The Takeover of Municipal Councils, Tinkov Destroys NEMAGIA, Russian ISIS

[music]

Hello. Good evening. It’s 8:18 p.m. in Moscow.

That means we’re in the studio of the channel

Navalny Live. I’m Alexei Navalny, here

to answer your

questions and discuss the latest

events with you. Please write on Twitter using

the hashtag #Navalny2018, and I’ll try

to answer. I’ve been flooded—I can see I’ve been

flooded with questions about “He Is Not Dimon to You” (the anti-corruption film about former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev). We’ll definitely discuss it.

But first, let’s begin

with the municipal elections in Moscow,

elections that took place across the country.

Something very important happened. I want to

discuss it, because the elections that took place in

Moscow and

the remarkable success of a huge number of

candidates for municipal deputy seats—this is

such a remarkable, outstanding event

that it’s very interesting to watch and can be

interpreted in many different ways.

We saw that at first

there was no interest in the municipal

elections. And, to be honest, I didn’t have much interest in them either.

Then

everyone started writing, “Come to the polling stations,”

then there was huge excitement: what does this mean?

It means we won and got

hundreds of deputies elected. Now there’s already a bit of a

trend toward analyzing these results, and

I can already see somewhat skeptical

articles appearing on the subject that, in fact,

there are actually fewer independent deputies

than before, that the municipal

filter can’t be passed, so it’s not really such a

victory. Take that graphic off for now—it’s too early.

I

wanted to discuss these things and give my

point of view on all of it.

So what happened? Let’s first understand

what happened. Is it a victory or not a victory? What will

the mayor’s office do about it? And what, well, needs

to be done by municipal deputies in order

so that

somehow use and capitalize on these

events. So, what happened?

Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin, together with his

wonderful political strategist and ally,

Anastasia Rakova, outsmarted themselves.

That is the main thing that happened with

the municipal elections. They had

a fairly coherent concept. I understood it,

and, generally speaking, I believed it would work.

I’ll admit that honestly here. It

consisted of the following: they needed to win

in Moscow, a city where protest sentiment is fairly high.

So they were going to

depress turnout—that is, not invite anyone to

these elections, so that no one would

show up except specially mobilized

state employees and a small number of

people who, well, always go to

elections—primarily elderly people

who come out because they always do.

For them it’s a form of socializing.

They come, get some kind of bun

or pastry, maybe run into

some neighbors, vote, and go

back home. And most often—in 90 percent of cases,

or rather 95 percent of cases—the voting

is very conservative, in favor of the authorities.

They don’t know anyone else. So, overall,

the concept was fairly coherent.

The opposition, by whipping things up on Facebook,

could bring out about 3 percent

of the electorate. That was already clear from

the previous State Duma elections.

So Sobyanin and Rakova figured:

we bring out 10 percent of our people, and they

bring out at most 3 percent of theirs; they get

a dozen or two dozen

deputies elected, while we basically win,

because we have our endless network of GBU housing services (state-run municipal maintenance agencies),

Zhilishchnik, and simply all our grandmas and

grandpas, who dearly love

the wonderful Vladimir Vladimirovich

Putin and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev,

who came to the polling stations in the morning,

all cheerful, and voted.

Twenty-five seconds on how they did it.

Thank you very much.

How lovely, wouldn’t you agree? What

happy people, the way they vote at

the polling stations. And the idea was that in the evening

news reports they would show all the same thing,

only now with great election

results: that United Russia had won

everywhere, while the opposition got 10,

maybe 20 seats at most. But

they miscalculated one thing: among their

core voters—the very same grandpas and

grandmas who go to elections

regularly and vote conservatively for

the authorities—dislike has recently grown

for Sergei Semyonovich Sobyanin and Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin. That is the single most

important fact of these elections, because

the mayor’s office reads the reports about itself

that it commissions, saying that

everyone loves Sobyanin. It turned out that no,

Moscow’s elderly don’t love

Sobyanin either. And that is what led to the fact that

the opposition—

Dmitry Gudkov’s excellent project,

which I really ignored at

first because it seemed rather

unsuccessful to me,

which I ignored not only at the beginning but, well,

to the very end, honestly—brought in 3 percent

of the voters, and the grandpas and grandmas

added another necessary percent

the extra percentage needed so that

so that

an astonishing thing could happen: United

Russia was completely swept out of everything

that is now called

the opposition arc in the city of Moscow.

Let’s take a look at the map of this.

the opposition districts. Please show them.

Slide. Here, on this slide, you can see

all the places where the majority went to

the opposition.

Now the slide showing where the majority went to

United Russia.

There, you can see it on the other one. And now the slide where

the results of the 2013 vote, where I

took part in those disgusting elections.

Here you can see the darker areas on the

map — those are the places where I received the

highest percentage. So indeed,

for several years now, in all the most recent

elections, there has been a clear

trend: from the Airport district and further to the

southwest, there is a zone where the opposition

gets quite strong support. There are a lot of

amusing pieces right now about how

this zone coincides with places where

bike-sharing stations are located, with places

where Azbuka Vkusa stores (a premium grocery chain) are located, and so

on and so forth. But basically these are

the neighborhoods with the highest standard

of living, with the most expensive real estate,

where, traditionally, the

technical intelligentsia and the scientific

intelligentsia lived — the most progressive

districts of Moscow. And in these districts,

with those percentages, United

Russia was practically wiped out.

And that is a tremendous achievement.

Now I would like to speak separately about

whether this was a victory or not. Please show

the slide that was accidentally shown

right at the very beginning and is now very

popular. And when people look at this slide,

many reason like this: well,

look, there are now even more United Russia deputies,

and as a result of the work

of Gudkov’s project and as a result

of the work of independent groups,

what happened was simply that Yabloko

absorbed the seats of independent

candidates and took them from A Just

Russia and the Communists, but in essence nothing

changed, and United Russia even got

more seats. But that is an absolutely incorrect

interpretation.

The victory in these elections lay

not at all in the fact that many

deputies got in. The municipal filter still

has to be overcome — and in general, the municipal

filter

is not a matter of mathematics; it is a matter

of politics. Even if you have many

deputies, if they do not want to let you onto the ballot,

they will not let you on.

The main victory, of course, is that

something that had not happened in Moscow for a very, very

long time has now happened. The last independent

municipality in Moscow was back in the 1990s.

It was the Presnensky District. Now

there are about a dozen districts where there are

independent deputies who hold

a majority there, or where United Russia is simply

not represented at all. That is a tremendous change, and

from this there may — or may not — emerge

quite remarkable and, uh, also

major developments. What will the Moscow city government do

about this?

I think, I am sure, that of course they are

very worried. They are probably getting

a major dressing-down from the Kremlin, because

the Kremlin suffered a very serious humiliation.

At the polling station in the Gagarinsky District, where

Putin voted, they got zero mandates. At the

polling station in the Ramenki District, where

Medvedev voted, they got zero mandates. And

after all the pomp surrounding it, it turned out

they were simply dragged face-first across the table.

And now the Moscow city government, I am sure of it,

will start doing what it does

even better than rigging elections: it

will gradually start buying off deputies, it

will gradually start corrupting

deputies, it will start deceiving them. Well,

it will engage in that sort of thing. That is precisely

why — take note — they are

first and foremost now targeting

the municipalities where the most

active and experienced people won. Take Yulia

Galyamina, who won an honest

majority in Timiryazevsky. Over the course of

yesterday,

the results at one polling station were falsified;

they took one mandate away from her. And just like that,

now her majority is no longer eight votes;

she is in the minority with seven votes.

They still hold a blocking stake, but

nevertheless she lost the majority.

Why? Because they understand that

Galyamina will be difficult to deceive or

bribe. She has different ambitions, and she does not

need money or favors or anything

else. She wants to be elected to the

Moscow City Duma; she wants to be elected to the State Duma,

relying on her district as a base. The same kind of

pressure was brought to bear on

Konstantin Yankauskas in Zyuzino, where he

built a team; he managed to hold them off. I

am sure that the greatest pressure will fall

on Ilya Yashin, who

made his campaign as political as possible,

won a majority in the Krasnoselsky District,

and this too is truly

a remarkable, outstanding phenomenon, because

Yashin was like a locomotive — he

openly said these were candidates of

Solidarnost (the opposition movement). He spoke less

about some municipal

agenda — courtyards, benches — and instead talked about

Putin, Medvedev, Sobyanin. In other words,

the man was bluntly telling the unvarnished truth, and

going door to door with that blunt truth.

His political affiliation, his affiliation with the political

opposition, and his repeated detentions

and arrests are well known to everyone. But the man

finished in first place by a huge margin.

ran the whole team and is planning

to get involved in political matters. And

so Mary will naturally want

to turn that, uh, into a working format

for the new deputies, something along those lines. Well,

let's be friends. Let's

work together on local

issues. There is, broadly speaking, an example of how this

exists in Moscow: independent

municipal councils. A year ago, in the Shchukino district of Moscow,

United Russia lost its majority there

and some very decent people were elected from

the Communists and from Yabloko (a liberal political party); the council was headed

by a deputy named Grebennik, a very experienced

and good person, but overall there were no

remarkable heroic feats there

to speak of. So this is what happened: the opposition

took over the district, seized power in

the district, but nothing happened there

because there was no proper

politicization. Of course, they were on their own, they were

being pressured, they were understandably nervous, but now

city hall will want to make sure that this

victory is not capitalized on. Kirill

Rogov, the political analyst, wrote a rather

excellent article, one of the best

articles on the results of these elections. He

wrote something very true: that getting

deputies elected is good, winning municipalities

for our side is good, it's a victory. But it will only truly

become a victory when we are able

to turn these deputy

seats into real political struggle

when it becomes clear that part of Moscow

has been taken over by opposition deputies, that

part of Moscow is controlled by the opposition, yes.

Of course, uh,

these deputies have very few powers

but they do have some powers, and now

they will, uh, by various cunning means,

well, be corrupted, absorbed into

the machinery of power and its wake.

Sorry, but we have to admit: this has always

worked. For many years I watched

Yabloko deputies get elected, and

however many there were, for example in the Moscow City Duma,

only one deputy, Bunimovich, remained and

did not join United Russia. All the others

switched over to United Russia. However many there were

from SPS (Union of Right Forces), only one, Kataev

Dmitry Ivanovich, did not join United

Russia; all the rest gradually ran off

to United Russia, despite the fact that they had run

in the elections under fairly, uh, radical

slogans. So now they will start

gradually poaching deputies, and I have received

many questions: what exactly is

a Moscow deputy? In fact, nobody really

understands it at all. Do they receive

money or not? Please show

the chart from which we can, well,

understand a little better what

a Moscow deputy is. Does he

receive any money at all?

So, look, there is the head

of the municipal council. Well, for example,

I hope Ilya Yashin will be elected as

that head; he is entitled to a salary

of 85,000 to 120,000 rubles per month

(roughly per month). Ordinary deputies do not receive

a salary, but they do receive so-called

compensation for their expenses each quarter.

That is from 40,000 to 90,000 rubles in different

municipalities, plus, uh, the head is entitled

to an official car, and all deputies

are entitled to

voluntary medical insurance

policies, which, well, are actually

quite expensive. So there are

some levers of influence. They may seem minor, but

there is still some means of pressure

and so far we have seen that this always works

quite effectively. Especially since, well, for

objective reasons, this will of course

run into the kinds of resistance

and contradictions even within the opposition

that will simply arise objectively. Well,

simply because these are

people driven by personal ambitions. For example,

in the Khamovniki district already now

yes, all the seats there were won

by opposition representatives. Formally, they

all ran from Yabloko, but there are two

rival groups there: one has

eight people, the other has seven, and

both groups are made up of very good people, but

they do not like each other, and each side

is trying to appoint its own head

of the municipality. And, uh, I hope all of this

will turn out fine, and I say this so that

among other things, the residents and deputies

of Khamovniki put a little pressure on them

along the lines of: make peace, guys. But

the objective truth, the plain truth,

is that more often than not there are

some splits, people start

scattering into different parties. This will happen

inevitably. Therefore,

our task

those of us who are watching all this, those who

voted, is simply to keep an eye on the

deputies we elected and

help them, and if necessary put pressure on them,

ask and demand that they

act politically, that

they make some political

decisions. Yes, they have very few powers.

Show us the slide: what powers do

municipal deputies have?

It may sound impressive, but

in reality it is not that significant, though

there is something. For example, major renovations of all

residential buildings cannot be approved without the signature of representatives

of the municipal councils; you cannot approve

a building's major renovation without them. They approve the local

budget, which is laughably small —

just a few million rubles — but they do have

the right of legislative initiative in the Moscow City Duma.

— this is a great thing; it can be used

to make use of it, to introduce bills, and

to discuss them and force the Moscow City Duma

to somehow make decisions on these

bills. They have the right

to hold local referendums, because

it will be very difficult to do, because

all significant issues have been assigned to

the jurisdiction of the city Duma. But there are, actually,

some very curious, funny

powers. We discussed this with Ilya Yashin

who came here. I started looking at

this charter and discovered that, for example, they

can establish awards. That

will be quite amusing when the leadership

of the Krasnoselsky District, for example, starts

instituting some kind of awards. Uh, maybe

it’s a bit of trolling, but generally speaking,

why not? There are

funny photos of Putin together with

his crooks, all standing there together and

handing them medals.

Yashin could very well present some

commemorative badges, for example, to those people

who, uh, keep watch on the bridge and guard

the Boris Nemtsov memorial site. They

are attacked, they defend themselves, they honestly

keep up their vigil. Why not

award some commemorative badges on behalf of

the residents of the Krasnoselsky District? A small thing, but

it would sting badly. The same goes for

holding local celebrations.

Well, you could say, uh, by the way,

the main places where all kinds of

rallies are held are precisely on the territory

of the Krasnoselsky District, and that same

Yashin could quite easily declare: “You know,

the residents’ opinion is that, uh,

this does not obstruct pedestrian passage. We support

holding rallies.” Despite the fact that

rallies are regulated by the city of Moscow, nevertheless

they would no longer be refusing just

some applicant — they would be refusing

a representative of the people,

a representative of this body. There are

other funny things too. For example, Yashin would become

the head of his district’s draft commission.

And probably the funniest, most ironic thing

is that the head

of the local police department would have to

come once or twice a year and

report to the municipal

assembly and to the head of the municipal

assembly in Krasnoselsky — again, that

would be Yashin — on his work. Which is, well,

terribly ironic, because in

Krasnoselsky, as I recall, at the local police station

Yashin was twice brought in

in handcuffs. And now, it turns out, the police will

be reporting to him. But the most important thing

is what, in my view, they should — what

municipal assemblies should begin their work with:

with exercising their main

political power — the ability

to express no confidence in the head of the executive

authority of their district and thus, in effect,

in Moscow City Hall. Well, this needs to be done.

It’s like if, imagine,

the opposition had won a majority of seats in

the State Duma, and then

the head of government came there to

report to them, and they said, “Well, Dmitry

Anatolyevich, sure, we don’t really

like you very much, and you stole 80 billion

and built various dachas (country houses) with it, but we’ll

work constructively with you.” But

that’s impossible. Why win

elections if you then agree to work with

these people and not express no confidence in them?

So I very much hope that these newly

elected municipal assemblies where

the opposition holds a majority will, after all,

politically make their position toward

this government clear and declare no confidence

— adopt official resolutions

expressing no confidence in the local head

of the executive branch, and in general in Moscow Mayor Sobyanin.

After all, that’s what they were elected for; they

were elected because people do not like this

local government. Well, it will be very

interesting to watch whether they do it

or not. So, George Seno asks me:

could it be that the Kremlin

is trying to pretend that now, all of a sudden, we have

democracy? They did try to create that impression.

The idea was that there would be no major

falsifications.

Well, it’s not exactly that Gudkov’s project was being given

a green light, but it wasn’t being obstructed.

At the same time, our volunteers were out there

for the municipal campaign, and no one touched them.

Our volunteers are constantly detained in

Moscow. So there was a green light so that

they could, well, win 20–30 seats, and then say,

“Well, the opposition performed modestly, uh,”

they just didn’t expect that

pensioners would vote against them, and that

even if not en masse, they would still vote,

and that this would lead to a complete defeat within

this opposition arc. And

in the Babushkinsky district, Lena asks me:

“In Babushkinsky, was Lisovenko the head — that same

one, the pilot? Everyone remembers his

attacks on Navalny during that nasty

campaign. All five seats are with United Russia again, and

he’s among them.” Yes, because as I already

said, this little shift

that took place, which Gudkov’s project helped bring about,

did, after all, lead to the fact that

it became possible to win in the opposition belt. But

in difficult districts with very large

populations — like mine, Maryino — that

was not enough. Let’s just look at the math

to make it clearer.

Please show the slide with the numbers,

not percentages, because they don’t really

make anything clear. Show the absolute figures for

the election.

We don't have that slide, so let me just

say it out loud: overall,

the number of people who voted was

1.1 million in this

election, out of about 7.5

million voters. So this

Facebook electorate, which was actively

at most 200,000 people, and Moscow City Hall

had hoped that these 800

thousand people would be their very

strong, reliable electorate. But in the

opposition belt, that strong, reliable

electorate turned out to be not strong at all,

nor reliable. But out on the outskirts,

in the peripheral districts, uh, it still

worked. But that's exactly what

our campaign has to work on. We

aren't, after all, focusing our efforts on

campaigning in lovely Khamovniki and

Arbat; we travel around cities. This

weekend—tomorrow I'm flying to Murmansk,

then I'll be in Yekaterinburg, and then

I'll be in Omsk. In other words, we'll be

campaigning, and the real question of

victory is victory where there lives

well, this kind of

voter who's hard to reach,

who doesn't have an Azbuka Vkusa (upscale grocery chain) nearby,

who doesn't rollerblade, who isn't

a hipster. Those people can also be

persuaded. We'll do that. But that is

the campaign's main task.

Alexei asks me: Cheburashka, tell me,

wasn't it against the law not to cover the election?

Wasn't City Hall supposed to cover

this event? Well, essentially, yes, it was illegal.

Of course they were supposed to do it. They

ignored it because they had

that strategy. And there were, and still are, many

analytical articles showing

that Moscow City Hall newspapers wrote about the election

far less—sorry, far less

than in any other

I live in a district where there is an unquestioned

pro-government bloc among the municipal deputies, and the majority

of Muscovites continue to live in these districts.

That's true—let me stress once again:

since most of us still

live in districts where

United Russia still rules, and this

noble Facebook impulse still hasn't

reached there. It's very important for us that

in the opposition belt there be real

genuine political work

by municipal deputies. That way it will be easier for us

to live in our districts.

Alexei asks me: Yury Skop, are you

going to enter into a struggle for influence over

the opposition deputies? Well, I hope it

won't be a struggle. I mean, I don't need

to wage some special fight for them.

Probably with City Hall—uh, no, what we need is simply

to keep an eye on these deputies. I can

say that the Anti-Corruption Foundation

is ready, right now,

and I'm saying this on air, to every municipal

assembly and every deputy: we're ready to provide

help if they want to fight

corruption in their district. It's not

easy, it's confusing, it's digging through

procurement records and documents—very few people know how to do that.

Most people aren't

interested in it. We're ready to do that boring

work if you help and

take this on—send inquiries, uh,

demand information from City Hall,

express no confidence in them—in other words, fight

against the corrupt officials. We are fully

ready to help. Well, that's what our

struggle for municipal deputies consists of.

[music]

So,

Vadim Vlasov: where there are no United Russia members,

independent deputies won't be allowed to work properly,

and people will still be steered toward their own

deputy. We've seen that before.

Once again, guys, so you understand:

municipal assemblies have very, very few powers,

extremely few.

So

basically, in order to get anything done,

these newly elected

municipal deputies need

to engage in—I'm not afraid to say it—

PR as well, including staging bright, visible

actions, doing things that annoy

the authorities. Only in that case will they be

noticed, and their work noticed,

because, well, they have very

few powers. So what you really need is a great deal of

determination. So first and foremost I

am, of course, placing my hopes on

the established groups that made it through in these

elections and are led by, well,

people like

people who really understand politics:

Linkauskas, Zyuzina, and Galyamina in

Timiryazevsky, of course, Yashin in

Krasnoselsky,

and Gagarinsky District, where there are absolutely

amazing deputies—truly fantastic

people—and there are such

serious people there. So I hope

they will be the flagships leading all of this forward.

I'm being reminded that I should

say that today we're running an experiment, and

the stream is not only on YouTube, but is also being

restreamed on VKontakte, Facebook, and even

Odnoklassniki. We're broadcasting there now too,

so if your grandmother or aunt

is always hanging out on Odnoklassniki,

you can confidently go tell her: come on over

to Navalny Live—Bosch is live on air

to watch.

Come watch our broadcast.

Your Jesus Christ, what blasphemy.

Someone asks, with a sad emoji, where Kira is.

Kira is helping me off camera, but she isn't

is taking part in the broadcast. Although without her it's very

hard for me to host, because one woman

wrote me a letter: "Hello, Alexei,

I'm a pensioner, and of course you do a great job

hosting broadcasts together with Kira, but it bothers me

to hear you say

that you're afraid to host a broadcast alone. A president

shouldn't be afraid of anything." That letter

made an impression on me. I thought that

I really ought to overcome myself and

try to go on air alone. Uh, "Bring Kira back,"

people write. "Where is Kira?" A lot of

"Where is Kira?" with the hashtag "Cut Tinkov"—now

we're going to talk not about magic, but there's no need

to cut anyone.

Briefly about the election results across

Russia, because Moscow is of course

wonderful, but the rest of our country

it is

90% of the voters.

Two main things I want to say—

three main things. First, you shouldn't think

that surprising things happen only in Moscow.

For example, in the city of

Asbest, United Russia just as much

suffered an absolutely crushing

defeat, simply a crushing

defeat, and they were simply swept out of

the local assembly there by Communists, LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), who, who

are just local regional activists, but

the work—even in places like that. Well, Asbest isn't even

Yekaterinburg; it's a much more

difficult city in terms of organizing, but nevertheless

people turned out there and defeated United

Russia. It's just that unfortunately this is discussed far

less than the wonderful

successes of municipal deputies, but such

miracles happen all the time. Number one.

Eternal number two is, of course, the elections in

Sverdlovsk Region, where there was essentially

a rehearsal for what happens if they do not

allow the main opposition

candidate to run. By the way, Yevgeny

Roizman, who was not allowed to take part in these

elections and who would now have become governor

of Sverdlovsk Region, has an anniversary today—

he turns 55. I congratulate him. I hope, I

am sure, that we will achieve the point where Yevgeny

will take part in elections and become

governor of Sverdlovsk Region. He will be

an excellent governor. And of course everyone

is asking whether the boycott worked or

didn't work. I refer you to an article by

the mathematician Sergei Shpilkin. He

became famous because in 2011 it was

precisely his mathematical publications

where he proved with concrete figures

the falsifications that took place in

the elections—that really started the wave

of publications on the subject, and then there were

mass protests. In other words, this is a person who

understands very well what he's talking about, and

he proved it with numbers. Just google

Sergei Shpilkin and you'll find the article.

He proved that in fact the boycott

worked. And in the city of Yekaterinburg,

because of the boycott campaign, 10% of voters

did not come to vote. But as you

know, in Sverdlovsk Region they

countered that by organizing a lottery at

all polling stations and raffling off cars,

apartments, and that brought in an additional 14

percent of people. That's a lot. One of

Shpilkin's conclusions is that, essentially,

holding lotteries at polling stations

will in effect be a method of

falsification, because the result

they get is comparable

to ballot stuffing, it's comparable to inflated counts, and

probably soon we'll have to expect

some kind of nationwide lotteries or

the spread of this practice to

all regions. And nevertheless,

when I say "boycott campaign" in

Sverdlovsk Region, let's be honest

and say that for us it consisted of me

putting out one video, a couple of times

appearing in this, speaking on this

program; Yevgeny Roizman made a couple

of videos, gave several public

speeches, several Facebook posts.

There was no real campaign. Nevertheless,

10% of voters listened and did not

take part in these elections, and they shared

our view. Therefore I absolutely believe

that a large-scale mass boycott can

happen, but it requires work—that is,

just a video is not enough. Third,

the last thing I wanted to say about

uh

the elections across the country.

Let's take a look at the gubernatorial election results.

No one pays attention to this,

but it seems to me that this table is

absolutely amazing, fantastic, and

very interesting in the sense that, well,

guys, we're often told that Putin

is so great, that he has such enormous

popular support, and that he is unique in this

support from the people. And now let's look

at this table. Good Lord, what do

we see? Any random clown, a former

Putin bodyguard, or just some

obscure people who came to these

republics in order to take part in

elections from Moscow—nobody even knows

who they are. From this list, at least

five governors, uh, would not have been able

to vote because they did not have

residential registration in that area.

Just look at what they got:

89%, 88%, 87%. And Putin in the last election

got 71%. It's right here, this last

line. So all these people who

are in the table turn out to be

bigger than Putin, more unique

politicians. Then let's talk about them

and say that there's this, what's-his-name there in

the Mordovian region, in the Republic of Mordovia

Vladimir Volkov—so if there is Mordovia, then there isn't

Vladimir Volkov; without Vladimir Volkov there is no Mordovia, and

to repeat all this nonsense about them as well

then they are all unique, then any one of

them can replace Putin. Right? We

understand that this is not the case. It's just that under

conditions of

monopoly, under conditions of censorship, under conditions of

falsification, anyone can get

86%, 84%—Putin, Medvedev, Shoigu

Natalya Poklonskaya, Dmitry Rogozin. In

that sense, we need to understand very clearly, and

not let ourselves be deceived into thinking that they get

their percentages only under conditions of

monopoly and falsification, and each of them

can boast of their 80 percent

or 89, but we understand perfectly well that all of this is

fake, completely fake, and these numbers should not be believed

at all. Nemagia

I can see that I'm just getting

something with Nemagia here—I’m flooded

with questions about Nemagia, but in general that is

right, because probably this is a question

best addressed to me

There was a search of the home of Alexei Pskovitin

Let’s watch a very short video

—you’ve all seen this already. Let’s

take a look

at a short clip that was filmed at the door

of the apartment

where the search was taking place

Play it. Tell us who they are

So, what is Nemagia, for those

who may not know? It’s a channel run by two

young men who are based in

Kemerovo, and they make reviews about various

things, different people, different

events, and mostly they, well, in the

typical internet, YouTube style,

criticize them. They did reviews—of me too

they criticized me as well, though moderately. Well,

it’s an interesting channel, a popular channel

Freedom of speech—they have the right to criticize whoever

they want. They criticized Oleg Tinkov

and released a fairly long

video about him, criticizing his bank and him personally in

various terms, and, uh, this led to

rather serious consequences for

the bank—the whole internet was filled with

photos of cut-up Tinkoff cards

It effectively turned into a kind of manifesto

against banking bondage, against this

kind of interest-rate slavery, as I understand it

They struck a blow against Oleg

Tinkov’s business, and then suddenly it happened that he

sued them, but also at the home of one of

the participants in this channel there was a

search—they broke down his door, and at his

grandmother’s home there were searches too. Well, this was

a real intimidation campaign, and it turned out that it was all over

a criminal libel case. And this is the second

time in Russia’s history when, over a libel case

—which until quite recently had been

decriminalized, and which certainly is not

some kind of serious offense—

they actually conduct a home search with seizure of

computers. This is the second time, because

the first time was with me—there was a

search of my home in a libel case, based on a complaint by

that crook, former police officer Pavel

Karpov, who was involved in

the Magnitsky case, and who claimed

that I had libeled him. Uh, I was summoned for

questioning; during the questioning I was personally searched, then

they took me home, there was a search there, and they seized

all the computers—they took the children’s computers too

and phones, the full treatment. So

I, uh,

know a little about this, and I can

give my personal opinion here, since

Tinkoff loves suing everyone

so here’s a disclaimer: everything I’m saying

is my personal opinion

based simply on my observations. I

am absolutely, relying on my own

experience, convinced that this was of course a заказное дело (a commissioned hit job), that

the police were paid to go there, or

their bosses were paid so that they would do it

—this does not happen

There are no searches in libel cases; there is

no need to search anyone, there is nothing

to look for there. What evidence could one

possibly find? And Nemagia isn’t hiding. They

are saying themselves: yes, we released a video about

Tinkov. So there is no need to seize

computers in order to prove that

it was they who did it. This is purely

a заказ (a paid-for operation). We understand perfectly well that any

banker, any major businessman, has

has

connections with various

state authorities; he, well, by

this Russian tradition, has

assigned contacts from the MVD (Interior Ministry) and the FSB (security service), and

let’s be honest, each of them

keeps some

high-ranking police officers or

FSB officers on the payroll, and my version is that

Oleg Tinkov

being a clearly nervous person and

someone who takes things very personally, he

simply called one of his

police generals there, whom he pays

a salary, and said: “Petrovich, they’ve come after me here

—what are you getting 50

thousand dollars a month from me for? Please, tear apart

these bastards who are interfering with my

business.” And what can Petrovich do?

Well, Petrovich sent out some guys from

Petrovka 38 (Moscow police headquarters); they went, broke down the door

and started terrorizing these

guys from Kemerovo, started taking away their computers. And

that is exactly how all of this happened. I

have not the slightest doubt. This could not

have been ordinary, normal

procedural actions. No one would ever

have gone from Petrovka 38 otherwise

That’s how it works. Even if someone wanted to

carry out a search in a defamation case, they would

write to the local police. They would give them

instructions: please question your

local residents, conduct a search at their homes.

The local officers would come and do it. But when people

fly in directly from Petrovka

(Petrovka 38, Moscow police headquarters), break down doors—well, this is

obviously a hit job, in my personal opinion.

Based on my own experience, I do not for a

single second believe that this could have

happened just like that. This is a personal

vendetta by Tinkov.

He

simply decided, in this way, to destroy Nemagia

— ruin them, wreck their lives,

terrorize them, take revenge because they

hit him where it hurts — they hit his

business. I’m not ready—I honestly

haven’t even watched their long

film yet; maybe I’ll watch it now. I’m not ready

to say how right they are regarding

the bank. Maybe they’re right, maybe

they’re wrong, but they have their own opinion. As for

Tinkov himself, well, unquestionably

he’s a very unpleasant person,

eccentric, but very unpleasant, and

many people criticize him. He built

much of his bank’s PR on criticism,

confrontation, and scandals, so in theory he

should be ready for this kind of thing, because

he himself is constantly stirring up scandals and

going after people. And when people went

after him in return,

he decided to handle it through the police,

with searches and everything else. So I can

say to the Nemagia channel, which is not

exactly a very friendly

channel toward me, that of course

I can only express my support.

Oleg Tinkov, I hope you

stop this nonsense. Sue them if you want—

please, sue them. If they caused you

damage, calculate the damages and file a claim.

As people often tell me, go to

a Russian court. But all these tricks with

the police will, of course, do damage to Tinkoff Bank

ten times greater than the damage

caused simply by Nemagia’s film.

And I hope he stops and doesn’t keep

engaging in all this very

shameful nonsense, and

moves all of this into some kind of civilized

format. It’s extremely unpleasant, but I

also, by the way, suspect that even

within the Interior Ministry system

people won’t be very happy about this, because

well, of course, to the leadership of the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs), it’s obvious that

this is a paid hit job. To anyone

who has any connection and understands how

the Interior Ministry system, the FSB (Federal Security Service), and the security services in general

work, it’s obvious this is a paid job. For

money, they all went there, and it turned into

a huge scandal across the whole country. All of

YouTube is talking about nothing else.

I think there will be some kind of

consequences from this. Tim TT writes: “Tinkoff is the best bank.”

“Tinkoff…” I can’t, uh, quote what

Nemagia called him—“pathetic thugs.” Quite

possibly, listen, it’s quite possible that

they are pathetic thugs. They still have the right

to run their channel. Why break down their door?

No one has the right to do that, or to seize their

computers. There was absolutely no investigative need

or public necessity to do this to these people,

to break down the door and conduct searches at someone’s

grandmother’s home, even if it’s a defamation case. Well,

fine—then you have to prove

that these people said something false, and that they said

it knowingly.

There is no need to search a grandmother’s apartment for that.

This is a hit job, and it is being done for a

perfectly clear purpose. Just as they did to me,

they want to take away computers, they

want to take phones and dig through them,

to find some compromising material—some of your

photos, home videos. Maybe you

photographed someone naked,

or took naked photos of yourself, and they’ll post it

online, and then they’ll use that to

blackmail you. They always do this—in

every criminal case, against every enemy,

in every commissioned case, this is the first thing

that happens: they rush in, take away phones,

computers, and start digging through them not

in search of evidence, but in

search of personal, sensitive,

compromising information. That’s all. We have

a poll running on YouTube, on

Twitter, and on VKontakte: who is right,

Tinkoff or Nemagia? Let’s

vote. I can see fairly, uh,

quite different opinions here. People are writing:

“Tinkoff is corrupt,” writes Sergey

Yakovlev. Well, I don’t know. As I already said,

it is my value judgment that he has

police officers on his payroll, that he paid

them. I have no evidence on this

matter, so I’m not prepared to say

whether he’s corrupt or not. He’s a rather

unpleasant person.

Daniil Kranikov writes: “Were they looking for defamation in their home?”

Yes, apparently they were looking for defamation.

Take a look—maybe the defamation is lying

under the bed.

So, what else are people writing about Nemagia?

“Petrovka 38 subscription service: home visits.” Well, yes,

that’s how it works here. It’s long been known that the

Investigative Committee and the police, unfortunately, are like

call boys—they simply do these

things for money, and it’s obvious to everyone

that this is being done for money. Let’s

move on to the next topic.

It has now emerged that our entire country has been

mined with bomb threats.

And

this

is quite a surprising phenomenon, because

It started on September 10.

First there was Sterlitamak, then, I see, seven planted

bombs in Perm, then Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, then

on September 11, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, and so on.

There was simply a wave of calls and,

accordingly, evacuations because of bomb threats.

Vladivostok, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk—that is,

hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated from

various institutions. This is not

an exaggeration, because in Moscow alone

100,000 people were evacuated yesterday,

and today it is continuing, as far as I

understand. Detsky Mir on Lubyanka (a famous children's department store in central Moscow), I think,

was evacuated today. I mean, these are

huge shopping centers with enormous

numbers of people, and

the authorities' reaction to this is very interesting,

because, I mean, mysterious

events are taking place involving millions,

and hundreds of thousands have been evacuated. They

go and tell their

relatives and other people, so

millions of people know this is

happening, but basically the only

coverage of all this is only on

the internet and in some small

media outlets. I saw

statistics today showing that this is not

being covered on the federal TV channels, and that

naturally gives rise to the wildest conspiracy

theories, especially given how the authorities

as usual are reacting to this in a super idiotic

way, because the first version

from the Russian authorities, when everyone started

asking, "Is something else happening?"—well,

naturally, it was the "Ukrainian trace." They

said there had been some calls, these

IP telephony calls from Ukraine. Well, naturally

everyone started laughing at that and

saying, uh,

"Maybe someone found Yarosh's business card there too"

(a sarcastic reference to Dmitry Yarosh, a Ukrainian nationalist often invoked in Russian propaganda). Really, it's laughable: whatever

happens, they look for a Ukrainian

trace in everything.

Bravo—our FSB found a better version.

And with a straight face, simply forgetting that

yesterday, and even an hour ago today, they

were talking about the Ukrainian trace, they started

saying:

"We conducted

some kind of preliminary investigation, and

found that these mass

phone calls—well,

they were made from territory under

ISIS control, and members of the Islamic

State are making these calls." Well, let's just say

it is,

a dubious version. I don't really believe it,

because after all, these are all voice calls.

It's hard to imagine that, you know, ISIS has

an entire call center of people who can

call in fluent Russian

some police department in Perm and say, "Hello,

good afternoon, in your shopping center

number such-and-such, a bomb has been planted, and in

an hour it will be detonated."

Well, unless the people calling there had

a distinctive accent and were saying all the

things that members of ISIS are usually supposed to say

when they warn about

some terrorist attack. These phone

conversations—in huge numbers, hundreds of them—

must have been recorded, because all

such calls are recorded, and we would

probably like, given what is

happening, for greater clarity or

to reduce panic—well,

some confirmation of these versions.

If ISIS is engaged in this kind of

sabotage—not terrorism, sabotage—then, well,

let's hear a few of the calls.

Show them to us, play them, and then we'll

know that's the case. If it's from the territory of

Ukraine, well then play for us those

mass, hundreds of calls from the territory of

Ukraine, where apparently residents of Western

Ukraine, with their characteristic accent, uh,

are saying that shopping centers have been mined. But

there's none of that either, nothing.

There is no information on television at all—

silence, while hundreds of thousands of people are being evacuated. And

my version, of course,

is that this is part of military drills.

Large exercises are underway right now called

Zapad 2017, and the Russian

authorities, in their ultra-idiotic fashion,

are engaged in this nonsense.

Actually, as part of drills, probably, as part

of ordinary life, it is necessary

to conduct drills periodically, uh,

Emergency Situations Ministry drills,

civil defense drills,

to understand how quickly

it is actually possible to evacuate

several sites in the city of Perm or

Yekaterinburg, how quickly people can be

evacuated from different cities, whether

panic arises, whether those

warning speakers hanging on poles

work, whether the sound carries, whether the proper

telephone system works, I don't know, whether there is heating in

bomb shelters, whether there is some food supply, and

so on and so forth. That is, after all,

emergency situations and civil

defense are a major field. But

all of that is understandable, it needs to be tested. Well,

listen, this exists in all countries.

Many countries are concerned about their

security—Israel, or the United States, which is

constantly threatened

by various attacks, South Korea or Japan,

which are in a situation where

they are constantly being threatened with the possibility that

North Korea, uh, will launch

a missile with a nuclear warhead at them. But they

don't engage in this kind of nonsense. They probably

also conduct, uh, some emergency

drills there, but nothing like this.

the idiocy of simply starting to

evacuate people en masse there, and no one

explains anything. Sure, of course, I suppose

you can't say, "Guys, tomorrow

there will be a drill and we'll be evacuating

the department store"—because then no one

would take them seriously. But you can't

evacuate them for several days in a row

without saying a single word, making up

some nonsense. Make something up about Ukraine,

some nonsense about ISIS, and just completely

throw everyone into confusion, without

saying anything on the main TV channels—

it's just abuse.

These aren't really drills. What's the point?

Other countries manage to do this

normally, even countries that are in

an even riskier situation. But here,

with us, it's because fundamentally

they just don't care about people. They sat there

and came up with some drill scenario: let's

carry out evacuations all across the country. And

when people ask us what's

going on, what will we tell them? What will we

not tell them? Why should we tell them anything?

No, on the contrary, secrecy is good.

Let's write it up so that, under the conditions of the

Zapad 2017 exercise (a major Russia-Belarus military drill), we'll create an atmosphere of secrecy

and nightmare. Once again, we'll say some nonsense

so that everyone is scared. What's the point of that?

Who is better off because of it? So this is just

yet another manifestation of the stupidity

of this government. I don't see anything else in it.

For now, our poll on the question

of Nemagia looks like this:

who is right? Nemagia has 97 percent on

YouTube, 95 percent on VKontakte, 85

percent on Twitter. Twitter, as usual,

is our most, let's say, distinctive platform, and for

Tinkov it's 2 percent on YouTube,

on VKontakte, accordingly, four and a

half, and 15 percent on Twitter. So

we can see that users' sympathy

is, of course, primarily

on the side of the Nemagia project, and it's clear

why. Even if, on the substance, Tinkov

is right—even if it turns out that Nemagia

was blackmailing him, or did something

or extorted money, or wanted to get

an advertising contract, but they weren't given one,

so out of spite they

released the film—even if that's true,

once they started doing these things like

breaking down doors and

searching grandmothers' homes, Tinkoff

simply nullified any possible claim to being right,

because you're acting like a thug: you hired

police officers who behave like

bandits. Tinkov is genuinely trying

to present himself as a kind of lite version

of Ramzan Kadyrov (the head of Chechnya, known for his strongman style). It's just that Ramzan

Kadyrov has his own police, while this guy

paid to hire detectives from Petrovka (Moscow police headquarters), and here they are

showing up and staging this clown show,

scaring people. It's disgusting.

Alex Stafford writes: the bomb threats are connected

to the film *Matilda*—that's what the leader

of Christian State, Alexander

Kalinin, said. We'll talk about that now, but

I think that's nonsense; it can't be

connected to that, it's unlikely. About *Matilda*,

Mikhail Razor 206 asks:

Should we expect to see you on Twitch? And how will we

handle esports in the beautiful

Russia of the future? In the beautiful Russia

of the future, we will treat esports

wonderfully and support it in every possible way—

or rather, not exactly support it directly;

the state should not be specially

developing it. The state

should leave it alone and simply

create conditions for the development of

the whole computer gaming industry, including

the Twitch industry. As for expecting me on Twitch,

you should—I just don't really understand how

or where I should start. What, stream myself playing

some game? It's a little funny. Especially since

I, hmm, haven't really

been playing much lately, although I used to play

and I do know how to play some games. So

you can expect me on Twitch—we're thinking about how

to get into it. If you have good advice,

send it along. Uh, users are asking me

under the name 'For a Russia Without Thieves and

Oligarchs'—great name, by the way. So the

question is: what will you do with oligarchs

who are friends of Putin? We won't do anything

to oligarchs who are not friends of

Putin, and even with those oligarchs who are

friends of Putin but are not implicated in

corrupt deals, we also won't do anything

to them—except that if they

took part in privatization deals,

they will have to pay

a compensatory tax. Otherwise, there is no goal

to specifically hunt down, kill,

or jail oligarchs, or conduct

searches at their homes. If they work,

pay taxes, did not participate in corruption,

did not buy Medvedev palaces, houses, and yachts,

then fine—they are citizens just like

everyone else. What will happen to the people

on the Magnitsky list if you become

president? I will send the accused to trial. But they

will be dealt with by an honest court and an honest

Investigative Committee.

And responsibility for the calls has already been taken

by Christian State; its leader

even gave an interview about it.

Il-Kar tells me, and that means that

of course we now need to move on to

the last topic, probably. Judging by

the time left in our program, this is

the creation of our very own homegrown Russian

people's ISIS, because there's simply no

other way to describe it. But

if earlier we joked a little about this

topic—ha-ha-ha, and all that—

state-sponsored, deeply hypocritical and

deceitful conservatism mixed with

a Christianity that does not exist—this is an attempt

to create a kind of Orthodox Christian Iran.

And now we can see that it is being built

at a breakneck pace, in huge strides.

And indeed, it already looks very much

like ISIS (the Islamic State), without exaggeration.

Let’s look once again at this

letter. Show the end of that letter

that the movement “Christian

State,” which suddenly appeared,

started sending out to movie theaters.

Pay attention to this astonishing—if

you can read the tiny

print—the phrase: “If screenings of

*Matilda* begin tomorrow, theaters will burn; people

may also be harmed. These actions

will begin out of desperation, by those who

love God and their people so much that

they are ready to go to prison or even to

their death for them.” But this is exactly what amounts to

a literal copy of ISIS’s style,

the Taliban’s, and that of any other radical

Islamist groups. You understand—people didn’t talk like this

even in Chechnya; this is how

madmen have started talking.

“We love God so much that we

simply cannot do without

setting a movie theater on fire. We love

God so much that someone must immediately

die.” That is exactly what they write.

They simply swap Christianity for Islam,

change a few words around,

and replace *Matilda* with cartoons of the Prophet

Muhammad—it is all exactly the same. This is directly

borrowed from that rhetoric, and it is monstrous.

And one more thing—let’s look at the same issue

that struck me. Go to

the Open Russia website and read the interview.

Spend a few minutes. Read

the interview with Alexander Kalinin,

the head of this movement,

“Christian State.” Show, please,

this excerpt: they ask him,

“What are your brothers prepared to do?” Your

“brothers”—even that is copied. And then:

“4,000 people submitted statements. Everyone

wants to prove themselves in the proper way.

After this, nothing will stay the same. Some are

ready to act—some to burn things, some

to pray. But everyone is ready to act.”

Guys, once again: this is a calque, simply

a literal imitation of what ISIS does.

It is monstrous. This is exactly why ISIS

is considered a terrorist entity.

This is something Russia did not have,

and something that for many years

was impossible even to imagine. In fact, Russia was only quite recently

an atheist state.

The Soviet Union was an atheist

state. All the people here who

still hold senior positions

were officially atheists, and suddenly,

out of nowhere, we have these

these very

supposed or real religious fanatics

who are threatening, no less, to

burn everything down. These interviews are published, while

for similar interviews given by members

of ISIS, media outlets are blocked,

and Roskomnadzor (Russia’s media and communications regulator) issues

warnings. But here, nothing

happens. Last time we talked about how

there was an attempt in Yekaterinburg

that was, plainly, an attempted terrorist attack.

I read a text by the well-known

publicist and political figure,

public activist Konstantin Krylov, and it said something like this:

he is a right-wing conservative man,

all the Donbas stuff and so on, but he wrote

an opinion that, in a way, makes sense:

“Why are you so afraid of these

Orthodox terrorists? Why don’t you treat them

with at least a gram of the same

tolerance that you show toward Islamist

extremists? Because whenever

there is a bombing carried out by Islamists,

all the liberals—or many of them, naturally—

rush out and of course start

repeating like a mantra: ‘Islam is a religion

of love and peace; all these

bombings have nothing to do with it.’ But the Orthodox

haven’t blown anything up or burned anything down, and yet

you’re all already furious here and

hate them.” On the one hand, that

point of view does, of course, have

a certain logic to it. But on the other hand—what are we

supposed to do, wait until they actually do something?

They tried to set this movie theater on fire.

And the thing is, once you

create all this—many people think, and

perhaps they are partly right, that this is of course

a kind of

mock terrorism, specially

invented so that we would discuss it endlessly.

I’ve probably been discussing *Matilda*

for the fourth or fifth time already.

I’m really sick of discussing it.

Soon the program will be called

*Matilda in 2018*. It’s tiresome, and all of this was invented specifically

for that purpose: so that

we would discuss it endlessly, distract

attention, and so that, as in the Ustinov case,

the split would once again occur not along the line of

pro-Putin versus anti-Putin, but along the line of

Orthodox versus non-Orthodox. And perhaps

these are, in a sense, mock terrorists—but

the thing is, you will not be able to

switch them off.

Oleg Kozyrev wrote something very true.

He is an opposition activist who himself

comes from a Protestant background and originally from

the Christian democratic movement.

He said that if you create religious

extremists, if you manage them, if you

finance them, if you encourage them, if you

allow them to write things like this,

And if you think you'll be able to get rid of them that easily,

switch them off,

stop funding them, stop

supporting them, stop

approving some huge

religious processions for them, then you're mistaken, because

even though they are pro-Kremlin religious

activists, they are still religious

activists. You can't just switch them off like that.

Ninety percent of them, even 99 percent of them, are

absolutely deceitful, hypocritical people who do not

believe in God, who don't, I don't know, read

the Bible, who know nothing, who aren't simply doing it for

money—but one percent are

people with extreme motivation. When the Kremlin

takes away their money and stops

supporting them, they won't go anywhere, and with all these

ideas about how

someone wants to burn something, and someone wants to

pray, and someone wants to pray and then

burn something—they will remain, and they won't stop at nothing;

they will definitely set things on fire or blow things up. They

cannot be switched off; they cannot

be driven away. They'll go underground. They have

extreme religious motivation, and on top of that

they're also crazy. And once they were

encouraged in the idea that in the name of love for God

you must burn or blow something up, they

will definitely do it. So what is

happening is an absolutely monstrous thing

that will work against our children,

against our grandchildren, indeed against

Russia's future in general. I have to wrap up. I'll

finish by saying that tomorrow early in the morning I

am flying to the wonderful city of Murmansk, uh,

then I'll be in the wonderful city of

Yekaterinburg, then in the no less

wonderful city of Omsk. Guys, please come

to these meetings, please. We will be

speaking there. Then next week we will

most likely have a kind of

Far East tour—we'll see, depending on

logistics and requests. All these meetings are

officially approved. The authorities really like

to say a lot and scare people by saying, don't

come, because that means it's

extremism or unauthorized rallies.

We file for official approval everywhere.

The weather will be very different: in Murmansk tomorrow

it's expected to be +4°C and rain, so it will be

a rather difficult meeting. I hope that

someone will come in that kind of weather. I won't

be there alone. Then we'll go to

Yekaterinburg, where on the contrary there will be extreme

heat. In any case, I will be very glad to

see you. I will be ready to answer any

of your questions. I will keep doing this

work that any

candidate is supposed to do. See you in the cities. See

you next Thursday, therefore

on air. Thank you very much. Take care.

[music]