The secret dacha of the man who beats you

Hi, this is Navalny, and I’m with you again.

After a month under arrest, and before I

move on to my role as the next host

of our wonderful investigative

mini-series, I want to answer

the most frequently asked question: what on earth

is happening, and how are we supposed to make sense of all this? What is this

all about? Putin, Sobyanin—have they completely

lost their minds? Arrests of candidates, beatings of people,

criminal cases over things thrown into police

plastic cups,

new political prisoners, raids on the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation)

with all the equipment seized—why is all of this happening?

Because of the Moscow City Duma elections or something?

Why, three months ago we didn’t even

know such a government body even existed. To

understand what’s going on,

we need to remember how it all began. At the

start of the summer, the Kremlin suddenly realized that

its terrible secret was about to be exposed:

the emperor has no clothes. Putin no longer has

the approval rating he used to—at least, not

the kind of rating that allows his

team and his party, United Russia,

to win elections easily. Putin’s regime

is called electoral authoritarianism, and

it is based on the fact that Putin

decides how elections are supposed to be arranged,

announces those elections, and always

wins them. And the whole country throws up its hands:

yes, we don’t like them, they’re thieves and fools,

but they seem to have won the election again, so

we have to submit. But the situation has changed.

People are getting poorer, prices are rising, and on top of that

they raised the retirement age—“I ask

you to treat this with understanding” (a reference to Putin’s phrasing). And we also

came up with Smart Voting, which

unites the efforts of those who do not

like this regime. So they ran to Putin and

Sobyanin, alarmed, and the pollsters too—they

wave stacks of data around and shout: we’re

going to lose! How can we lose? Lose to nobodies?

Lose—we, Putin’s party, we, the Moscow

mayor’s office with trillion-ruble budgets, lose

to whom? To these pups? Some Yashin and

Sobol and Zhdanov,

Yankauskas—who even are they? Running around

the streets like homeless people asking for newspaper money. They have

no money at all. We cannot lose.

If, before the eyes of the whole country, United

Russia collapses in a city that has been

flooded with money, then tomorrow it’s all over.

You can talk on television all you want

about stability and support, but the whole country

will already know that Putin, with all his

propaganda machine and all

his officials, was crushed by some independent

candidates. Which means Uncle Vova (a colloquial nickname for Vladimir Putin) is no longer

loved by the people, and Uncle Seryozha (a colloquial nickname for Sergei Sobyanin) can no longer

find candidates, can no longer

organize elections the “right” way.

That thought is terrifying. So they hold a meeting:

all right then, there are 45

seats, and 45 people will be elected, and no matter

what it takes,

they will be our 45 people. United Russia

will throw everyone the hell out of the election.

We’ll declare all the signatures fake.

We’ll jail every candidate who doesn’t shut up and

keeps demanding to be allowed on the ballot.

We’ll lock them up if necessary, but our specific deputies

will get elected. And then we’ll say: what were you

walking around shouting about? Just look

who got elected—there they are, our beauties, shoulder to

shoulder, all hand-picked thieves.

But these members of the ruling party—

the people chose them. We must not let

them win this way. Muscovites,

residents of St. Petersburg, people in Irkutsk—everyone, and right

now, regardless of our

political views, we all must

say: we will not let you win

through beatings, arrests, and the removal of

candidates. As a matter of principle, we will go and take part in

the

vote. We will rally, we will

protest, but don’t count on us

forgetting to come and vote against

your people. We at FBK will do everything

in our power to help the common cause, and

despite the destruction of our office, the seizure

of our money, and the theft of our equipment, I

declare that until voting day, every

working day we will release

one investigation, telling you about

the faces of this government. The task, frankly, is at the

edge of what’s possible, but we will try. And you,

please help us with

spreading the word, and urge everyone

to take part in Smart Voting. This is

a shared effort, guys: we provide the investigations,

you register, and on the eighth, vote

for the opponent of United Russia. You watched

an episode—now go to the website and register.

Watched the next one—forward it to a friend and

convince them to register.

Now, to business. Today’s story is about who

organizes

these very beatings. Obviously, the batons are swung

by the police and the National Guard (Rosgvardiya), but

there is a civilian official in Moscow City Hall

who oversees the security forces.

It is he who holds the meetings where

the arrest quota is approved, and how many

people need to be detained—whether today it’s

1,500 or 50 people—that’s decided there.

That’s where they decide: fine, let them walk along the boulevards,

we won’t pay attention—or do we start beating

people over the head and not be shy about it?

Rallies

are precisely his area of responsibility.

To ban them, to authorize them—he handles all of that. And not only that,

more than that,

our hero today violates the two

main principles I demand from

those in power and from politicians: don’t lie and don’t steal.

He does both masterfully.

[music]

Moscow's deputy mayor

Ivan Ivanovich Fyodorov has worked for

Sobyanin from his very first days in office and oversees

issues of regional security and

information policy. To put it in plain English,

in human terms,

he is the man in charge of protests and at the same time

the man in charge of lies, responsible for Moscow's

propaganda and the Sobyanin cult in the media and online.

Now, some of you may say, hold on,

but there is no Deputy Mayor Ivan

Ivanovich Fyodorov in Moscow.

Exactly my point. He seemingly isn't there on the official website.

We see Sergunina, Biryukov, Rakova,

and so on, but no Fyodorov. Or is there?

The thing is, our officials

especially those tied to the security services

love to classify themselves and change

their names in official documents.

That's illegal. For you, it would be

impossible. But for Alexander Nikolayevich

Gorbenko, the law does not exist.

If he wants, he'll become Fyodorov. If he wants,

he'll become Pugacheva, or maybe even Putin,

on paper.

To expose Fyodorov-Gorbenko, we were helped

by this person here: me, the 2013 version of myself.

Back then, I was running in the Moscow mayoral election

and explaining why Sobyanin's city hall

was mired in corruption. And exactly six years ago

I showed all of you the enormous estate

belonging to Gorbenko and asked the Moscow authorities

to explain how exactly this official had earned enough

to pay for it. Six years have passed,

and there are still no answers. But the dacha has expanded

in proportion to Sobyanin-era corruption.

Here it was in 2013, and here it is now. But

Gorbenko has not only learned to steal even more,

he has also learned to hide what he stole better.

If you obtain a registry extract for this

main 2-hectare plot (about 4.9 acres),

which used to belong to Gorbenko, then

you will discover that it now belongs

to Ivan Ivanovich Fyodorov. At first, we

thought that Sobyanin's propagandist

Gorbenko had become so ashamed because of our

post from six years ago that he literally

grabbed the first passerby off the street,

who happened to be Ivan Ivanovich,

and said: take it all, I bought all this

with stolen money, take it,

I'm disgusted to live in a dacha like this.

But then we decided that was probably unlikely. Well,

a lot of other things also point to

some inconsistencies: the plots belonging to his son and

wife, which are right there next to it, have not

gone anywhere, were not transferred to any Fyodorov, and

have not been fenced off from it.

But the most important thing is that since we

wrote about this house, we still have

old records in which the owner

is listed as Gorbenko. We dust them off and

see that Fyodorov has owned the plot since

the exact same day from which, according to the old

records, Gorbenko owned it.

Even the registration number matches. That means

we are looking at yet another example of how

some petty official

went to Rosreestr (Russia's property registry) and said: right,

some ordinary people are asking questions

about my dacha.

Please remove my surname and put down

another one. If you tried to do that,

you'd be jailed for forgery.

But they get away with it. Why? On what grounds?

Who does he think he is, anyway? Over all these

questions, you can reflect while we

fly over his estate

and inspect it from the air.

[music]

[music]

Just kidding, I simply wanted to show you what kind of

videos we were filming six years ago. Just kidding, I simply

wanted to show you what kind of videos we

were filming six years ago. We were filming

in the Domodedovo district

of the Moscow region. Before you lies

a huge 20,000-square-meter plot (about 4.9 acres)

belonging to Sobyanin's deputy, Alexander

Gorbenko. We fly over a 370-square-meter house

and see a perfectly trimmed lawn,

neat shrubs and trees. Right in front of

the house is a trampoline, and a bit farther on

an artificial pond, dolphin statues, and

a luxurious pool 20 meters wide (about 66 feet), with

a waterfall flowing into it. Behind them

there is a gazebo and a 400-square-meter

undeclared house, though it is clearly

lived in: dishes and various items are laid out on the veranda.

We turn around

and see deer statues and a cool dachshund-shaped

bench by the pond.

There is a little windmill house, and to the right a sports

ground with special training dummies for

striking. Apparently this is exactly where Gorbenko

trains, imagining in turn

a right hook to an independent candidate, then

a powerful shot to the liver of an 18-year-old girl

who came out to a protest. On just 20,000

square meters (about 4.9 acres) of Gorbenko's dacha, we

counted 9 buildings for different purposes, 2

ponds, 3 sports and playground areas,

5 statues, and 1 dachshund bench. And that

is your answer to the question of why Moscow

officials so eagerly and so diligently

carry out orders to break up protests. But

you can see how they live: half a billion

rubles and a literal aristocratic estate with

entertainment facilities, all owned by a civil servant

who previously, at most, had only headed

a propaganda outlet and the loss-making newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

In what other country could such a [__]

who has done nothing

good or useful in his entire life live such a

luxurious life? That is why not only Putin,

not only Sobyanin, but personally him as well,

this matters to Gorbenko: that United Russia

wins and once again gets 90 percent.

in the Moscow City Duma so that no one would ever

ask him what money he used

to buy all that, and at every meeting

this thief and propagandist, Gorbinka, will

insist on dispersing people, beating them, and not letting them in

he is personally interested in this, but our

interests are different. We must make sure

that Gorbenko loses the election. Therefore, on September 8,

we need to hit him where it hurts most

the most.

Take part in Smart Voting, come

to your polling station, and bring as many

people with you as possible.

Register right now, don’t

put it off.

Fight for your rights and don’t

be afraid. Subscribe to our channel

— this is where the truth is told.