Putin’s staged nomination, why Volkov was jailed, and Kerimov suffers in France

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It’s 8:18 p.m. in Moscow, which means that here in the studio

I’m Alexei Navalny, here to

discuss with you the latest news of this

week. And today I’m in the studio not as a

“moron,” as Dmitry Medvedev called me,

but as a visiting

“troublemaker,” as the governor of

the Samara region called me, where I held our

really great rally. I’ll say a few more words about it

a little later. This week

there’s just been a whole pile of news.

Putin announced his candidacy, there’s the Olympics, and

we’ll try to talk about all of it, but

first I have an announcement — a super

mega-news, of course much more

important than Putin announcing his candidacy.

Too bad for him.

We’ve finally made a mobile

app for Navalny Live. You can

go to the Apple Store and download it.

Right now the app is for iOS, and it works like a radio:

you can listen there

to any episode. For example, in the morning you can

just ride the metro or drive your car and

listen to *Cactus* through your headphones. You can

listen to this program like a radio show, you can

watch things there, and very soon you’ll even be able to

read there too — we’ll be posting

transcripts of our programs. For now

this app is available only for iOS,

that is, for iPhones. We hope that in

a week we’ll have it ready for Android. I

asked our developers whether we could

or should wait so that we could release it

for iPhone and Android at the same time.

The developers said, “You know,

Alexei, Android users are used

to suffering, so no, nothing terrible

will happen if we split it up and first

release the app for iPhone.”

But everyone else only has a little bit more

suffering left — next week we’ll

publish it. Besides that, I wanted to say

that we think we’ve been fairly successful,

that these fundraising tests

live on air went well. On the last

program I raised — thank you very much —

half a million rubles (about 5,000 euros / 5,400 US dollars), and I was very pleased.

Mediazona raised money here before that,

Volkov raised money, and we’ll keep

doing it. It can be done during every broadcast.

Of course, I’m not going to spend every show

doing that and giving away prizes, although I

admit it’s pretty fun — the broadcast

gets pretty lively.

But whatever we raise, we raise.

So the GIFs, when you send

some money, will keep

popping up over my head — funny ones — but

we’re not going to set some strict target. But if we

raise 100,000 rubles (about 1,000 euros / 1,100 US dollars), that’s 100,000 newspapers

that people will receive in their hands. In those

newspapers there will be truthful

information that they won’t get anywhere except

from us. So as before,

all sorts of icons will appear right here

showing how much money has been raised

and how the fundraising is going. This fundraising is

the most important part of our

election campaign. Of course, the main

thing that happened

was Vladimir Putin’s nomination. This

was something we were all expecting, and

we all understood it would happen, and already with

heavy sarcasm everyone was discussing when

it would happen, what exactly would happen, and why

it still hadn’t happened. And various political analysts

kept writing endlessly, kept endlessly

saying that maybe, just maybe,

there was some other plan, maybe something

else would happen, maybe someone else

would be the successor — Manturov, Medvedev, someone else,

some relatives perhaps. And then once again,

for the hundred and forty-first time, just like throughout

all these 18 years, Putin nominated himself anyway. Yes,

there was a time when Medvedev was president, but Putin

became prime minister then, and we

once again saw clearly last night. And guys, I

urge all of you

to understand this point very clearly and

remember it, and never again give in

to any speculation that maybe

there’s some Plan B, and maybe somehow

they’ll change their strategy. There is no

strategy other than lifelong

presidency for Putin.

That’s it. Nothing else exists. Everything this man thinks about

is how to become, in effect,

a monarch in Russia and remain

that monarch of Russia for as long as possible, until

his death,

and then pass on power — I’m convinced of it —

preferably to some of his own

relatives. We will yet see times, if

we do not resist this, when

Putin will try to hand the throne to his

son-in-law, his grandson, his son, or

someone else, because this new feudalism

is something he is building completely openly, and

that kind of succession to the throne fits

perfectly within the logic of what he is doing.

You can already see a feudal

state being built, where the children of

FSB chiefs work in state banks, where

the children of Putin’s friends work in

various state structures. This

is already a new aristocracy as it is.

They believe this is the right way to do things

and they will keep working on it. Quite

interestingly, with the nomination itself they

apparently planned several events

at each of which it could have

taken place. Everyone knew about this nomination,

everyone expected it,

and again there was a lot of various funny

analysts and

there were assumptions that within the movement

something would happen, and with us it happened among the volunteers

the volunteers, but it happened a little later. I

suggest we watch a minute of it. It’s very

interesting to watch when he almost

said it at the volunteers’ congress, but

he played coy a little, with a shrugging kind of

gesture, as if asking, “Will you support me, guys?”

The guys said, “We support you.” We now know

how these people were gathered for the volunteer

congress, and a little later, at the

meeting with GAZ workers, Putin said that

he simply could not remain indifferent after the

heart-rending cries of “GAZ is for you!” and

announced that he would run.

A short video—let’s watch. “Please tell me,

will you take part

in the 2018 election, run for the post

of president?”

“If I make that decision, will you and the people

who share your outlook

support that decision? At the volunteers’ forum

you were asked whether you would

put forward your candidacy in the

presidential election.”

And you answered that if the people support you,

they support you.

then you will. So today, in this hall,

everyone without exception supports you.

Vladimir, give us a gift already

and announce your decision, because we are for you.”

“GAZ is for you.” Thank you.

“Thank you very much. Truly, a better

place and

a better occasion to announce this

probably do not exist. Thank you for your support.

I will put forward my candidacy for the

office of President of the Russian

Federation.” “Vladimir Vladimirovich, please

give us this gift—announce your decision.”

Well, it was quite

disgusting to watch

something like that—just a circus

of servility and bootlicking. But this is

exactly the style of our current

government. By the way, it’s quite interesting

to remember that last time Putin

staged roughly the same kind of performance

at Uralvagonzavod (a major Russian tank and railcar manufacturer). “We are

workers of Uralvagonzavod, we are for you, under your

leadership we will reach some kind of

wonderful lofty heights.” During this term

under Putin, what happened to Uralvagonzavod was

simply catastrophic.

Just look—go to the database

of arbitration cases and see how

Uralvagonzavod was litigating with Alfa there.

It gives figures showing the horrifying state

of Uralvagonzavod, its debts—that is,

the enterprise is simply at the bottom,

in a very, very deep pit, and this is a direct

result of these four years

of Putin’s presidency. And with GAZ, I’m sure, unfortunately

exactly the same thing will happen. Here

the grin on my face appears because

someone paid money

the same thing will happen, unfortunately, because

these next six years will become

if Putin wins, they will become yet another

period of missed opportunities for

Russia and our gradual, or perhaps more

abrupt, descent into a pit from which

it will be very hard to climb out later.

Today, some of you may have

seen that Meduza (an independent Russian media outlet) launched a kind of game.

It’s interesting: you enter your age and it

gives you a card showing how many years you’ve

what percentage of your life you have lived

under Putin. I have lived 43 percent

of my life under Putin. But then I

looked on Twitter, and there were many

people saying, you know, “I’ve lived my whole life under

Putin. I’ve lived 99 percent

of my life under Putin.” And I, by the way,

it’s 43 percent for me—but I still remember

the old days. Lyosha Navalny (a diminutive of Alexei Navalny) still

remembers that there was once a Leonid Ilyich

Brezhnev, and even so, 43 percent of my

life I have lived under Putin. So I

advise everyone to enter their date of birth

into this game and think about this

number, because the intention of these guys in the

Kremlin is clear: there will be no successors there again.

He wants to rule until death, and then

pass his power on to some

relative, heir, or

something of that sort. And our common task

right now is not to treat this with

irony and giggling,

not to disguise our cowardice or

our unwillingness to do anything by pretending that we are just

laughing at it. The task of every

citizen of Russia is to protest this,

to oppose it, and to do something right

now—to make your small contribution, any

contribution, a tiny contribution, perhaps barely

noticeable, but still make your contribution so

that this does not happen. There is a very high

probability that it will happen anyway,

but someday, when in some new

Meduza game you see that 99 percent

of your life has passed under Putin, at least

you will be able to say to yourself:

“I was against this, and it is not my fault.”

This is the most important thing that everyone should,

it seems to me, think through now and should

act on. I’m very interested in what form

Vladimir Putin’s election

campaign will take. Will he

have to get rallies approved? Will he

have to get pickets approved too? Equality

among candidates will presumably exist, you know.

He will probably face fairly serious difficulties,

because in a large number of major cities

it is simply impossible to hold

rallies there at all, it is simply impossible

to hold meetings with voters, well

for example, in southern Russia

Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don — I haven't managed to get there yet

I wasn't able to do that

It's interesting whether Putin will manage it. I

last weekend was absolutely

an amazing part of our tour. We had

Saratov, Pskov, and Samara, and in both Saratov and

Samara there were attempts to disrupt the rally. We

had to hold something practically

with a megaphone, you know — very strange

but very inspiring, because I

really saw thousands of people who

took part in all of this despite

the fact that half of what I was saying

couldn't be heard because Samara City Hall

dragged in some speakers and

drowned me out with Eastern music

in the literal sense. It was very funny

when cops and officials are hauling

speakers and blasting Eastern music for

belly dancing just to drown out

me — nobody understands what all this is for

It looks terribly ridiculous and shameful for

the authorities. This is happening, and this

pettiness of the authorities and their shameful actions

also — well, they stand out perfectly against

the backdrop of these wonderful people who

come to the rally. Once again, many

thanks to everyone. As for my immediate plans, right

after the broadcast, I'm flying overnight to Barnaul

or rather, I'm flying to Novosibirsk so that I can

drive to Barnaul, and from Barnaul I'll

drive to Novokuznetsk. Russia

is structured in such a way that it's fairly

difficult to travel between

cities, but we're doing this work, I am doing this

work. So this weekend I have

Barnaul

Novokuznetsk, and then Kaliningrad. And in

Barnaul and Novokuznetsk it's minus 15°C (5°F), and that will be

very interesting for all of us to see

what kind of rallies, what kind of meetings with

voters will be possible when it's no longer just

below freezing — I'm talking about

seriously subzero temperatures

But in any case, come if you live

in these cities. These meetings matter, and again

we'll see, I think, a striking

difference between how we manage to

organize these meetings, which

we simply have to wrest from

each city's administration, but people

come to them on their own, despite the threats

and the meetings that will be held by

Putin — if he holds them at all —

where people will simply be herded in

and permits will be brought on a silver platter

with a blue rim. Putin's nomination in

Nizhny Novgorod, for me personally, had another

interesting aspect, because

Nizhny Novgorod — and in Nizhny Novgorod

well, probably a kilometer from the place where

Putin was being nominated for president, sitting in jail

right now, feeling down, probably reading a book,

is Leonid Volkov, the head of my

campaign headquarters, who was on a completely

obviously fabricated case thrown

behind bars. Why? Let me just

explain in more detail why Volkov was jailed

We are going to have the nomination process

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for presidential candidates. This is a procedure

that goes through a formal

initiative group. We will need to

gather 500 people, get a notary,

and carry out this fairly complicated

procedure in order to be nominated. It isn't simple,

it's expensive, it requires major

organizational and legal efforts, and

of course the Kremlin and Putin very much want

to derail it. That's why Volkov is sitting

there. And there he is, sitting a kilometer from

the place where Putin is talking about how he

is running in the election, how these elections are fair, and

how he fears no one and will defeat

everyone. But he is afraid — afraid of that very

man

Volkov, who is sitting somewhere nearby in a

cell reading a book, just as he is afraid of all of us

They are very afraid. So I've said this a million

times, and I'll repeat it once again: don't

let yourselves be intimidated by these approval ratings —

84 percent, 86 percent, 90 percent. They

don't exist. It's all just made-up ratings

pulled out of thin air. People have gotten used to saying:

an authoritarian country, 18 years in power, this

man — and for the last five years people have simply been

jailed very often for expressing

any kind of independent opinion, so people

don't say anything else, they don't want

to speak — but they think very differently

So don't let them mess with your head — there

aren't any real percentages of support there

In that same Nizhny

Novgorod

they gave me a place to speak —

the Sormovsky District, several

kilometers from the center, on the other bank of the Volga

and yet thousands of people came to

the meeting. I wonder whether those same thousands would come to Putin

for a meeting if they

weren't being driven there by force or

paid to do it. Alexei, I've been asking

for half a year now, half a year: what will you

do about tariffs, specifically

car import duties? You can't answer the question

of what you will do with customs

duties in general without depending on

what exactly those duties are on. As for car

duties, I believe they are unnecessary

simply because over

the past decades we

have had the experience of introducing these duties, but

they do not work. As you can see, our auto industry

alas, is not thriving despite the fact

that we have imposed these duties so many times

really, really many times. Vlad, you

have been asked this question, but still, how would you

Will you change the laws concerning LGBT people and give

these people freedom? Vlad, I have

indeed answered many times: all people

are equal. We do not need any laws

that restrict the rights of any

specific groups of people, LGBT people or anyone else.

Therefore, laws that discriminate against people

are, in principle,

contrary to the Constitution

and must be repealed immediately. Evgeny,

[unclear text]

I had to take part in a rally in support of

Putin in 2012. I cannot

refuse, because I worked in the public sector. What

should people in my current position do? How

can they resist? Evgeny, just don’t go. But back in

2012, everyone was being forced

they forced workers there, Russian Post employees,

employees of state institutions. They

were told:

"You must come for sure, otherwise we’ll punish you."

But they would also say, "We’ll give you a day off as well."

Most often, that worked. And those who

didn’t go—nothing happened to them, but

they simply didn’t get the extra day off. We don’t know

of cases where someone didn’t go to

a pro-Putin rally and was fired. You can always

say: "I don’t want to go. If I go, it will only

cause problems. I’m sick, I

don’t want to, it disgusts me, and you have no right

to force me." And they will leave you alone.

If you simply say one straightforward thing:

"Guys, I’m against Putin. Do you really need

someone at your rally who is against

Putin and might talk about it? If that’s what you need,

then fine—but otherwise leave me alone." And that always

works.

No one is standing there with a gun to your head.

There are enough public-sector employees there whom they can

round up.

One person more or less changes nothing.

So if you tell your

boss calmly, honestly, and directly:

"Sorry, this goes against my

convictions. I can’t go, I simply

can’t."

"Scold me if you want, but I can’t." No one is going to drag you there,

nothing will happen to you. These are all

just words,

promises, intimidation. But in reality

no one gets fired. You just need to have

the strength to say it to yourself. Tim Androsov, Alexei,

[unclear text] of our state or not? I

don’t really understand what "re-establish" means

in relation to our state.

But if you mean the Constitution—

I think the Constitution in Russia is bad, and right now it does not

work. Under the Constitution, Russia

is a federal state, but in practice

it is unitary. Under Russia’s Constitution,

it is a democracy; in practice, Russia is a monarchy. And

now this same person wants to be elected again,

which would mean 24 years in power. So in

that sense,

we need to change the foundations of our

state—if you like, in a certain

sense, to re-found Russia—in order

to create a mechanism under which

a person would not be able to usurp power,

whether that person is Navalny,

Vasichkin, or anyone else—they should not be able

to usurp power. That is what needs to be done—

in that sense, to re-found it. Evgeny,

Alexei Navalny, where is the promised post

about your favorite books? Every

cool presidential candidate has their own

top list of books they recommend

for reading. Every cool candidate

has published such a list. Well, actually, I did promise

on air that I would post a list

of what I read

the last time I was in the special detention center (a temporary detention facility), and I also

read a lot.

Some things I liked more, some

I liked less. Probably someone

will find that interesting. I’ll post it—sorry,

I forgot. Let’s take a couple more questions. You

send questions on Twitter with the hashtag

#Navalny2018, and I answer them. Anatoly

Panferov: "For the first time, it felt so good

to give my money to your campaign,

even though it was only 100 rubles." How nice. If it feels good for you

to donate, imagine how good it feels for us to receive it.

Anatoly, you won’t believe it, but actually

it matters. It is the only source of funding for our

campaign. One hundred rubles, one hundred rubles at a time—

that pays for newspapers; it is a substantial thing. If those donations

weren’t there, there would be zero left. But it’s great, isn’t it?

The account "For Navalny" asks:

Bastrykin proposed that people accused of

corruption should prove the origin of their

property.

Well, first of all, Bastrykin should prove

the origin of his own property, especially

his property in the Czech Republic. Second,

this should not apply only to those accused of

corruption, but to all officials who cannot

say where they got this

property. They should have to prove its

origin. That would be right. This is

Article 20 of the UN Convention; it is what we

included in a draft law a long time ago,

and collected signatures for it, as many

probably remember. But the Kremlin

categorically, categorically refuses to adopt it. Ilya Vorobyov, Alexei, will

you cooperate with Elon Musk?

Will you cooperate with Elon Musk?

Will you begin developing the market for

alternative energy sources? Well, what

does it even mean to "cooperate with Elon Musk"?

Like: "Hey, Elon Musk, please build a Hyper

loop here to Avtozavodskaya metro station

so it will be more convenient for us

to get to San Francisco"? Unfortunately,

Russia is currently structured in such a way that

no real high technology

is possible here. The only thing that works here

is that kind of Chubais-style shell game, and some kind of...

So these things—none of what

Musk does, which is in fact

high technology, however successfully it may once have been

or less successfully—cannot be implemented in Russia right now.

But our task is

to bring about changes in the country such that

Elon Musk

a real Russian Elon Musk

by the way—and in my view, Elon Musk

they can and will be able to develop these things here,

and in our media too

we will discuss not how the FSB (Russia’s security service) decided that

all people who play video game consoles

must register their phone numbers,

but instead we will actually discuss how, in

Russia, brilliant scientists have emerged,

brilliant entrepreneurs who

are implementing technologies the whole world is talking about.

Everyone is talking about the Hyperloop,

everyone is talking about his rockets, everyone is talking about Tesla.

And what do they discuss about Russia? Doping at the

Olympics. What else do they talk about today?

Nothing else, really. This is the most important

task.

If there are any comments regarding

the situation unfolding around

Saakashvili in Kyiv, Gleb Silchenko asks me.

Well, it seems to me that what

is happening around Saakashvili is

quite shameful for the authorities in Kyiv,

for the Ukrainian authorities.

You know, I do not comment on Ukrainian issues very often here.

I understand very well the feelings of many Ukrainian citizens

who come into the comments every time

and say:

“Don’t teach us, we know everything ourselves.”

And yes, you do know your own affairs; I am not trying

to teach you. This is simply my assessment.

You can carry out as many reforms as you like,

you can do all sorts of things, but then

you start chasing your former governor across rooftops somewhere,

trying to catch him,

trying to jail him, and it is obvious to everyone that

this is politically motivated.

It is obvious to everyone that the people currently in

power—Petro Poroshenko and his circle—do not

want Saakashvili to engage in

politics,

to create his own party,

or, I don’t know, run for president,

or influence the authorities in any way. They do not

want that, and for this purpose they

are using this kind of police-and-courts

mechanism. It looks extremely unpleasant.

It looks extremely shameful. It seems to me this is

simply unworthy of the authorities in Kyiv.

And, in fact, there has already been a reaction to this

from Europe and the United States,

and they have all said: “Guys, you are not

fighting corruption;

you are busy fighting Saakashvili,”

and this will not lead to anything good.

In fact, it really will not lead to anything good.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that

the Saakashvili situation shows how

the beautiful Ukraine of the future

that Ukrainian citizens were fighting for

on the Maidan (the 2013–2014 protest movement in Kyiv) and elsewhere

is moving farther away. What is happening shows that, sadly,

there will be no easy transition for them.

I am sure that sooner or later they will reach

that point when there will be

a normal democratic state

in Ukraine, but that point

is becoming more and more distant.

The actions around Saakashvili show

that it is receding quite dramatically.

It is being pushed much farther away here.

Alexei, I’m finishing school and want to apply

to a teacher-training university to become a history teacher.

Understanding that under Putin it is impossible to be

a teacher and survive on the salary,

that is simply unrealistic—what should be done about teachers’ salaries?

An excellent question. According to Putin-era

statistics, teachers in Russia supposedly

earn a fairly decent average salary,

something like 35,000–36,000 rubles per month

(roughly $380–$390). In practice, you would have a hard time finding a teacher,

except perhaps in Moscow, who

earns more than 21,000 rubles

(about $230), and you will find plenty of teachers who work

one and a half full-time loads and still receive

only 17,000–18,000 rubles

(about $185–$195). Even if we set aside the standard points,

the standard correct things to say—that this is shameful,

that it is impossible to live on this kind of money—

all of that is true. But it is also absolutely stupid and

irrational. You need to invest in education.

If you do not invest in

education, then you lose money

and, as a state, you lose in the medium term.

So this is unquestionably

a crucial part of my program:

education, and increasing spending on

education twofold. There is enough money in the Russian

budget. This is a basic

point of my program, and I will talk about it

a lot. I recently recorded a special

video about it. In other words, until

we increase the budgets for

education and healthcare twofold, and until we

radically increase

salaries,

Just look at somewhere like Liechtenstein—or

at where some of the highest salaries among mass professions are.

Teachers in Singapore, for example—teachers there

earn around 8,000 to 10,000 euros

per month.

Why? Because it makes sense. The money

invested in teachers later

returns to the budget in the form of taxes

paid by people who received

a good education. Here is another question I received:

a tweet with questions about the Olympics.

Alexei, Natalie asks: what do you think about

Russia competing at the Olympics under

a white flag? Yes, I wanted to talk about that.

Russia and the Olympics.

Look at the question this way to begin with:

did the committee act properly?

Was the Olympic Committee's decision a harsh one

toward Russia?

Was it unfair to us?

Was there some element here

of removing Russia as a competitor at

the Olympics,

or was it actually

a fair decision? I thought about this myself for a long time.

I kept thinking it over, and for myself

I ran a kind of thought

experiment in my head. Let me

just share that thought

experiment with you so we can understand

why this happened. Because on the one hand,

look, the International

Olympic Committee

is a pretty corrupt outfit, frankly.

Let's be honest: the Olympic movement is

basically a gathering of sports officials,

and a gathering of fairly serious crooks.

Putin was always on very friendly terms with them.

He could get any issue settled there.

With the help of bribes, he bought

the Olympics that were held in Sochi,

and with bribes he solved issues in exactly the same way

with football officials as well,

and the FIFA World Cup that

was held in Russia, of course, came here

because we were handing out bribes left and right.

And in all dealings

with sports

officials, everything was always great for Putin.

They like him; they all speak

the same language. So what happened this

time? Let's imagine it wasn't in Sochi

that the Winter Olympics were held, but, say, in

Romania. So the Olympics took place in Romania, and

we sent our

athletes to Romania, hoping they would bring back

medals. These athletes trained hard, pushed themselves to the limit,

their coaches worked with them, their relatives

supported them.

So we were rooting for our athletes

who went to the Olympics in Romania, and

then imagine that somehow

the Romanians suddenly took a whole pile of

gold, silver, and bronze medals,

more than usual, far more than

usual, including in disciplines

where they normally did not

win.

And everyone is whispering, everyone is talking about it,

and everyone understands it's about doping, and we

start remembering those famous

Norwegian 'asthmatics' and all that, and so

on. But there is an international

anti-doping system, and somehow it

checked everything and found nothing, so

people whisper and whisper, but there's nothing

to be done: we congratulated the Romanians

and went home to prepare better for

the next Olympics.

And then two years later it turns out that

the president of Romania

had organized an entire system

of state-sponsored doping,

under which Romania's sports minister

directly organized the cheating,

security-service people—whatever their equivalent there would be called—

through holes in the walls

swapped urine samples; there was a whole system

for falsifying sample bottles and

tampering with tests and everything else. In other words,

we discovered that the entire Romanian

state had in fact been working

to steal our medals, and we were

shocked and refused to believe it at first.

Then they said: yes, the anti-doping commission may be dubious,

but go check. They checked

and established that in some tests the DNA

should have been female but was male—some kind of

horrific abuse, irregularities, all sorts of violations,

and complete chaos overall. They opened those

samples and confirmed that indeed

—can you imagine?—those

Romanians had simply falsified

doping samples on a massive scale, and our athletes, our

Russian athletes, had no

chance at all against them, because

from the very beginning everything had been designed

for cheating. They organized the Olympics, and at

that Olympics, from the very start, they planned

to deceive all of us. So what would happen at that

moment to Russian public opinion?

We would all go absolutely crazy. We would be

furious.

On talk shows, all those United Russia politicians and, well, whoever else

—Vladimir Solovyov among them—would be

screeching, tearing at their clothes, and

in general they would, in a sense, be right to

shout: 'Well, would you look at that—those Romanians

have some nerve!' Zhirik (Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Russian nationalist politician) would come out and say:

'We need to drop an atomic bomb on Romania,

because they stole medals from

our athletes.' Sports federations,

coaches, the athletes themselves,

their relatives—they would all simply demand

that Romania be excluded forever, from everywhere, that no one

from there ever be allowed in again,

that the entire country and all

its people be thrown out of the Olympic movement.

Some athletes would be receiving

their medals later. They'd get a call: 'Hello,

athlete Ivanov, you finished

fourth, but since there was

cheating, please come to the post office from 9

to 6 to collect your gold medal.

Sign here. You're now a gold

medalist.' What does the athlete feel at that moment?

Well, he actually wanted to win.

He wanted to stand on the podium and cry,

with all his

relatives watching him, and his neighbors from

his little hometown, and the girl

who dumped him back in school looking at him

and thinking, 'What an idiot I was.' He won, and he...

a gold medalist, and he missed that moment

and is receiving his medal in the mail

why? because some damn Romanians, poor guy

the Romanian embassy will probably send me

a note of protest later. We used Romania as an example,

as an example, Romanians

no offense, hypothetical Romanians, because

those hypothetical damn Romanians just

forged everything, and that is why

such a decision was made, regardless of

whether some people at the IOC could have

reached some kind of agreement with Putin,

talked something over, arranged something — the force

of public opinion from

athletes, from the press, from all

countries, was such that it was impossible

to do anything else, and the IOC could not

possibly have made any other decision

except to suspend Russia. We have not yet been

completely suspended, except that Russia was seriously

punished for creating

a state-run doping system. Here, I

have it right here — I printed it out because

it is already being quoted in newspapers. I am just

looking at the Olympic Committee press release,

and notice this: they

write that they are accepting the recommendation

of the Schmid Commission.

Essentially, the decision consists

in taking

fairly tough measures against

Russia’s anti-doping system and

other legally implicated persons, that is,

officials, while in fact protecting

the rights of individual Russian athletes

against whom there are no doping allegations in

that sense. But the Olympic Committee’s decision

looks fairly

balanced, considering that

public opinion, naturally and quite

justifiably, in those countries

is simply furious and demands that we

never be allowed back again. We bear

the main responsibility for what

happened. It is indeed a major blow

to Russian sport.

Fortunately, the officials did make

after all

a somewhat reasonable decision: to agree

to go to the Olympics

even if it means competing under the Olympic flag.

And really, that is not some great tragedy.

No, but it will still be recorded as

a Russian athlete achieved this

result. Yes, he competes under

the Olympic flag, but that does not immediately mean

he is not a Russian athlete. On the last day

of the Olympics, at the closing ceremony, they will still

have the right, if possible, to march with

flags and national symbols as

a unified Russian team. So yes,

there is punishment, but it is not

some kind of extreme humiliation, considering

the wrongdoing. And the wrongdoing was committed by two

specific people, and their names are

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Mutko — I do not

remember his first name and patronymic

— but these two specific people, these

two specific criminals, they

did all this. They inflicted

a colossal blow on Russian sport

that for years

will continue to affect us, our

reputation, and many athletes who

were suspended. After all, it is a four-year

cycle.

Many simply will never again be able

to compete in the Olympics — those who were

suspended because of all these doping

matters. They did this. Well, let us

we

I am completely serious:

Mutko could not have been giving orders to the FSB (Russia’s security service) through

a hole in the wall

to steal a urine sample. That could not have happened.

This was organized personally by Putin.

It was his idea, his eternal

idea that cheating,

deception, and theft are effective

ways of solving problems. And, broadly speaking,

for a while they did show

their effectiveness.

As I already said, they paid bribes

and got the World Cup; they paid bribes

and got the Olympics. Everyone is outraged, everyone

is up in arms,

but if you are not caught, you are not a thief — that is how it

worked. And then they decided, well,

let us just, right now, through a hole in

the wall, swap everything out. They came up with what they thought

was a brilliant trick, but it did not

work. It was a fiasco, and all of

that fiasco is reflected on us. And these

people — Mutko, who repeatedly said

that he would resign

if the Russian national team were somehow

punished over participation in the Olympics — still

has not resigned. He remains

a deputy prime minister and is

a trusted associate. But why? Because he is also

from the St. Petersburg mayor’s office

days with Putin — Mutko, all their petty

corrupt dealings with Putin began

back then, together in St. Petersburg.

That is why he truly is

a super-trusted person, exactly the kind

you can sit down with and say, well, let us

just, you know, right now cover things up

somehow for all our athletes.

Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich, arrange it,

just call the FSB there and tell them

to help me, all right? And that is why he remains

in office. I think that, of course, we all

must demand unconditionally not just

his resignation, but criminal prosecution

of Mutko, because what he did is

a formal criminal

offense under Russian law.

under the law, what Zhukov brought was

an apology to the international committee; the fact that

we will pay a fine is de facto

an acknowledgment of a system of state-sponsored

doping, and Mutko should go to prison, but

at the same time, we must not forget that

the main responsibility lies with Putin

it was he who dealt a colossal blow to

Russian sports.

So you keep writing to me about the Olympics.

Let me see how you envision—not about

the Olympics—news channels in the future.

Lilian To The Dares asks me: will there

be people like Sergei

Druzhko working there? 1. Don’t you think Sergei Druzhko

could work on a news channel? Well, although

why not? But those would be interesting

news broadcasts—I’d watch them. Could, couldn’t...

someone from the FSB (Russia’s security service)... Anyway, about the Olympics, about

the Olympics, there are a huge number of questions.

I just don’t see—Ivan Grigoryev, also known as

helicopter. Alexei, according to the Constitution,

you have the right to run for

president, but according to the law on presidential elections,

of the President of Russia, you do not. What should be done? For the 100,000

trillionth time, I’m answering this question.

Ivan Grigoryev.

First, a law has no right

to contradict the

Constitution. Second, these fake

provisions of this law have been struck down by the Constitutional

Court and declared unconstitutional

five times. Therefore, this law is

simply a legal absurdity. It

is full of holes, and most importantly, we need to

remember to look at the substance of it.

A criminal case was fabricated against me.

I proved that in the European Court.

They then illegally handed down the same repeated

sentence and adopted this

unconstitutional law. Therefore, regardless

of the fact that some

crooks—like that Mutko fellow, only

you know, the kind of shady operators who deal

not with sports but with elections—have written exactly the same

doping system into these laws,

none of this means that I somehow

do not have the legal right to do something. It’s just that

the law is bogus and unconstitutional. In the

Constitution it is written in black and white, and that is what

we look at. It says: 35 years old, not

being in places of deprivation of liberty

has the right to participate in—sorry, to run in

has the right to participate in elections.

Is the date known for the consideration of your

complaint to the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) regarding the decision in

the second Kirovles case? Maksim Klimovsky.

I’ll say again: it’s still unknown. What is known is that

it has been registered, but we do not know—I do not know

when it will be reviewed. Demetrios de...

Alexei, have you thought about cryptocurrencies, how

they will be regulated? When I see the

Bitcoin exchange rate, I think about cryptocurrency

all the time, naturally, like everyone else.

Right now I’m thinking: what an idiot, I should have

bought that Bitcoin. I even tried

at one point to open a Bitcoin wallet, and

a few years ago I just gave up on it.

If only I had bought one

Bitcoin back then and forgotten about it, then now

it would already be worth $19,000.

Today I saw an amusing calculation:

if you had bought it yesterday,

Bitcoin, and sold it 30 minutes later,

you would already have made thousands of dollars. But

cryptocurrencies are great; I view them positively.

I do not think they should be

banned or regulated. Honestly,

even now, at this stage,

when Bitcoin is just shooting off somewhere

and rising 30 percent a day, I regard it with great

skepticism. I don’t want

to give any investment advice,

but I would be cautious about buying now, although

it is entirely possible that later,

in two years, they’ll show this

video and say, ha ha ha, if you

had bought Bitcoin then at $19,000,

you would have a million by now. Maybe

that will happen, maybe not. But still,

right now it feels a bit scary. We remember

all those MMM tickets and shares (MMM was a notorious Russian pyramid scheme),

I’m not comparing them directly in any way,

of course; in essence I’m not comparing them,

they are different things. But still, in

the history of our country there have been financial

instruments that grew that quickly, and well,

personally, I would be cautious right now

about buying, although it is quite possible that

I’ll regret it. Yakovlev Alexei. Alexei, you

support a visa regime with Central

Asia and visa-free travel with Europe. Isn’t it true that

African and other immigrants might flood

to us from Europe, people whom old

Europe would be glad to get rid of? Alexei, but

just imagine this: a migrant is living

freely from Africa in Paris or

Brussels,

and then thinks, how could I go flooding

over

to Yaroslavl, perhaps, or maybe I’ll go

to the city of Barnaul, where I will be

speaking tomorrow, and which is

one of the poorest cities in the country.

They won’t flood in, they won’t, because, look,

we were discussing teachers’ salaries here.

There are teachers here who, for a full

working day at one and a half positions, earn 15,000

rubles—14,000 rubles (about $240–$260 at the time).

Unemployment benefits in Europe for

an African migrant would be higher than

a teacher’s salary here. So there is no need

to be afraid that they will flood in. We should introduce

a visa-free regime with Europe in order to

make it easier for foreign tourists

and specialists to come here. These are people with money; they

will come here, they will spend money, they will not

make us richer than Central Asia, and

What the South Caucasus needs is not to wall itself off, but...

...simply to establish a visa regime that...

...exists in all normal countries...

...in their relations with other countries...

...from which we simply do not want to receive, in large numbers...

...migrants. Alexei,

what do you think about Saakashvili’s wife?

asks Golden Karas. I know nothing...

about Saakashvili’s wife, and I have no...

opinion, but I hope everything is fine with them.

Saakashvili: will the retirement age be lowered...

and the minimum years of service required...

to receive a pension? But lowering the retirement age...

is unlikely. Perhaps the question was more likely...

meant to be about raising...

the retirement age. I am opposed to...

raising the retirement age for two...

reasons. First, in our country people simply do not...

live to retirement age in...

huge numbers. So if we...

raise the retirement age, then...

no one will even manage to retire...

before dying. And second,

the state of healthcare is such that...

half of the people approaching...

retirement age, even under the current rules, are...

already officially disabled, and...

they will be granted pensions anyway, on the basis of...

disability. Of course, we can try...

to force them to work until 65 or 70...

but in practice that simply...

will not work because of their...

health. So the real prospects here...

lie in increasing labor productivity. But they see...

raising the retirement age simply...

as, for the Russian government,

an easy solution: let’s just...

raise the retirement age, and then...

we’ll simply have to pay fewer pensions.

A lot of people will not live to see it. But that...

may be a solution, you know...

if this is some kind of occupying power...

governing some colonized natives.

But if this is your own country and you are doing something...

for your own people, then things like this...

must not be done. Alexei, Alexei German asks me:

is your tie in the official...

Russian Olympic color scheme?

Well, it is white, blue, dark blue...

and red, so you could say that, but no...

it would be nice right now...

to tell a beautiful lie and say that I put it on...

to support the Olympic...

team, this tie—but still...

it is not exactly those colors.

Lyosha, we’re waiting for you in Kaliningrad. I also very much...

want to finally get to Kaliningrad, and...

I’ll be there on Sunday. As I understand it...

the venue where we’ll be speaking is...

right in the city center. Come...

and let’s talk—I’ll speak with you about...

everything. Alexei, what is your view of...

Kudrin, his resignation, and his speeches at...

Bolotnaya (the anti-government protest movement centered on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square)? He seemed to be a decent economist.

Things got much worse without him, writes...

Pavel Volodin. With Kudrin...

or without Kudrin, this government...

is pursuing a certain course.

Kudrin, at one point, simply had a falling-out...

with Medvedev because Medvedev...

advocated increasing military-industrial...

spending, while Kudrin argued for reducing it.

So they parted ways; they could not coexist in one...

government. But overall, one cannot say that...

things became much worse without him. Even if he...

had stayed there, things still would have become...

much worse, because this is the course...

of the government. And the course of the government...

is determined by Putin, and this government still...

will not be able to achieve either...

economic growth, or investment growth...

or anything else, because why does it exist?

It exists to strengthen Putin’s personal...

power. And despite the fact that a number of...

measures—like the introduction of the Yarovaya law (a package of Russian anti-terror legislation that expanded surveillance powers)—

directly contradict the very idea of...

economic growth and the interests, in general...

of all Russian citizens, the government still...

approves them, implements them, and will continue...

to make life harder for mobile operators and for all of us.

Why? Because Putin wants...

control.

He wants to control what you write in Telegram or...

Skype, and what you are messaging about in...

SMS. They want to read everything you...

write to your wife or your girlfriend or...

someone else. They want to monitor whether...

you are writing something bad about them, whether...

you are extremists. And for the sake of this...

which is, from the point of view...

of the interests of the whole country, a rather absurd goal, they will...

destroy...

well, not destroy entirely, but deal a serious blow to...

the entire industry. And there are many such examples.

So regardless of Kudrin...

this government will keep doing everything worse...

and worse and worse. The fact that Kudrin was at...

Bolotnaya in 2012 is great.

But what is not great at all is that...

now he is this kind of...

silent figure. If he...

spoke more clearly and more directly, instead of...

working on the economic team for...

Putin’s program, that would probably be better.

Will you help promote the adoption of a law on...

animal protection? asks Mulla.

How do you feel about this issue? I...

believe that this law should have been passed long ago. It has...

been sitting in the Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliament) for years. I honestly do not understand...

why it has not been passed. Around it...

there is broad consensus; there is no...

political force that is against a law on...

the protection of animal rights. But nevertheless...

our idiotic system...

still does not pass it. There was one thing last...

week that really...

looked absolutely disgusting, truly...

beyond disgusting. I am holding this...

Something that, even against the backdrop of our

disgusting life, isn't even

coming from the state—not from

Putin, not something Dmitry Rogozin said,

or whoever else here likes to blurt out some

nonsense—like Culture Minister Medinsky. But this

really

this is a truly vile letter.

"Dear Mr. President,"

And interestingly, this "Mr. President" is

Emmanuel Macron.

And this letter was signed by holders

of French honors, members of the Order

of the Legion of Honor.

There are various people there: Irina Prokhorova, Mikhail

Prokhorov, Gref, director Lungin—different

people, many of whom

we generally consider decent, or

at least conditionally decent.

And they wrote a disgusting letter.

This letter simply

shows us well that the problem is not even, not

only in the state, in officials, in Putin,

or United Russia, but that the current

Russian elite itself is simply

hopeless, because these are people filled

with such hypocrisy, such—

such lies that, well, there's no getting around it.

These wonderful gentlemen simply

wrote a heart-rending appeal

to the French president in defense

of Suleiman Kerimov. Let me remind you that

the man is now actually accused of

transporting €750 million in

cash from Russia personally—that is,

he crossed the border many, many times simply

with suitcases—I don't even know,

maybe on pallets, with money stacked on the plane.

There were lots of calculations showing

you've probably seen online how much

all that cash would weigh in kilograms.

That cash which Kerimov

stole here—or at the very least

failed to pay taxes on here—and knowing how he

made his money, effectively stole—he took to

France and invested there,

in luxury real estate. He lives in that

luxury property right now, and he wasn't even

put under house arrest; he was simply

forbidden from leaving this

part of the southern coast of France, where I have

never been, but I assume it's

a rather pleasant place. And Kerimov there

is not suffering at all: he lives in a villa worth

tens of millions of euros, and he has

staff there, some luxury cars; he

walks around and enjoys the wonderful

climate.

He eats at Michelin-starred

restaurants, and yet they write, quite literally,

that at present the life of Mr.

Kerimov is being sustained by a team of doctors,

and that in order for him to receive medical

care, he needs to travel to Russia.

Can you imagine? These oligarchs

and various other rich people,

representatives of the elite in Russia, are in all

seriousness writing to France: dear France,

Kerimov is so terribly ill, and for him to receive

medical care, he must travel to

Russia. Apparently, since he's a senator from

Dagestan, maybe in Makhachkala or Derbent there is

some hospital there. They really should have

written: in Derbent there is a hospital, in

ward No. 33 there are eight beds, and there,

on one of those rusty beds,

covered with some tattered towel,

that's where Kerimov will receive the very medical

services that of course are unavailable to him

in France, where he lives on an estate

worth tens of millions of euros. But

it's just disgusting. And these people—

as everyone rightly noted—never wrote such

letters for anyone else. Well, among them,

the only one was Irina Prokhorova.

I'm not sure about Lungin, but it seems to me

that only Irina Prokhorova

wrote letters in support of Serebrennikov. All the

rest—people are tortured, people are killed,

people are arrested; every single day we see

these heart-rending stories,

like that of Ildar Dadin,

who was hung up somewhere,

with his face shoved into a toilet,

threatened with rape, subjected

to real torture. These stories come every single

day. At the very least, there are stories of

innocent people being punished.

Even specifically for this

sophisticated public, there are cases that

would presumably make them want to defend

someone unjustly

oppressed, like Kirill

Serebrennikov, who is close to them. But they

went to his productions together,

they ate with him somewhere,

at the same banquets, and they think they are

of the same blood. And even for him they did not

say a single word—not for all

those millions of suffering people, they

didn't say a single word. They never said

anything about, for example,

teachers earning 14,000 rubles (about $150) a month,

or about the monstrous hospitals. They

never even shared on Facebook some kind of

post where someone is raising money for treatment

for a relative or for their child—

say, $20,000 for treatment in

Germany. They never did that. But

damn it, the moment they finally

showed some nobility was the moment

when they needed to help Suleiman

Kerimov. You're now looking at a screenshot from

that letter, and here in red it is marked

that in accordance with humanity and

humanism, so that his life would not be

put in danger,

it is necessary for him to be reunited with his wife, with

with three children and go back to

Russia

It’s just enough to make you sick, you know.

You read all this and think, my God,

but they must have been laughing their heads off when

they signed this letter. But when you

write somewhere that this millionaire can’t

or rather, this billionaire can’t

get medical care in France

and needs to come to Makhachkala or

Derbent to receive medical treatment there,

well, of course they laughed, but then they still

signed it in complete seriousness

sent it off, and they threw it

right in all our faces, because once again they

said: yes, we are lying, brazen,

hypocritical people, and we are the elite of Russia — that’s

who we are, and that’s who we’ll remain.

It’s utterly disgusting, and the letter really

made an impression on me. It makes me want to

you know, somehow make sure that those watching

in Dagestan — I know many people there

sympathize with Kerimov, because

he paid some taxes there, in Dagestan,

and financed a team.

After my previous

program, several people wrote to me — well, to be honest,

not several, there was one letter in particular, and I

noticed it. It said: “Alexei, I support you,

but I’m still going to stand up for

Kerimov, because he’s Lezgin and I’m Lezgin.”

“I will always be on Kerimov’s side.”

So that’s a position too.

He’s Lezgin, so let’s all forgive him

because we’re Lezgin too.

Then let me forgive Potanin for everything

because he’s Russian. Or let me forgive everything

because he’s Russian too.

Or because someone is half-Ukrainian, like me, and

let’s forgive everything because we’re

of the same blood. I don’t understand that kind of

position, but apparently some people do share it.

But I assume there are quite a lot of people in Dagestan

who would simply be amused by

the very idea of a letter

from ultra-rich people concerning another

super-rich man, saying that he needs to

go back there, somewhere back home,

so that he can receive

medical care there that supposedly can’t be found

in France. I think people will laugh themselves silly

— people who are in Dagestani

hospitals and

or who go to Dagestani clinics will simply

burst out laughing — their lives will practically be

at risk because

they’ll read this letter.

Let me answer some more of your questions.

“Alexei, when you become — if, if you

become president,” or rather, “when you become president,”

aren’t you afraid that

the people currently in power will crush you

if you try to fight corruption?

“Aren’t you afraid for your life?”

asks a user named Triangle. Well, dear Triangle,

my dear, any person who

engages in independent politics in

Russia is under threat to one degree or another.

I’m not exactly thrilled about the fact that

certain risks accompany my

activities. But the question is: should I start

sitting around in fear, wondering

what the percentage chance is that I’ll be killed? I

just do what I do because

I believe it’s necessary. Fine, we all understand

that the people who grabbed

billions — Suleiman Kerimov and

the signatories of this disgusting letter —

of course they will fight for their

money. Naturally, we are fighting for

the future

for ourselves and our children. There are far more of us.

Incomparably more of us — that’s the point.

All these Putin-era

people — Putin’s team — are really just

about 1,000 people, 1,000 families, who

received genuinely huge incomes, huge

amounts of money from all these

many years of Vladimir

Putin being in power. But most people have simply

lost out. How much money have we raised? I can barely

see the screen.

Somewhere just under 100,000 rubles (about $1,100 USD)

right? Ah, 114,000 rubles (about $1,250 USD) already — that means 104,000

leaflets we can distribute. Many thanks

to everyone who’s donating — you’re great.

“Alexei, you need to read the donation questions

— you’ll raise more,” writes

his lackey.

His lackey — you’ve actually hit the nail on the head.

Honestly, it would indeed be good

to read the questions. People pay even 500

rubles (about $5.50 USD), questions appear, and I don’t answer them

not because I don’t want to, but because the screen

is very far away from me. I can

— you’ll see me sitting here squinting like some guy

trying to read. We’ll try to solve this

problem. I just don’t want to sit here in glasses

like an idiot in front of this screen.

They just splashed that brilliant green antiseptic (zelyonka) in my

eye, and my eyesight got worse overall, so from

a distant screen I simply can’t read it.

Also, with the livestream, there’s

a delay — everything I say, you see

two minutes after I’ve

said it, so it doesn’t quite

work properly. But we’ll try somehow

to solve this problem.

And we’ll try to solve this infernal overkill too.

There are more dislikes than likes — we should hold a rally over

that. But it’s Vladimir Putin’s cunning plan:

he keeps hitting us all the time with dislikes.

Indeed, some amount of views

gets stolen because of it.

As I said, because of that

this video appears less often in recommendations.

But I can tell you one thing,

guys, hit the like button — on average, I’ve seen...

This live format gets about 300

thousand views on average.

Everyone can easily leave a

like, and then

Putin's cook will get tired of hauling in bots without

likes. We can all outdo them,

we can all like this so much

that it'll be downright scary.

In the case of Kerimov, I was reminded of an episode

of *Nasha Russia* (a Russian sketch comedy show), the hospital one, for some reason.

Well, actually, this letter here—

compared with it, *Nasha Russia* and every other

comedy show, absolutely any of them,

are just standing nervously on the sidelines compared to

this letter of support, in support of

Kerimov.

Nissan asks me, how are you

planning to behave in Kaliningrad if

Governor Alikhanov shows up

fashionably on a bicycle and starts provoking things?

Well, I don't know what the provocation would be if

the governor comes fashionably on a bicycle

and I invite him onto the stage. But the thing is,

you know, not at a single rally

has any official ever expressed

a desire to debate me or

discuss something or object. Yet in

their newspapers they write: Navalny comes and

tells lies here,

campaigns, says everything wrong. Well,

please, come then. I'll take this opportunity

to invite Governor Alikhanov to

come by bicycle, by scooter, on foot, or even in a

black Mercedes with a flashing light, to come to

our rally, and I promise that he will have

the chance to speak, to state his point

of view, to object to me, to debate me.

If he does that, it will be very, very

cool.

Yes, I can see the app map showing

which ones were launched during the broadcast—it's

really encouraging. Quite a lot of people

have downloaded our app. Guys, at the beginning

of the broadcast I said—sorry—in the description

of this video there's a link to the

Navalny Live app. Download it,

and you'll be able to watch and listen to all our

broadcasts there like radio, watch them via

YouTube, and soon you'll also be able to read there,

because we'll be posting

transcripts. Alexander from Makovoye asks:

Alexei, tomorrow in Barnaul at 6:00 p.m.

there will be a pro-government rally at the stadium

in support of the Olympians. Let's see where

people go. Excellent—I'll actually

be in Barnaul tomorrow evening. There will be

a rally in support of the Olympians, and you

live in Barnaul, so I won't be able to

deceive you. Just see for yourselves how many people

come voluntarily to the rally in support of

the Olympians. I know that the authorities in

Barnaul—

I know how they'll drive people to

that rally. But maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe only three people will come to me,

and thousands will go there. But that's an excellent

way to check. But if after this

event we see on university forums and

everywhere else people discussing how everyone was forced

and herded into the rally in support of the Olympians,

then once again we'll see just how pathetic

and insignificant

this government is, how in reality it

can't really oppose us at all.

Ben Brod Buterbrod asks: Alexei, aren't you going

to get ready for tomorrow by

buying glasses, or at least some old

pirate-style eye patch? Well, you've just reminded me

that the first time I was actually splashed with

zelyonka (a bright green antiseptic often used in attacks on activists) was in Barnaul.

That time it didn't cause much harm to

my health.

Well, I'd look rather

exotic, imagine, if I showed up

in some big black glasses or

some kind of welder's goggles, or even

an eye patch, in order to

protect myself from the devious authorities

of Barnaul. No, I

I'm not afraid, and I'll come as I am. But

I will wear a hat, because it'll be minus

13 or minus 15 degrees Celsius.

So once again: tomorrow I'll be speaking in Barnaul,

the day after tomorrow I'll be speaking in

Novokuznetsk, and on Sunday I'll be

speaking in Kaliningrad, because I am a

presidential candidate. I am running my

election campaign. I don't know what the

other candidates are doing, so

please come. And as for all of you,

all the other viewers, we'll

see each other next Thursday. I'll tell you

what was interesting, and we'll discuss

a few things again. Thank you very much, happy—

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