Putin’s traveling circus. Self-nominated candidates from United Russia. Roma in Chemodanovka

[music]

Good evening, everyone. It is 7 p.m. in Moscow, and

you are watching the live broadcast of Russia of the Future, and

I am Alexei Navalny, or the person

who has lost the romantic aura of that image.

This is according to political analyst Valery Bianchi,

a man afraid of losing his place at

the feeding trough, according to political analyst Ruslan Ostashko, and

a man without conscience or morals, according to political analyst

Dmitry Zakharov.

That is all me, my friends. I apologize

for starting an hour earlier

than usual with my live broadcast.

This is the first time in two years that I am making

excuses, but I do have a good reason:

I am the happy parent of a schoolgirl who

has her graduation today, and I want to make it to

that graduation ceremony, so I started my

live broadcast an hour earlier. I hope you

will forgive me. Please send your

questions with the hashtag #RussiaOfTheFuture on

Twitter. They will be put up on

the screen, and I will try

to answer them. Of course, we will begin with the absolute

trash circus that Vladimir Putin once again

put on. I remember that last time I

commented on his

"Direct Line" (Putin’s televised annual Q&A show), that strange genre in which he

appears twice a year, and I said it was

the most disastrous one yet. But this time the record

for failure has somehow been raised another notch.

Judging by the views and the comments, it

does not even seem to generate that much

interest anymore. Most importantly, for the last three

Direct Lines, we have all been tormented by the question:

why are you doing this? Still, this

Direct Line is supposed to serve some

purpose.

For example, you are supposed to boost your

popularity. Putin’s popularity is falling, his

ratings are falling, so he is supposed to come out and look like

a tough, cool guy, or make

some dramatic foreign policy

statements, or say that we are

picking fights with Germany, picking fights with America,

once again going on about Crimea, about

Ukraine, saying that no one will be allowed and

no one will dare revise the results of the Second

World War, because apparently everyone around us dreams only of

revising the results of the Second

World War. We say: no, we will not

allow it. And then, oh my God, the whole

population

and Putin’s rating rises. But this time there was not

even anything like that at all. In the

last three Direct Lines, nothing has been said

that could have boosted Putin’s rating, and

my firm conviction, which in fact

fully coincides with the reports of

sociologists, is that this Direct

Line only lowers

the level of support for him, lowers his

rating.

Nevertheless, they probably keep doing it simply out of

inertia, even though by now it has all

completely turned into the format of some kind of

trashy sideshow.

But apparently some people in the Kremlin,

these political consultants and strategists,

the media handlers,

seem to think this is very cool and very

interesting. It was fascinating to watch—you know that famous

internet thing,

“expectation versus reality,” right?

So here is the Kremlin’s idea of

reality, and here is reality as we actually see it. Margarita

Simonyan

—our beloved beaver-like creature, one of the chief

lying propagandists—wrote

a very curious post on Telegram

and Facebook. Let us read it, because

“Direct Line is a time of sweet hopes

for the humiliated and insulted people of this vast country, and

in the towers and little tower offices, phones are ringing

off the hook.”

Meaning, people all across the country understand

that there is such a source of power, and they

can reach out to it in this amazing moment.

And all the officials, meanwhile,

are заранее terrified.

She writes that tomorrow, on television,

he will tear someone into foul-smelling shreds

with his exquisitely crafted biography, and as for us,

nothing will happen. The officials are

in horror, and Margarita Simonyan, standing right there

beside Putin like his faithful pug, says:

“There will be something on everyone. Behave

decently, and then there will be nothing on you.” That is what

they want to portray.

So yes, he is a tyrant, an authoritarian leader, but

a stern and just one, and twice a year

ordinary humiliated and insulted people

can reach him, and he will hear their

hopes and grievances, and then he smacks some official

like this one, and off he goes, and then hits another one,

and off he goes too, and the whole country is

delighted. And beneath Margarita Simonyan’s post people

say: behave well, and then there will be nothing

about you. That is the expectation, that is the image.

But in practice, the best illustration is

those very questions that

appear during the Direct Line. The very best

part of the Direct Line is not what Putin

says, but those questions that

pop up on the screen: “Please help

with money for firewood.”

Tambov Region. That is reality, you see.

And they think they are sitting in

some tower, like Sauron and Saruman,

controlling everything, but in practice all of this

has come down to an old man who has been sitting there for 20

years, sitting in that place for 20 years,

puffing out his cheeks, pretending to be great.

He is, as Margarita

Simonyan writes, solving the problems of the humiliated

and insulted—but everyone has understood that he has

solved nothing, solves nothing, and can do

nothing, and neither can his entire government.

but so petty and worthless that

the only question that can really

be discussed with him is: could you spare

some money for firewood in Tambov Region

.

And if we were to illustrate this not

with an image but with a segment from the Direct Line (Putin's annual televised call-in show), then of course

the best example, simply the best example, is

the question from Tyumen Region.

From the rich, oil-producing Tyumen Region, about

running water. I saw people on Twitter

quite rightly writing: in 2021

they were being promised that in 2021, in Tyumen Region,

they would finally get running water. Let's

watch 1 minute and 30 seconds of what

Russia and the Russian authorities have degenerated into, and what

these Direct Lines have become. It's just

an absolute trash circus, really. 1 minute 30

seconds.

On the issue of water supply: not far

away there is a settlement

from the regional capital itself, and we have no

water at all, not even for drinking.

We drive to Tyumen, 20 kilometers (about 12 miles), or

we buy water—if we want to wash

ourselves, we go to relatives' homes and do laundry.

We also go to the neighboring village carrying bags and

laundry.

And with the kids too, so we can wash ourselves and wash

the children and do the laundry. As I understand it,

the settlement is not far from the regional

center—they said 20 minutes or 20

kilometers. That's very close.

As for water, overall across the

country, unfortunately, we do have this problem. We

unfortunately have millions of people without access to clean, good

water—millions of people.

And

we have an entire program devoted to access

to and the provision of clean and

high-quality water for people. In this specific

case, of course, it is a little strange to me

that after all, being in immediate proximity

to a large and self-sufficient

regional center—Tyumen, one of

our donor regions—there are clearly

enough funds to solve

this problem. Is it really necessary to wait now

another year and a half or two years to resolve it?

Honestly, I don't know. Frankly, I

doubt it. In any case, arranging

water supply even over the next two

years would not be such a major expense. Let's

hear what the governor has to say.

Twenty years in power, trillions of dollars

received from oil and gas sales, a

large share of them coming from that very

Tyumen Region,

where we pump out oil and sell it

abroad. The president, the presidential administration,

the State Duma, the Federation Council,

the judicial system, thousands of people

in black cars, all with secretaries and

cars and, I don't know, various trips,

vouchers, early pensions, and then

the presidential envoys' offices, then the governor, then

city heads, local self-government—this is

all funded splendidly.

It has existed for 20 years, and after 20 years, seriously,

we are discussing, in all seriousness, before the whole

country

the existence of running water. And even in terms of expectations,

even in this format—just imagine

what the idea was, as Margarita Simonyan wrote on

Twitter:

show people who don't have running water

in the 21st century, in the wealthy Tyumen Region,

and Putin would say, 'Those scoundrels, the local officials,

build them a water pipeline within three days.'

'I'm firing the governor, I'm firing the mayor, I'm firing everyone.'

I'm firing them all.

Then: 'From some personal fund of mine,

I'm giving you money for the water pipeline, and

I'll award all of you the Medal for Services

to the Fatherland.'

First class. But what did we hear instead?

First some local official mumbled something,

that miserable mayor and head of

the village administration: 'Well, we're

preparing the design documentation for

the water pipeline for two years,' and then right after him

Putin mumbles too and says, 'Well, I don't know

whether it really takes two years to prepare the paperwork.

Somehow, in Tyumen, in this country, that

surprises me. Well, let's hear the governor.

And then the governor starts mumbling

and says something like, 'Well, we

will of course try to install the water pipeline,'

and that's supposed to be the very thing people were waiting for?

When the humiliated and insulted

appealed, and then from the tower came the eye that would

burn away all the villains?

And after all that talk, there is still no water pipeline, nothing.

And then he also says, yes, of course, we have

millions of people living without running water. So

what was he doing for 20 years, if millions

of people are living without running water? Are we really

going to build water pipelines for people in this mode,

or is this damned system,

consisting of the president, the administration, and

the Duma, the Federation Council, governors,

presidential envoys, mayors, and so on—maybe this

system should somehow

get its gears turning, turning, turning, and

in the end deliver you a water pipeline?

Because that was supposedly how it worked: people

send money upward in the form of taxes,

and the authorities send downward to them

a water pipeline in the form of a public service.

But no, that doesn't work. The only thing that works is

the Direct Line. So all that's left is to hold

just

1,724 more Direct Lines, and then maybe you'll probably get water

in every village. And so

the whole thing really turned into

some completely dreary trash circus this

time. They decided to entertain us—they

brought in bloggers and all sorts of others.

well-known guys, because you have to work, after all

with young people

and

even from MDK, that VKontakte community

you probably all know it, there was a question, well

by the way, theirs was the only

decent question; everything else was just

just, damn, some kind of

Sardarov advertising shawarma, let's

watch a minute and a half

of trash that they used to portray our country

the growth of internet resources has now broken down

many of the barriers that used to limit the spread

of any lie, but now you can just

take any, excuse me, nonsense and boldly call it

news. And then—doomsday, whatever

happens to a person while they're still alive—they'll take it

and call similar false stories

as is well known, people are often gullible, even

especially on the internet. One of the

main topics online right now is the law on

the sovereign internet

bloggers and internet users

are baffled as to why this is being done. Can you

honestly answer why this law was adopted?

Before you start answering, I want to

say that in Moscow, in my opinion, the best

shawarma—everyone's invited on March 17

March 17. Metaphysics, laws on disrespect toward

the authorities also directly affect the internet

in our country. The internet is more than

50 is there is a link can't

the internet, sorry, is first and foremost people

people who need to speak out

who feel growing social

tension, and right now the place to vent

that negativity is simple and easily available

in troubled times, and most importantly, safely. People were doing this

until a certain point

but now, because of this law, many

users are in great

danger

I wanted to ask you to place

the enforcement of this law under

control, so that the notorious

sad story of Article 282 is not repeated

And yet he did not answer a single one of these

questions—he just

just imagine the reality: over there

in the presidential administration, there's a separate

what's it called, deputy head of

the presidential administration, who has

a staff apparatus of, I don't know, 200

or 300 people. Again, they all ride around in black

German cars. They sat there and

wrote this script, and then, basically,

they said: we'll take blogger Amiran, he has lots of

followers on YouTube and Instagram, and

he'll ask a question, and at the end he'll mention

shawarma, and it'll be this, can you imagine,

cute moment. Everyone will be sitting by the

TV and laughing warmly

at Putin—can you imagine, the president

was told about shawarma, how adorable. And then at the

next

Direct Line, we can expect a little

girl with a kitten in her lap, and then

someone will put it in cola or bring in a panda, and then

something else. But actually, this is

where it's all heading. You know what the main

hotspot in the country is right now in terms of protests?

It's Shiyes in Arkhangelsk Region, where

people have for a long time now genuinely

been fighting against having

a giant dump built there, and they too are trying to attract

attention, so to speak, to ask their

question

And of course we all expected that at

this Direct Line, the question would be asked by

the people from Shiyes. These very people

you'll see in this short video

[applause]

we will never give up the Russian

North

[applause]

But who was the one asking the question about trash in

Arkhangelsk? Protests in Komi, protests in

the Moscow Region—protests

people are being arrested, jailed, people

are clashing with the police in that very

Shiyes

dozens of cases have been fabricated over insulting

the authorities, in order to, in order to

intimidate people. So who asks the

question about trash? We just had a

blogger talking about shawarma. Of course we need to

bring out 15-year-old Katya Adushkina

she's well known on Instagram too, and

she makes such cute little videos on YouTube, so let

her ask the question about trash, not these

some kind of rude people from Shiyes

Let's watch how they asked the question

about trash. The issue of

improving the environment is of great interest, and right now in Russia

more and more collection points for

separate waste sorting are appearing, but still

people online say that in the end

all the trash still gets dumped into one

pile

So how are you going to deal with this

problem, and are there any plans

to solve it? It's a big problem for us

It didn't arise yesterday; we've talked about it many times

before

and kept coming back to it. By the way,

talking about it and actually dealing with it only began

literally

two or three years ago. It turned out that we had

been accumulating garbage and household waste for decades

and no one had ever properly

dealt with it; landfills had been piling up

for decades, since Soviet times

And it's made worse by the fact that our

society has indeed become, to a significant extent,

a consumer society, even

despite the fact that incomes

in previous years

fell in real terms and are only now recovering, but

Nevertheless, on the whole, we live in a consumer society.

Consumption has grown, and new types of packaging have appeared.

Besides wrapping paper or cardboard,

there is now a lot of plastic, and it takes a very long time to decompose.

In the Pacific Ocean, there is an entire garbage patch the size of

an average European country.

Gigantic dumps have formed, and they are building more.

People are fighting with the police and private security guards

to stop these dumps from being built. This is

a dump straight out of a model from 50 years ago,

with no separate waste collection.

So what happens in Putin’s trashy circus?

A sweet girl, nice enough, but in

fact, sweet though she may be, I have nothing against

Katya Adushkina, but what they staged

was this sweet girl squeaking out something

in a thin little voice: “Oh, well, on the internet

they say there’s this big problem,”

“people are so worried about it, what would you say?”

And Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin’s patronymic-based form of address) replied:

“Oh, my dear silly girl, just look at

your own consumption meter, you know, and in

the Pacific Ocean there’s also a whole

island of garbage floating around, and in general it’s all because of consumer society,”

“that’s what we have. And you, Katyusha,”

“you probably buy ice cream, and that ice cream comes in

plastic packaging, so consume

less of that sort of thing, please.”

The problem had been building up for decades.

For decades. And for two of those decades, you

have been in power. For two of those decades, you have had

a ruling party, a fully

subservient parliament. For two of those

decades, you have controlled

the prosecutor’s office, environmental

agencies, nature protection bodies, the FSB, the police, and so on.

For two of those decades, you could have

done something about the problem of separate

waste collection, the way they did throughout

Europe. Europe is also, supposedly, a consumer society,

but you didn’t care.

Because the garbage business has always been

protected by your gangsters from

the law enforcement agencies. And now you

are building this dump in Shiyes because

you handed this scheme over

to the family of the Prosecutor General and to the mayor of

Moscow, Sobyanin. They will make

a lot of money there and will handle your

political problems. So instead of

giving a substantive answer to

this question, you stage this cute little

three-ring circus, hoping that

Instagram bloggers will solve the problem of your

approval ratings. I have a feeling that

this still isn’t really working. You see, I

don’t think that residents of Arkhangelsk

Region, or residents of Tyumen, or anyone else

were fooled by all this sugary sweetness.

In Putin’s understanding, that means

shawarma, the USA, shawarma,

Instagram bloggers, and everything else. But

the very best moment of this call-in show

which once again simply shows

the sheer degree of hypocrisy was Putin’s long and

rather passionate rant about

the 1990s, his favorite subject, where he often

shifts the blame.

We saw it in the garbage situation: he

says the problem accumulated over decades.

But every single time

he is asked why he hasn’t solved

a problem, Putin says: “the ’90s.” Let’s

listen. This time he was really, truly

very close to

calling all the governments of the 1990s bandits.

In fact, he basically did. Listen to him now.

He says, “Well, we won’t say it was a

gang.” He repeated that several times, which

makes it obvious that, of course, he wants to call

them all a gang, but out of some kind of

politeness he doesn’t say it outright. But still,

he winks and says, “Well, we all

understand, don’t we?” Let’s listen.

Putin on the gang from the 1990s: “I will not

call

those people who were

at the helm in the 1990s a gang, but I want to note

that during that time we completely

saw the social sphere collapse,

industry collapsed, the defense sector collapsed, we lost

our defense industry,

we practically destroyed the armed

forces, brought the country to the brink of civil

war, to bloodshed in the Caucasus, and

put the country on the verge of

losing its sovereignty and falling apart. That needs to be said plainly.

So, of course,

not all the people who worked in

the 1990s bear responsibility for this,

but surely, if it happened, then

there are some among them who are responsible for it, too.”

Interesting—who could he possibly mean? “We won’t

talk about those people who worked in

the ’90s.”

Not a gang, you say? Well, hold on a second.

Let’s take a look at who it was that, in

1992, signed an agreement together

with one of the leaders of that very same gang.

Twelve seconds of archival footage.

There you have it—that’s the gang. There he is,

Mayor Sobchak sitting there, and here is his first

deputy, Putin, in 1992.

They are signing a loan agreement

that is now, of course, described as terrible,

predatory, nightmarish. Vladimir

Vladimirovich, you not only didn’t merely emerge

from that gang—you were already, even in 1992,

one of the important people in

that very gang. Let’s be honest:

it was a gang, and that gang

entirely

remained in the Kremlin. When they tell us that

Putin says to us, “they unleashed

a terrible war in the Caucasus,”

“they unleashed a terrible war”—but the presidential administration,

and who was already working in

the presidential administration from 1995 onward?

as deputy head of the presidential administration

a certain Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who

was brought there by a certain Kudrin

Alexei Leonidovich, the very same gang from

the 1990s that is still sitting there in

the Kremlin — this gang from the 1990s and 2000s, the Yeltsin "Family" (the inner circle around Boris Yeltsin)

— and where is it now? Is it in exile?

Have any of their assets been taken away, or

has their activity been investigated in all these

cases involving Yumashev, Tanya, Valya, and all

the others? No, they are

multimillionaires and are perfectly

enjoying absolute impunity

and total lack of accountability. All these people are still sitting

in power to this day. About one member of this gang

an article was written in the early 1990s. I've shown

this screenshot many times, and I won't stop

showing it. Every resident of this country

should remember the article titled

"The Colonel Brought St. Petersburg to Ruin"

about a certain KGB colonel who in the 1990s

sold rare-earth

and non-ferrous metals dirt cheap

supposedly in order to exchange them for

food supplies, but arranged it in such a way

that

that all of it went at a deliberately undervalued price. They

now themselves like to say that in the 1990s

Putin was stealing

together with his team, with the entire

rest of the St. Petersburg mayor's office

through foreign trade contracts. Next,

let's remember — since we're talking about

the 1990s — Anatoly Borisovich Chubais. Where is

Anatoly Borisovich? Is he in exile too?

Is he living in London and cursing

Putin in the strongest terms because

Putin hates the 1990s? No, not at all.

He's doing just fine too, also a multimillionaire, building

houses for himself worth 20 million rubles (about US$220,000) and

receiving from us contracts worth billions

of rubles every year. And who is now

the main person in charge of domestic policy in

the country? The deputy head of the

Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation

— isn't it Sergei Vladilenovich Kiriyenko?

Remember him? A minister in that

government of the time,

the default-era government — that is, the 1990s

were supposedly so terrible, everyone was running around half-naked

with nothing to eat, and all of it ended,

as we know, in a default. That was

well, I don't know, the culmination, from

Putin's point of view, of the incompetence of that

same gang in the 1990s. And all that was done by

Kiriyenko, who now is supposedly

running the country's entire domestic policy

They unleashed a bloody war in the Caucasus.

And who headed the FSB from what year — 1997?

Or was it from 1998? Putin headed

the Federal Security Service, and

generally speaking, it's assumed that all those

terrorist attacks and everything else that happened

were failures on the part of our special services, which

have always been generously funded

— in the 1990s, before the 1990s, and

after the 1990s. But now it's just, well,

you know, it's as if I came

onto another YouTube channel and started

saying today, listen, or years later

saying, you remember back then,

in 2011, 2012, 2017, all sorts of scoundrels

and bastards were broadcasting on YouTube, in particular

appearing on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m., once

even at 7:00 p.m., spreading some fake

news, and so these people, this gang — I won't

name them, but many of them

bear responsibility for the lies and fake news

they spread. And you wouldn't say,

"Navalny, are you crazy or what?"

That's absurd.

But for some reason, during this call-in show

none of the many

journalists asks a simple

question: Vladimir Vladimirovich, excuse me,

please, but where were you in the 1990s? Were you

resisting the regime in the forests of Oryol

or maybe in the Tambov

forests?

Were you running around with an assault rifle or a sawed-off shotgun,

defending

the great Soviet superpower? No.

You were trading valuable metals. So why

what right do you even have now

to denounce the 1990s? Were they a wonderful

time? No, they were not. But back then

the crooks and thieves really were in power

— and they are the same ones still sitting in the Kremlin. Putin keeps

trying to drive into us, over and over,

this obsession with the 1990s. Why am I

so passionate, why am I shouting about this so loudly? Because I

find it very, very important that

each of us,

when a political argument begins — any

political argument —

naturally in Russia it somehow or other

ends up with, well, "but in the 1990s

everything was bad, everything in the 1990s was bad, there

was no money, oil prices were low" — but

all these people, from Shoigu to Kiriyenko,

from Putin to Chubais — they were there then, and they

are Putin's state now. The gang from

the 1990s has been ruling Russia for

the last 20 years. So, I see questions here.

Zhenya asks me to comment on

the situation where pro-government independent candidates are not

collecting signatures themselves, but through state employees right now.

What do you think about the June 23 rally?

The Libertarians are holding a rally. Will I

speak? No, I will not speak. The rally

is indeed being organized by the Libertarians on

Academician Sakharov Avenue on the 23rd.

There, you can see the sticker. Now, about Belarus.

The question is: what do you think about

our bilateral relations with Belarus? Should we

expect annexation, a Union State, or

is this purely about money? I think that

of course, annexation of any kind should not be expected.

But

there is simply a confrontation here

between Putin and Lukashenko, who seem

on the one hand to want to unite in order

to prolong their personal

political lives, while on the other hand they

of course are, in a certain sense,

antagonists. I think that this

process of integration between Russia and Belarus

will simply just keep

dragging on endlessly as long as both leaders

remain in power. So, moving on—

someone is asking about pro-government self-nominated candidates

and about United Russia indeed.

It’s a funny thing, a kind of modern

political meme. The main political

process happening right now is that we

are seeing United Russia tear off its label

that said “United Russia,” crumple it up, and

hide it behind its back, then come out before us

with some other label, or even

with no label at all, saying: “Guys, we’re not

United Russia.”

Vote for us, please.” Right now, on this

live broadcast, 34,000

people are watching us, and I’m telling you: folks, remember

that they just crumpled up the label.

It’s very funny—I even saw today

a screenshot from some newspaper.

Ravshan Valiullin, a candidate—wonderful—

who is running in Naberezhnye

Chelny, posted on Facebook that this is now

exactly how it is written in the article—this

is now officially called

a self-nominated candidate. Please show us

the screenshot. There it is—you see, from United

Russia, here we have a self-nominated candidate.

Excellent. So, a self-nominated candidate from

United Russia. We already look at

this and think, well, somehow, yes, it seems

normal—but it’s absurd. United

Russia is officially not participating in the

elections in Moscow. Can you imagine that?

They hold 84 percent of the seats

in the Moscow City Duma, the mayor is from United Russia, the preside-

nt is from United Russia, the prime minister is from United Russia, they

have all the power. They talk about what

incredible support they have—and yet United

Russia is not participating in the elections. You’d say,

how is that possible? It can’t be. Even the main

United Russia figure, and in fact the chief

deputy in the Moscow City Duma, Andrei Metelsky,

is running as a self-nominated candidate.

You were a leader of this party, stood at its founding,

were the leader of its faction for many years, did all of

that—and now, in 2019, they are all

running as self-nominated candidates. Therefore our

most important

and practical political task

with you, friends, is to decode them,

to expose them, so that we understand that the same

Metelsky is a United Russia politician who

has hidden that label. A lot of people, unfortunately,

don’t understand this; they don’t follow things closely.

I think that most of you,

in fact most of you, have never even heard

a surname like Metelsky before, and yet

he’s actually the main guy there.

And most importantly, a grandmother

living in that district knows absolutely

nothing, and our task

is to come and say: dear granny, take part

in Smart Voting, because if you

don’t take part in Smart

Voting, well, you’ll simply just look at the faces

of some people, and it won’t say there

that they’re self-nominated, and she’ll think, all right,

so that those nasty United Russia people don’t get through,

I’ll vote for this

self-nominated candidate. But that self-nominated candidate is

a United Russia politician. Why is all this happening?

A short video gives us the answer

to that question, one where a member

of United Russia came to a small rally, and it was

yes, the head of the Tsaritsyno district council, Elena

Samoshina. She had the imprudence

to say those words, to say that she was from

United Russia. Let’s look at

people’s reaction. “I am a district deputy of

Tsaritsyno, head of the social and—

celebration council of the Tsaritsyno district since 2017.

Yes, I am a member of the United Russia party,”

and

what?

first through independent only

you matter to me

All the projects being carried out in the city of

Moscow should be done for the benefit of residents, and

all negative manifestations and all these

nuances should be reduced to a minimum, and

that is my main position.”

[applause]

At this point, the regime—well, obviously

United Russia does not want to appear like that.

No one wants to climb onto any stage

and say “United Russia” in front of any

audience—they’ll start shouting “Shame!” Let’s

look at how a roundtable in the

State Duma went a few seconds

ago. There was a roundtable on the topic of

ecology and garbage, and some kind of

government hack came there.

Let’s see how he was received there.

The audience there is supposedly different—it’s not

just random people on the street, but those who

came to the roundtable.

[music]

Take me away

[applause]

[music]

You say “United Russia,” and anywhere

people immediately start shouting “Shame!”

The only place where they won’t shout “Shame!” at you

is if you came to a United Russia meeting,

but there is no such meeting because

United Russia is not participating in the elections.

That is why they are hiding, that is why they are

disguising themselves, that is why they will lie.

three times over, and now again with him

it's embarrassing to watch this whole thing

it's secondhand embarrassment, but on the other hand

it's just genuinely great to see how these

disguised United Russia members complain about

how they file complaints because they're being called

United Russia members. Yashin is walking through central Moscow

through his Krasnoselsky district, and against

him is running a vice rector of the Higher School

of Economics, some kind of Kosa Moranu, and Yashin

is absolutely right to write everywhere that she is

a person who gives interviews saying, 'I'm on the team'

of Sobyanin; she's a coordinated candidate

of city hall, and everywhere, using administrative resources

they've plastered her face on every pole

where she appears as this respectable woman

with it written:

'I support the Moscow Longevity program'

which of course is absolutely not campaign

advertising, it's just, well, a person

who oversees the Moscow

Longevity program for elderly people

so within the framework of this program, without any

campaigning whatsoever, on every pole

they pasted up her kindly smiling

face. And Yashin is absolutely right

when he says and writes: yes, you're a United Russia member

a United Russia member. Then she files a complaint against

Yashin with the election commission: 'How dare you insult me'

'you insulted me by calling me a...'

in Russian, you give interviews saying, 'I'm on the

Sobyanin team'

a United Russia member, but they started, they

really are filing complaints and saying that

it's offensive, that you can't do that, well

there, there, there you go, listen to how they

write: 'Yashin is trying,' as they put it in the complaint,

'to create the impression that his pathetic'

'person...' This is an official complaint, an official

complaint they wrote against Yashin, and it's clear that the

'pathetic persona' of Yashin raises concerns

he is trying to slander Valeria

Alexandrovna, portraying her as a

villain

portraying her as a villain

apparently, means saying about a person

that they are from United Russia. How does this

schizophrenia coexist in their heads? I

don't understand. On the one hand, it's the ruling

party, and they're proud of it, they

say: yes, United Russia is our ruling

party, it enjoys the support of 84 percent

it's the main party. On the other

hand, if you call us during an election

United Russia members, you're insulting us, you're insulting us

don't you dare call us United Russia members

It's a very important task for all of us to expose

these people. In Moscow, in every

district, there will be a pro-government candidate. You

will recognize them very easily, because their

photo will be hanging on every fence

while photos of everyone else will be

these people's photos will always be everywhere

more than that, already now, those of you

in Moscow

those of you who live in Moscow already

can already see who is collecting signatures, and who

is struggling and bending over backwards — these so-called

independent candidates: Yashin, Sobol, Milov

Zhdanov, are running around, pleading, looking for signature gatherers

and so on. A huge number of these

self-nominated candidates. The United Russia people, meanwhile,

aren't collecting any signatures at all. How

these signatures will end up at the election commission

and how they will be recognized as

perfectly valid — we both understand that

So those who are actually collecting them

will later have to run around foaming at the mouth

trying to prove that our signatures are real

that they really are signatures, and they will say

'well, no'

'we don't see them here, these are dead souls,' while all these

United Russia people will be pushed through without

without registration, so there will be

excellent candidates in the election for us, fine

If our candidates aren't allowed to run, my

words probably don't sound very

motivating for campaign headquarters, but still

our main task within the framework of

Smart Voting is not to let

disguised United Russia candidates get through. To do

that, we must expose them before

everyone else. A very

interesting thing is happening in the city of

St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is a

zone of electoral anomalies. There's

Chechnya, there's Kuban, and then there's this interesting

case too: St. Petersburg, our most

beautiful, wonderful, advanced

city, isn't far behind. They use a

completely fantastic technique there

to win municipal elections in St. Petersburg

On September 8, there will be municipal elections

they are very important; there will be elected there

almost two thousand people. We are actively

participating — go to the St. Petersburg website, there

there will be the exact same Smart Voting system

take part. What is the government doing while

Panfilova is still around — that is, Ella Panfilova

who comes out and says, 'We

must at least eradicate blatant violations'

and scolded

the election commission in St. Petersburg a lot, though it didn't change

its leadership, and said, 'Look, this

time everything must be very transparent.' What

do they do in St. Petersburg? They have the most

ingenious technology for fighting

independent candidates there: they hide

the election commission. It sounds

strange, I understand, but in fact

the technique consists in the fact that elections

in a specific municipality, say, in

Morskie Vorota, are announced — or rather, the

municipality's candidates wait for when

the municipality will announce the elections and publish

the decision. But that doesn't happen. The candidates already

see that the legal deadlines are approaching, and they

start pacing in circles and worrying, and

to worry

there have been no announcements, and no one knows what is going on

whether the election has been officially announced or not

because that is exactly what happened last time

no one knew whether it had been announced or not

the election, and then it was published

the announcement, you know, and the whole election was

already announced, and the deadline for submitting documents

had already passed

I am not even exaggerating now—you might think

this is such nonsense, this cannot possibly happen—but it can

happen. In St. Petersburg, that is exactly what happened last time

and now things like that are happening there again

it is simply indescribable—they are hiding

the election commissions; people are walking around with

their documents, going to the district administration, to

government offices, saying: there are supposed to be elections here

where am I supposed to submit my documents?

and they are told: we do not know, go look for it yourself

at the information desk—where exactly is

the election commission where you can submit documents?

let's watch the video—41 seconds

no one answers me; people, people from the library

system

are successfully ignoring us

even though it is working hours, no one opens the door

they turned off the lights too

what an astonishing technique, but anyway

people found out where the

election commission is, they come there, look through the

windows, and there are people sitting inside

but they still do not open the door, and you

are a candidate who came with documents, you

end up shouting, “Open the door for me!”

they do not open it for you, and then they simply

turn off the lights as camouflage—like there is no one here

there was another absolutely incredible situation

this week: the commission there actually

announced that it had gone to lunch

the election commission just went off somewhere there

and simply never came back from lunch. 30 seconds

will be enough, clearly, to document it

it really does seem anecdotal, this situation

is very funny—but what is a candidate supposed to do?

say you want to get elected in some

Svetlanovsky district, well, you have

only one possible course of action: the election

is announced, you go and submit your documents

you open a special election

account, use that account to buy paper

print signature sheets, and go

collect signatures, but until you have

delivered the papers to the election commission, you

cannot begin the procedure

they simply shut the doors, that is all; they will

open them, but only a couple of weeks later, when

the deadline has already expired, and they will tell you

“Guys, you should have come earlier”

and you will be running around with

wide eyes shouting, “But I did come here!”

“Here is my video recording proving that I came”

“here, you turned off the lights, you did not open

the door, you hid the election commission”

and they will tell you, “No, we were here the whole time”

“we were working here, and you were just wasting your time”

“maybe you were drunk, sir; maybe you just do not

understand something at all”

“you are making extremist statements”

“perhaps we should call the police right now”

that is exactly how it was in 2014

Danilkin, who now heads the

trade union of doctors—sorry, the teachers’ union

in St. Petersburg

he is a local deputy and is running again

back in 2014

there was an actual fight; he was attacked

at the Svetlanovsky election commission because he

simply could not submit his documents, argued loudly

and tried to force his way into that election commission office

and only after huge

fights and scandals was he finally able

to get registered, because they had already

beaten a candidate there, and because of that

the deadline for submitting documents was extended, and

some of the candidates were at least able

to get those documents in—but only the most

persistent ones

hundreds of people were screened out because, well

because they did not have enough

energy to keep battering at that door to the very end

that is how things work in St. Petersburg

so once again

remember: vote for anyone except Beglov

who is responsible for this lawlessness

in St. Petersburg. Those of you who are

voters, go to spb.vote and

take part in Smart Voting

in St. Petersburg

those of you who are candidates, the message is the same

do not give up, go all the way, just as happened

in 2014: those who went all the way

to the end and did manage to get registered

they even won in the end, they were victorious, but

this really is such a strange

filtering-out process: they simply, simply do not

let you in the door, that is all

that is how our wonderful

United Russia system is set up. Let's see what

questions people are asking me on Twitter

I will answer them. 37,000 people

are watching us live. I am also being

asked about independent candidates

I have already answered about independents; while they bring me

more questions, I

want to talk about the circus, actually

the real dance they have staged around

another candidate, Lyubov Sobol, and she

is running in Moscow’s central district

of the city of Moscow; this is the

Arbat and Khamovniki areas, and in fact this story

concerns not only Sobol but also

all the other candidates too, because

something equally absurd is happening there as well

the authorities realized that their

candidate would lose to any opposition candidate

and now, rather comically, they are

starting to swap them out endlessly

against Sobol, because she is that kind of

an opposition candidate

and the authorities first put forward a woman like this

well, a famous charity worker

in philanthropy who, unfortunately,

is engaged in political service work

for Putin; she takes part in his All-Russia

People’s Front, so she’s part of that

Putin establishment, and although she seems to

do good things, works in

charity, this woman

went into the election, and people who

support charity, they

said everything they think about such a run

against Sobol, and before the election she withdrew

and now it’s very funny to watch

how the authorities are trying to find someone

in a panic, because they’re short of people

who could provide competition

to Sobol and could beat her in the election

in this district, and they found the most

ridiculous, really the funniest, the most

absurd United Russia candidate who

is running in the election: footballer Dmitry

Bulykin

I’m not very interested in football, and when

I heard that surname, it was the first

time I’d heard it, and then when I started

looking into it, I saw that this is really

an absolutely hilarious character. Well,

let’s watch 43 seconds of the most

popular, best-known video with this guy

here it is: after arriving in Moscow, you can

tell interviewers that you have a

twin brother; if photos show you with

a bottle of beer, you can say that it’s my

brother

unlike in Europe, here they won’t even allow us

a bottle of beer. Over there it’s normal,

so here you have to resort to all sorts of tricks

or you can come to training

pretending you’re drunk, and then when

you’re actually drunk, the coach might

not notice

there’s another option: tell

journalists that you’re gay, and then after

those party photos appear, everyone

will be discussing the fact that you were seen with

girls, rather than that you were partying on the eve of

an important match

it’s better to consult me right after signing the contract

I know more about this

for sure than you do

because you can’t drink away experience. So, here’s to a healthy lifestyle

what you just saw was a candidate

from United Russia, that is, from the very

United Russia machine in the Arbat district

and Khamovniki, and he is running against

Lyubov Sobol, and besides all those

various bits and pieces, and some very

football-specific memes like ‘shut your trap’

and so on—I don’t really

understand them myself, because that’s more of a sports

crowd thing, they get all that—but I

went onto Sports.ru when he announced his

nomination, and there they were just

the whole sports world was laughing

the sports community at the nomination

of this wonderful former striker

for the Russian national team, and he gave an interview, and this

interview is legendary, a masterpiece

please show us a few

screenshots

just read them. The man is running

in an election, he’s being asked some

questions. They ask him who is on his

team. ‘I’m not ready to name names yet.’ Is your

campaign staff spending money? ‘Well, my budget is

still flexible; however much is needed, I

can’t say.’ There are 2 weeks left until

the end of signature collection. He gave this interview

just now. So in theory the guy should

have a huge staff carrying out

a huge amount of work, but he has absolutely

no idea about any of it. Next

wonderful. ‘Can you name at least two

powers you will have as a

deputy of the Moscow City Duma?’

and his answer is: ‘Well, I just don’t feel like

digging into my phone,’ replies the United Russia candidate

you’re running in an election and you don’t even know what

your powers will be? Like, how? ‘Well, I’ll have

a lot of different powers there’

that’s not all, let’s see

the next screenshot. Then they simply try

to find out from the man

‘Please explain: this election is being held and you

are running under a majoritarian system. In your view,

which system is better:

a relative majority or an absolute majority?’

and, well, you can read the answers, yes, and

the man genuinely just doesn’t understand what

a relative majority is, what

an absolute majority is. They ask him

again: ‘You still haven’t answered the question.

Do you even know what the system

of absolute majority in a single-member

district is?’ ‘I can’t say exactly to the end, but

I roughly understand.’ ‘Explain it to us.’

‘That would take a lot of time, but’

‘Say it in two sentences.’ ‘Well, you can

tell it yourselves,’ answers our

delightful United Russia candidate. That is,

it seems to me like some kind of sabotage

against athletes in general

United Russia really is trying to

constantly prove the stereotypical view

the wrong stereotypical view that

athletes are stupid, because it drags into

elections some genuinely very

stupid people. I mean, a person is running in

an election, and you’ll see that this Bulykin

will declare in two weeks: ‘I collected 6,000

signatures,’ even though he has no team,

he has no idea about anything at all, he

will go into the election and all of this

will be backed by photos with Sobyanin

and they’ll say how great he is

A professional lawmaker, and he doesn't understand anything at all.

He's a laughingstock, man.

He doesn't know what a relative

majority is, or what an absolute

majority is. He doesn't understand the powers

of a Moscow City Duma deputy. I think

he generally doesn't really understand at all

what the Moscow City Duma even is.

But he's running in the election—or rather, he's being carried into

the election by United Russia—and there will be

45 people like that. Not all of them will be

of such low intellectual

caliber as footballer Bulykin, but

roughly speaking, yes. And there will also be another one in

this same district—they found some kind of

actor, Andrei Sokolov, and dragged him out. He's

known for having once acted in

the film Little Vera.

Old-school people like me, probably, those who watch

this program, will remember that film from the

perestroika era (the late Soviet reform period). It caused a stir

because it had one of the first erotic scenes

in Soviet cinema, and in it

Andrei Sokolov appeared.

And now they've pulled him out in order to

stage some kind of circus around Lyubov Sobol and around other

candidates running for the Moscow City Duma.

Put on some kind of dance show. Three more

of these Shepetovka-style nobodies: a footballer,

an actor, just some crazy people. And we're all

really interested in one thing after all:

will they register the real candidates, or

is this whole show needed just to

distract people's attention so that

later they can say, well, what kind of

city duma is this—it's a complete mess, some kind of

female opposition candidate, some crazy

footballer, an actor everyone forgot about long ago,

all of it is dirt and

garbage, so they didn't let someone in there—

so what, to hell with it, we just won't go

anywhere. Let the public utilities workers

who are bused in in an organized way come,

they'll vote, they'll elect someone for us, maybe

that's the whole point here.

Maybe the plan is, after all,

to allow opposition

candidates onto the ballot, because

it's kind of shameful not to let them in, but then split

their votes with moves like this,

using some weird celebrities,

just celebrities, in the hope that

people are idiots. What difference does it make to them that the

candidate doesn't understand what a deputy's

powers are—he's a famous footballer.

For one of them they'll write: "famous footballer,"

vote for him.

And another: "famous actor," formerly famous

actor—vote for him too. And if the

candidate—sorry, if the voters—are completely

stupid, then they'll probably vote

that way, and

then Sobol simply won't have enough votes. We

have to be smarter. We have to

figure all of this out, and we still

have to explain it—39,000 people are watching live,

we need to explain it to everyone.

Don't take comfort in the fact that you're very smart.

There are lots of people around you who don't understand a damn thing.

A lot of people have already

registered on the Smart Voting website

in the city, and our task—yours and mine—

is not just to vote. We ourselves

will be able to vote properly, but all the

others—

those who don't understand a damn thing—

need to be told: register here,

the name will be here, don't get distracted by

famous footballers,

don't get distracted by flashy actors or

TV hosts and so on—vote only

for this name. That's our task. About

the fake rally, I'll say a few words because

this weekend there really was a fake

rally—you can't call it anything else.

After they banned the rally last

Sunday—well, it was supposed to be on the 12th,

on Russia Day—

this weekend the authorities decided

to organize a supposedly protest rally

where all sorts of, well, basically people who

serve this crooked regime were involved. And it was

gratifying to watch how spectacularly it

all fell apart, because it turned out that

it's already hard now. Here you see

one of the organizers of this rally,

journalist Ekaterina Vinokurova.

Together with the editor-in-chief of

Moskovsky Komsomolets, she organized this

rally. Moskovsky Komsomolets

called on everyone in huge letters

to come. It has a print run—you can see here—

"Everyone to the rally" in giant letters.

That newspaper still comes out

with a circulation of nearly two million

copies. How many people showed up? Let's

watch a short clip from that

rally.

We believe that cases like this

should not happen at all. We believe that

journalists should work within

the law.

Look, there are fewer and fewer cases

of any proceedings being initiated against the law

on the media.

So, as you can see, at an officially approved

rally that was promoted by the head, the main

newspaper, all this crooked crowd and

various people through their Telegram channels

invited people to come—500 people maximum,

600. What's more, the police were even forced

to lie that at this rally there were

more than 1,500 people. A ridiculous

number—1,500 people—because the real

number was 500. People were bused in there.

I won't bore you

with newspaper articles and little videos about

how the people who came, who came to

rally

At an opposition rally, you ask people why

they came, and they say, “We don’t know,” and then sidle away

and leave. They bused people in because

the normal people, the ones who didn’t come—and that’s very

cool that people have finally started

to figure things out. On June 23 at 5:00 p.m.

the libertarians are holding a proper rally

on Sakharov Avenue. They asked me

to announce it, and I’m happy to do

what I always do. As you remember, these rallies

were held over the case of

Golunov, the Meduza journalist, and other

journalists from various outlets who were being arrested

and right now we’re all waiting to see how

events unfold. It’s also very important not to forget, not to

be goldfish. Yes, they fired

some police officers, but where are the people who ordered it?

And right now, at the very least, I’m very

satisfied that the issue of those who ordered it has not

been dropped by many newspapers. We started

talking about them. First, the outlet

Proekt wrote that the people behind the Golunov case

were linked to the head of the FSB directorate

for Moscow and the Moscow Region; there was, there were

in particular, the surname Medoev was named

Within two days, we found and showed

you who this person is, found his

his family’s real estate worth a billion

rubles (about $16 million at the time) in Moscow, and now journalists from

Novaya Gazeta and Transparency International

and the outlet Baza have uncovered an entire settlement

of FSB officers, and you look at it and think

how can anyone possibly expect that in a country

there would be honest chekists (security-service officers) fighting

corruption? Let’s watch one

minute

about this FSB settlement again, and

[music]

[music]

[music]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[applause]

[music]

[music]

So, as you can see, this version is quite

clearly finding more and more confirmation

We proved that this FSB officer, Medoev,

had sold his car to the state unitary enterprise

Ritual, and had an enormous amount of

real estate worth sums that are nowhere near

what could possibly be available to him from the standpoint

of legal income. Here we simply

see adjacent dachas: here lives

a successful lieutenant colonel, and next door live people from

the state unitary enterprise Ritual

Ritual. Golunov investigated

this Ritual enterprise. His dacha neighbors were obviously

business partners; they plant

drugs on him, hire police officers to

plant drugs on him and shut

him up. We would like to see trials of

the people who ordered it. Yes, of course, the perpetrators

these police officers should end up

in the dock, not simply

be fired, as they are now

But first and foremost, we would like

at the very least for

the people who ordered it to be removed from their posts

but that is not happening. Novaya Gazeta

writes, we write, but overall if you

look at the media, they are very, very much

sidestepping this issue and want to focus

only on some police officers

who carried it out. But it is very important for us

not to forget about this. I also absolutely have to say a few words

despite the fact that I’ve already gone over by one minute

about the situation in the village of

Chemodanovka in the Penza Region

where a conflict took place. Well, it’s the kind of

slippery topic that’s difficult to discuss

because whatever you say about it

can cause resentment and

various accusations. But nevertheless,

the harsh truth of life is that

very few people really want

to live next to a Roma settlement, and

the harsh truth of life is that

with police protection, under this

system of state power we have

where there is no law, no courts, nothing

and everything is decided through money, it is indeed

a traditional line of business in the milieu

of such settlements to engage in

drug dealing

I’m not saying that everyone deals

drugs, but it would be foolish to deny

that this is a widespread phenomenon, and

that some conflicts between local residents and

other local residents—after all,

the Roma are also very much local

residents. You can’t say that they

showed up two years ago and pitched

their tents—they live there. These conflicts

existed, they were escalating, everyone was unhappy, and then at

some point there arose one more

violent conflict because the Roma allegedly

the Roma allegedly

or in fact were harassing some

local girls, treating them improperly

All of this turned into a mass brawl

One person was killed, after which people

simply came out and blocked the highway and

declared that they were now going to kill all these Roma

So who is to blame? There are

specific people

specific scoundrels who were harassing

girls; there are specific murderers who

killed a person. Who is to blame for the fact

that the situation got to the point where people

blocked the road? The authorities, of course

If you know that you have a Roma settlement

and that it has a traditional

criminal trade there, several

families are dealing with this, that there is some kind of

ethnic conflict

but your police should stay there and

deal with all of this, catching not only

drug dealers, saying that, you know,

they won’t blame the Roma settlement

all Roma — in these houses live

drug dealers, we caught them all

locked them all up, let them conduct

preventive talks, let them make sure

that everyone goes to school, and so on, and so

on. This is not a simple problem, and in Europe

it is also not a simple problem

working with Roma people, or with the people, exactly

what to call them properly, how they

prefer to be called, that is,

it is a complex problem, but it already needs

to be solved. In fact, there is money for

solving the problem, but it will remain a

problem forever, and people will keep

stabbing each other, while others will come running and

say that we will slaughter all

the others, evicting everyone from the Roma

until [ __ ] are serving as governors

because the governor of Penza Region

is a complete [ __ ], he

they bring him out, they ask why all

this happened, and he says, you know, it was

America that arranged it all. Let’s listen

for one minute, we have

unfortunately, America is pouring

huge amounts of money into preparing

preparing people who, who

receive from here

and they exist, in every region there are

those among us who help us solve the problem, find

a lawful solution, and it will stabilize. You

should know that many, just like

fakes

it’s not hard, and yes, thank you, false information

is being pumped in here, how they find phone numbers and

they report to me every hour, I know that

the doctors are fighting there, something will happen, yes, and 1 1

2 1, then the third time the call is dropped, people

explode — understandable, people can be understood

mine, you know him, he is here, yes, and she

is the school principal, and the protective fuse is not quite

the governor arrives, and local

residents tell him: you know, man, we have an acute

interethnic conflict here, and really

stabbings, a massacre; we demand that they

be evicted, the Roma killed a man

and accordingly they’re running around saying, oh God,

why evict all of us, we didn’t

all kill a person, we want some kind of

investigation — but, that is, here

there is an interethnic conflict as it is

what does the governor do? The governor, damn it,

[ __ ] Ivan Belozertsev comes out and

says: well, of course, the Americans did it all

they arranged it with the help of fake news, it was

the Americans who stabbed someone

was it the Americans who for many years turned a blind eye

to drug dealing and took

money from these Roma — was it the Americans who, for

many years,

ignored the issue when local people

complained and said, well, there’s a girl

walking past, they harass her, they bother her

was it the Americans who made it so that the authorities

did not station a permanent

police patrol there, so that two police

cars would drive around and everyone who

harasses girls would be picked up

taken to the station, and not

just given a preventive talk, and told him

if you keep harassing people, we’ll

put you away for 15 days for hooliganism

was it the Americans who

prevented that? No, that was not done by that

same governor [ __ ] from Penza

Region, because he deals only with

his own corruption-related issues

or with simply serving Putin

or worrying about keeping his post. He

does nothing else. For many

years he did not solve problems, and when the problem

blew up, the Americans were to blame. If you

are wincing now because I’m

calling the governor [ __ ], we

say, well, a person was shown once

on camera, he misspoke

he stumbles over his words, and you yourself, Navalny,

also stumble, and you immediately call him an idiot

just because he said one thing

awkwardly. I’ll show you a video now

of him talking with Putin, and you’ll understand

that internally — and all of them now,

these governors are simply very stupid people

that this footballer I was talking about for an hour

— that the governor, all of this United

Russia

is controlled, run by a top layer

of very smart and cunning people, but it rests

on really stupid ones. Let’s look at that

for 20 we have been participating in the Safe

and High-Quality Roads project; for two years in a row we

have been among the top three regions in Russia, although

which has not been repaired, equipped

with many new residents and at meetings

they complain about this. We are already going into rural

areas, all these settlements with their own

roads, with repairs. Of course, the problem for us

that concerns me is the problem of

healthcare, reducing mortality

and meeting the target indicators

that you have set. We are reducing, over

recent years, especially in oncology

for children; now we have increased

detection at the first stage

of oncological diseases, and the processes

the detection rate is now very

significant; the regional hospital is overcrowded

of course, I would like to ask for your support

I came with a letter regarding the possibility

of including the region

in the national healthcare project, there

in the oncology subsection, something like 980.2

They promised us billions of rubles for the Health Ministry.

He was like, last year here we worked with them,

and this year up to the present time,

they still haven’t switched it on yet, he says.

The man simply cannot hold on to a single

thought for a minute and a half.

Like, we’re working on roads, and I’m very

seriously concerned about the problem of

healthcare, but then you think, well,

what are you even going to say now about the high

accident rate? Probably, well, the healthcare system—

I’m concerned about the problem of healthcare

because things are not good at all

with oncology care. How can you

serve as governor if you’re not

capable of, when you come to the

president, and having the opportunity to solve these

problems, not preparing and not expressing

even a single thought clearly—even to Putin?

Even Putin seems uncomfortable. He says, well, all right, now

we’ll talk about it. You can tell they’re thinking: let the

official filming end as soon as possible so that

they don’t have to show this scarecrow, because, well,

it’s somehow embarrassing that he works

as a governor. And it’s not just embarrassing—this all

ends the way it

always ends. In Chemodanovka, they’re now

evicting these Roma people. Well yes, probably right now

they have to be evicted, otherwise the locals will simply

start smashing everything up.

But how does that look from the standpoint of rights,

from the standpoint of the law?

And then these same people will still come and

lecture us that we’re supposed to

observe some rules. They themselves let problems escalate

to such a level that you end up having to do

some kind of super-, mega-lawless

things, like evicting entire settlements. But from us

they demand compliance even with some

completely

ridiculous things, like insulting

the authorities, and this ban on

insulting the authorities, so that we don’t call these

people names. Guys, on September 8 we must

make all these people feel pain by

voting, wherever possible, against any

United Russia member. Take part in Smart

Voting.

Well, you saw it—this Direct Line (Putin’s televised call-in show), these

governors are simply degenerating

people, degraded people who

put on an endless

trash circus for us. Take part in Smart

Voting in order to say no

to all of this. Thank you very much, see you

next Thursday.

[music]