You there, in Moscow, cannot complete anything

Alexander Baunov spoke with the mayor of Yaroslavl, Evgeny Urlashov, about how he managed to defeat United Russia, combine protest and leadership of a big city, about his attitude towards Putin, the Popular Front and other political parties • Read more on Slon.ru

Alexander Baunov spoke with the mayor of Yaroslavl, Evgeny Urlashov, about how he managed to defeat United Russia, combine protest and leadership of a big city, about his attitude towards Putin, the Popular Front and other political parties • Read more on Slon.ru

Evgeny Urlashov. Photo ITAR-TASS/Sergey Metelitsa

Of course, it is difficult to judge from one meeting, but for me now the main opposition leader in Russia is not Navalny, but the mayor of Yaroslavl, Yevgeny Urlashov . Although he himself does not like this word. Indeed, it is strange to call the current head of a large city in the center of the country an oppositionist. How strange it is to consider Yaroslavl small: by any European standards, it is a big city - one and a half times larger than Liverpool, which was enough to produce all four Beatles. On the other hand, what do you call a mayor who won with a result of 70%, overcoming the resistance of the previous mayor, governor and the entire United Russia? That is, from the point of view of Moscow, Yaroslavl is somewhere in the distant future. Muscovites are thinking about what they can do to break the monopoly on power, and whether it is necessary: ​​what if they are punished for this. And Yaroslavl has been ruled for more than a year by a person elected against the wishes of the authorities, and the world has not fallen apart, there is water and electricity, salaries are paid, schools are open, cafes, shops, boulevards with decently dressed people, street scenes with rock and roll have not gone away . Russia, which quietly groans in captivity behind the forests and fields, sometimes devoting its soul to Stas Mikhailov, and voting for whomever they say, was actually invented by someone who had never been further than the Peredelkino dachas. Well, I stopped by Yaroslavl on personal business, for the first time in seven years, and asked the mayor to talk about how to combine the protest against the All-Russian parties in power and the governor and the management of a big city.

– It seems to me that in Moscow they know little about you. That's when a Moscow politician, even a small one, or a blogger goes to run for mayor, even though there is zero chance, followed by a carload of journalists from Moscow. And here, right next door, a man defeated United Russia, and the capital’s public is somehow not in the know. How did you even manage to win? In Moscow, as they say: our votes were stolen, that’s why we have Putin. Now we will have mayoral elections, our votes will be stolen, so Sobyanin will be there. Are some other people counting the votes here?

“It’s not other people who count the votes here, it’s other people who live here.” Those who were tired, at the time when the elections took place, were tired of the team of the man who led the city for more than twenty years, Viktor Vladimirovich Volonchunas. By that time, an absolutely closed system had developed, when there were such family clans, everything was distributed only to their own and ours. People knew all this, understood what was happening, and they were tired of it. Then our parks were built up. There was a lot of infill development, this caused a lot of dissatisfaction, I just gave up on this and stopped building up parks, on the contrary, I started restoring them. Then there was a tragic incident with the mayor himself, when he was driving a car and hit a man to death, and he was left with ten children. They somehow covered it up, the media began to say that the one who died was still to blame for everything, an alcoholic, a drunkard: it’s simply ugly. Everyone knew everything.

Further, other parties worked quite seriously for us. I don't call them oppositional. It’s a stupid word in general, “opposition” party – today you are in a position, tomorrow you are in opposition. You like coffee, I like tea. Everyone has their own views, including political ones. Then it played out that “United Russia” here in the Yaroslavl region, it seems to me, is the most corrupt in general in the country. I mean ours, Yaroslavl.

- So you, the mayor of the city, waged a campaign, organized a rally against the party of swindlers and thieves. What did they steal?

– Well, for example, we have Lebedev, a deputy of the regional Duma, who was recently arrested and is now in Moscow. He is the head of Rosselkhozbank. Or the Yaroslavl Sales Company, which buys electricity wholesale and sells it retail, earns huge money - tariffs are set by the Department of Fuel and Energy, but with the approval of deputies this all goes through - so it earned decent money on tariffs for the population, and 50 donated millions to United Russia - for the primaries, for advertising, for everything else, and officially published it all on her website, apparently by accident. Then they removed this information from the site, but it was too late, the screenshots remained. It turns out that every light bulb, every iron, refrigerator and TV was on in Yaroslavl, including for United Russia. Who gave them the right to pay 55 million rubles from the population - from their profits, but this money was collected from the population - to pay for “United Russia”? Or the chairman of the regional Duma, Ilya Osipov, who is a co-founder of the Alegro company, forgot that his company owes the city of Yaroslavl 22 million rubles. The statute of limitations has passed, but if you, the head of the company, owed money at that moment, nothing prevents you as a person - especially since you head the regional Duma - from saying: “Yes, I owe it, yes, indeed, our company did not pay. Now, as a decent person, I cry." It's never too late to pay off your gambling debt.

- Yes, this is a good example. Listen, does the fact that they let you win mean that the Kremlin has given up on the local United Russia members?

- They didn’t let me win. This is Moscow's formulation of the question. We had a hard, difficult fight. I managed to register. On the side of my opponent, our local oligarch played - a very large, rich member of United Russia; on his side were the governor, the mayor, deputies of all levels, law enforcement agencies strangled, crushed, killed me and my comrades every day, threatened every day. And nothing, we won.

– Well, okay, but what is your relationship with local businesses? Who supports you?

“I was supported at that moment by very small and medium-sized businesses, our Yaroslavl guys, such medium-sized businessmen, some even large ones, but not those in power, but who were tired of this mess, theft, corruption. The stick was bent and it cracked during the election. “United Russia” tried to manage everything here, and first of all this was evident to the population. I was tired of the situation when the same person had been ruling for 22 years, people did not want this life to continue, they wanted changes, they saw changes in me, and not in someone else. And they voted, like between black and white, between sunset and sunrise, between a growing flower and stinking corpses.

– And the gap in results was so large that it could not be corrected using ordinary administrative technologies and stuffing? Precisely because of the separation?

Precisely because the people did not want to live in slavery any longer. And before that, in December 2011, United Russia showed the worst result in the country in the State Duma elections. This suggests that our residents are tired of all this.

Now I’m getting wet all the way, and the population understands this. There is a campaign for elections to the regional Duma - they are at the same time as the elections in Moscow. I have now started having meetings around the courtyards. Today there will be two meetings, tomorrow – three, on the weekend I travel around the region. They still can’t come to terms with the fact that I’m not from United Russia. They want to push me out of here with all their might.

The budget was not affected

– Yaroslavl and the region – are they now a donor or a recipient of the budget?

– Now he is a recipient, but before he was once a donor.

- Well, well, when the region is the recipient, and the city, accordingly, too, and the regional government is your enemy, how can you manage the city? They will block budget flows and not give money. And accordingly, the townspeople will think: why do we need a mayor who will not receive money? Many people in Moscow think the same about Sobyanin: we’ll elect an alternative mayor, and then we’ll have nothing. Better like this, but with money.

– This is a purely Moscow thing. Our people don't sell their souls. Our people are structured differently. You can't complete anything there. You cannot elect your governor in a normal way, you cannot defend your interests. So what, we went to these barricades, to Bolotnaya - what next? Why start fights with the police? Why there are any sticks, fittings - I don’t understand this.

This Bolotnaya is a purely Moscow party. But our people are interested in what roads, how to take a child to kindergarten, when the park will be built, when the potholes will be filled. But when we have a question about how life will change, then politics, unfortunately, takes first place. It doesn’t work out any other way; we have to take power. And take it legally. Through elections.

Deep Russia has its own problems. For example, it is necessary to revise budget legislation. If the president or the State Duma would reconsider the interbudgetary process and leave more money in the cities, then we would live in peace. In general, we must act as is done in Europe. Mayors and governors should not even meet - only at some events. Like in France and Germany, everyone has their own budgets and their own tasks. I have to do this, and the governor has to do that. Why should we cross paths at all?

And now it turns out that it is precisely because of the interbudgetary process that we really depend on each other, but both the governor and I have protected expenditure items. They will give me this money anyway. Whether someone likes me or doesn’t like me, the governor is still obliged to give it to me, because this is the Budget Code, he cannot but give it. That's why I'm not worried here.

And if we talk about numbers, in the city of Yaroslavl, 56.6 billion rubles in taxes are collected, in my opinion. We keep 5.4 billion for ourselves, which corresponds to 9.3%, we give 33 billion to the region, and we give more than 16 billion to the federation. All this is budget legislation. If those at the top would reconsider this and give us another 10% of personal income tax, I would have another billion rubles. A billion rubles is five kindergartens. A billion rubles is a huge number of roads in one year, which means even more in three years. Or, let’s say, the feds say: okay, 10% of personal income tax goes to you, transport tax, let’s say, we’ll also leave it to you – that’s also great. Then it turns out that we do everything ourselves, and other cities do the same. And it turns out that Russia is growing from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin. And not from Moscow.

Popular Front

– After your victory, Moscow removed the previous governor. "United Russia " continues to fight with you?

– There was a situation where they were pressing me for several months to join United Russia and even lead it here. He entered the top three of United Russia in regional elections. Me, the governor and one other person. I said: are you guys laughing or what? The people elected me exactly the opposite, because I am not in “United Russia”, but against “United Russia”. Are you giving me a Trojan horse? It’s even surprising that you say this.

Just imagine: for a year and a half they have been telling me that I am a scumbag, a scoundrel, a murderer, a cannibal, a rapist, I don’t know who else. And the next day, as soon as I agreed to support United Russia, that’s it, I’m immediately good, or what? Cool guy in general, everything we said was bullshit. This is nonsense, we just mixed up the last name and the city. I never in my life thought that I would enjoy this. Look into their faces and enjoy the hypocrisy. Sometimes you have to pay for this. You don’t even need to buy a ticket to the cinema, I see this movie every day. Free hypocrisy. It's worth a lot.

– Now, in addition to United Russia, the Popular Front has appeared, what is your attitude towards it? Because some say: Putin is merging United Russia, look, this Urlashov will now join the Popular Front as some kind of opposition to United Russia.

– Regarding NF. The NF is a structure that, in my opinion, is being created for future presidential elections. At the moment, it still has no competitors. And you don’t have to worry about this. Now announce the elections, I think he will beat everyone again in the first round. Even if several years pass, a new leader must appear from somewhere, be born, and not be afraid, because in our country anything can happen to a leader, this is understandable. But the NF, on the other hand, has a good prospect for the negotiation process; by the way, the president said this at his speech. In my opinion, the key phrase was somewhere at the end of his speech, when he said: let’s listen to the opinions of different parties in this clearing, let there be opposition here, and so on. We all work for the country anyway. To our beloved country. But people have different views. What's wrong with this? Republicans and Democrats all love their country, the United States of America, but they have different views. Or in Germany - CDU, CSU, SPD - they have different views, but they work for Germany.

This platform may not be too politicized, the main thing is that they don’t only let United Russia members in there. I think that they are really softly merging, maybe even harshly merging this “United Russia”. If they only let United Russia members in, they will perform the reincarnation of United Russia.

Prokhorov and other parties

– In the mayoral elections you were independent, in the elections to the regional Duma you are running with the Prokhorov party? Or rather, those people who come from Prokhorov, they will be your allies in the regional Duma. So?

- Yes. But I have good relations with the communists and with A Just Russia. But, naturally, I support the Civic Platform. And they - me. We recently had a rally, four and a half thousand people gathered, and three parties held it at once: the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and the Civic Platform. I joined and we performed.

“It was generally a strong scene when on the main square of the city in front of the regional government, in front of the building where the governor works, the mayor of the city spoke under the slogan “Down with swindlers and thieves.”

- Yes, good. Do you know why? I know the internal situation. When a person is illegitimate and takes such political steps, this is anti-state politics. Do you assume that next time people will turn in the opposite direction and go to the governor to drink tea? Just tea, there are only four and a half thousand of them...

– Yes, I had a question about exactly this. For all these rallies and street protests there, at least the neutrality of the security forces is important. There is no such neutrality in Moscow. There, after all, the security forces are more on the side of the United Russia government. What is your relationship with the security forces?

- Quite normal.

– So they are on the side of the region, on the side of the city, or on no one’s side?

– You know, in my opinion, they are on no one’s side. I have very good relationships with ordinary people who are not in power. I mean - and in uniform too. And the privates, and the officers, and the riot police, and the prosecutor’s office, well, normal guys. I have good relations with all of them, but I understand perfectly well that they may receive orders.

- Disperse, send a prosecutor...

– And I understand that. But for some reason it seems to me that there is no such thing that they directly occupy any sides. Of course, there is pressure, and there is pressure from the security forces, but it most likely comes from the top management, and here in the city everything is normal.

– “ There is pressure ” – what does that mean? About the rally, did they hint that it would be better not to gather?

“They didn’t say a word, not a word at all.” On the contrary, we together wanted the rally to take place without incidents, because last time provocateurs came to us from Moscow. They caught a man who was handing out 200 rubles to his own people, and it was filmed. We caught them. And when they were handing them out, the police took them, loaded them somewhere, carefully, politely, and then released them.

– Listen, but you say that your ally is A Just Russia. And in Moscow now “A Just Russia”, with a few exceptions, is considered a continuation of the party of swindlers and thieves. There are no more illusions about her. in Yaroslavl ? Is there another “Fair Russia”

– We have a very strong deputy from A Just Russia, Anatoly Greshnevikov, very strong, the most experienced in the State Duma, in my opinion.

About the local “Fair Russia”, that it is not like the Moscow one. You see, I don’t live in Moscow, it’s hard for me to say what’s happening there. I can say that here they are sincerely fighting. And the communists are fighting sincerely, in this regard we agreed on some key issues. For example, the fact that the governor should not be appointed, but elected, that he should now resign early and go to the polls, show that he can be one if the people vote for him. Each party has declared that tariffs for housing and communal services should be frozen, which the president is talking about there - a maximum of 6%, but in our region they are increasing them further. Bring back the maternity hospitals, after all, we have closed maternity hospitals in the villages.

– In official propaganda, protest is the intelligentsia, the creative class with some liberal ideas, but the people don’t need all this. Judging by your percentage and your turnout in the elections, everything is wrong. On the other hand, they say that people can be drawn into politics either by very red slogans - “take away and divide”, anti-business slogans - “down with the rich”, or nationalist, anti-migrant slogans - “down with visitors”. Do you have to use this?

– Of course not, because “take away and divide” does not fully correspond to my program and the program of the “Civic Platform” - this is the case. Taking away and dividing is a regression. As for nationalism, it is not so strong in our country; we calmly hold it. We have a multinational city, many faiths, we have many diasporas, I am on good terms with all of them. And this card cannot be used with us; it is closed for us.

– Maybe because there are not so many migrants and the problem is not so acute?

- May be.

– I was surprised by the attitude towards you of those parties that in Moscow are considered the organizers of the protest: PARNAS and Yabloko. It seems that a rally under their own slogans, “ against swindlers and thieves , ” seems to be a person defeating “United Russia.” But they don’t participate, they don’t support. Marvelous.

– Well, firstly, I have a good relationship with Sergei Sergeevich Mitrokhin, but, let’s say, the relationship with the leader of Yabloko of the Yaroslavl region did not quite work out, who wanted to get something from me, but I could not give it. That is, this is a personal insult. But this has nothing to do with serious processes. What has something to do with serious processes is that Yabloko considers the Civic Platform to be its rival.

As for PARNAS, already at the stage of preparation for the rally, as far as I know, PARNAS tried to contact the organizers in order to speak together. But since these three parties had already agreed among themselves, they decided that this was not necessary.

– So it was more likely to apply only to this rally, and not to the whole thing?

- Certainly. This only applied to the rally.

Where to go

– Do you generally make a difference for yourself between “United Russia” and Putin?

- The difference is gigantic. The whole point is that Putin has the opportunity to go down in Russian history as a creator. He has all the levers to govern the country. He can make several important decisions, one of which is changing the budget process. So that cities are self-sufficient, so that they have a good tax base, and we can develop ourselves. Otherwise we have to run, borrow money from banks and increase the debt. The city's debt to future generations. To somehow move forward.

– How do you feel about the new conservative ideology that is being rushed around now? It is the Yaroslavl deputy Mizulina who now represents it most clearly in the eyes of public opinion: ancient values, Orthodoxy, conservatism.

- All this is from the category of things that are deep in a person. In his heart, in his brain, transmitted either through the blood or in the process of life. And no deputy or Elena Borisovna Mizulina can change this. It's much deeper. Deputies probably consider themselves a little higher than the people, but this is not so. Such concepts are exclusively personal, and no one can influence this.

– Do you think that there is a chance to get a majority in the regional Duma?

– Coalition, perhaps.

– Communists and A Just Russia, Civic Platform, plus some independents? Is it possible or do you just feel that it will work out?

- I think it will work out. On key issues of life, I think it will definitely work out.

– Don’t you think that the center considers this a challenge? An unapproved person, contrary to the party in power, wins the election for mayor of a regional center, then plans to win the regional parliament, then the governorship?

- There is no challenge. And if we strive somewhere in Europe and towards some democratic values, we must calmly look at the situation when one or another representative of one or another party wins the elections. Because you still have to solve the same problems, no matter what party you are from.