We Need These Candidates! A Georgian Journalist and Putin’s Mother. Sechin’s Palace

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Good evening, everyone. In Moscow, it is exactly 8:00 p.m.

That means we’re back on the air after

a short break related to

technical and legal issues. With you is

me, Alexei Navalny—or “a journalist from

Rustavi 2” (a Georgian TV channel), as various

Kremlin media outlets were calling me this week.

For them now, “journalist” and “Rustavi 2” have become

terms of abuse. We’ll talk about that some more today.

Please send this journalist your questions

on Twitter with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture,

and I’ll try to answer them

in between some of the topics I’ve

planned for today. Please do write in,

because after all, I spent ten days

in relative isolation.

The radio was playing, I got a few newspapers,

but still, you probably had a better feel

for the news agenda this week

than I did. Nevertheless,

the main political question right now

was something I could feel, and you can feel it too.

If for some reason you haven’t felt it,

then please feel it now—I’m going to

help with that. I’m going to convince you.

The main issue, of course, is the registration

of candidates, which is happening now not only

in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but across the entire

country. There will be elections in 29 regions, and in all 29

the same thing is happening: United

Russia understands that it will lose,

especially in the big cities, so it is simply

not allowing candidates onto the ballot. And this is

extremely important. I know many people

see it this way: no one

can get through anyway, because the system is built

in such a way that no one can make it through,

so why keep butting heads with this

system? It’s not that important. Let’s

prepare something else. But, guys, this is

the key point of political strategy.

There is

nothing more important right now than

demanding the registration of these candidates.

That is why Konstantin Sonin,

a professor at the University of Chicago, a very

cool guy whose Facebook posts I read,

and whom I recommend to everyone,

a very sensible person who really

understands politics, wrote today

that the Moscow mayor’s office

would make—he put it diplomatically—

the Moscow mayor’s office would make

a historic mistake, a mistake of historic

proportions, if it does not allow

these candidates to run. Judging by everything, the Moscow mayor’s office

and the Kremlin, which is directing all of this,

are already prepared to do exactly that.

They do not consider it a historic mistake. But

you and I will make a mistake of historic

proportions if we simply

do nothing to help these candidates, if we do not

secure registration for at least

some of them. Why? Because without that,

we will never have anything. Look,

how can transformation in a country

actually happen in principle?

After all, sooner or later we want to stop

watching this program on YouTube and

start enjoying normal news on

normal television. We want there to be

normal elections, normal courts, and

that kind of transformation, in fact,

can happen in two ways.

One is some kind of revolution: sailors run through the streets,

firing rifles, smashing things,

setting fires—something like that, a kind of

forceful process of breaking the regime. And I have

said many times that power

in Russia will most likely not change as a result of

elections alone.

But nevertheless, elections will either be an important

part of that process—and today they are the main, the

most important part, without which it cannot happen—or

else it will be some entirely force-based scenario.

And probably all of us, as normal people,

would of course prefer that no one

run through the streets with rifles, and that

the authorities begin changing for the better, and

society begin changing for the better,

that change happen through pressure from

society—that society become strong enough that

the authorities would simply yield gradually,

yield and gradually change, and

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a system would form in which

everyone is represented. There are some people

who support Putin—they sit in

parliament. And you and I sit in

parliament too. There is some party against

corruption, and a party in favor of corruption—

United Russia will remain, meaning there will be

some kind of balance, of course. There sit

the Stalinists,

and over there sit the libertarians, and one way or

another a government is formed, and the country

develops the way normal

European countries develop, where we see that in

the European Parliament there is a bit of everything,

and in any parliament there are

different kinds of people. That has to happen. But

it will happen only when we

manage to get candidates

registered. That is the single most important thing,

without which these authorities—

Putin specifically, yes—will not

listen to anything at all. These people,

of course—Putin and Sobyanin—are afraid of

mass protests in the streets, plain and simple.

Mass protests in the streets must happen

because they are refusing to register candidates.

Because we have everything on our side. We were

constantly told: well, you people

are demanding some kind of power for yourselves, but

there are no candidates with a positive

agenda, or your support is fairly low

because, after all, it’s supposedly 84 percent.

about 'Crimea is ours' and so on, and so on.

So, right now we find ourselves in a

situation in which we definitely have

the most popular candidates.

It's not even like in the presidential election, when I

I mean, in the presidential election I

said: let me run, and I'll take on Putin.

I'm ready to fight him, but I probably

couldn't claim that I was, you know,

more popular than Putin.

He's the main figure, so let

us put it this way now:

our candidates, both in the polls and by

all appearances,

however you want to measure it, in Moscow and St. Petersburg

first and foremost, are the most popular

candidates. They are beating United Russia candidates,

and that's exactly why the United Russia people are hiding

and claiming to be independent self-nominated candidates. We

have candidates, we have wonderful

voters, we have a positive agenda, we have

real grassroots work with people on the ground. They

worked their guts out collecting

these signatures, and you and I worked hard too.

In every program I urged people, and we put out special videos.

You and I did a good job

to collect signatures for

these candidates, and all of Moscow knows that

these independent candidates were collecting

signatures, but now they simply want to keep them off

the ballot. And if they are not allowed on, and Putin

sees it—Putin, Sobyanin, everyone else—that

these guys in Moscow

have the majority, the majority of those who are against

United Russia have candidates, they

are ready to win, they have everything, they already have

financial support,

signatures, people on the ground, media

in the form of the internet in Moscow and

St. Petersburg—that matters. But if people don't even come out

for them and stand up for them, then what

chance do we have?

If we're not ready to defend this

basic thing, then we won't be able to defend anything else

together. That's why I

urge you not just to watch how

these people are now being denied en masse,

but to be outraged by it, and then to follow

what the candidates are calling for and

come out in their support.

Authorized, unauthorized—

who cares. Come out, stand there as long as necessary.

Do what they ask us to do on social

media, call on others, simply write that

you support them.

Put pressure on this government; it backs down if

it really sees that, well, this

frightens it. Of course it will be frightened. It will

say: if you go out to an unauthorized

rally, we'll arrest 1,000 people.

And we need to say: we don't care.

Make it 2,000 or 3,000. I did 10

days in jail—so what happened to me? Here I am,

still with you.

Nothing changed for me.

I did 10 days.

I'd do 30. It's worth serving time for this.

Arrest 10,000 people—Moscow is still

much bigger than that. We'll still come out, and

register them. If you don't register them,

we'll keep coming out anyway. That's my

view of it. It is exactly that; there easily

can be no other view, because I

also put a lot of personal effort into

calling on you

to sign up for independent

candidates, to come out and sign.

These candidates busted their backs—sorry for

the expression—collecting signatures, and now they

are simply trying to keep all of them off

the ballot over signatures. Meanwhile, the United Russia people, about whom

literally no one has heard anything—some

people just show up, and you hear their last names

for the first time in your life. Take Zhdanov:

he was collecting signatures in the Leningrad district,

he turned the whole district upside down, and

he turned all of YouTube upside down, calling on you

to help, while some nobody from

United Russia who hasn't spent a penny on her campaign

somehow, on the very first

day, submits everything to the commission—perfect

signatures. Obviously they were all fabricated.

The commission checked everything in, like,

half an hour—said the signatures were excellent.

Registered. Meanwhile, that same

Zhdanov—I saw before going on air that his

signatures have been under review for two days already, two

days, by some guys with magnifying glasses, with

microscopes—supposedly forensic handwriting experts

from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Show us the footage—maybe

we have it—show how the review of

Ivan Zhdanov's signatures is being conducted.

Could you show one example where, in your opinion,

a date or signature looks similar?

Well, please show us. You just said

there was a similarity. Wait, I'm not

interrupting you. You just said that somewhere

the date matches, but you're talking

among yourselves—can you show me

right now the signature, the signature

or the date that, in your opinion, looks

like another signature? Please show it.

So that you understand: the verification of collected

signatures is a procedure at which

all candidates have the right to be present. That is,

you hand over your signatures and sit there

and watch them being checked. And when other candidates

bring in their signatures, you also have the

right to sit there and watch how they

are checked. So, when it comes to checking the signatures

of United Russia candidates, no one is allowed in at all.

But when the signatures of all opposition candidates are checked—look,

you can see some women sitting there whom they

called

experts, handwriting specialists, forensic analysts, and they

have literally been sitting there for two days, more than

two days checking Zhdanov's signatures,

more than two days checking signatures.

when Sobol comes in and says,

I’d like to see how these two

so-called independent candidates from United Russia are running here,

that footballer Bulykin, the one

we all laughed at,

it turns out he also collected

signatures, and actor Sokolov’s signature gatherers,

whom no one has ever seen, also

brought in signatures, and those signatures are perfect,

crisp, spotless under a magnifying glass—they’re just absurd.

They looked at the whole stack and said,

well, of course, we can see these are wonderful

signatures—welcome to the election. But as for

Sobol, they’ve been checking hers for two days already. The same

thing is happening with Yashin too; there they’ve already gone

even further. Yashin was told that 700

signatures raised suspicions—according to those

so-called expert graphologists, those ladies,

while all the others, obviously,

didn’t collect anything. But you and I know that

the people who really did collect signatures were probably not

all those opposition or pseudo-opposition

candidates are going to like what

I’m about to say, but we knew perfectly well

that the only people who actually collected signatures were those

whose names were all over the internet, who

ran around everywhere shouting, please give

your signatures, who set up those campaign cubes (street signature-collection stands), who put in

the effort. It just doesn’t happen that you have six

thousand signatures, notarized

collectors, passport details, everything recorded,

and it all came from nowhere. We understand

that that’s impossible. And all these

people are being registered with completely fake

signatures, while Yashin was told: 700 of your signatures

are invalid, and they don’t want to let you

onto the ballot. Yesterday he did the right thing right away—

the guy said, fine, I’m holding a meeting with

voters, and he gathered people right

in the courtyard by the municipal office. Let’s

watch. In 33 seconds: they fired 20,000

doctors, shut down 60 hospitals, closed 400

outpatient clinics—for what? So they could

pour money into the so-called

grandiose beautification projects. Of course,

it’s much easier to steal on paving tiles than on

doctors’ salaries. In order to

increase spending on officials.

Look, in Moscow there are 125 such district administrations,

and every district head has their own

personal car with a driver.

They told the man, we’re not letting you onto

the ballot. What did he do? He immediately called on people

to come. You can’t really see it in this video, but

quite a lot of people came—about 300

just to meet with him, just to

they put a wooden platform on some vehicle,

he came out and started

delivering his fiery speeches. Everyone

together with him demanded: register

him, register them. All candidates should do

that. And most importantly, we should

show up there too. After all, these candidates—this

depends on us, and we are very interested

in making sure that these candidates actually

depend on us. We’re interested

in having some people

who have no media, no oligarchs, no

money, nothing at all—only us. And

they depend on us, and that’s great. Then they

will listen, they will

pay attention to what you write in the comments,

they will sit down and talk with you

at office hours, they will solve some of your

problems, because they will know that

they depend very heavily on the people

who take to the streets for them. Let’s

be those people. And all these

disqualifications affect not only this

group of five that we nominated there.

Unfortunately, there was a technical problem

with Vladimir Milov:

he was literally short by 130 signatures. I

called on you, I called on you, I said

go, go, go. Milov ran a great

signature-gathering campaign there—he fell short by 134 signatures.

Still, four candidates

managed to run, but City Hall somehow decided

to wipe out

absolutely everyone. For example, in Gudkov’s case they declared

even Vadim Korovin a fake signature collector,

that is, a local deputy

went around collecting signatures for Gudkov, and

now they’re telling him: wait, you’re

Vadim Korovin, some random guy nobody knows,

so apparently your signatures are fake. Let’s

watch 34 seconds. Friends, I’m Dmitry

Gudkov, and I’m reporting more news that has

shocked all of us to the core: the graphologists,

the Interior Ministry experts, declared the well-known

Vadim Korovin, known to all of us and to you as well—we

slept on benches, campaigned in Lefortovo Park,

he helped us, every day he collected

signatures—so they decided that he

forged the signatures. It’s just

completely insane. This is basically

what is happening to us—utter lawlessness.

We’re waiting for the verification to be completed

and we’ll keep you informed.

Follow the news. I urge you

not to think of these candidates for deputy as

just some guys—well, maybe

some of them are likable, maybe impressive, likable,

they’re all different, and he ran, or she ran,

and now go fight for my interests. No—once again, this depends on us.

No, once again, this function comes from us.

Either we put them forward now, and then we will have

representation through them, you understand?

Right now we have only one

mechanism. Something happens—I don’t know,

Golunov was arrested (Ivan Golunov, a Russian investigative journalist),

or some criminal case gets opened—well,

when they jailed me, people took to the streets, and

no one in power supported us. We

have no representative in government who

comes out with us somewhere, or who

climbs onto the podium in the Moscow City Duma or in

the State Duma, or anywhere else, in any

in government bodies, even as human rights commissioners

somewhere—someone who

gets up at the podium and fights tooth and nail for us,

tearing his shirt off his back for our sake.

We need people like that, and if we ourselves

don’t get them in there, then it means our

interests aren’t represented there. So of course

these people are all different—some of them you may find

more likable, others less so.

But we have to come out and force them

to register them. This is very important. This is where

it will begin,

or where positive change will fail to begin if

we can’t do it. Well, that is to say,

of course, in the historical long run we

will of course win. But I’ll repeat what I

started with: this would be a mistake of historic

proportions, and for the authorities they will undoubtedly

regret it bitterly later. It

will backfire on them, one hundred percent. They

will regret it badly. But for us, too, this

would be a mistake, let’s say,

and it would worsen all further possible

scenarios for change in our country,

for improvements in our country.

Today, a special statement was issued by

the Golos movement in support of all of them, in

support of these candidates. We need

to get involved. It’s clear that, well, you go out

to support, say, journalist Ivan Golunov—a person who

is being unjustly prosecuted—because you’re

moved by his fate: drugs were planted on him, and you

think, damn, how could they plant drugs on him?

But these candidates—this isn’t as emotionally gripping a topic,

yet it is more

important. Because in registration, in your

right to nominate your own candidate, there

is everything in it: there is protest against

planted drugs, there is also

the demand for a fair trial—I’m not listing

everything now. All of it is contained in this demand; it is the main thing

right now across the whole country. I repeat, this

is happening not only in Moscow, and in fact

far more outrageous cases

—more outrageous ones, excuse me—are happening in

the regions. One such outrageous and at the same time

comical case involving our people

is happening in Ufa.

Well, for Lilia Chanysheva, it is not at all

comical. She is running for

the Ufa City Council.

She’s a great person, a former auditor,

and she knows economics extremely well. She regularly comes

to the sessions of the city

council in Ufa and tears into all those deputies,

and demolishes them in debate. Naturally, she is very much

feared by Khabirov, who is currently up for election,

and by the local authorities in general. They came up with

the idea that our candidate’s name is Lilia Chanysheva,

and they thought: right, we’ll use Smart Voting,

and everyone in Ufa, in her

district, will get a message saying: guys, vote

for Chanysheva. So the logical option for

crooks was what? Let’s register

a spoiler candidate with the surname Chanysheva. It’s a common

surname in Bashkiria (Bashkortostan), so they easily found another

candidate named Chanysheva. So there would be one

Chanysheva on the ballot, and two Chanyshevas

on the ballot. Then they thought, probably, no,

that won’t work, because we’ll be writing: vote

for Lilia Chanysheva.

So they found a person with the name

Lilia Chanysheva and registered two

spoilers. So it won’t just be three

Chanyshevas there—it’ll be three Chanyshevas, and two Lilias

Chanysheva. And at that point we were already thinking,

well, maybe the campaign slogan

would have to be: vote for Airatovna,

because our Chanysheva, our

Lilia Airatovna—so, vote

for Airatovna.

But after thinking it over, these crooks

and the officials sitting in Ufa did this:

they simply barred Chanysheva, saying that

ten of your signatures

were invalid, so

the secondary Chanyshevas can run, but you,

the real Chanysheva, supposedly have problems with

your signatures. These are the only methods they have

to defend themselves from us, and this is what we need

to break. Until we break it, nothing

will happen. Sorry that I keep repeating the same

thing, and I’ll go on repeating the same thing, but

listen—even if they, I see a question here—even if they

don’t register anyone

from the independents, even if they

don’t register a single one of the

independent candidates, Smart Voting will still

work. But the candidates will be, let’s say,

of middling quality, some of them.

There are some decent ones—the Communists have several

strong candidates. Zhukovsky is running there,

in southern Moscow.

He’s an absolutely excellent candidate, no worse

than that group of five, and there are several more

good candidates here. There are districts where

the candidates will be so-so, and in Smart

Voting we’ll still vote for them, and it’s entirely

possible we’ll get them through. And by doing that, we

will still undermine, together, the monopoly

of United Russia. So Smart Voting

becomes even more relevant if they

don’t let them run. But still, that means we

will only be able to fight now

against the monopoly of United Russia, whereas

we want to fight for our own representatives.

So until we break this rotten system,

nothing will work. The same thing

is happening in Irkutsk. Sergei Bespalov is an excellent

candidate.

He ran in the election

for the Irkutsk City Council. Despite the fact that

the governor there is a Communist, they still won’t let him run.

Right now he is appealing; he won in court, but

even so, there the court said that

the documents need to be rechecked.

Whether they register him—that’s the trick. He won the court case,

but it looks like they still won’t.

They’ll get registered. This is happening absolutely

everywhere, absolutely everywhere. And once again, of course,

what especially infuriates me—really infuriates me—is

the sheer arrogance and mockery with which

these United Russia people just, simply, bring in

a sheet of paper with signatures drawn on it, and

they’re not even embarrassed. Meanwhile, the candidates

the legitimate candidates—all of them—had to pay

signature collectors an average of 300 rubles per signature (about $3–4 at the time).

It’s simply difficult, and the paperwork is complicated: you have to

write down each person’s passport details

and then also go to a notary

to certify it all. In other words, it’s real

work. They were paying 300 rubles per signature.

All the independents did that, while all the United Russia candidates brought in

their signatures and then, in their financial

reports, said: you know, they cost us

almost nothing. In the southeast district,

that’s where I’m officially registered, only Lyudmila

Stebenkova—one of the funniest and

most disgusting deputies—because

literally

once worked for the U.S. State Department and worked at the

National Democratic Institute

of the U.S. Democratic Party.

Then she was in the SPS (Union of Right Forces, a liberal Russian party), with such an actively

democratic, liberal image, and now she’s in the

most conservative wing of United Russia.

Naturally, she submitted her report and

said that for the entire signature-gathering effort

she spent 97,000 rubles—so, in other words, she

forged everything.

A vile United Russia politician, but she’s already

been registered, everything’s fine for her, while

independents are being kept out. That’s why we need to

take to the streets. My new little friend here—I even

brought you a leaflet about him—

Andrei Metelsky, the head of United Russia’s whole

gang of so-called independent candidates. He’s the one

leading it.

On the very day of my arrest, I released a video about

him. I wanted to say a couple of

words about him too. Do you know how much he spent on

collecting signatures? You can look at his

first financial report. The man said

he collected 6,000 signatures

for 32,000 rubles. Could that be possible? No, it couldn’t.

And the guy could have—some, some

United Russia candidates at least showed that, well,

that they spent

something like a million rubles, one and a half million

rubles—that’s a realistic amount. But this one, we

released an investigation about him showing that he has

34 hotels in Austria.

Everything is registered to some elderly mother of his.

The guy doesn’t give a damn, doesn’t hide anything, doesn’t bother.

He’s a billionaire, has spent 18 years in the Duma (Russia’s parliament), and

discloses nothing. And then an investigation about you

comes out, and in that investigation they

go through your entire

business for 40 minutes. And what do you do in response?

You say: yeah, I don’t give a damn about you. Not only

did I draw the signatures, I’ll also show

that I spent 32,000 on it. In other words,

the grateful people of Moscow apparently, in

gratitude for the fact that I stole

money from them for 18 years, came out for me free of charge

and signed for me. And this Herr

Metelsky, this United Russia man, when he’s in Germany

and arrives at

a hotel, they say to him: Herr Metelsky,

this way please, Herr Metelsky, right this way.

And he will lead them into the Moscow City Duma

and once again write laws for us

if we don’t stand our ground. Let’s

watch a minute of our investigation

that came out exactly ten

days ago, on the day of my arrest, and

just to refresh your memory, and

then I’ll say a little more

about it. This is the Maximilian Hotel, 4

stars, with its own pool and spa area.

Metelsky paid 5 million euros for it.

At the same time, at that moment he supposedly had

absolutely nothing to his name,

just a deputy’s salary, plus his mother’s

pension. Here are three more hotels: Metelsky, Mozart—

this is a traditional Tyrolean hotel.

At the height of the fifth floor, sticking out of the hotel, there’s

a strange-looking pipe, and our

assumption is that

the other end of that pipe was plugged directly into

the Moscow city budget

to make it easier for United Russia

to suck money out of the country. Though of course, it

could also just be a water slide.

Tennis courts, a football field, a swimming pool—

it’s fun and great here at any time of

year.

So, I was corrected during the break. I

said that Stebenkova, who

is running from United Russia in the

southeast, rather brazenly claimed that

she spent only 97,000 rubles on the entire

signature-gathering process.

But I’m being corrected: I miscounted a zero.

She spent 9,700 rubles. This lady, according to

her own statement, spent on collecting signatures—on something for which

everyone else spent one and a half

million rubles, two million rubles—

while this United Russia candidate somehow got away with 9,700. How nice.

Returning to Metelsky,

let me say right away: in the description of this video

there’s a link to a leaflet. I hope you

won’t be lazy and will spend five minutes

printing it out on your home

printer, if you live in Moscow first and

foremost—especially if you live

somewhere in his districts, in Izmailovo and

so on. Print it out and simply

put it up

in the elevator. I tested this information on

all my

supporters who were nearby, and

since a lot has changed here,

when you tell people about Metelsky, everyone is,

to put it mildly, furious. And when I went around

filming these wonderful hotels of Georgy

Mal Burum from our investigations department.

On the one hand,

Austria—I was in Tyrol, and in general in those

mountain places for the first time. Of course, it's very

beautiful. On the one hand, there's this feeling of complete

peace from the insanely beautiful

places. On the other hand, let's be honest,

everything inside you starts boiling because you see

how a man was taking money out of Russia and

investing it there for 18 years, and for 18 years didn't

disclose anything. You'd think, well,

surely you could put at least something

in your declaration.

Mention some company or other. Besides

this whole Austrian side of things, here there are also

giant car dealerships, residential

complexes. This guy is a billionaire, one of

the biggest businessmen in Moscow. Show

at least something, for the sake of basic

decency. Nothing. The man declares

nothing but a flat salary, and he's the leader

of United Russia. Again, you'd think,

look, logically, everyone knows this. If

we found it, everyone knows, and there should at least be

some meeting where Sobyanin and Kiriyenko

say: well, we have to go into

the elections.

It's a difficult situation—Moscow doesn't like

United Russia, so we need to irritate people less,

put forward some popular

person at the head of the Moscow

United Russia branch, someone neutral. But no—this is just

too much.

It's simply too much. He has

major business interests in Austria. We looked

at border-crossing data: the man spends

at least 90 days a year there—that is, three

months a year hanging out in Austria, in his own

hotels. They all know this. So why not

replace him, move him aside, let him take

a less important role? But no, not a chance.

He still sits in the presidium, and even

in that very funny video about the number

of Moscow City Duma deputies voting,

let me show you again.

You'll see Metelsky right now, and there,

where Shaposhnikov is speaking, the little guy

nodding his head next to him

is sitting there.

That's the very same leader of United Russia in

Moscow—Metelsky. Let's watch him.

The board lit up during

the vote: 33 in favor, 3 against. Thus,

36 people.

Count the heads—how many

are actually present? I counted 26.

And to count them, we have

a special system in the chamber. I

trust it completely. Then your system

is malfunctioning, because

use your own eyes and count:

there are 26 people sitting there.

The existing system fully

ensures proper operation.

Well, that guy is sitting there on the left, and

apparently that's why he decided not to declare

a damn thing—because this is their

everyday routine. They tell you there are

33 people in the chamber when there are 22. The board

shows it, and if that makes you uncomfortable—well, the board shows

the correct number. And Metelsky gave us the same

kind of answer. I had already been sitting here; just now I

went out and looked at it. He was asked:

So, dear Mr. Metelsky, how do you explain

your hotels in

Austria? And what does the man say? He says:

This investigation has nothing

to do with me and cannot have anything to do with me. I file

a declaration, and it is checked by the relevant

authorities. As was just said, our

system works perfectly. There can be no

questions for me. As for my

mother and my son, my mother is a fully

grown

woman, and my son is 27 years old—he too is already

an adult.

My mother is more than grown—she's already a grandmother,

80 years old, and dear little sonny started acquiring his

hotels at age 18, and even when he

was still a minor. I mean, how

can someone lie so brazenly? But that's what he does—he lies,

lies to the Moscow City Duma,

and just as brazenly, without the slightest

embarrassment. Again, you've been nailed to the wall:

they showed your hotels, your companies,

your residential complexes. You ought to say

something like: yes, I was involved in

business, you know, then I transferred it to

a friend—or to my mother—but I am not

involved in operational management there.

There's a clear trust agreement in place.

Shuvalov, for example, lies in roughly that way,

trying to lie more elegantly. This

guy just says: this investigation

has absolutely nothing to do with me

and cannot have anything to do with me. You're a billionaire, you have

hotels—no, none of it has anything

to do with me. He just doesn't give a damn. So, guys,

take this leaflet and put it up in your

building entrance. How else will people find out

about this? Only from you. By the way, this is

a very effective strategy. One of the

first websites to be declared

extremist and blocked altogether by

order of the Prosecutor General's Office, even before this

period when Roskomnadzor (Russia's media and internet regulator) started banning

everything in sight, was our site

where we made a leaflet about United Russia

and rising housing and utility rates. It really

drives them crazy.

It's exactly this kind of offline campaigning format

when you make a leaflet and put it up,

carefully tape it inside the elevator, and your

neighbor tears it down, and the next day you

put it up again, he tears it down again, and you

put it up again—but after three or four

days, everyone in your building has read this

leaflet and had their eyes opened about Metelsky.

Kovalenko, another issue: up until September,

I think we’ll be putting out these regularly,

these leaflets, and I’m asking you to distribute them.

This is very, very important, and

again, I’ll repeat: keep an eye on the independent

candidates, what they’re doing, whether they’re calling people to

go to rallies, urging people to stand there and

join pickets, because you need this — you

need it much more than, well, certainly not just one

much more than — you need this

just as much, let’s put it this way: you need it no less

than Yashin (Ilya Yashin) needs to become a deputy, or

than Sobol (Lyubov Sobol) needs to become a deputy, because

that itself will simply be a result of

you: whatever you say is what

Sobol will do. You need your own deputy.

For the first time in many, many years, actually,

in the Moscow City Duma,

there are no genuinely democratically minded

deputies — not since 2005, I think. Yes.

Because in 2010, some people got through,

but they all joined United Russia,

and there were A Just Russia members too, and Mitrokhin (Sergei Mitrokhin) for a while,

for some time, but anyone truly

independent as a deputy — there had never really been anyone like that there.

Not since the days of the Mossovet (the Moscow Soviet/city council) has there really been

someone completely independent. There were some people there,

pretty decent, good guys,

who were ready, for example, to conduct

investigations against the Moscow mayor’s office — people like that

have never been there. You need them to be there.

So come out and

support them. I see questions coming in to me.

Volny Lady Citizen asks:

I have a question. In most regions, will the elections to

regional parliaments in most regions

be held under

a mixed system, or entirely

proportional representation? In that case, which party

will you be backing?

Excellent question. Let me explain. A proportional

system is when, on your ballot, there is a party.

There can be two options: either it will

list the name of a party — that’s

the proportional system — or it will

list surnames, and that’s the majoritarian

system. Or it will have both, which means

it’s a mixed system: 15 deputies

are elected from party lists, and 25 deputies

are elected by individual names. What do we do in

that system? Where it says “party,” well,

obviously, vote for any party against United Russia.

Most likely, you should vote for those

who are certain to get in. There’s no point

in voting for a small party that definitely

won’t clear the 5 percent threshold.

It’s clear that all the systemic parties

are corrupt, disgusting, and controlled.

That’s obvious. But right now, the issue is

breaking United Russia’s monopoly.

So if your ballot lists parties,

vote for one that can get in — but

not United Russia. But if there are any

more or less likable deputies

anywhere — among the Communists,

A Just Russia, or the LDPR in the regions —

there are some protest-minded people there, there are.

They

are mostly sellouts, but there are some quite genuinely

oppositional ones. Vote for any

non-United Russia option. Where individual names are listed,

that’s where the main trick is, because United

Russia understands that in proportional

voting, where parties are listed, it

won’t get a majority now, except

through falsification. But where it lists

names,

it wants to fool everyone, because

instead of “United Russia member,” it now says

“independent candidate,” and there are lots and lots of different people,

and then there’s a Yabloko member, and a Patriots of Russia guy,

and someone else unclear — in other words, you

get confused. Each candidate will get something like

5–7 percent, up to 15 percent;

someone will get 20 percent, and the United Russia candidate

will simply get 23,

because the employees of municipal services will vote

for him as a bloc, and that’s it — he

wins with only 23

percent. In that sense, Smart Voting

will work, because wherever you

live, you enter into the system: “I live at

such-and-such address,” and the system will tell you,

“Vote for Ivan Ivanovich Petrov there,”

because we’ll look at everything, calculate it all,

and see that Ivan Ivanovich Petrov

has the best chance of winning, even if

Ivan Ivanovich Petrov is not an excellent

candidate, and he isn’t someone

ideologically close to us, and you may even

find that Ivan Ivanovich Petrov has said some

terrible things or stupid things — still,

we will vote for him in order

to make things worse for United Russia, in order

to force United Russia members to negotiate with

someone — even with

the Communists — to break their monopoly.

Because right now they have a majority

everywhere — not just a relative one, but an absolute

majority, more than 75

percent.

Everywhere, well, except maybe the Moscow City Duma and Irkutsk,

for example. Yes, in all the other districts,

cities, and regions — everywhere. This is what we

have to break. Therefore,

in the proportional system, vote for any party

against United Russia; where there are only names,

use Smart Voting. Without Smart Voting,

you won’t figure it out, because the authorities

will confuse you anyway. Please tell me,

is it possible to vote from

England at all? I’m registered in

Moscow Oblast.

Diana Grepp asks me. Diana,

as far as I remember, there are currently no elections

in Moscow Oblast. That is, on

September 8, in Moscow Oblast

there won’t be region-wide elections, but

Anyway, register and wait.

If there is an election there, then closer to

the date.

you’ll go into that system and enter:

I live in the Moscow Region

in, say, Podolsk, on such-and-such street, and the

system will tell you either that in your region

there are no elections, or, if there are—when it comes to

the State Duma election—the system will tell you

to vote for a particular person.

As for voting from England, I think

that unfortunately, voting from England will be

difficult in regional

elections.

Come to Podolsk, where you live,

for a day and cast your vote.

Kolka the Terminator says to make a

leaflet about Probe.

Fine, we’ll make a leaflet about the fugitive.

My dear Kolka the Terminator, and

most importantly, distribute it, because, well,

what’s happening in Moscow is all very outrageous

and brazen, people need to come out, but in St. Petersburg

the whole story there, I want to say, is

simply called the St. Petersburg trash show.

Because there really is a trash show there.

In Moscow, all this is done by crooks—these

lying,

disgusting, vile people. It’s the presidential administration,

Sobyanin (Moscow mayor), they have this whole

[music]

there’s a woman in charge there now,

a deputy prime minister—God, I forgot her surname.

If I remember, I’ll say it—a deputy prime minister for all sorts of

political—deputy mayor for political

issues, and they’re the ones tormenting everyone and thinking up

what else to invent. But in St. Petersburg, this is done simply by

bandits, and they do it so

brazenly and so outrageously that it really is

a St. Petersburg trash show there.

It’s just

well, attacks are happening. For the second time already, while I was

in jail, they attacked the head of our headquarters,

Alexandr Shurshyev. And this continues—this

trash with artificial queues.

Everyone is already outraged; even on federal

TV channels they said how outrageous it is.

The Central Election Commission came and said, oh, don’t

do that—but they don’t care about any of it. Over there,

in some place called Chernaya Rechka, people are still standing

there, and

they’re creating an artificial queue.

They are still removing candidates simply

by inventing some reasons to disqualify them.

Let’s look at that same Chernaya Rechka

for 42 seconds.

Here, item 12: the decision of the political party’s

governing body, congress, or public

association—you received four copies, and

there is your secretary’s signature, and then comes

your own signature there.

So that means I submitted it to you.

And now you are notifying me, supposedly, that

this decision is needed because we

are obliged to examine you. How can it

be missing if your secretary and you

yourself signed that you

accepted it—the documents that were received

by the commission?

Received... which... here, received...

which, look, was received... well, I’m not going to

right now.

Let’s consider it this way: documents other than those

that are in the election

commission.

You have to admit, it’s a pretty idiotic dialogue.

Yes, he says, well, it says right there

“received,” but I’m not going to consider

anything except what is there—it’s completely unclear what

this is even about. These are Yabloko (a liberal Russian political party)

candidates—they were nominated by

their party and brought the party’s decision

stating that they had been nominated, and the guys signed that

they had received the decision saying you were nominated.

Then they say, you know, we’re not

letting you into the election because we don’t have

your party’s decision. Of course, this

makes you think: are they insane or what? It says right here

in your own handwriting that you received

it. And this gentleman replies: you know, in our

commissions, we don’t have it. But it says right here that

you received it. No, I will consider

only what is in our commission.

Again, it’s hard to imagine because

the idiocy is such that you literally

have to prove that you’re not a camel (a Russian expression meaning you must disprove an absurd accusation).

You’re given a certificate saying you’re not a camel, and you

say: but look, you gave me a certificate

saying I’m not a camel. And they tell you: no,

you still have to prove it anyway. It’s some kind of

super-

mega-absurdity, what’s happening there. They are

banning absolutely everything in the municipal

districts. In district No. 75, Balkansky, they removed the entire

Party of Growth slate. Fine, you might say, maybe some of

our candidates there are the most

opposition-minded, truly independent,

Yabloko people—but they removed the Party of Growth too,

in its entirety, including sitting deputies and

the head. They’re simply not letting anyone into the election.

And do you know what they said was the reason they couldn’t

register them? There were two amazing decisions there.

The district

commission in Balkansky informed

the bewildered candidate that they had lost

the keys to the safe.

Like, guys, you know, you submitted

your documents, but we can’t

let you in because we seem to have lost

the key to the safe.

Ha-ha, very funny joke. And people understand

what’s going on, so they go out into the

street, look at all this, file complaints left and right,

but nobody gives a damn, nothing happens.

In district No. 75, they lost the signature sheets of six

candidates. You brought in your signature sheets,

you say, register me, and then later

you come back and they say: here, your registration is denied.

Why the hell are your signature sheets gone?

There’s not even any clear way to fight this.

I mean, sure, you can file a complaint, but...

it’s just pointless. Go ahead, file a complaint—

and they’ll say, well, you know, we lost

them. And who are you going to punish? The commission

is a collective body—you can’t jail anyone, you can’t hold anyone

personally accountable.

The commission has the power to do whatever it wants

completely.

[music]

Absolutely. It’s just total lawlessness.

Naturally, candidates go around with

voice recorders to document things,

or they try to conduct video

recording. Do you know what commissions in

St. Petersburg

do? They install special equipment—

special jammers, the kind

used in prisons or other secure

facilities—so that it becomes impossible

to make

an audio recording. These are special devices

that interfere with audio recording, because

apparently that matters so much to the commission. And there are

pickets happening there already, in fact.

Even Beglov has already spoken out, saying

that, you know, there’s some kind of outrage going on in our

municipal elections. But we

all understand that Beglov is the one behind it all,

that all of this is being done by him,

by his team. Why? Because

United Russia will lose in all

municipal districts, because Smart Voting

will allow independent candidates

to win. They don’t want people in office

who will dig into public procurement,

who will ask questions, who will replace,

among other things, these very election commissions.

Because if they get elected now, then later these

election commissions will be disbanded, and all these

people who lose the key to the safe,

lose signature sheets, and then nothing will come of it—

simply because in St. Petersburg, that way,

through the Central Election Commission and through free, fair elections,

people could actually get through. That’s very dangerous for them, so they

are removing candidates. So: vote for anyone except Beglov.

And by the way, let’s listen to this

wonderful man who said

that disgraceful things are happening in St. Petersburg.

Dear residents of St. Petersburg, I want

to express my position regarding the local

self-government elections. Everything that is happening today

is doing great damage

to our city’s reputation, and dirty

elections are something nobody needs. The whole country

is watching on television and the internet, and

in one of the best cities in our country

such outrages are taking place.

The election commissions of municipal

entities are practically subordinate

to no one—not the Central Election Commission,

not the city election commission, not any other

structures. I am convinced that it is necessary

to reform the system, otherwise

the very same

outrages will continue. You know, this is one of those videos where

you wonder: who exactly do you turn to

when you want, for example, to break up a rally and then

arrest 300 or 500 people with absolutely no

problem? Beglov can do that. But election

commissions—just imagine—are accountable

to no one. Don’t make these

little videos on your mobile phone,

you know, these viral ones. If you’re the acting governor,

hold a meeting: here

sits the police chief, here sits

the head of the FSB (Russia’s security service), here are all the other

security officials,

bring in the legal department, call in judges, and say:

this is illegal, this is nonsense, when a

commission

says it lost the safe or

lost the signature sheets.

Then you say: right, chief of the Interior Ministry directorate,

open a criminal case, because

they lost documents subject to strict

accountability, or damaged them, or are not allowing

someone into the commission—that’s a criminal offense,

obstruction of elections. Open

a criminal case. And you, comrades from the FSB,

if these election commissions are so bold,

send in masked special forces

to break down the door and

and you, legal department, please

set out the position and properly formalize all this legally,

so that we can shut down

these commissions. Do it. But they don’t,

because, of course, Beglov needs

to say something, since all of St. Petersburg

is now, excuse my language, freaking out

at the sheer brazenness of what’s happening.

But he pretends that he isn’t

in control of it. But if you’re not in control,

while also being a member of the Supreme Council

of United Russia, a friend of Putin, a former

presidential envoy, and the city’s mayor—then what the hell

are you doing as governor of the city?

Then it turns out you can’t do anything

at all.

With election commissions where your own

United Russia party members are sitting, then all the more reason

not to vote for you.

And nobody wants to vote for him. And there’s a

wonderful lineup of candidates now.

Yes, it’s already clear who will

take part in the election in St. Petersburg.

There’s Beglov, who made his arrangements and kept

out of the race—not the LDPR candidate, not

Oksana Dmitrieva. Somehow they

unfortunately settled things with them there, which

is very sad and regrettable. They won’t be running.

A Communist Party deputy will run there,

and Tikhonova from A Just Russia will run there,

the niece of Sergei Mironov.

A former Yabloko member will also run—just this kind of political trash—and

it’s very interesting that they recently

took part in the first debates.

at their Moscow election debates

Naturally, Beglov didn't show up. There were

three candidates, but all of them unanimously said

that, of course, they were taking part in the election

thanks to the municipal

resource. Let's listen to 49 seconds of how

you got through the municipal filter. It was

impossible to do without the consent of

United Russia, so as expected I

received signatures from United Russia deputies

Russia. All the deputies from A Just Russia

naturally gave their votes to the party

A Just Russia — they give their own votes to them.

I understand that you can't dance a tango alone

— it's impossible. It was the ideal option: one and

that's it. There simply has to be someone.

I'll wait until they decide in the Kremlin.

So they used their heads and decided that the people sitting here

were the least dangerous option for

becoming the safest of the

the safest ones to allow in now.

They decided to let in Amosov, Bortko, and Tikhonova.

Fine, but do you also admit that

you made a deal with Smolny (the St. Petersburg city administration)?

What do you mean, "made a deal"? I knocked on the

door, and they opened it for me.

Here one could say, well, Alexei considers

that you also took signatures from

United Russia. Of course I did — I demanded

registration, and under your pressure the mayor's office

let me into the election and handed over those very

United Russia signatures. But excuse me,

I am not part of the systemic opposition — I am a non-systemic

opposition figure, while these are all representatives

of systemic parties that take part

in elections where, after all, there are

municipal deputies who first

play along in some way with United

Russia, and then when there aren't enough signatures, I am not

supposed to take them from United Russia.

It's rather sad.

Nevertheless, when it comes to these candidates, you

see, because of all this — just choose

whichever one you like: Bortko,

the one from A Just Russia — I still haven't remembered

her surname — what's her name?

Sorry, sorry — her name is Siham...

Amosov — anyone but Beglov, it doesn't

matter who. But it's impossible to tolerate a situation in which

the symbol of this election

campaign, do you know what it is? A number —

or rather, a date: the 96th month. Please show

this picture here.

This is a signature — or rather, this is the date that

the voter wrote

and which the commission in St. Petersburg declared

invalid on the grounds that

— you see what's written there. Anyone reading it

can make out 26.06.2019, but the commission says,

well, you know, it says here

the 26th day of the 96th month. And then

people tell them, guys, how can that be? You

can see that the person wrote a zero like that — it's

handwriting, it's almost obvious that it's the 6th month, but

no, they insist it's the 96th month. The person was not

allowed onto the ballot on the basis of this

nonsense. Can you respect a government that

engages in this kind of crap? No. So vote for

anyone but Beglov.

Naturally, we'll be making leaflets, and not

just leaflets — you need to distribute

them. Still, there is good news in St. Petersburg:

right now we are actively nominating a total of

541 candidates, and we will

of course support many others as well, not

just those who are going through our system

and getting registered. As of today,

we have

managed to register 115 people

and 52 people have been denied.

We will continue fighting for

every single one of them.

But even so, there are candidates.

There are many candidates, and they need your votes.

So, St. Petersburg...

Smart Voting in

St. Petersburg: as for the governor,

it's simple — anyone but Beglov. As for

the candidates, you definitely won't figure it out on your own,

I'm telling you: there are multi-member districts there, huge

lists of names, and you won't understand a damn thing.

You won't be able to work out for yourself who to vote for.

Only Smart Voting — sign up yourselves

and tell everyone else. Novosibirsk:

a lot of people are watching from Novosibirsk, and I

still have to say a few words about it.

Our wonderful colleague Sergey Boyko

is running for mayor of the city. He has only

5 days left to collect signatures. Things are

going well for him, knock on wood — he's collecting signatures

and will clearly get enough, but he definitely

won't refuse your help.

So please go now to the campaign office on

Krasny Prospekt, at the corner of Rudnaya

— on Krasny Prospekt,

Oktyabrskaya, 45A.

There is

a campaign office there. You can come by, or you can

sign for Boyko. He would make a fantastic

mayor of Novosibirsk.

Boyko will run an active election

campaign, he won't be afraid of anyone, and he

will give a proper thrashing to the joint

candidate of United Russia and the Communists,

Lokot. So support Boyko, go to

him, and leave your signature.

There are a lot of questions. First, an important one:

I see Oksana Mandariny asking:

"For some reason I haven't seen a single comment

from United Russia. Why isn't United Russia nominating

a single candidate in these elections?" Well,

in fact, Metelsky himself gave

comments. He said, well, you know, we

are so cool that we even decided not

to run under the United Russia banner, and instead this

time to run as self-nominated candidates so as not

to use, as they literally put it,

"we don't want to use party"

advantage

a funny explanation, but it's real

explanation

which is United Russia, not Mickey

People ask me, tell us what you think about

Georgia. I have to say that I

think about Georgia and this

incident with the journalists on Rustavi 2. I

was thinking whether to include that video here, but you

have probably already seen it. I can't

show it uncensored, and it's rather

stupid to show it just with bleeps

because it would basically be one long bleep, I

don't know, I'll just play it here

muted, and I'll say a few words myself about

what I think. But first of all, obviously, I

have just gotten out of detention, and there

in the cell, where people are prone to

that kind of thing, all that talk about mothers and

what you did to someone's mother and all the rest

— if you start saying all that there,

well, let's just say you'll surprise all the other

detainees.

In fact, what the

Rustavi 2 journalist did is a typical case of this:

a drug addict is sitting there, feeling awful, suffering, he

needs phenazepam, or better yet some Lyrica,

he wants to be let out, he's losing

his mind, and he starts banging on the door. Well,

naturally, the guard comes over

and says, dude, what are you doing, you're under

arrest, and he basically starts shouting this

through the door

at whatever cop is there. What I want

to say about this journalist is that I do not

doubt that some secret order has already

been awarded to him by the Kremlin, because this was such

a tremendous gift for Putin in

this situation. Putin and the Kremlin

looked like idiots, they looked like foolish

people, because they introduced some kind of

sanctions against Georgia. In reality, those were

sanctions against Russian citizens,

because 155,000 people had to

return their tickets, the airlines lost money,

the airlines were reimbursed 3 billion rubles,

which you and I paid for, and everyone

said, well, Putin is an idiot, what is he doing,

Georgia isn't fighting against us, and then this secret

agent of Putin, a Rustavi journalist,

comes out and says such things that, well, he

gave Putin a little ladder,

gave him a ladder to climb up the mountain

of moral superiority. And it was like,

yesterday they were doing stupid things, but when

some guy suddenly, out of nowhere, on

television, instead of making some kind of

reasonable complaints, just starts

with all this 'I did this to your mother' in some kind of

really bizarre parody of

criminal slang, then of course he immediately

climbs that mountain of moral

superiority and gives an opportunity

to some utterly vile deputies

like Slutsky, those maniacs,

well, maybe not maniacs — crooks would be more accurate,

to go around saying, well, how can this be, now

we need to impose sanctions against them, let's

look at Slutsky.

Yesterday, on the air of a Georgian TV channel,

Rustavi 2, host Giorgi Gabunia, in the most foolish

way, using obscene

language, insulted

the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir

Vladimirovich Putin. This is unacceptable and

impermissible not only for countries

of the post-Soviet space, but for any

country today. It is necessary to adopt

tougher additional

harsh measures. The State Duma Committee on International Affairs

supports continuing — there can no longer be

any doubt — together with the leadership of the United Russia faction

state measures to restrict supplies

of products, in particular mineral

water and some other items coming

from Georgia. It is not excluded that

the authorities may also consider

additional measures beyond those

I have mentioned. You see, just yesterday

they were the foolish Putin people who imposed

sanctions against Russian citizens but called

them sanctions against Georgia,

a ban on flights, and Slutsky was

some deputy who harasses

female journalists and failed to declare his penthouse

in his asset declaration. And now, once again, he has been

given a little ladder,

they climbed up the hill of moral

superiority and say, well yes,

a journalist insulted our president, well,

he really did insult him, and in such

terms that no one has any right to use, well,

in expressions like that, yes, and that is

of course an astonishing

gift to Putin, and he is excellent

at working with things like this. I keep

saying it on my program all the time,

and attentive viewers remember perfectly well that

our authorities absolutely love taking offense.

They look for the moment when you say something

and then claim you've insulted the memory of soldiers, or

insulted pensioners, or offended someone,

or mentioned somebody's mother — and immediately they

take offense, puff up their cheeks, and

then out comes noble Putin.

Naturally, Putin immediately took this as a signal and

came out and said, well yes, these things happen, but we

have respect for the Georgian people, we are not against the Georgian people.

Respect for the Georgian people.

Of course, no sanctions will be introduced.

39 seconds of noble Putin.

As for various kinds

of sanctions with regard to Georgia, I would not

do that, precisely out of respect

for the Georgian people, because one person

came out and started making a spectacle of himself, pretending to be

something he is not.

Before this, nobody knew anything about him; now

Everyone is talking about it; in that sense, he achieved his goal.

He got what he wanted. Novy was suspended for two

months. He went on vacation and will return at some point

to continue working. But there are people

who are Georgians.

To protest against this—for the sake of these

people, for the restoration of full-fledged

relations between Russia and Georgia—I would not

do anything rash.

There is no need to do anything. Australia—

terrible or ours—you see how, once again,

there is this immediate sense of moral

superiority: suddenly, who is the most

humane person here? How should we relate to this

and what should we do about it?

We should do nothing. There is nothing we need to do.

We simply need to remember that not all Georgians, and

the Georgian state, are responsible for

what one Georgian journalist said. Forget him.

Whether he played along with Putin and will get from him

a secret reward or a public one—well, he was foolish.

To hell with all of them. We should, on the whole,

look at this situation as a whole and forget

about this unfortunate Georgian

journalist, and remember the main thing: that

by introducing

sanctions, these strange restrictions,

the ban on flights, Putin struck a blow at

the citizens of Russia. That is the only thing we

must remember about this situation, because

you and I paid 3 billion

in compensation to the airlines because

Putin decided to take revenge this way

on the Georgian parliament. That is

the important fact. And as for the Georgian journalist—

forget him, ignore him. Soldatik

Planerny writes to us, writes to me: we need

leaflets for all districts saying that in

our district some completely crazy Volovets might

win. We will make leaflets, I think.

We will make leaflets for all districts, although I

hope the candidates themselves will also have

such leaflets, and that it will not be just me and

Bukovina. We will campaign together

for all the candidates; I will do that too. But,

dear Soldatik Planerny, Smart

Voting is more important here than leaflets, yes. But

urging people to

vote according to the Smart Voting recommendations

is more important. You can distribute

such a leaflet, and everyone will know that

Metelsky—or whoever it is you mention—

or some crazy Volovets in your district

might win. Volovets and Metelsky

are bad—but who is the good one to vote for? There

will be seven names on the ballot, and those seven names

will split the vote, and that way Volovets

will win. People need to be given the name of the person

they should vote for. That is the most important thing.

Igor Ivanovich Sechin, our favorite, well,

continues to astonish us—and in a serious

way—because this

man, one of the people closest to Putin, and

it was assumed that he was such a cunning

crook.

But clearly he has already lost his mind

from money, impunity, and simply—well,

from money, exactly that: he has become bloated with wealth, he has more money

than he knows what to do with.

This is Sechin himself: this man bought

his young wife a yacht for $200

million, *Princess Olga*. I talked about it here.

His wife has already left

Sechin; he renamed it, threw out

the word “Olga” from the yacht’s name. And now

it has emerged that outside Moscow, in the Moscow region,

he has an estate with a total area of 25,000

square meters. The outlet Baza reported this.

Let’s take a look for a minute

at Sechin’s remarkable properties.

That was a silent video.

Baza, it seems to me, should indeed be watched

without sound—or perhaps even in

complete silence—just to stand and mourn the money that you and I

collectively had, which Igor

Ivanovich Sechin stole. Because it is frightening even

to think what fantastical sums

this man has stolen, if he buys yachts

for hundreds of millions of dollars, if

he builds homes for himself costing tens of millions

of rubles, if he builds between his houses

an underground tunnel in which

two cars should be able to pass each other—or perhaps

he plans to have some sort of carriages there

drawn

by a team of six trotters. And this same

man is capable of anything; he has truly

gone mad over his wealth. And

this is the head of a state

corporation, the largest Russian

state oil company, supposedly standing guard over

the interests of the state. I simply do not

know—somehow it feels as if

there is a money vault there and money is being hauled out of it by the truckload

for personal use. I do not know what exactly is going on there,

but the level of corruption of this man is simply

of course absolutely

off the charts.

Now that is someone about whom leaflets

really should be made—and we will make leaflets

about Igor Ivanovich. Because, well,

Baza released this investigation, and I do not

know how much attention it received. I

was then on Echo of Moscow (a former Russian radio station) and heard it being

reported there, but it seems to me to be an underrated

fact, an underrated story. It is worth making sure

that, say, 20 million citizens of Russia

know how our

state business bosses live. And

it seems to me very important to compare these two

cases side by side, by contrast.

After all, he is not just some hellish scarecrow

who came from nowhere and

drove Rosneft into colossal debt, and

that is not my insinuation,

investors have acknowledged many times that

the inept management of Rosneft

leads to enormous losses.

com, and at the same time he is stealing

enormous sums of money. Before our eyes, there is unfolding

the story of entrepreneur Sergei

Petrov, who in some sense

is the complete opposite of Sechin, because

Petrov is the kind of person who

is not some former Komsomol member (Soviet Communist youth organization) or

oligarch or, I don't know, some kind of party functionary

or security-state man; no, he's military,

a former military pilot from the middle of nowhere, from

the provinces, from Orenburg. At one point he started

selling cars and gradually

built up a huge company that

is called Rolf. It sells

cars.

It's a fairly complicated business, and here you have

a man who built all of this himself, and

what is happening to him now is simply that

they are taking it away. And all of this is being done, you know, under

the pretext that he took his own

money. After all, no one is even accusing

him of not paying taxes

or of corruption. They are saying to him: you

earned this money, and you had

billions, and then you took those billions of yours,

1.5 billion rubles

and transferred them to your foreign account. Criminal case.

Case.

Well, first of all, that sounds strange in principle,

because it was his

money. No one is saying it was someone else's money.

They are telling him: you moved your own money

out of Russia to another country, just like everyone who, by the way,

buys a yacht. I'm very interested to know

whether that was really done from a settlement account

in Russia. But even if

we assume that the law

was violated here and they want to open

a criminal case, then what should that look like?

Some tax officials come in

and say: Petrov transferred 1.5 billion rubles

we can see it from the bank records, so please give us

the documents; we are now going to decide the issue

of opening a criminal case, or we will open

a criminal case.

Explain it to us, and we will draw up the paperwork; we will

question your managers, and so on.

Then one could assume that the purpose of this

really is somehow legal.

But how did the campaign against

Petrov begin? At his

85-year-old mother's home, a search is carried out.

His mother's caregiver is interrogated.

At the same time, in 20 or 30 places

in the homes and personal apartments of his

employees, searches and seizures of

documents are carried out. Some people in masks

come running in from somewhere and block the company.

What's going on? Well, obviously they simply

want to take it away from him, plain and simple. It's a

juicy asset.

They want to seize a major car business.

They want to take it away. Let's watch a one-minute clip of Petrov's interview.

A major interview with Petrov comes out tomorrow

in the publication—I've forgotten which one. But now we have

a one-minute excerpt, so let's see

what he says about who is behind

these raider attacks. In the time

that has passed since, well, essentially,

these searches, seizures, house arrest, and so on,

have you developed a more

specific explanation of why this

happened?

[music]

Well, possibly it's a combination of

my having some kind of politically independent

position, plus someone's desire

to make money from this. The very nature

of the case is completely absurd

and indicates that someone here is

trying to use it for their own interests. And naturally,

some companies approached me and said,

'Come on, let's...,' no, 'let's

merge,' or 'let us buy you.'

And who approached you? Was it someone inside the company?

All these people, of course, should

one day be held accountable for this, because it

damages everything: the country's image,

the business climate, and people, simply on a

human level, in terms of relationships and the ability

to work. This should not be happening. Petrov is

certainly sympathetic for several

reasons. First, he publicly, several times,

supported our work.

Second, he was a State Duma deputy from

A Just Russia, and in that sense

he was a unique State Duma deputy

who knew that, basically,

he would get reprimanded by the party

leadership and the Presidential Administration for

helping us. I would write

emails to his assistant: we're investigating

this case—could Sergei Petrov

submit a parliamentary inquiry about it?

When we wrote that to others, most of the time

no one replied at all. But Petrov always

sent the parliamentary inquiry.

He would simply say,

'A certain Navalny has approached me,'

'I ask that these facts be checked,'

and send it to the Prosecutor's Office and

the Investigative Committee. He did that, and for that

he paid a price—he says in the interview that

complaints were made against him. But he did it

because he was, after all, a deputy.

People came to him about the fight

against corruption. That's the first thing. Second,

this affects all of us

because we see a guy who

built a business. Right now, for me,

it's very unpleasant when Petrov is discussed

in the context of pressure on businessmen—Petrov,

and then Abyzov and someone else—as if Abyzov

and Petrov are, excuse me, from different

universes. The guy was a military man from Orenburg

and built everything himself, one of the few

people who really did create

a business, built a huge company, and pays

enormous taxes just to take it out

that very 1.5 billion rubles (about 15 million USD), he

must have paid a huge amount in taxes

so he is making our country and our world

a little bit better. And what happens?

some goons come running in from the towers and at him

they search the place. I do not trust these FSB officers (Russia’s security service) at all

especially in the context of today’s very absurd

news. We were told today that

well, several FSB officers were arrested

from Alpha and various other units

who, it turns out, had been attacking

shady banks that were cashing out funds

they raided them using fake

search warrants

and simply stole the money. And now

today another piece of news came out, very plainly

but really opening our eyes to

these wonderful FSB employees: that

a whole number of FSB operatives who are currently

on assignment in the North Caucasus

have gone on the run

when they learned what was happening here

these criminal cases against the FSB special forces

who were simply attacking people and stealing money

They were not just breaking into some random bank

in that bank, there were 140

million rubles (about 1.4 million USD) in the vault. This is a real case, yes

this is not made up; it was reported in the media, described

in the criminal case materials, and they simply

signed that money over to themselves, supposedly for

body armor, declaring that right now

this was an FSB search, an operational measure, everybody

get down. It was completely absurd, and nobody

should have been lying there, that is

they would just run in shouting, “FSB! Everybody down!”

take the money and run away. They

were doing this, and now these same people are trying

to prove to us that Petrov

had some kind of bad business. And of course the fact

that they are now destroying Rolf

destroying a business that was simply

truly built from scratch, without

any oligarchic nonsense

not by a former minister, not by a former official

but by an ordinary entrepreneur, that is of course

a fact that shows that

once again confirms for us that under Putin

with all these people around him

as long as they remain in power, absolutely nothing

good will happen here

Well, they will smash this company to pieces, and then

naturally, 30 other businessmen

will think, “Why the hell should we do this?” We

will not do it; they will leave, they will leave, they will not

pay taxes, jobs will disappear, yes

and overall it is a massive demotivator for

everyone. How can anyone even

do anything if your business is simply

taken away like this?

Of course no one will do it

And again, just feel the difference

with Sechin, who steals openly

billions, openly buys yachts, openly

builds himself an estate somewhere with an area of

25,000 square meters

it is all officially registered, listed as the Russian

Federation, meaning it is disguised as belonging to

as the publication Baza reports, Baza

all of it is guarded by the National Guard (Rosgvardiya)

So there you have it: the state, the state

is not people like Petrov. People like Petrov

are enemies of the state. People like Sechin

are its foundation

But if people like Sechin are the foundation, then

of course nothing good will come of it

There are a lot of questions coming in

Valentin asks: “Alexei, what do you think about

Putin’s remarks about wind turbines

moles and so on?” Well, I

want to say this about it: it seems to me

to be an important thing that shows

that, of course, at the head of Russia

sits a very backward guy who

simply does not understand what is going on. You

remember

a few years ago Putin kept telling us

constantly

the same kind of nonsense about shale

oil. Together with Miller from Gazprom

they said there was no such thing as shale oil

that it was all a myth. Then it turned out that

production was booming in the United States and in

many other countries, and Russia lost heavily

because of it. Putin is ignorant, he does not

understand it, and the problem is not even that

he is ignorant and does not understand things, well

come on

there are, what, 26,500 people watching us right now

and I think most of you

are not specialists either in moles or

in wind power or in energy in general, but

before talking nonsense, we

would at least read something. But Putin does not want

to read. He and all his Sechins and all

the rest really are these backward

rather dim people who refuse

to take anything in at all. More than that

it turns out he has been saying all this nonsense about moles

and wind turbines

for many years already. Today I saw a video

where someone simply compared his

statement from several years ago and now

and found that it was exactly the same word for word, only

this time about moles. Let us listen

Take these wind turbines, for example, which are very

common in many European

countries

It would seem that this is a completely

environmentally clean form of energy. But

it turns out that is not really so: they kill birds

there is such vibration there that

worms even crawl up to the surface

you see, not to mention all sorts of moles

there and so on. So the real question is

whether people will be able to live on a planet

lined like a palisade with wind turbines and covered

with several layers of solar panels, yes

I mean, wind power.

Wind generation is all well and good, but what about birds?

Does anyone ever think, in that case, about how many birds

die? They shake so much that worms and

other creatures crawl out of the ground. This is no joke, actually.

These are serious consequences,

from using these modern methods

of generating energy. Once again, I just want to say: what are you

even talking about? You're just spewing

absolute nonsense. It's really astonishing. I mean, basically,

the concept is rational enough, sure: Putin

heads a country that really is

a giant gas station, and he

wants it to remain a gas station

forever, and for us to have combined heat and power plants,

hydroelectric plants, and a nuclear

industry,

because that's what we inherited

from the Soviet Union, and he thinks that

our energy sector should always stay

like that forever. We can't

develop it the way Europe has, because

it just doesn't work out that way for us. So he kind of

says: I doubt that

these so-called environmentally friendly sources

of energy are really all that environmentally friendly,

so to speak. But the man is just unbelievably

full of nonsense every time. Instead of

offering any kind of calculations, he just starts

talking about birds. Come on already.

This has been discussed a million times. If the gentleman had read

any article at all, he would know that yes, of course,

birds do die because of wind turbines, but

overall, human activity kills birds

on such a scale that for every

one

bird killed by turbines, there are

1,000 deaths

from other causes. Do you know what kills the most?

What causes the highest number of bird deaths?

Among human-related factors, birds die most often because of

cats—domestic cats, cats that live at dachas (country houses),

cats that live in homes. They destroy

nests and eat these birds, including

rare birds, in enormous numbers. We're not even

talking about that. Did you see how that CHP plant burned?

Let's watch a few seconds.

[music]

This is how the CHP plant in Mytishchi burned today. One

person died, and it burned quite

intensely, because it was a gas-fired CHP plant.

Gas was supplied there, and it burned. What do you think:

did this CHP plant and these emissions,

which the residents

of Mytishchi will be breathing in for a long time,

do more damage to the environment, or would 10,000 wind turbines

standing around Mytishchi have done more?

Obviously, the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl

did more damage to the Earth's environment,

or did all the solar panels in the entire history

of human civilization? The answer is obvious.

Of course, you can debate whether

nuclear power

is good or bad. That debate is happening everywhere. In

Germany, green energy has won out,

which is why they are moving away from nuclear power plants.

The advanced, so to speak,

scientific trend is moving toward the idea that

humanity is trying

to use less nuclear energy

because it's supposedly safe, safe—and then

bam, Chernobyl happened, and then

bam, Fukushima happened, and

the damage from those two accidents, or from an accident like the one

at the Mayak plant (a Soviet/Russian nuclear facility), was so great

that no wind turbines—which of course also are not

the safest things in the world

or the very best—still, no wind turbines

in the next million years would do as much damage

as nuclear energy already has.

But you can talk about this in a

normal, professional way. Instead, what does our man do?

He just spouts this nonsense about

moles, worms, and everything else.

Yes, there are issues related to vibration and so on,

but to simply say that

all birds are dying because of wind turbines and that we should

cover the Earth, damn it, in

two layers of solar panels—

well then, why not let the Earth be covered in two layers

of thermal power plants instead?

The man understands nothing

and talks nonsense. And this is not just

some fun fact—it's a very sad fact, because

this man leads our country.

He has led our country for 20 years already, and

his low level of understanding

of problems like this will simply lead to

us living worse and worse and worse.

The last thing I need to say is this:

I was away for ten days and apparently missed these broadcasts a lot,

so I've already

gone way over time, but I can't help

telling you about an amazingly funny and

instructive incident that happened in

Moscow, but still

has to do with Omsk, because the famous

Russian law—or maxim—that says

"Do not try to leave Omsk"

worked even on such a gloomy little guy

as the head of the Omsk police. This

head of the Omsk police—

let's first watch 46 seconds of him

breaking up an anti-corruption rally in Omsk.

This is the Omsk city police, who are quite

briskly, as you can see, detaining

pensioners and a man with a Russian flag.

Commanding this police force is the chief of police

of Omsk, a man named Alexei Merkushev, and here he is—

you can see, a classic mug,

epaulettes like that, a stern expression on his face,

and he says that he will not

allow these extremists to walk through

the peaceful streets of Omsk and, well,

block citizens' passage. And he supposedly has

enough moral authority and rank

to disperse all

these people, since he has an honorary certificate...

receives, and it so happened that Alexei

Merkushev tried to leave I'm screamin

he went to Moscow to study at the academy

of the Ministry of Internal Affairs so that, as we can see, he could become some kind of

general and get an even higher

position, but this remarkable man

Oksana tells us, public ombudsman

the police [official] decided to ride the Moscow metro

as befits a police officer on

a business trip, he naturally got drunk as

a pig

forgive the expression, and tried to go through

through the turnstile without paying, ran into

some man who turned out to be there

an electric train driver, and started some kind of

drugs for

literally, the head of the Omsk police tried

to sneak into the metro without a ticket and started

a fight with a train driver; he was detained

got hit in the face, and accordingly it was posted on

the Police Ombudsman public page, where we apparently see

the police report, the initial court

record, and that the head of Omsk participated in a drunken fight

beat someone up and got punched in the eye himself

as a matter of fact, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs academy he was

slightly higher

expelled, and thus he did not manage to

leave Omsk; and now

he is returning there, sknode, not really

it is interesting whether he will remain at the head of

the Omsk police and whether he will continue

to break up anti-corruption rallies there

and whether he will still insist

that people like him should have in

Russia more rights than people like us

thank you very much for watching this

long broadcast after my 10-day

absence; support independent

candidates, demand their registration in

Moscow and St. Petersburg, in Irkutsk, Ufa, and in

all the other cities of the country. Only

when we achieve this will we win. For now,

see you next Thursday

[music]