near Vyborg

[music]

Good evening. In Moscow, it's 8:18 p.m.

That means we're live in the Navalny Live studio.

I'm Alexei Navalny, and Kira is helping me.

Yarmysh, and we're here to answer

your questions and discuss this week's

most pressing topics, the things that concern you.

Please send your questions on

Twitter or VKontakte using the hashtag Navalny

2018. We'll try to answer them first.

To begin, I wanted

to apologize to those viewers,

those YouTube viewers who last

Thursday came here to YouTube and

found that there was no program. I simply

overestimated the reach and power of my Instagram,

where I wrote that I was going away on

a six-day vacation and would miss one

program, and unfortunately many people

really did miss the broadcast.

Please forgive me. I'll try not

to miss it whenever possible. We

even plan the schedule of my regional trips

around the fact that I need

to always be on air. This program is very

important. Where shall we start, Kira? We'll start with

the story about the shooting in a hotel.

Yes, we'll begin our broadcast with the story of

the hotel shooting, because

this is exactly the kind of thing I want to spare you from, my friends.

This is why I'm

running for president at all, because, well,

it's impossible. This is just an incredible story

about Putin's elite—this is exactly what they're

like, how they live, what their lifestyle is,

and the level of their absolute, total

impunity. So, here's the story.

Of course, we've seen it

in the press, but still, let's

go over it all again. A former senator, a member

of the Federation Council (Russia's upper house of parliament), there was also some

fancy title—he was an adviser to an aide,

an adviser to an aide to President Sergey

... an adviser to an aide to the president—

Umar Dzhabrailov, by the way, who also once

ran for president of Russia,

got, well,

78,000 votes—that's 0.1 percent. Well,

never mind. He was a well-known person, a very

well-known person, an official

who was quite close to the current authorities.

And as I said, a typical

representative of Putin's elite. So, as

we learned today from the press, under the

influence of drugs—well, to put it bluntly,

forgive me for using

that kind of language, but let's say it plainly:

high on cocaine, with a pistol in his

hand, the former senator was walking around the hotel.

Security guards and surveillance cameras saw him.

Then at some point he went back into

his room and started shooting into the ceiling with

that pistol, explaining it by saying that

supposedly his dinner had been brought not by

a waiter but by a cleaner, and he fired five

shots into the ceiling. He was apparently so offended

by being served incorrectly that he

pulled out the pistol he had.

Officially, it was an award pistol,

and what's separately astonishing is that he

had a permit to carry this

pistol, actually.

An award weapon is a rather strange thing

for a person who is not

a serviceman, but he also had

a permit

for the award pistol and ammunition for

it, and he started firing this pistol.

The hotel security guards, as I understand it, not

wanting to get involved with an influential

businessman of Chechen origin,

called the police. The police arrived,

and he told them, "I'm going to

shoot back to the very end now."

After that, they did detain him after all

and took him to Kitay-Gorod. I've been there many times,

I was detained there too, but you know,

when I was taken there, what happened later to

Dzhabrailov did not happen to me, because

as the newspaper told us,

Moskovsky Komsomolets, at the police station

in Kitay-Gorod they declared "Fortress Plan"—that

is, they effectively barricaded themselves in,

because they were afraid of certain

I don't even know what to call them—associates,

countrymen, bodyguards, friends,

of businessman Dzhabrailov and former

official Dzhabrailov, and the police

barricaded the Kitay-Gorod police station. This is the very

police station whose jurisdiction includes

the Kremlin, whose jurisdiction includes

Red Square. If a hooligan

is picked up on Red Square, he'll be taken to

the Kitay-Gorod police station—that is, the heart of Moscow,

the heart of the country. The police station goes into lockdown because

it's afraid that, uh,

the senator's friends are about to storm in. And he explains to them—

here's the headline from Moskovsky Komsomolets

that you can see now—what explanation did he give them?

Well, he said that

he was angry because he had been

served incorrectly.

An unfortunate mistake, and therefore he

fired.

The explanation was that he didn't know how

to use the pistol and started trying to

figure it out.

Did you hear about the mistake? I heard

the following. That's all—why was he released?

It was an award pistol. He

didn't know how

to use it, what to do with it, and

started figuring it out. Just imagine: at night, in a hotel,

in a hotel,

the perfect time to figure out how

a pistol works. And in the course of these remarkable

investigations, he fired into the ceiling, then again,

and again, and then again—five shots into

the ceiling. Then the police came, and he

for some reason told them, “Now I’m going to”

“shoot back to the very end.” But

it’s astonishing, yes, but we kind of keep

joking about it. And in general, quite a lot

of people laughed about it online. But in essence,

this is monstrous trash. They released him

on a travel restriction pending trial, even despite

the fact that it was obvious he was under the influence of drugs.

And today there was already

expert confirmation that yes, there was

drug intoxication—drug intoxication.

So, uh, he was high on cocaine; that is,

generally speaking, not even metaphorical. And now

it is a fully established legal fact. And that is exactly

what it was. We can see the headline.

A little later they showed us that he

explained the shooting as “checking the weapon.” So

they released him. Even if he had not

fired the pistol, that in itself is

an astonishing fact. I apologize for bringing up these

sort of personal details from my

biography again, but I quite often end up under

administrative arrest, and with me

there are quite often drug users locked up as well. Usually

they make up no less than 30–40% of the

people in a cell, and they get 15 days for

drug use. And this happens

like this: local operatives, uh,

if they know there’s a drug user in the area, simply

grab him near the entrance to his building and take him for testing.

They draw blood, and within half an hour

it turns out that they are in a state of

drug intoxication, and they get 15 days.

No, all right, 15 days—I actually wanted to say

I wanted to talk about today—well, yesterday, rather,

there was a news post on Facebook: Ilya Zhigulyov

—a journalist from Meduza (an independent Russian news outlet)—his brother, and

he has already been in pretrial detention for 9 months

on charges of drug dealing.

But those drugs were planted on him,

and

the police refuse

to take a polygraph test. They

refuse, and of course all the testimony

of the police officers is accepted without

any questions.

And as I understand it, on September 11 there should be

a verdict, and he is facing

up to 10 years.

Please look it up—Ilya Zhigulyov.

Type it into Facebook and you will find his post.

It is really something useful to read

for every citizen of Russia, about how

drugs are planted and how

criminal cases are fabricated. And that is exactly why

I decided to start with this. Why do I

want to say that this is something I want

to rid the country of, why I am running for

president. It is simply impossible to look at this.

Yes.

They plant drugs, and this person has been sitting

for several months already—in pretrial detention, 9 months.

He is in pretrial detention right now, during

this broadcast. Our campaign headquarters coordinator in

Volgograd is on trial.

On

them they are demanding that his travel restriction pending trial be changed

to

detention in custody because he

went to ShtabCon, our event, and

the criminal case opened against him

was over a Photoshop image. Do you

remember that story with the green antiseptic dye (zelyonka) and

the Motherland Calls statue? That is, he

is accused of having

posted a Photoshopped

image online, and because he went to

Moscow they are arresting him. Meanwhile, the man who

fired a pistol into the ceiling while under

the influence of drugs was released.

This is simply impossible, it’s just—

it is absolutely monstrous, I don’t even know

whether to call it trash, injustice—

there are not even words that

can convey this

disgusting style of Putin’s elite. These are

people who have realized just how far

outside the law they are. Absolutely no one can

do anything to them—not the police, not

the FSB (Russia’s security service), no one at all. Just imagine what

would happen to any opposition figure

if he, I don’t know, were simply

walking around drunk in a hotel, not to

mention pistols and shooting.

Many years in prison, an unjust

trial. But with these people, anything goes, and

after all,

they can kill anyone.

Naturally. By the way, Dzhabrailov

was once accused of

having killed his American

business partner—there was such an accusation.

Uh, it could not be proven, but nevertheless

at least there were some grounds

to accuse him of it. And

you and I understand perfectly well that, well, God forbid

you run into him in that hotel corridor—

into some generalized “Dzhabrailov.” Yes, this could just as well be

some Rotenberg or

Ramzan Kadyrov or Timchenko or

some son of Peskov, the one about whom

we published reports, who committed

an assault in the United Kingdom and here beat

his own grandmother. He will shoot you, he will

shoot your relative, he will

shoot anyone—the maid, the waiter—

and nothing will happen for it. A whole caste has formed

of people who are absolutely

above the law. And this is not happening

secretly, you know—not like a case was hushed up

and nobody knows about it, complete

silence, as it was in the Soviet Union, when

some

party boss from the regional committee (obkom) was throwing his weight around, something

got beaten, broken—well, somewhere at the top it was

discussed, but it never reached the wider public. Here

it does reach the public—newspapers write about it, yes.

quite large even under censorship

and everyone understands: yes, they’ll let him go

and

and they let him go — can you imagine what

happens? For example, the same thing happens in Chechnya. Well,

I’ve spoken with Chechens. Roughly

about these kinds of things. Well, yes, they say that

you can kill anyone, and people are killed

accused of being terrorists or something

or extremists — they just take you somewhere

torture you, shoot you, and dump your body

and your relatives can never find you

and these are no longer isolated cases

these are things that happen all the time

that’s why I’m running in the election, because, well,

equality of everyone before the law is not even just

some pretty phrase that

sounds nice to say — it is a real

need that we need right

now, because we do not want to see

senators firing pistols; we do not

want to see State Duma deputies — remember

there was that story, remember, about the golden

pistol? No?

Kira, we wrote a post about it a very

long time ago — a State Duma deputy who was

walking around the State Duma with a pistol and got into a scuffle

with another deputy, Zhuravlyov from United

Russia, the leader of the Rodina party — there

a golden pistol fell out of his pocket

a golden pistol, literally, and then

well, I mean, you just laugh

because basically, in any normal

country, this sounds like some bizarre

and disturbing — people with golden [guns], why are they carrying

them around? Why does Senator Dzhabrailov need

this pistol? He has a huge number of

security guards, and as we know at least from

similar scandals, after all

not that long ago, in 2014, there was

some kind of clash between his security and

those Night Wolves bikers led by “The Surgeon” (a pro-Kremlin motorcycle club leader)

there was gunfire into the air there too

a damaged car — they were settling something, I mean

these are literally gangs

operating outside the law, not

somewhere in the forests of Chechnya, but right in

the center of Moscow, and a police station in

the center of Moscow shuts itself off from them because

of these fighters — so what are

ordinary people supposed to do, even in Moscow, let alone

Chechnya? That is why

the government needs to be changed, if only so that

when a person reads a headline like this

this morning the headlines started: senator

Dzhabrailov arrested, detained for

starting to shoot somewhere in a hotel at

the ceiling — you can tell in advance how it will all end

people immediately started writing, and I immediately wrote: well,

obviously, at most he’ll get a travel restriction

and it will all end in nothing — and that is exactly what

is happening, and it will end in nothing. I

personally strongly doubt that they will even

take away his gun, and I certainly do not believe in any

arrest, prison sentence, real

verdict — everyone knew, 100 percent of people knew, that

that this is how it would go. Here is a representative of the Putin

elite — and of Kadyrov’s elite as well — he

even without Kadyrov, on his own. I think

not just think — I’m sure, simply based on

the nature of his business, which also exists

through ties to the authorities — first under Luzhkov (former Moscow mayor),

and now under Sobyanin’s and Putin’s

he can do this, they can do this

they can do it — they just walk around shooting

That is why the authorities need to be changed, at least so that

people would read headlines like: former

senator started shooting at the ceiling, and they

would understand: well then, soon we’ll

see his trial, he’ll end up in the defendant’s dock

and then he will apparently receive

some sentence, suspended or real, but

he must receive some kind of punishment

proportionate to what he did. And what he did

again, was this: an apparently cocaine-intoxicated man with

a pistol in a public place. Well,

that is pretty, pretty serious, I think. We

have a report here on Mediazona saying that

Dzhabrailov was not issued an award pistol

to Dzhabrailov. So this may have been

not an award weapon at all

Well then that sounds absolutely incredible

if he — if he did not have a permit

for the pistol. I had written that it was

an award weapon given to him by Minister Nurgaliyev

but now I’ve seen that the pistol apparently

— apparently a news update has just appeared

let’s do a poll — we can do

a poll on Twitter and VKontakte

Today I was arguing with Pavel Chikov, a

very good lawyer and human rights advocate, the head

of the human rights organization Agora

who, by the way, said he was outraged by

Dzhabrailov’s actions but believes that

he should not actually be arrested, nevertheless

even despite the brazen nature of this

uh, misconduct — crime, I would say

let’s vote on VKontakte and on

Twitter: should he, should he

be arrested — Umar Dzhabrailov — for

such an interesting

happening that he staged

I can see it now: the Interior Ministry says billionaire Dzhabrailov was not

issued an award weapon. Ten minutes ago the Interior Ministry

is telling us — billionaire Dzhabrailov, I see

this headline — was not issued an award

pistol. Then the question to the Interior Ministry is: guys, why

did you let him go? I don’t understand then

so an apparently cocaine-intoxicated man with

an illegal pistol fires into the air and

you release him under a pledge not to

leave? This is just unbelievable. Right now I

see news that for our coordinator

Alexei Volkov the prosecutor is demanding

house arrest. This is the very same

wonderful person from Volgograd

who, simply because he traveled to

Moscow for a gathering of coordinators for

in a criminal case opened because of

a picture on the internet, he will be kept under

house arrest, as the prosecutor is demanding

— incidentally, under an article that does not even

provide for actual deprivation of

liberty. That is, there is a direct ban on

restricting the freedom of people charged under it. But I

I hope he remains under a travel restriction, but

something tells me they are about to impose

house arrest on him, while Dzhabrailov, with his

pistol, which we did not even issue,

will remain free. What will the people feel

who are now sitting in pretrial detention centers (SIZO) over the rallies of March 26

and June 12, in SIZO and already in prison? What

will their parents feel? What will

they feel?

And what about ordinary Russian citizens? We have

a prison population of one million people. I do not

doubt that out of that million people

some 200,000

are innocent, or people who are guilty

but, generally speaking, should not have been

in prison. And they will look at this and—well,

or rather, they will not even see it. Of course

the newspapers write about it, but on

television they say nothing about it either.

Well, some fairly

major newspapers covered it, and we talked about it on

our program. Probably around a million

people in the country know about it, but all

the rest—the rest will be listening to

Putin’s Direct Line (the annual televised Q&A), where he will say that in our country

everyone is equal before the law, the rule of law is for

everyone, and

well, this is how it actually works. So this

once again shows the importance of

spreading information, because

regardless of whether someone considers

themselves an opposition supporter or does not consider themselves

one, regardless of politics,

regardless of any person’s views, any person’s

position on foreign policy—on this, absolutely

no one can agree. Take any

person off the street and tell them

this story—they will simply be furious, because

if you imagine yourself or your child in the place of

that waiter whom

Dzhabrailov threatened to shoot because

his lunch or dinner was served incorrectly—

we have a poll going on,

right, yes, but so far there are no

results. Please write in

with your opinion on this topic. Do we have anything yet?

Mostly, to be honest, everyone is

discussing Doshirak (a popular instant noodle brand), not what is written on

your cup.

I do not understand why everyone is so

hung up on Doshirak. Truly, my most

popular photo in the last

few months is a random

photo of me eating, frankly, a Doshirak cup taken

from one of the campaign staffers,

because I missed lunch, arrived,

had missed breakfast and lunch, and said: give me

something to eat. And on the way I ran into

one of our staffers, Olga Guseva,

who said, I have Doshirak. I

said, give it here, and ate it. They photographed it,

and people have been discussing it for two days. Uh—

it is unhealthy, I think. I got used to eating it in

special detention centers (short-term detention facilities). From my own experience I

know that, despite the fact that it tastes good,

when you eat it for three days in a row, you really

feel as if your stomach is being eaten away by

terrible acid. So probably if

you really want to eat, or you are

really hungry and need to eat something

right now, as happened to me, then you can

try it. But overall—well, I wrote

on the cup, yes, simply because

for people who are reaching for Doshirak right now,

because I am already starting to want

something else: eat some kind of

fruit, or just do not eat Doshirak if there is

anything else available, simply put.

In a cell, it really is the most common

item, because boiling water is available there without

restriction, and it comes with everything—a little fork, there is

a little fork, exactly right, very

convenient. It is dry, it keeps for as long as

you like. Usually there are huge

bags stuffed with this Doshirak. You

pour hot water over it, stir it quickly, and eat. But

if you are in real life and

can, I do not know, eat vegetables and fruit,

porridge, meat—

do not.

Do not. Take care of your stomach and eat

it only if, God forbid, you find yourself

somewhere with no access to other food.

We have been talking about Doshirak for too long. So,

people are also writing to us—apparently this is already for the next

topic. I am actually very interested

to hear about Otkritie, because

I use it actively.

I am very interested in talking about

Otkritie.

The main topic, as you said today, yes.

Absolutely. I think this is the main topic.

I think that despite the fact that a great

deal is being said about it, people are still talking

too little, and not talking about it the way it ought to

be described. Because what happened with

Otkritie,

for which a bailout was announced, in effect

means that Otkritie Bank became the property of

the Central Bank, and therefore

a state-owned bank. Only 25%

remains—well, according to the Central Bank, a stake for

the shareholders. What happened is one

of the largest fraudulent, mafia-style

deals of our time, which we

are witnessing right now. It is happening before

our very eyes, and it is being carried out by the shareholders of

Otkritie Bank together with the wonderful

employees of the Central Bank and with the personal

involvement of Elvira Nabiullina, who, uh, actually

is very inclined to be fond of our

the liberal public, the progressive segment of society

some kind of economic bloc, but

this

essentially a gigantic fraudulent scam

What happened? Let’s call things

by their proper names. Otherwise, everyone writes about the bank’s resolution

saying that Otkritie Bank was poorly managed

and went bankrupt. Otkritie Bank

actually rose into the ranks of major

banks precisely thanks to Elvira

Nabiullina, when she became head

of the Central Bank. It was constantly receiving

money from the Central Bank; it

was constantly receiving funding for

the resolution of other banks. For example,

Trust Bank was one of the most well-known

examples. It received a huge amount

of money for Trust’s resolution. And now it is already

clear that at the time Otkritie was experiencing

financial problems, and nevertheless

the Central Bank assigned Otkritie the resolution of

another huge bank. But before that, they had also

absorbed Nomos-Bank, which

was actually larger than Otkritie. They had

rather dubious deals involving

Eurobonds. In other words, this was a

constant

close and highly suspicious

relationship with the Central Bank, and obviously it

was personally overseen by Nabiullina, and Otkritie

was pumped full and full and full

of state money. When its problems began

at Otkritie—yes, it was already clear even from

the public reporting that things were not going very

well—it still kept receiving money, and

even for the resolution of other banks

And now something astonishing is happening.

We have a quote from a Central Bank

employee, a deputy chair of the Central

Bank, Tulin. Let’s take a look at it.

Please show us that quote, where

Tulin tells us that

in the reporting—apparently, no, this quote is in

the reporting not of the Central Bank

Sorry, in Otkritie Bank’s reporting. Here it is:

this

They submitted inaccurate reports, and

there were material changes, and the bank’s capital

as published in the reports was

apparently significantly overstated. You know, that is

an astonishing thing. So here we have it:

the bank effectively collapsed; it would have gone bankrupt

if not for the Central Bank’s bailout

Obviously, that is a failure, and the Central

Bank—which, let me remind you, receives reports from ordinary banks

twice a day, which

constantly monitors them and tracks

their compliance with various indicators—suddenly

tells us: well, apparently something there was

overstated. Well, if it was overstated,

then you press the red button

and open a criminal case. So it turns out

these people falsified the reporting.

If they falsified the reporting,

then why are you saving them now? Why

do the private shareholders retain part of

Otkritie Bank? Why are you once again pouring

huge sums into it? Again, calling things

by their proper names, what happened is that the bank

collapsed because of bad management.

The bank went bankrupt despite the fact that

the Central Bank was obviously

acting on corrupt motives

when pumping it full of money. It still went bankrupt, and

now, to save this bankrupt

bank, we have to

pay out of our own pockets. That is what they are writing about, and

about Otkritie: the Central Bank has effectively

bought it out by printing unbacked

rubles—that is, at the expense of us, the taxpayers,

by increasing inflation.

So, are we right in understanding that right now

many—you’ve seen the headlines—many

media outlets and analysts

have calculated that no less than 1 trillion rubles

will have to be pumped into Otkritie Bank. And there

are different estimates, from 0.8 trillion to

1.2 trillion rubles. In any case, that is

an enormous amount of money—effectively

money creation, that is, roughly speaking, the money

will be printed in order to, uh, save

someone’s capital. Yes, of course we do not want

ordinary people,

depositors of Otkritie Bank, to suffer, but

generally speaking, we understand that most of them

do not have very large accounts there,

and the overwhelming majority of those

people would simply have been covered by

deposit insurance—their deposits are insured. What

the Central Bank is doing is saving rich

bankers. It is saving bankrupt

bankers. It is saving bad bankers.

Again, take these private minority shareholders.

Let’s remember: there is Mr. Fedun,

an oligarch and billionaire from Lukoil; Mamut,

an oligarch and billionaire; and Belyaev himself,

one of the founders of Otkritie Bank, is also,

as I understand it, a multimillionaire. Uh, who else is there?

Gangvin, and all these

various gentlemen. And why should we

be saving them? Why should they

get to keep 25% of Otkritie Bank, or

indeed any percentage at all? But if

they went bankrupt, if we are using our own money

to save them, if we are saving them with money

that will lead to inflation,

that will lead to rising prices, and when we buy

food in the store, we are effectively

financing the rescue of Otkritie Bank—then

why do we need any of this? This is

a truly colossal scam. I don’t even

want to say it, but it almost

diminishes the cases we

work on. Compared with this,

those dachas we showed

suddenly do not seem all that important anymore. One trillion rubles

—one trillion—

into Otkritie Bank, and the whole

Russia's financial system

a well-known topic, as I understand it

the shareholders of Otkritie Bank and the Central

Bank is now explaining this with the famous

"too big to fail" argument, meaning it is too big and

if we don't carry out this bailout now, then

everything there, absolutely everything, will fall apart, it will all

collapse

Well, first of all, Otkritie Bank is not so

big that everything would collapse — that's the first point

second, well, what are we supposed to do now,

pay for this every time?

I mean, fine, if it is too

big and

the banking system will freeze up there, well

then let's untie it from the rest of the

banking system, let's

finance whatever actually needs

to be financed, but excuse me

saving the capital of some oligarchs

that got stuck in Otkritie Bank, saving

the bank's shareholders and preserving for them

some kind of equity stake — well, that is

complete nonsense, this is not at all

any kind of rescue of the banking system; moreover

in fact, the nationalization of Otkritie Bank

will lead to the state

now controlling, uh,

60% of the country's banking capital, that is

Russia's banking system

belongs to the state. Putin will not

admit this, Putin will not admit it

and the Central Bank won't admit it either. You know perfectly well why they

won't — because they will lie, distort things, and

say, well listen, what is a state bank?

It's something that belongs to the government;

for example, VTB is a state bank, a bank under

state control, Rosselkhozbank is some kind of

And Sberbank belongs to the Central Bank

yes, yes, and Otkritie belongs

to the Central Bank, and the Central Bank is a

supposedly independent body. Central Bank employees

including Nabiullina (Elvira Nabiullina, head of Russia's Central Bank) herself, are not even

civil servants. But that is

a huge lie. We understand that all of this is

the state; we understand that there was, well,

simply, uh, a major corrupt deal, and in

the course of this corrupt deal they either

uh, in the course of a series of corrupt deals, either

squandered this money — well, a significant

part of it was apparently stolen — and now we are supposed to

compensate for all of it under the pretext

that otherwise the banking system will collapse. Well,

what is the point of such a banking system? It has

once again become state-owned, and everything around it is

state-owned, that is

the long-term consequences for the banking

system from this state

control will be far, far worse and

more negative than if Otkritie were

allowed to go bankrupt now. At the very least, all

those people who were running things there

as well as the Central Bank officials

who were pumping Otkritie full of money — they

should be disqualified, they should be driven out, they

must never again be involved in any

banking business. That's the only way. And this is

very, very bad. It will lead to

negative long-term consequences

Maybe let's also do a poll about Otkritie

as well, but first let's wrap up

the poll about Dzhabrailov (a Russian businessman)

on Twitter: yes, he should be jailed — 97

percent, no — 3. And on VKontakte: yes, he should

be jailed — 98%. Well, as usual, VKontakte

more than Twitter, but overall the

poll results are fairly obvious, especially

in light of the latest news that even the

gun there, it turns out, was unlicensed

let's do a poll about Otkritie

or rather not even about Otkritie, but about the Central

Bank, because, well, we understand the people

who worked at Otkritie — they are businessmen, they

acted in their own interests, they were there

whether corrupt or not corrupt

but they openly stated their goal: we want

to make money. But the Central Bank

looks a million times worse here

Nabiullina looks a million times

worse here. They receive salaries, they ride around in

those black cars, they are vested with

enormous powers in order to

control the banking

system for us, in order to

monitor banks' performance indicators, and they

are not paid in order to

come out and say this thing, that the bank's capital

was substantially overstated. And I have

a question then for the audience on Twitter and

on VKontakte: do you trust the Central Bank

after what happened at

Otkritie Bank? Do you have any trust

in the Central Bank as a regulatory

body

a supervisory body, a body that

is supposed to keep an eye on inflation

target inflation, and, broadly speaking, a

major

regulatory body that monitors the

state of the economy and has

fundamental importance — do you trust

it? You can vote on

VKontakte and on Twitter. What are people writing to us?

A question continuing this topic: is there

any thought that after the bailout the Central Bank will sell

Otkritie and get the money back? Yeah, sure

if you have that thought. And all the rest —

did they sell it? Did they sell Sviaz-Bank? If you

can give me an example of how a

nationalized bank, after a bailout,

was sold — Globex, maybe? They haven't sold a single

bank. They keep all of it for themselves

They talk about it: we'll sell it, we'll

privatize it, we'll do something. But not once

have they actually sold anything yet. So there is

no doubt that now they will pour

money into all of this and leave it all in place for

at least the next few years, that's how it will be

A state bank will be sitting there, well,

some kind of crooks on the management board and on

cheap government money, building

their own, their own wonderful, uh,

their wonderful business and making

huge profits. By the way,

I wanted to discuss something that, well,

is probably already intuitively clear to anyone

person.

Whether they actually understand how

a bank works or not, for

the sake of rescue—you yourself said it, look.

Let me ask your opinion. Haven’t you ever

had anything with Otkritie yet?

Well, have you ever bought something on credit—

a washing machine, a car, just something, well,

I guess, probably?

You paid it off, you paid it off. But 40

million people in Russia couldn’t

pay theirs off. Our total debt

of private individuals—just ordinary people—to

banks amo- amounts to about 11

trillion rubles (about $120 billion). These are people who bought

their washing machines, and they can’t

pay them off, they have no money, and after these

people come debt collectors, trying

to squeeze something out of them. Yet we allocate for

the rescue of Otkritie Bank, well, basically,

one trillion here—it was one trillion

here, one trillion overall—a broadly comparable

sum. The question is:

If presidential candidate

Navalny were to say, let’s just forgive some people

their loans altogether—oh, I can

imagine what would start.

Oh, everyone would cry out: what terrible

populism! How can we just hand out

money? That would fuel inflation, it would

breed irresponsibility among people

who should have thought, damn it, before

buying their microwave oven. But

here exactly the same thing is happening.

We’re simply giving a trillion rubles

to pointless, incompetent, shady

bankers and officials, including people at the Central Bank,

corrupt ones, and there, without any

interest, we are effectively forgiving debts. We

even let them keep some part of

their shareholder capital, and everyone says:

what a great economic decision this is.

This isn’t populism, it’s saving the banking

system. But how is that any different? If we’ve decided

to just hand out money like that,

then why not

Well, at least then we’d be giving money

to cover

bad financial decisions,

paying for bad bank management.

Then let’s give money to these

poor people who bought themselves a washing

machine and are short 500 rubles (about $5) to

make the payment.

Mamut is a close friend of the Yeltsin family (Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president). Putin

has to look after not only his own

friends, but the Yeltsins’ friends too. Well,

Mamut is no longer just a close friend of the

Yeltsin family—Mamut is a close friend of the Putin family too.

Mamut has done a great deal for Putin.

In particular, as we know, he destroyed

Lenta.ru, which had been an independent outlet.

He has badly damaged the Russian internet. Well,

he would probably say, I’m developing the Russian

internet, like, uh, Alisher Usmanov—but we

know perfectly well that he is one of

those carrying out a policy of censorship within

the internet, and he’s doing some

dubious things with, I assume,

corrupt ties to the Moscow city government right now

around all these damn schemes.

So, uh, this isn’t about the Yeltsin family. I don’t know.

I’m not going to speculate here and

guess whose money is being saved, whose

deposits are being rescued at Otkritie Bank. Or

if we do speculate—maybe Chubais’s, maybe

Medvedev’s, maybe someone else’s.

But it’s very clear that there are some

powerful interests there—maybe even Nabiullina’s herself, I don’t know.

But one thing is absolutely clear to me: this whole

thing,

well, not just dubious but obviously

criminal scheme with Otkritie Bank is

about saving the money of some major

officials. That’s exactly what it is. And we’re handing over

money, yet it doesn’t even occur to anyone

to say, let’s, uh,

somehow lower mortgage interest rates.

Can you imagine how many

free mortgage loans—well,

free in the sense of interest-free mortgage loans—we

could have

given to people who need

housing, who work honestly, who would

take the loan and pay it back, unlike

Otkritie Bank, which cannot

return its money. How many people who

really do have some

objective difficulties could have had

their consumer loans paid off. And

remember the foreign-currency mortgage holders? Yes, yes.

The discussion was: ah, those scoundrels with foreign-currency

mortgages—they were the ones chasing a better deal, they

took out their loans in foreign currency, and now they

must pay the price for having

turned out to be such cunning fools when it came to

loans. And there they are, standing there

with their children or setting up tents

somewhere, demanding not even that they be

forgiven, but that their loans be converted into rubles at

some exchange rate. No, those foreign-currency

mortgage holders get nothing. But here, by all means—

Mamut, Fedun, you are our best friends.

Belyaev, wonderful—you managed the bank terribly,

you all went bust together, you

were supposedly rehabilitating other banks for hours, and now

you’re on the verge of bankruptcy. You lied about some

cable or something—what was it, two weeks ago?

Everything was supposedly fine, and then, uh, our

cable snapped, I think, and that’s why the ATMs, they...

they issue them to individuals. Everyone says, yes, yes, yes.

The cable, the little cable. Listen, do we have

that great screenshot that

the technical support service sent out

from Otkritie Bank? It's an amazing thing. Here,

just on its own, simply an example of

how much they take all of us for idiots

around them. And how much this bank,

Otkritie, has latched onto money and thinks

that all of this is, uh, well, this very, uh, very

proper thing. Well, I don't know, if we can find it now

and find the screenshot, we'll take a look.

No, that's not exactly the one, more like, yes,

this is what Rocketbank sent us.

Rocketbank also sent this to its clients.

Rocketbank is like

an offshoot of Otkritie Bank. And what do we have?

It got even better. There was also this

message that Otkritie's support service

was sen- sending out, and it was all framed

in this tone: great, good

news, our bank is now under the control

of the Central Bank. That means 100%

reliability, deposits are under no threat.

And generally, well, this really was

written as: good news.

It's amazing.

What they should have written was: our bank

has gone bust, our management is

incompetent, and we've been nationalized.

But no, good news, which means everything is

great. Well, once again, I'll repeat,

I apologize if I keep droning on like a parrot

repeating the same thing: this is a gigantic mafia-style deal

in which the leadership

of the Central Bank is implicated. They all should, of course,

either be put on trial for this or

simply be thrown out of their jobs,

because what kind of banking supervision

can they possibly

exercise if one of the

largest banks, as they themselves now

say, was submitting fake reports to them,

and they saw nothing. Well, rather, they didn't see it

just like in the situation with the snapped cable

where they were also, in a way,

playing along with all of it. What are our viewers writing to us?

They're writing a lot of things, but right now I wanted

to ask a question not about Otkritie, but

they're asking about Kirovles (the Kirov timber case), though we've kind of drifted off into Otkritie. Let's

move on.

Briefly, I'll say right away about Kirovles: I'm going to

Strasbourg. I

on the fifth or sixth—on the fifth there will be

a briefing

on the Kirovles case before

it is considered by the Committee of Ministers.

So there is some movement there; I'll go

and will be representing this

body that will be considering

the question of why Russia is not

complying with the European Court's ruling on

Kirovles. I'll be explaining what

is happening in my case. I am the rapporteur there—well,

in the sense that I am the applicant.

In that sense, I'm not going there as

a presidential candidate; I'm going simply as an

uh, unlawfully convicted person.

So there is some movement there.

Now, back to Otkritie—what are people writing to us about Otkritie?

Well, some bloodthirsty people are also saying that

they are against rescuing either banks or

mortgage borrowers, right?

Guys, this isn't rescuing either banks or

mortgage borrowers. This is rescuing specific

oligarchs who keep money in

Otkritie, rescuing specific officials

who profit from the oligarchs who

kept money in Otkritie. So, well, we're not

saying that we need to

switch on some kind of economic Darwinism and

if a bank is dying, well, to hell with it, immediately

bankrupt it and let all those

depositors end up out on the street, losing

their money, running around with their cards,

standing in huge lines. None of that

is necessary. That's what, broadly speaking,

the deposit insurance system was created for, and

of course it can be arranged so that

95% of the people who had deposits in banks, including

at Otkritie, do not suffer, and

society and the state's economy

are interested in making sure that a large

number of people are not harmed. But what

is happening now is specifically the rescue of

enormous fortunes, and us paying for

gigantic corrupt deals. And once again,

once again:

American trillions, tens of

billions—any Krestovsky Stadiums (the Saint Petersburg stadium project),

Crimean Bridges, and all these World Cups

are just nervously smoking on the sidelines compared

to the money that was stolen

during the bailout of Trust Bank, all these

schemes involving Russia-30 eurobonds

and everything else.

What else do we have? The results of the poll:

On VKontakte: Do you trust the Central Bank? Yes,

6.6%, no 93.4%. On Twitter: yes, we trust it,

11%; no, 89%. So people are clearly

hardline and uncompromising, but overall

uh, people do not trust the Central Bank. Well, I

honestly don't even know how that trust could

remain. One thing interests me: will

Elvira Nabiullina once again receive this year the prize

from Russian—who is it there?—some

some banking associations that every

year award her the prize for best central bank

governor? It seems to me they should literally

take,

take Otkritie's banking license and print right on

it: Best Central Bank Governor,

and present it to her. What a

star. Well done—solved all the problems, printed

a trillion rubles, covered the money,

shut things down incompetently, ga- gave money

to the 'competent bankers.' What are people

asking about this topic?

I can't stay.

People ask us, well, does Nabiullina call on us to do this?

"Hand out money to missionaries, for example."

Or, look: "Nabiullina, hand out..."

"...money to pensioners." Well, of course that sounds

like a populist slogan, but what can you do?

Nabiullina is doing exactly

the opposite. "Nabiullina, collect..."

the pensioners' money and hand it over

to the shareholders of Otkritie Bank"—that is what she

is doing in practice, without exaggeration.

The pensioners will pay for all of this, uh...

That is what is really happening. It's the same

kind of thing that seems to sound, like, well,

completely unrealistic and

well, not realistic, right? "Nabiullina, hand out

money to pensioners"—impossible. But the reverse is entirely

what is happening. She collects money from

pensioners and gives it to oligarchs,

to these banking fat cats,

these fat cats.

Yes, yesterday people may have been surprised by my

vehemence against Otkritie. A lot of people, you know,

think that I shouldn't say anything

bad about Otkritie, because at one time

the bank's shareholders, as is well known,

went to Bolotnaya (the anti-government protest rallies in Moscow), and even at some

public events said that they were

for change. Well, great—when they were

for change, that was very good. But

first of all, they somehow very quickly

stopped saying, uh, that they were for change

after, apparently, they either got

slapped down there, or sorted out their own banks,

their own financial issues. In other words, we can see

that overall these people, who may be

pleasant to some and whom people don't want to criticize

because they speak good

English and probably also don't, uh,

like obscurantism of some kind—but between

change and those wonderful, uh,

financial relationships with central

banks that enrich them in absolutely

fantastic ways, they chose precisely that

illegal enrichment, not change at all.

They are pillars of this regime, and they

are robbing us, even despite the fact that there was

a period in their lives, uh, when they

wore white ribbons (a symbol of the 2011–2012 protest movement). Again, not about

Otkritie—back again, I just now see

the news after all.

Our coordinator in Volgograd has been found, yes? Or rather,

they've imposed house arrest at his registered address in

St. Petersburg.

That is, not where he actually lives—all of this

just so that he has to leave Volgograd.

Scumbags, crooks, people with absolutely no

conscience. Just imagine: a person, over

a picture, without even proving that he

posted it—a Photoshopped image. He came

to Volgograd, and he lives in Volgograd. Well,

that's where his life is, but at the same time

he is officially registered in St. Petersburg, so they put him under house

arrest at his place of registration. That means he

has to leave now.

He'll be sitting there under house arrest, while

the investigative actions will take place in

Volgograd.

Easy, Alexei, don't say any

phrases that can't be said on a live

broadcast and that will later be used

against you. But this is the very definition of

villainy. The fascists who do this—these are

people who are enemies

of our country and enemies of the people—these

all these scumbags in the Volgograd courts and

the Volgograd Investigative Committee offices and

everywhere else, who do not want

to deal with real cases and instead simply

torment the people who are associated with

our campaign. I hope, and I would like

to make sure, that they of course

receive fair and severe punishment.

Let's all work together to make sure

that this happens. What is our

next topic?

Let's move on to the next topic. One more

unscripted question: everyone is

asking nonstop about Valery

Solovey.

People are asking whether you will cooperate with him

and whether we listen to his recommendations.

He gave a lecture for us at the St. Petersburg headquarters, he

was on *Cactus*—Valery

Solovey, the well-known political scientist,

who has become famous in recent years for some

fairly accurate predictions. In particular,

he had a prediction that the war—the war would take

the position of head of the presidential administration...

So the broader public learned about him

from that prediction. I've known him

for quite a long time, probably since

around 2007 or 2009. That is, I

know him fairly well. I don't really understand

—and he was your teacher, wasn't he?

He was, yes, and also the head of the department, and

my...

As you can see, everyone here in the studio

knows him well.

They know Valery Solovey. Well, I believe that

he is an outstanding political scientist, an excellent

publicist, truly a person who

understands politics. I just don't really

understand what "cooperate" means in this context. He is

an expert. He came on air in a bow tie,

as he usually does, in a bow tie, and

said what he thinks.

He interpreted certain political events.

We are grateful to him for coming. He

came to our St. Petersburg headquarters and gave

a great lecture there. You can find it on

YouTube and watch it. In that sense, I—well, I

see him from time to time. I carefully

read his publications and interviews.

So yes, I think well of him. But again,

what does "cooperate" mean? Listen to him?

Listen to him? I listen to all smart people

and read them carefully. Even...

even though I don’t always agree with them

or they don’t agree with me

they criticize me, but I try

to listen to smart people, and Slava I certainly

consider a smart person.

Great, all right, let’s move on to the next

topic, my favorite one: the Peskov segment. We’re

going to guess what he’ll actually say

when he comments on it.

He did comment on it, yes. Peskov replied that

he didn’t really reply at all. You of course remember

our investigation that came out two

weeks ago. It concerned

the son of Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary,

Putin.

Nikolai Choles, whom we showed to the whole

country—and most importantly, we didn’t show

the son, we showed his lifestyle. We

showed his spending. What did we have there?

There were cars,

there was

a Mercedes,

motorcycles, there were private planes,

private jets—in other words, this is a person living

the life

of a millionaire. At the same time, we proved and pointed out

that he doesn’t work anywhere, he, uh,

doesn’t even have a secondary education. He came to

Russia from the United Kingdom, where he served

a year and a half, yes, for assaulting

a teenager and taking his mobile

phone. Here too he gets involved in

various criminal incidents; in

particular, he ran over his own grandmother, uh, and he

doesn’t work anywhere, tears around in a car,

what was it, 116 traffic fines in a year, and the question was

a simple one: Mr. Peskov, where does your son

get his money, and isn’t Nikolai’s luxurious

lifestyle

evidence that Dmitry Peskov

receives bribes from his friends,

possibly, in particular, from, uh,

the billionaire Ziyavudin

Magomedov of the Summa Group?

And Peskov said in response: please show us

the quote. He does not want to discuss

his family; he does not intend to

discuss his family with us. But

that’s a great answer. I mean, it’s a wonderful

answer. He hasn’t seen it and doesn’t want to see it. We

really like that too—you know, it’s like

that famous Photoshop

image, right, where a person is sitting in a car

and there’s some monster outside the window. He closes

his eyes and says, if I can’t see it,

then it doesn’t exist. He doesn’t see it and doesn’t

want to see it. And he doesn’t want to discuss his

family. But we’re not interested in discussing his

family; we’re interested in discussing his family’s money.

No one is, uh—well, really,

what’s going on with your private life is not our concern. We’re not digging into

some kind of

internal relationships, family

matters—those are always complicated, many wives,

many children, complicated relationships—but

we’re interested in something else. If he were

just, say, some young

man with a rough temperament, and he

had gotten those 116 fines and drove a

Lada Priora or a Lada Granta, or, I don’t

know,

got into a fight with someone or something

happened, but he wasn’t flying on

private jets—you understand—we wouldn’t have been

interested in Peskov’s son. But as it is, we are

interested in him, his money, and

the huge number of our problems—in

fact, all the problems of our country—

are connected precisely with this style of life. We

have, well, similar examples too. For now,

show the headline. We just

looked at this quite recently.

There was a case in Finland where

Finland’s prosecutor general was removed

from office, yes, because

his brother had provided services. I mean, he

was actually working somewhere and providing

real services—services worth €74,000

to employees of the prosecutor’s office. So there

was, essentially, a conflict of interest: his

brother was providing services to employees

of the prosecutor’s office for professional training, but

even so, the prosecutor general resigned—

actually, he didn’t even resign, he was removed

from office. And the amount was €74,000

for actual services. Those

€74,000 are significantly less

than the cost of any of the cars

significantly less than the cars

used by Peskov’s son. And this

happened in Finland, one of the

richest countries in the world, yes, one of the countries

with the highest salaries. That happened there. More

recently, in France, there was

a scandal, and it was, I think, the interior

minister who left—was forced

to resign—because there was

some kind of scandal involving the employment of his

daughters.

And here, he doesn’t want to comment; he

isn’t interested in discussing it. Because of this, all

our problems exist: officials are completely

unaccountable. But again, I’m running in the

election because, well, because this

needs to be changed in the beautiful Russia

of the future. If and when I become president,

every official at the regional level—I’m

sorry, Kira, if you were my

president—

there should be a woman president in

Russia. But let’s imagine that you are

the president’s press secretary, and it suddenly turns out

that your son, nephew, or grandson

drives Teslas and flies on private

planes, and

publications about it appear on the

internet—you will have to explain

where that money came from. You will have to.

you should hold one within 24 hours

a press conference and explain where

all of this came from. That press conference

should end in one of two ways: either you

explain it, or it ends with you saying,

"Guys, I can't explain it. I'm resigning

because, well, I'm the subject

of an investigation." That's why especially

I like the fact that he says he hasn't seen it

and doesn't want to see it. I mean, this is

supposedly none of his concern at all. It doesn't

matter what people say about him — he just

isn't going to look. They don't want to see

anything at all. And his boss

— write to Peskov — didn't notice, yes, didn't notice

his own dacha (country house) that we published about.

You've probably seen our investigation. Well,

in fact, it was more of an add-on to

TV Rain's investigation (an independent Russian outlet), which unfortunately

for us — unfortunately for us — they

beat us to it. Good work by TV Rain, well done to them.

They published a report saying that one of

Putin's friends built him a luxurious

dacha, restoring the famous Villa Sellgren

which you've probably seen in

the Sherlock Holmes films, and that this dacha

is used for Putin's vacations, and there is

confirmation that he has been there. Here we're

showing a short clip now, because

what we can add — what we were able to add

to TV Rain's investigation — is specifically

a drone flyover of this dacha. There it is — it's

a huge complex covering 48 hectares

(about 119 acres); an entire peninsula is fenced off there.

There are villas there measuring 700 square meters

and attached to it is a new structure of, I think,

2,000 square meters.

There's a small historic villa,

and then something two or three times larger — a huge

extension. But as you can see,

the view is stunning. It really is a very

beautiful place. It's really wonderful there. Well,

watch this video if you haven't seen it yet.

Naturally, the shoreline there has been seized and fenced off;

no one else is allowed

in there anymore. It's guarded by the FSO (Federal Protective Service), and the

security measures there are fairly serious.

Well, and all the, uh,

facts basically indicate that this is

really Putin's villa. TV Rain came to

that conclusion, and we came to the same conclusion.

There is absolutely no doubt about it. But did they say anything

about it? You monitor

the media.

Did Putin say anything, did any of them say anything? No one

said anything. It's just that Putin's

friends, who effectively hold

his money, build this elite real estate for him, and

well, you can

stay silent too: we don't want to see it,

we'll stay silent. People keep asking us this all the time,

it's a frequent question, so apparently it won't

hurt to repeat it: how did we film

a specially protected site with a drone?

Well,

there's no problem with that. Guys, let me explain once again

and remind you once again that we've filmed

the dachas of FSB generals

FSB leadership, members of the Security Council,

the Security Council,

Medvedev's, and everyone else's, including

those guarded by the FSO — they can be filmed with a drone

using an ordinary civilian drone. You can

go and try it. And why is it different at the Kremlin?

Because they deliberately kind of broke the

GPS system there. You've probably seen it — either

experienced it yourself or read in the

media that very often you

can be in the Kremlin or near the Kremlin,

check your phone,

open GPS, and it shows you as being in Vnukovo (Moscow airport).

That's done so that people can't

fly drones over the Kremlin. But a system like that

is difficult, basically impossible, to organize

across the whole country, including over all these

villas — it can't be done. But take

that same Medvedev villa, for example,

about which, amusingly, everyone wrote that it was

the FSB that filmed it with its own drone, and that we couldn't have.

There is officially

a no-fly zone over it. We published those

documents too — that is, the Russian government

established a no-fly zone over it.

So technically, flying drones there

is prohibited. But who can really stop you?

Just come and film it. It flies fast,

and it can be launched from a fairly large

distance. It's

completely mistaken and wrong to think

that they can somehow completely

shield themselves from us and that nothing can be filmed.

Can we sneak in there? No, we can't.

We'd simply get shot — and we can't exactly ask

the staff for permission. And we can't approach it by water either.

But from the air

you can. We use that and keep

doing it. Not every site can be filmed this way,

but this one in particular

we did manage to film, despite the fact that

it belongs to Putin, and despite the fact that it

is guarded by the FSO. So, that's that question dealt with.

We actually have very little

time left and lots of topics. We have little

time and many topics. What else did we want

to discuss? We wanted to... So it seems to me

this was actually one of the main

questions of today's broadcast. Today we

reached 600,000 — yes, really.

Thank you so much. I hope everyone

watching these broadcasts has added

their signature in support of his campaign. We

collected 600,000 signatures, which is twice

as many as are needed for the official

nomination of a presidential candidate. We,

by the way, also know that today the media

reported that Putin will also

run via signature collection; he, uh,

doesn't want to be nominated by United Russia.

so he also has to collect 300,000

signatures. We don’t see him opening

campaign offices, but these really are achievements.

Please show the map. What does

the map with our offices look like? These red

dots are not just random little markers

that we put on a map based on where

signatures came from, or where we have volunteers, or

which cities are especially important. These are our 76

offices, each of which has

its own premises, a campaign office coordinator,

a lawyer, and a large number of volunteers.

This is our organization, which we, together with

you, built with your money. We

created it because our campaign

is funded by your donations, and

this truly is our huge shared

achievement—the largest

political organization that is

an independent political organization. In fact,

even among the dependent ones—United Russia (the Kremlin-backed ruling party),

the Communists, anyone at all—they don’t have

an organization of this size. Of course, no one

has 150,000 volunteers, no one has

offices like these that are funded

by the very people who come to

these offices. So, guys, once again, thank you

so much. Thanks to all those

coordinators who work

and every volunteer who works. Thanks to everyone

who sends money, because keeping all

this running would have been impossible without you. Well,

let’s keep working. We need these signatures.

We want to collect a million of them

so that

we can approach

the actual formal nomination procedure

in an even stronger, more impressive way. So in the description for

this video and on our website, Navalny

2018, you’ll find links. If you’ve already signed,

bring one more person with you.

Post the link on social media.

Keep supporting us financially.

You can see that we

spend your money better than Otkritie Bank

does, better than Senator

Dzhabrailov, and better than this whole

state apparatus, because we

really do work—we work effectively,

we try to work

in a way that makes you want to stay

with us and keep supporting us. You

can see photos now from our staff convention,

which took place

the day before yesterday. It lasted two days. We brought together

coordinators from all over the country and

trained them on how to

use IT systems, how to

use networks, what to do with video

surveillance, and so on. In other words, all of this

is very important. We are doing real,

serious work together. Everyone who has

ever contributed even a kopeck (a tiny amount of money) to our

campaign is, well, a co-author

and co-owner of this system. Everyone who

has signed is part of this

huge movement for the Beautiful Russia

of the Future, where there will be no senators

shooting at ceilings while under the influence of drugs,

or even without drugs shooting at ceilings; where there will be no

Central Bank that

hands out loans to shady

bankers; where there will be no

illegal arrests of innocent people; where there will not

be, uh—there may be press secretaries’ children, but they

will not be living in luxury off the system, and there will be no

illegal presidential dachas (country residences). Thank you

very much for watching this episode.

An important question—you’re interrupting me at

such a dramatic moment. Yes, well, my

job is to ask about the program. Everyone is asking about

the program—when will we present

the expanded version? We will present

the expanded version. We were supposed to do it

at that very staff convention on the 29th,

but a program is the kind of thing you

always want to make better, and the presentation

has to be more engaging. We do have

a program—it’s written—but honestly,

it’s a bit dull. We want to create case studies,

special ones, sort of

—I’ll explain, just give me a minute, or she’ll ask

to extend the airtime, by the way. Well, after all,

this is our channel, we can

of course keep talking, but we won’t

do that, uh.

Usually, a program is just posted on a website so that

it exists; at most, maybe 1,000

people out of all voters read it, and then you can

say, “We have a program—it’s 20

pages, go read it.” We want it

instead to be a program that actually brings us

more votes, so we’re simply

working on making the presentation, excuse me,

more interesting. But

the program exists, and we will publish it. We’ll be

publishing it over a short

period of time, because it’s the kind of thing that stays

alive and interesting the more questions we’re

asked. Because every time someone comes and

says, “What are you going to do about this?”

About housing and utilities, for example? And what about

management companies, homeowners’ associations, and so on?

So the program is simply our view

of what the Beautiful

Russia of the Future will look like. And we will keep doing this

for many months, describing our vision

of the future. But basically, for as long as

we are involved in politics, we will keep, uh,

doing it. This is the main task of any

political organization, of any

individual politician. Can we stop now?

Wrap it up. Thank you very much, Kira. Thank you,

guys, for being with us. Next

Thursday, come to 2018—we’ll be discussing

current issues with you. Good luck, bye.

[music]