https://www.site/2017-09-28/gudkova_i_kaca_ne_pozvali_na_kongress_nezavisimyh_municipalnyh_deputatov

Split or struggle for leadership?

Gudkov and Katz were not invited to the Congress of independent municipal deputies

Dmitry Gudkov and Maxim Kats Anton Belitsky/Kommersant

The Congress of Independent Municipal Deputies will take place in Moscow on Sunday. The organizing committee includes a number of victorious deputies from different parties, including Yulia Galyamina (self-nominated), Maxim Motin (nominated from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation), Ilya Yashin (member of the Solidarity organization, was a self-nominated candidate), Dmitry Baranovsky (self-nominated), Konstantin Yankauskas ( self-nominated) and others. At the same time, although most of the organizers won with the support of the project of ex-State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov and ex-municipal deputy Maxim Kats, these two were not invited to participate. Does this mean that a split is brewing among independent deputies?

Let us remind you that on September 10, almost 300 independent candidates unexpectedly won the municipal elections in Moscow. There are areas of Moscow where not a single United Russia member was elected to the municipal assembly, including the Gagarinsky district, where President Vladimir Putin voted.

The page of the Congress of Municipal Deputies states that its goal is to unite independent deputies throughout Moscow to discuss common goals, objectives, values, and exchange experiences on local government topics - from renovation and infill development to social problems.

Yulia Galyamina told the site that they decided not to invite Gudkov, since none of the mayoral candidates were invited to the event (Gudkov had already announced his intention to run for mayor of Moscow in 2018). “This is a local government congress. It is separated from regional and federal authorities by constitution and charter. Deputies and candidates are registered. Only a few experts were personally called,” Galyamina explained.

Gudkov said that he was indeed not invited, but did not consider this a cause for concern. “Our team already works with all deputies. More than 200 elected municipal deputies have already expressed a desire to participate in joint work. We are currently creating a convenient online service for working with deputies. This will include a designer of parliamentary requests and work with experts on various topics. There will be a special department that will help organize the work of those municipal assemblies where we have the majority of deputies,” Gudkov explained.

Maxim Katz believes that now in the Moscow opposition, after obvious success in the Moscow municipal elections, there is some struggle for leadership, but there is no split.

“We supported the same candidates from Solidarity, Galyamina’s team, Ilya Yashin during the entire campaign,” Katz told the site. — We ourselves decided not to hold a big event, because now there is a race for supremacy. Everyone ran to stick the flag in and say, we won, look how great everything is. It’s understandable when municipal deputies or Navalny, who missed the Moscow elections, try to do this. We calmly work with everyone who won, whom we helped, and advise them. Current work is underway with them, and we don’t need to put up our symbolic flag.” According to him, he and Gudkov are planning to hold a big event closer to winter, when the race for leadership stops.

“If the same Galyamina decided to call municipal deputies to talk, this is her right, this is not a split, everything is in order. “Yabloko also periodically gathers people,” he says.

Experts believe that the decision not to invite Gudkov and Katz is unfortunate, as it provides space for another discussion about the split within the democratic opposition camp.

“Any contradictions between opposition leaders - not only real ones, but even just apparent ones - work for the regime. They greatly demoralize opposition activists and supporters,” says political scientist Abbas Gallyamov. — Oppositionists must demonstrate in every possible way the cohesion of their ranks. This is a direct way to inspire and mobilize supporters.”

The head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, believes that it is impossible to talk about the presence of several centers of power within the opposition. “There is not a single center yet. There was no understanding that municipal mandates are a platform for further advancement, and not a trophy. Instead, there is a return to intraspecies struggle, which is customary for the political underground.”

According to the expert, there is still no understanding among the opposition that the municipal elections cannot be called a victory for Gudkov, Katz or Yashin. “In Moscow there is a stable category of voters who vote against the government, who voted for Prokhorov, and for Navalny, and for Yabloko - but were not seduced by any of them,” recalls Vinogradov. “The request of these voters is that one of the politicians does not spill this support and converts it into something other than a springboard for their own narcissism. This is extremely rare,” the expert believes.

You won't find me there anymore.
It is worth explaining the situation with what happened.
Today I was removed from the project by Maxim Katz at my request.

I left in protest against the removal of a member of our team from the project Yuri Solovkin from the 3rd congressional district. It was removed by M. Katz because Yuri Solovkin is fighting against paid parking in our area.
As I understand it, the reason was one of Yuri’s comments on Facebook, where he openly stated this.

The Gudkov-Katz project is a very cool project to support candidates. He really helps candidates, thanks to him many went forward to be nominated and were able to register. The project is good not only in idea, but also in execution, which is the most important thing. Indeed, everything works very cool. This is not only a website, it is the entire infrastructure of the election headquarters. I believe that the project will change the political landscape in Moscow, many new deputies will appear.

But what happened now does not fit into any gates.
When registration on the site was announced, the condition for registration was three conditions:
1) not a Putinist, 2) not a Stalinist, 3) not a Nazi.
This offer is for democratic candidates. People went to register on the site. After some time, when the site had gathered enough people, M. Katz decided to unilaterally add a fourth clause to the offer: “not a fighter against paid parking,” announced that he would remove from the site people who fight against paid parking and who openly declare this .

And today Yuri Solovkin from our team was removed from the site. I, unlike M. Katz, do not throw people around. Yuri is removed - I'm leaving. I won't sit and pretend nothing happened.

I think it’s incorrect to first invite people to a project and then throw them out like that. We don't need that kind of "help". This is help to United Russia.

Is it the norm to publicly announce the terms of a project, then change the terms on the fly and quietly kick out the participants?

Maxim expressed his position. Now I would like to hear your opinion Dmitry Gudkov about this situation. Opinion both as a co-author of the project and as a candidate for mayor of Moscow (the project is being created to pass the municipal filter, among other things). Does Dmitry support the removal from the project of people who will vote against expanding the paid parking zone in their areas or not?

If the issue is fundamental, announce it publicly: that all project candidates support paid parking and will vote for expanding the paid parking zone in their area. Let the voter be aware. If it's not essential, return it Yuri Solovkin.

P.S. Our team of people's candidates of Northern Izmailovo in full force is on the website

photo: ru.wikipedia.org
Maxim Katz jumped into opposition politics right from the start as if he were an odious figure. At first, he played professional poker and was involved in backing (financial support for promising players) - and, as experts testified to me, he really had success in this area.

Subsequently, he became interested in urban planning, became famous as a blogger, and then joined the ranks of the opposition. He was first noticed speaking at a rally against the results of the 2012 Duma elections, and later he joined the front ranks of opposition figures and became a member of the protest Coordination Council. At the same time, Katz managed to quarrel with Alexei Navalny, although before the conflict he was part of his headquarters in the elections of the mayor of Moscow. According to the official version - for criticism of his projects.

In addition, Katz has long had an intense relationship with the head of Moscow Yabloko, Sergei Mitrokhin. For attempting a “raider takeover of the Moscow branch,” he was previously removed from the party.

Now, the bargaining chip in the conflict with Mitrokhin turned out to be Dmitry Gudkov, who at that time successfully collaborated with Katz. The former poker player said that Gudkov himself, and not Mitrokhin, should run from the party for mayor of Moscow, and opaquely hinted that it would also be a good idea to remove him from the post of head of the Moscow branch, and put him, Katz, there. Gudkov himself did not hide his intention to run for the post of mayor, however, firstly, he was not going to enter into a conflict with Mitrokhin, and secondly, he had not yet received any guarantees from Yabloko that they would nominate him, and was considering self-nomination option.

Gudkov tried to smooth out the conflict situation and continued to cooperate with Maxim Katz, it was expected that he would head his election headquarters. However, their breakup suddenly became famous.

The reason was voiced by Katz himself: according to him, Gudkov wanted him to lead his election campaign independently of whether the nomination from the Yabloko party would take place or not. Katz allegedly refused. After that, Gudkov began to move away and concentrated his own team, began to “hunt” people from Katz and generally do dirty tricks.

“We haven’t talked to Katz for several months now. “I talked about how I was doing the Observation project without Maxim, but I thought that I wouldn’t have to make the nuances of our relationship public,” Gudkov commented on the situation. “Including because he is now busy organizing the presidential campaign of Grigory Yavlinsky.”

According to political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov, the opposition of Katz and Gudkov will not bring problems to Yabloko. History could only have played out if it had happened during the mayoral elections.

Apparently, disagreements in the couple will significantly reduce Gudkov’s chances of being nominated by Yabloko, so it’s time for Sergei Mitrokhin to rejoice at what happened. He called both parties to the conflict “immature” and is sure that they are not ready for political activity and solving the problems of Muscovites, especially since they alone cannot understand the relationship between themselves. However, not everything is so simple.

Experts agree that it is unlikely that this situation was planned by any of the participants in the disintegrated tandem and has ulterior motives. Although one can argue with this, it turns out that Maxim Katz is the winner.

It is worth paying attention to Gudkov’s statement that Katz is involved in Yavlinsky’s campaign. Is it that much?

“Katz is not portrayed as a member of the headquarters, but as if Yavlinsky’s champion is helping the campaign to the best of his ability,” Grigory Yavlinsky’s press secretary Igor Yakovlev gave a similar comment when asked about Katz’s role, practically repeating to me word for word Katz’s own answer about his participation in the campaign.

So much so that, having probably parted ways with Gudkov, Katz fought for a more advantageous party for himself, becoming a fast-track presidential candidate.

From the very beginning, Maxim Katz entered opposition politics as an odious figure. At first, he played poker professionally and was involved in backing (financial support for promising players) - and, as experts assured me, he really had success in this area.

Then he became interested in urban planning, became known as a blogger, and then joined the ranks of the opposition. He was first noticed speaking at a rally against the results of the 2012 Duma elections, and then he joined the front ranks of opposition figures and became a member of the protest Coordination Council. At the same time, Katz managed to quarrel with Alexei Navalny, although before the conflict he was part of his headquarters in the Moscow mayoral elections. According to the official version - for criticism of his projects.

In addition, Katz has long had a tense relationship with the head of Moscow Yabloko, Sergei Mitrokhin. For attempting a “raider takeover of the Moscow branch” he was previously expelled from the party.

Now the bargaining chip in the conflict with Mitrokhin turned out to be Dmitry Gudkov, who at that time successfully collaborated with Katz. The former poker player said that it was Gudkov, and not Mitrokhin, who should run from the party for mayor of Moscow, and opaquely hinted that it would also be a good idea to remove him from the post of head of the Moscow branch, and put him, Katz, there. Gudkov himself did not hide his intention to run for the post of mayor, but, firstly, he was not going to enter into conflict with Mitrokhin, and secondly, he had not yet received any guarantees from Yabloko that they would nominate him, and was considering self-nomination option.

Gudkov tried to smooth out the conflict situation and continued to cooperate with Maxim Katz, it was expected that he would head his election headquarters. But unexpectedly it became known about their breakup.

The reason was voiced by Katz himself: according to him, Gudkov wanted him to head his election campaign regardless of whether the nomination from the Yabloko party took place or not. Katz allegedly refused. After that, Gudkov began to move away and assembled his own team, began to “hunt” people from Katz and generally do dirty tricks.

“We haven’t worked with Katz for several months now. “I wrote that I was doing the Observation project without Maxim, but I hoped that I would not have to make the nuances of our relationship public,” Gudkov commented on the situation. “Including because he is now busy organizing the presidential campaign of Grigory Yavlinsky.”

According to political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov, the quarrel between Katz and Gudkov will not bring problems to Yabloko. History could only play out if it happened in the mayoral elections.

Apparently, discord in the couple will significantly reduce Gudkov’s chances of being nominated by Yabloko, so it’s time for Sergei Mitrokhin to rejoice at what happened. He called both participants in the conflict “immature” and is sure that they are not ready for political activity and solving the problems of Muscovites, especially since they cannot understand the relationship between themselves. However, not all so simple.

Experts agree that it is unlikely that this situation was planned by any of the participants in the disintegrated tandem and has ulterior motives. Although one can argue with this, as it turned out, Maxim Katz still wins.

It is worth paying attention to Gudkov’s statement that Katz is involved in Yavlinsky’s campaign. Is it so?

“Katz is not a member of the headquarters, but as a supporter of Yavlinsky helps the campaign to the best of his ability,” this was the commentary given by Grigory Yavlinsky’s press secretary Igor Yakovlev when asked about Katz’s role, practically repeating to me word for word Katz’s own answer about his participation in the campaign.

So, perhaps, having parted ways with Gudkov, Katz played a more advantageous game for himself, becoming a close confidant of the presidential candidate.

The past elections of municipal deputies were remembered for the relative success of the opposition, represented by the United Democrats under the leadership of former State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov and former municipal deputy Maxim Kats. Katz and Gudkov created, in their words, a “political Uber” - a convenient website for candidates that allowed political novices to overcome their fear of bureaucracy and conduct their campaign according to the rules of the quest.

United Democrats coordinated about a thousand candidates and held 266 deputies in 62 district councils. The Village talked to campaign director Maxim Katz and found out why he kicked people out, why he cooperated with United Russia, and where Navalny’s injury came from.

- Tell me, how long have you been with Gudkov? (Dmitry Gudkov is a former State Duma deputy from A Just Russia. - Ed.) and the team began to prepare for these elections?

The idea appeared around February. We opened the project in March, and then we began calling for candidates for deputies.

- How did the idea come about?

Gudkov said that he wants to run in the mayoral elections. This is a good idea, I liked it right away. I'm involved in Urban Projects, and mayoral elections are definitely in our area of ​​interest. Moreover, the candidate (Gudkov. - Ed.) good, why not? We began to think about what to do. And, naturally, the first question arose - how to get through the municipal filter? This requires 110 votes of municipal deputies. What to do? Elect deputies. That's why we started the United Democrats project.

- What exactly was the assistance to candidates for deputies?

You could write a book about this. For the first three months, we explained that such a possibility exists in principle. People did not know and did not understand why and how to join the Mundep. Then we started helping them with registration. The candidate had to collect documents and upload them to the website. And our system automatically compiled the necessary form for the election commission. It is very difficult to draw up these documents yourself - this is a bureaucratic technical barrier that the authorities specifically put in place so that an ordinary person could not go to the polls. And we have made simple and convenient step-by-step instructions for nominating and working candidates. Everything via the Internet and without numerous headquarters.

The cost of the headquarters for one candidate is 200–300 thousand rubles. The money will be spent on a photographer, content manager, layout of leaflets, lawyer, and so on. We took it all upon ourselves. A person could go to the polls even without money. Of course, I couldn’t win, but I could go. This is just the beginning. We did a lot more. We conducted trainings for candidates, created fundraising pages for them, a system for preparing campaign materials, which they approved, and we sent them to print, and organized delivery to doorsteps. We did everything.

- What powers do municipal deputies have?

Oh no. I give lectures on local self-government three times a day, and today I have already given all three.

- Let's keep it short. What can mundeps change? You yourself said before that they cannot influence anything in their area.

The municipal assembly really has virtually no powers. But when two-thirds of this assembly are our people, then this is a completely different matter. They can change the municipal charter and manage the budget themselves.

But still, the main function of these deputies is not to clear the sidewalk of snow. The sidewalk from snow in Troparevo-Nikulin is unlikely to be cleared better than in neighboring Obruchevsky, where no one got rid of us. The sidewalks are cleaned the same way everywhere. The trick of these mundeps is that they are political representation. Now in Moscow it is impossible to make any decision unless we come to an agreement with us: with the democrats, with the opposition. We have 260 deputies with mandate powers, and if you try to decide something without us, then at least ten districts will immediately come out with statements and protests.

If you try to decide something without us, at least ten districts will immediately come out with statements and protests

- How much money have you raised for the work of the headquarters?

4,989 donations totaling 12,994,819 rubles. The largest donation is 2 million rubles, and the average payment is 2,600 rubles.

- Who donated 2 million?

Some girl from Nizhny Tagil, who now lives, in my opinion, in the Netherlands. But she is a Russian citizen with a Russian account.

- How much have you raised for the activities of parliamentary candidates?

Candidates received about 40 million rubles into their election accounts. There were also large donors with whom our representative sat and sent 2 thousand rubles to hundreds of deputies. Because according to the law, you cannot transfer more than 2 thousand rubles to a specific deputy.

- Which famous people transferred money?

I think there were some, but I don’t remember now. Gudkov was more involved in this.

- How much of their money did the candidates invest in the campaigns?

Out of 40 million I can only say offhand...

- So 40 million includes money from candidates?

Yes. I think they invested 20 million themselves. But this is just a guess. By law, a candidate can spend no more than 40 thousand rubles on a campaign. That's pretty much what everyone invested. Much still depends on the area. On Arbat, where the area of ​​the district is very small, you can get by with 20–30 thousand rubles. And somewhere in South Butovo, where there is a huge territory, the campaign will cost about 100 thousand.

- Have you monitored the social networks of everyone who wants to become a deputy?

Mandatory and tough. We had access to a huge number of professional databases. For example, if a realtor came to us, we checked him through the realtor databases. There was a case in Medvedkovo: a well-known district activist came, we looked at these databases - bam - he was marked there as a swindler. We rejected such people.

- What did you look at first on social networks?

For political activity. Usually everything is immediately visible from what a person reads. We called it a “pack of liberal subscriptions”: Navalny, Meduza, Dozhd, Varlamov, Katz, Gudkov - a person with such subscriptions is definitely ours. The Village is also, in principle, included in the pack, although not always. If a person subscribes to public pages like Obrazovac or TED, then he is also unlikely to support Putin.

- What if a person subscribes to frivolous public pages?

This is not an obstacle, of course, and in itself does not mean anything. If a person is subscribed to all sorts of jokes and does not show any political activity, we tensed up and arranged a telephone interview. They asked which politicians they respect. If Zhirinovsky, then you should join the LDPR. Someone called, for example, Stalin - then fuck off with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation or I don’t know where.

- Tell us about the “Katz filter”. How many people have you kicked out for staring?

Yes, there was a very serious “Katz filter” and “Gudkov filter”. In total, 3.5 thousand people submitted applications to us, of which only a thousand made it to the elections. 1,700 people themselves refused, and we didn’t take about 700 more for ideological reasons.

We rejected not just supporters, but not even opponents of Putin. The first question we asked everyone was: “How do you feel about Putin?” If the candidate’s attitude is not negative, then we do not hire him. Many people said that they want to take care of courtyards and benches, that municipal parliament is not a politicized story and they do not want to touch Putin. We sent such people to the A Just Russia party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the ONF, or as self-nominated candidates. The state has a great demand for apoliticized activism, but we do not support it. Only politicized activism works here. If you are against Putin, we will help you. If you are for Putin, no.

- How can your attitude towards Putin affect the desire to set up benches and improve the street?

- So this was done solely so that the deputies would later support Gudkov?

No, what does Gudkov have to do with it? Firstly, overcoming the municipal filter is, of course, an important task, but we did not ask anyone whether they planned to support Gudkov, and we did not make any commitments from anyone. And Putin is important to us because we want to elect people with our own views. I don’t want to help a person who supports Putin, even if he sets up benches well.

I help those who have the same views as me. When there is a war with Ukraine and some kind of unnecessary war in Syria, when we impose sanctions on ourselves, we cannot say that I don’t give a damn and I will run the shops.

We rejected not just supporters, but not even opponents of Putin. The first question we asked everyone was: “How do you feel about Putin?”

- What other questions were there about the political views of the candidates?

I immediately anticipate the question: we did not ask anyone about paid parking. There were a couple of people whose entire social activity was related to the fight against paid parking - this is not for us, we are urbanists and do not support this. But, in my opinion, there were only two such people out of two and a half thousand. And then one was returned, but the other did not go to the polls.

We did not support candidates whose, so to speak, main activity is some kind of anti-scientific garbage. For example, an anti-vaxxer wanted to become a deputy: a young girl, against Putin, met all the criteria, but she has half of her Facebook feed about banning vaccinations. We don’t want such a person to become a deputy, because she causes harm to society, and this will make people sick more.

When there is a war with Ukraine and some kind of unnecessary war in Syria, when we impose sanctions on ourselves, we can’t say that I don’t care and I’ll just run the shops

- Is it true that they asked on the phone whose Crimea is?

Yes, they asked. But not “whose Crimea?” Whose Crimea is now complex bullshit. And they asked how people felt about what happened. If “hurray, I’m happy for Rus'” - that’s all, it’s not for us. But if they said “annexation”, “illegal” and so on, then that’s fine. This is an important question that divides people into decent and indecent.

- What if a person cannot answer this question?

- He does not support either side?

What does he think?

- So there were no such people?

There were some who said they didn't want to answer. We explained to them that being a deputy is a public matter and it is impossible not to answer questions. We did not take those who did not answer.

- Have you kicked people out for reposting “Sputnik and Pogrom”?

Precisely for this reason - no. Of course, when we kicked someone out, the person immediately started shouting that it was because of paid parking, the repost of “Sputnik and Pogrom”, and so on. There was a case, I don’t remember exactly, when they kicked out a guy with subscriptions “Sputnik and Pogrom”, “I am Russian” and almost “Reports of Novorossiya”. Because nationalism is not for us.

- Did you yourself invite Lusa Stein to run, or did she find you?

It was her idea. She worked at our headquarters - she organized trainings. After the boy’s arrest, public attention arose around her, and she decided to become a deputy.

- How do you feel about her shares?

Very positive. She is good at drawing attention to problems and herself in unusual ways.

- Did she consult with you about the shares?

No, these are her affairs, I have nothing to do with them. We only helped her with the campaign, even at the beginning we conducted it individually, but not for long. She walked like everyone else, and the victory is her merit. In all central districts that border the Kremlin, everything is fine. And Yashin took five out of five, and Azar in Khamovniki took five out of five, and in Tverskoy, where we are sitting, three out of three, and Zamoskvorechye took four out of five.

- Weren’t you afraid that Lucy’s shares would negatively affect the reputation of the headquarters?

We were constantly afraid that Lucy's shares would somehow harm us. We believe that such promotions are only useful to us. And the fact that someone doesn’t like its shares is normal.

- How much money did she raise by selling breast casts?

I don't know.

- Did they go to the election campaign?

I think yes.

- Tell me, were there many conflicts due to the fact that your candidates from the same district had to print campaign leaflets together?

There were no conflicts, but it was very difficult. We united a thousand Democrats into 290 teams so that they campaign together and spend less money on it and so that residents see that people of different views have united and are going to the polls together. We had an entire diplomatic department of 15 people who reconciled candidates within the team. The head of the department is a professional psychologist, he traveled around the districts and communicated with people, regulated conflicts, because otherwise a scandal would begin, quarrels, everyone would throw slippers at each other, and so on.

As a result, almost no team had a fight. Only Khamovniki, but they still won. But Khamovniki is a magical region, they had two teams, and both passed. Now they have opposition within us, there will be one team of seven people, the second - eight.

- What were Gudkov’s responsibilities? What was he doing?

He was involved in fundraising. They even wrote to him on Facebook that he looked like an accountant. A week he wrote from three to ten posts with requests and persuasion to donate money. He also sometimes reconciled teams and spoke to the media about the project. And I was in charge of the team and organizing the process, although this time the chief of staff was Anya Kuznetsova, my deputy in other campaigns. I returned to Moscow only in August, and the campaign for these elections had been going on since March.

- Gudkov traveled with candidates and campaigned door to door?

Of course, he spent hours walking around apartments; there are many posts on Facebook on this topic.

- Did he receive a salary?

Of course not. Neither I nor Gudkov received a salary. We do this simply because it is important and interesting to us. But the rest of the staff receives a salary.

- Why does the entire headquarters get it, but you don’t?

We are the authors of the project. I never received any money at all throughout my social and political activities. Only the encouragement of a deputy is 15 thousand rubles a month, and even then I tried to spend it on activities. And the people at the headquarters work, they should get paid, what will they eat?

- Gudkov doesn’t have enough signatures from the municipal deputies to pass the filter?

Enough. 65 districts are definitely ours. In another ten districts, we have an agreement that there will be signatures - a total of 75. Of the remaining 71 districts, we need to find 35 signatures. We will definitely find them. Firstly, elections were held earlier in New Moscow, and there are many deputies there who are not associated with United Russia. Secondly, there is, for example, Maryino - 20 out of 20 deputies from United Russia gathered there, but they are not soldiers. There are different people among them: students and pensioners - we can come to an agreement with them, and we will come to an agreement. Of course, we will get these 35 signatures from 71 districts. Even if there is a direct order from above to cement and not give us anything, we will still collect.

We don’t see anything wrong with communicating with the candidate from United Russia

- If you have to take it from United Russia, will you take it?

We will not take from United Russia as a structure. But we don’t see anything wrong with communicating with the United Russia candidate. You can come to an agreement with them. When there are so many of them, and you need one out of twenty, and even in one area out of two, then you can find it.

- At what level do you plan to cooperate with Yabloko?

On high. In general, I am a member of Yabloko and plan to become the head of the Moscow branch. That is, to remove Mitrokhin, we call it “Mitroxit”.

We have a basic partnership with Yabloko, we are friends with him, we have excellent relations with Grigory Yavlinsky. He chaired the meeting to nominate deputies and counted votes.

- Did they have anything to do with the financing of this campaign?

- Yabloko does not have government funding, and they did not help us with money. Some of our donors transferred money to them, and they distributed it among the candidates, because it was technically simpler. And they helped some candidates with their money, but it was on a small scale and we didn’t ask them about it. On the contrary, we ourselves must help them with money. They are not a parliamentary party, they have no money.

- What did you ask them for?

We asked for nomination from the party because Yabloko is a brand. All our candidates have views that coincide with the values ​​of the party.

- So they only asked for the name?

What is the name? This is reputation. “Apple” is a political structure that has trust. There is no other structure like this in Russia now, to which an ordinary person will come and be happy to put the name of this structure next to his own.

- Don’t you think that the Yabloko brand has become a little rotten?

No, absolutely. Maybe eight years ago he was stronger, but I didn’t work with him eight years ago. The current results show that the brand is very strong. Of course, in areas like Northern Chertanovo, or Eastern Biryulyovo, or Kapotnya, it was not possible to get many votes, but in the Tverskoy, Basmanny districts, Zamoskvorechye and others, the situation is the opposite. On Arbat, United Russia, in order to defeat Yabloko, had to bring military personnel from Balashikha. Therefore, “Yabloko” is a very strong brand, without “Yabloko” you can’t go anywhere.

- Tell me then, will Mitrokhin run for mayor?

No, Mitrokhin will go from the stove to the bench, and not to mayor.

- Is this your opinion or his?

This is how it will be. His opinion is his opinion, but there is objective reality. Mitrokhin is an excellent activist, he does excellent work on the ground. Recently I was in Strogin, my mother lives there, and she said: “I’m walking down the street, and there Mitrokhin is fighting with some people who want to build something.”

This is wonderful, excellent, but the leadership of the Moscow branch, especially the mayoral campaign, is not about activism, it is about organization. But Mitrokhin has problems with organization. The Moscow Yabloko under his leadership does not show much success. For example, when we nominated candidates, we spent the first 30 minutes listening to candidates from the Moscow branch, and the next six hours - to our candidates, whom Gudkov and I invited. The organizational efforts that we were able to make and that he made show that we are much stronger.

And in general, mayorship is about management. And if you manage your department in such a way that after Bolotnaya and Sakharov, only 30 people are elected to municipal elections...

Mitrokhin will go from the stove to the bench, not to mayor

- Are you sure that the party will support Gudkov’s candidacy?

Yes, I am sure. Because at the moment there are more of our supporters in the party than Mitrokhin’s supporters.

- Will you support Yavlinsky in the presidential elections?

Necessarily. I believe that in general Yavlinsky’s campaign is an opportunity. If people, of course, believe in the possibility of change, because the main problem is that no one believes. For example, in Konkovo ​​people believed - the turnout was good - and the majority. And in neighboring Yasenevo they believed less - the turnout was 1% less - and ten out of ten went to EdRa. Here is Bernie Sanders, who has been in politics for 40 years, no one has ever noticed, but here he staged a good campaign, and 50 thousand people listened to him in every city. If you organize a good campaign and invite people to listen to a historical character who has 100% recognition in the country, who says things that are alternative to the opinion of the authorities, then, I tell you, stadiums will gather. It will be like Sanders.

- Will you participate in Yavlinsky’s presidential campaign?

I don’t know, no one has offered me one yet, but I’m interested. But I’m not sure that it can be implemented in such a short time.

- But you understand that if there are elections in which Putin, Navalny, Yavlinsky, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky participate, then the chances of a second round are even less?

Firstly, Navalny will not be on the ballot - this is prohibited by law. The way he's campaigning now shows he understands he won't be on the ballot. He has seven months before the elections, and he went on vacation for a month - is that really possible? A real candidate would never do that.

But even if he had been on the ballot, Yavlinsky's strong campaign would have benefited him. Because to make a second round, you need to activate many different people. Navalny takes a very narrow part of the protest young electorate, and Yavlinsky takes older democrats. If you activate them, then it remains to be seen who will score more. But there are definitely more chances for a second round. There are no spoilers in two-round elections.

- Do you believe that Yavlinsky can make it to the second round?

Yes. With a good campaign, miracles happen. When we started with Navalny in Moscow, his rating was 3%. And we ended up with 60 thousand votes from the second round.

- You say that a presidential candidate cannot go on vacation for a month, but nothing has been heard about Yavlinsky’s campaign at all...

Yes, but his situation is different. Yavlinsky has a big foundation: both recognition and a party. Although, of course, the campaign should have started earlier. But they are collecting signatures against the war - this is a good thing. But Navalny is actively leading a campaign - it seems to exist. But a candidate cannot take a vacation during the campaign.

Navalny had a big trauma after the meeting of the Opposition Coordination Council. At first there was a success story, and then everyone started saying that he was doing nothing

- Why didn’t Navalny support your project?

You need to ask Navalny about this. I can tell you my thoughts. Navalny had a big trauma after the meeting of the Opposition Coordination Council. At first there was a success story, and then everyone started saying that he was doing nothing. What can he do if he has no authority? For some reason, everyone decided that this council should rule the country, and began to criticize it.

The council gathered wayward people who did not listen to Navalny. He did not like the discussions, and after this advice he decided that he would no longer team up with anyone and would always be on his own. True, he later teamed up with Kasyanov to gain party affiliation, but he didn’t even get to the elections with it. His new strategy is that he and his team are the main opposition force in the country.

We are a big threat to him, we also know how to make elections, and, in my opinion, better. His headquarters, which are constantly opening, are more Instagrammable - so you can post a photo from the headquarters with the caption “I opened the headquarters.” As far as I can see, they don’t do anything else, although many of them have already opened.

And now we have real deputies and entire deputy councils. Now Putin, in order to get to work, cannot help but drive past the council, in which there are no representatives of EdRa. And the Kremlin itself is located in an area where only one United Russia member was elected.

Navalny doesn’t really like this, he wanted us to fail, so he didn’t give a link to our website. By the way, by doing this he harmed many good people. For example, in Koptev an excellent candidate did not make it - he missed six votes. That is, Navalny led United Russia in Koptev. If he had made even one tweet with a link, the candidate in Koptev would have passed.

There are many such examples. Now we are making a list of 30 or 40 candidates who received less than 50 votes. All of them could become deputies thanks to one tweet from Navalny. He could make a big post and write: “I, Navalny, even if I don’t like Katz, I still urge you to vote for good people - it’s not their fault that Katz is sitting there, go vote for them.” If he had done that, I think 50 more good people would have been elected. In Kuntsevo, an employee of his headquarters was not even elected, losing by 12 votes, because Navalny did not support him.

- Why did United Russia win everywhere in the east and north of Moscow?

Don't know. Maybe there are some depressed areas there. Everything depends on the turnout, there is a direct correlation - where the turnout is higher, we all win. We have lost in areas where people do not believe in change and are apathetic. Because in any district, even in Biryulyovo, there are 300 democrats who could have come, but did not come.

This does not even depend on the number of Democrats, but on their belief in the possibility of change. In Kapotnya, people are broken, they have oil refineries there, and there is no metro, and life is hard - they don’t believe in change. And in Gagarinsky people believe, because they fought off various projects a hundred times, they have Rusakov there, and Stalinist houses, and excellent schools.

- The results of the elections and the standard of living?

Well, of course. You can even compare the election results with the value of real estate in the area. Where the standard of living is lower, people lose interest in politics - right along Maslow's pyramid.

Where the standard of living is lower, people lose interest in politics - straight according to Maslow's pyramid

- What mistakes were made during the campaign and what could have been done better?

We don’t know yet, probably, we should have done something differently in the areas “behind the wall”, which runs in front of areas like Chertanovo. There our candidates lost simply to zero. 1,400 deputies from EdRa and 700 of ours. There either was a need for more money, or to give up on it altogether. But I didn’t know that there would be such gaps, I didn’t even think that they would lose. Maybe it was worth introducing not teams, but one candidate, and investing everything in him. Let you have a hundred United Russia members, but one will be different. Such a message would work, people would come.

- Is the headquarters planning to transform into the headquarters of Gudkov’s campaign?

Necessarily. But our website will also work for deputies. We want to maintain the headquarters and create a “political Uber” for deputies. Because passing a decision through the council is the same as printing a newspaper or submitting documents. We will have experts in various fields: town planning, urbanism and others who will give advice to deputies. The deputy will formulate, the lawyer will formalize the decisions into a draft. We will clearly show how to carry out any decision in the area. And there will be a separate legal struggle for expansion of powers at least in those areas where we have a majority.

- Will this same headquarters be involved in Gudkov’s election campaign?

Yes. These same people will go to elect Gudkov as mayor. According to our estimates, we will definitely pass the filter. We must do the second round, and then we’ll see.