In this interview, given to St. Petersburg based Sobaka magazine, Alexey Navalny, who is a prominent Russian anti-corruption activist, is talking about the real state of things, the Russian elite, their morals, and motivations. A very revealing text, of which we publish some excerpts here, uncovers a lot of sad truths and not only about Russia. Perhaps Russia is, as usual, the more extreme case following the famous saying that it’s there to “teach the world a lesson”. But, then, look around and you’ll see it almost everywhere: the government officials and the so-called “elite”, who follow some dubious ethics, considering their population to be cattle and making sure they are all following a steady path of self-destruction in order for this very elite to be able to lead a comfortable life and hold on to their places. I’m talking about the pharmaceutical industry hooking people up on life-long medications, the neo-liberal craze where the strongest gets it all, the social systems designed in a way that can support huge bureaucratic machines, while promoting mass-apathy, the prevalence of consumerist approach that is spilling out to people’s relations – just a few examples.
 
In this light, Navalny’s proposition to change the system by becoming a “city partisan”, doing whatever you can at your own field, using the legal means available is not country-specific. He is right that things won’t change if we are content discussing them on the internet or if we go to demonstrations regularly and express our discontent into the emptiness.

Things won’t change either if we decide to enter the system that is in itself already poisoned. Rather, Navalny proposes to start with yourself and those around you, making sure you act as an interconnected whole, sharing the risks and responsibility, and, most importantly, a certain ethos, the truth, a desire for justice and respect for the others. In this way, his approach is very different from “the winner takes all”. It doesn’t exclude this attitude, but it’s also about sharing, caring, and following the rules – the basis of any sustainable society.
 
– by Dmitry Paranyushkin

The Soviet Man – Where It All Started

“I grew up in a military town. From there the West has always been like a myth and the western life has always seemed beautiful and fantastic. Soviet officers were not exceedingly patriotic, rather, they were quite cynical. The coolest guys were those who managed to serve a few years in East Germany and get a video recorder for themselves and chewing gums for their children.”
 
[...]
 
“If I could afford to buy a Mercedes when I was twenty, I’d run and buy it. Our people lived in poverty, they didn’t have anything, and a person from a military town just cannot avoid being attracted to shiny western toys. But people change. In the 90s I used to be a quasi-liberal, the ardent free market follower, and I loved Chubais [the government official who is responsible for many reforms in the 90s and the controversial privatisation of the Soviet private property that saw a few people get super-rich through various shady schemes, nowadays the boss of EES – the government energy monopoly]. Now I consider Chubais to be a socially dangerous and harmful personality. ”

“He gave some property to people during the privatisation and thinks that like this he destroyed the remnants of the Soviet Union and created oligarchs. But neither ourselves, nor the governments, and, more importantly, nor the oligarchs themselves consider that this property belongs to them. They are simply renting it and they understand perfectly well that any moment it may be taken away from them. They received this property as a result of a bizarre redistribution. You can’t even call it “take away”, rather, “take back”. And this is what the government can actively use against them.”

The Russian Elite – Who Are They?

“There is a class of the political and economical establishment, which has absolutely apocalyptic expectations regarding the future of Russia and they are not even hiding it. The higher the level of a person you’re speaking to, the more cynical and directly he says: whatever is left of the country will be taken by the Chinese and we can’t even do anything about it, because the population is decreasing, the people are getting drunk, and there are only idiots in the government. This kind of talk you can even hear often from the people in the government. They consider themselves some sort of advanced pastors who realised that the end is inevitable and stopped caring. That’s why they consider Russia to be the zone of free hunting, where one can make money fast. For their own comfort they even created a sort of oasis, Moscow, where you can live well. If it was not for the horrible traffic, Moscow is not worse than New York regarding the night life, entertainment, restaurants – that is, if you have the money. ”
 
[…]

“All you need these days is a travel passport and an open visa, so you can leave this country any moment. This became the base model of behaviour”.
 
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“These people are thieves. They live under the impression that there are two casts in Russia. They constantly impose the myth about the dark side of the Russian people. About the people who can’t do anything, who are like a lazy herd who’ll never work. […] But how can you work for $800 per month when the cost of life is so high? […] Our establishment thinks that we should all turn into some sort of Chinese, so that they can race in their jets. One can’t call the whole elite thieves, but people with such attitude are really harmful and, unfortunately, they are prevalent at the leading positions everywhere: in business, in the government, in technical industries. They sincerely think that they know better than others what should be done. The point of view that the Russian people are worthless and they are the advanced dudes who will rule the herd has won.”

Why are They Still in Russia?

“The only reason they are still in Russia is the money. You can’t leave so easily when oil costs $120 for a barrel. And status. They like to go to Spain, for example. But if you start to drive around like crazy or behave like an idiot in a restaurant, the police will quickly put you in prison. No one in Spain cares how cool you are in Russia. And here, in Russia, you hold the God by the beard. You are the master, patrician, riding with your blue siren in front of ten thousand people who have to sit in their cars stuck in a traffic jam, waiting for you to pass. And you are riding so fast to make it for a meeting in a restaurant where you’ll arrange another two million dollar bribe. And, of course, they get a kick out of it. A huge country, nuclear bomb, 150 million educated people, and those people are riding around Moscow in their chariots.”
 
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“This elite are already partially emigrants. Their children are studying abroad, they have real estate there, they plan the future of themselves and their children outside of Russia. ”

“They understand that one day everything will fall apart here, they will be hanged, so there’s no future for them here. They sincerely think that here they are riding with their blue siren, carrying their cross, but their children deserve a better future, that’s why they should study in Switzerland and live well, abroad, and not with this cattle here. For instance, Luzhkov [a former Moscow mayor who was fired in September 2010 after serving almost 20 years] – he was all fine and then, bang!, and he and his wife send their daughters abroad and leave themselves afterwards. They all understand that today you are cool and tomorrow you will be eaten.”

What Is Their Ethics?

“No doubt, they have a very well developed moral system. They seriously think that they deserved all that money. They think that no one but them can do this job, because the rest are the stupid cattle and cannot be a deputy minister, but they themselves can. Yes, they steal 10 million dollars every year, but they are working, even on Saturdays, and get fucked at all these countless senseless meetings suffering so much! And these millions they get is not a huge compensation, if they went into business, they’d earn twice more!
So, they think, let this idiot Navalny first try to work at my place and then start talking. If I don’t get this money as a bribe, then someone else, Navalny for example, will steal them. But he didn’t deserve that. He is a fool and will just squander this money, but I will spend it wisely: buy a house in Spain for example.
[…]
These people are constantly fighting, earning stress, early pancreatitis and nervous breakdowns. […] Their job is very stressful. It’s not like playing gold, you know. It’s a serious daily fight for the spheres of influence and money flows. Today you’re trying to put someone behind the bars, tomorrow they do the same thing to you.”

Who Controls Them, Really?

“All the money are being transferred from Russia to Cyprus and then they come back to Russia under the guise of the foreign investments, which are somehow more protected. And this is being done not as much to avoid taxes, but because not a single fool will want to own a property here, in Russia. And if tomorrow the Cyprus government will decide to nationalise its offshore, then Cyprus will own the whole Russia. And when I hear the government officials saying that they will insist on independent energy policy and won’t let America impose anything on us, I answer to them: what independent energy policy are you talking about when a third of the Russian oil is being sold through an offshore company and all the money earned stay in Switzerland? In this case everything that should be said about our elite was said by Zbignev Bzezhinsky [a Polish-born political scientist, former US national security advisor]: “If 500 billion dollars that belong to the Russian elite is stored in American banks, then, please, make it clear first whose elite that is: yours or ours”. This is all we can say about the Russian elite. And I laugh when our pseudo-patriotic bureaucrats say that I sold out to the West because I studied at Yale university.”

“All these thieves who bought their countless condos in Miami are 100% under the sword of the Western secret services. If needed, they can always be accused of money laundering. Our elite is controlled from abroad. […] What’s funny is that the 20th Article of UN convention against corruption is the only one that has not yet been ratified by our country, because this article is absolutely deadly for our bureaucrats.”

On Russian People

“Many Russians are becoming drunkards and it’s painful and sad to see that. If you come to a village you see that everyone is drunk: men, women, even teenagers. People of my age [30+] are complete alcoholics. […]
But I believe in the Russian people. There are people who are, so to say, lucky. And I myself, most certainly, belong to them. I never lived in poverty, I have a good education, and I make enough money. It is the responsibility of those who are lucky, like me, to help those who are drinking themselves to death in some Ryazan village. Yes, if you come to this villager right now and give him a whistle and a baton, he will go and start plundering. So then their children should be the ones who get lucky, who should get a good education, avoid poverty, and have something to look towards to. Then they will stop drinking. I don’t believe in apocalyptic ending. I believe that we can avoid that. One should just care not only about oneself and one’s own money, but also about the people who are drinking – they also understand that it’s bad. Everyone has their morals upside down. They also want to live well, it’s just that some of them need a helping hand.”

On The System

“One can’t cure the system by introducing good people inside. A good person cannot exist in there, because he will be inefficient. […]
The system can only be transformed through the bare political will. The government should take care of the things it has to take care of legally: serve its people. Nowadays a normal person is the one with whom you can “resolve questions”, and what we should have instead is a good sort of meritocracy: the power of professionals.”
 
[…]
 
“Everyone is waiting for changes, but, unfortunately, so-called intelligence thinks that it will be sitting there on the internet and watch how everything is falling apart and then someone wonderful will come and do something about it. I appreciate that some people expect me to play this role, but it won’t work. This way we won’t be able to do anything. Anyone can do what I’m doing. I insist that it’s not frightening, it’s not hard, and it’s not expensive. ”

“Any person can become a city partisan, fighter, or, more correctly, a normal person. A citizen. It’s not necessary to tear your shirt and run to fight with someone. But one can always do some very concrete steps within a legal frame to improve this life and restore justice in every specific case.”

On Emigration

“I would never emigrate. But, of course, I’m a reasonable man and if someone will be chasing me with an axe I will be running away from that person. Everyone who is fighting against the power in Russia does not exclude any situation, everyone has an example of Khodorkovsky or Magnitsky [a lawyer who died in prison after he attempted to reveal some high-level fraud]. And if I end up abroad it will be because I have to run, rather than at my own accord. One of the reasons is that I don’t really like it there. I used to think that I’m a contemporary man, a so-called mobile professional. But then I lived half a year in America. It’s a wonderful country: everything is cheap, there’s no traffic, if you see a policeman you know that he’s there to protect you. But I realised I couldn’t live there. I get irritated of the constant smiles and the omni-present “How are you?”. I get irritated that they don’t have rye bread. […] I share totally different cultural codes. They don’t know Cheburashka and don’t understand the value of the chewing gum inserts. They learned other swear words when they were children. And, of course, the language: I know English, but all the intricacies of the language and humour are hard to get in my age.”
 
[…]

“People want to leave because they can’t realise themselves here. You can’t really work here. And if you’re a creative person, then your lot is to dance at corporate parties and become a member of “United Russia” [the pro-goverment political party], so they give you access to the First channel [the major TV channel in Russia]. Of course it’s much easier to leave to work in the States or Europe.”
 
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“But in some sense emigration is capitulation. I blame those who believe that Russia is full of cattle and you can’t do anything here. I’m against this consumerist approach. One should try to do something. I’m not saying that everyone should go to a demonstration every month. But every person, within their professional field can live according to some truth. Do at least something and define your own position. You can leave, but at least help someone, these drunken people in the Russian villages for example, they are drunk also because you left and didn’t help them.”
 
The interview was taken by Andrey Loshak for Sobaka magazine, translated by Dmitry Paranyushkin.
Photo from Aleksey Navalny’s website