Navalny's volunteers: Cubic force

Reporting The New Times from the opposite's campaign headquarters

On July 17, the Mosgorisbirk registered Alexei Navalny as a candidate for mayor of Moscow. The key role in his agitampage will be played by the election headquarters. How the headquarters of Navalny works, what the volunteers are doing and what moves them - the New Times found out.

The headquarters of Navalny’s candidate is located in a large bright room on the ground floor of the old house No. 22 in Lyalin Lane. Judging by the large mirror on the floor, there used to be a hairdresser. Now right opposite the mirror there is a large poster with the image of the candidate for mayor from the RPR-Parnas, and the entire space is filled with tables, stacks of leaflets and spare parts for campaign cubes, as well as many concentrated staff and slightly confused new volunteers are stored in the back room.

Rear support

Prior to the submission of documents in the Gorizbirk, the main goal of the headquarters was to collect the required number of signatures for the municipal filter: volunteers and employees of the Corruption Fund called the capital's deputies, persuading them to sign for Navalny. As a result, having talked with more than 800 people's deputies, the staff of the headquarters gathered 85 out of 115 signatures presented in MGIK on July 10.

After the first stage was completed, the “municipal” headquarters merged with the “volunteer”, and the efforts of both teams were redirected to campaign. As in other projects of Alexei Navalny, money and equipment for the headquarters are collected in the form of voluntary donations. Some help with money, others - furniture and equipment, others - free time and professional skills.

Anyone can go to the headquarters of Navalny: each incoming sees the boards with information about the structure of the headquarters, the location of agiticubs, the schedule of events for a week. True, despite external openness, video shooting at the headquarters is strictly prohibited - they fear video provocations. And each time, once someone begins to take pictures on the phone, the staff of the headquarters are closely and wary of monitoring the process.

It is amazing that with such a reverent attitude to the video of the “Settled Cossacks” among volunteers at the headquarters, they are not afraid of. “When a person comes, we communicate with him, and you can quickly guess that this is a“ tomato ”,” explains Anna Vedita, press secretary of Navalny. - Moreover, really ideological people go agitate, and if a provocateur is among them, then they will quickly feel it - they still communicate with each other - and they will expel it themselves. We do not hide anything, we have an absolutely open structure. And if the “novist” will go to the cube, then suddenly he will read the leaflet and go to our side? But the most responsible things, for example, money, in any case, are engaged in people from the Corruption Fund, they also lead the working groups and will also quickly calculate the “settled”. ”

Each of the volunteers first undergo registration, during which it is determined what he can and want to do in the headquarters: participate in agitation, become the applicant of the picket, work in working groups (for this, special skills are already required - for example, in design or it) or responsible for logistics (that is, to carry out leaflets and structures for campaign cubes). For volunteers, lectures and agitation training are held.

“Mostly young people under 30 come. Of course, there are 40-year-olds, and even 50-year-old volunteers, but there are much less of them. Basically, these are people, as we call it, with a diagnosis of “active civic position,” says Oksana's volunteers coordinator. - People come so charged with positive that they don’t even think about bad things, and reality only overtakes when you begin to read news about what is happening in the country in the evening. Probably because the headquarters is a model of the world that we want to build first on the scale of Moscow, and then countries. ”

The work of the headquarters is divided into conditional “rear” and “front”. The rear is prepared by campaign materials, engage in logistics and finances, carry out Internet newsletters, work in the call center and the situational center for volunteers, provide legal assistance in a statement of pickets. "Front" is direct agitation in the city.

Navalny headquarters

Council Cubism

Given that Navalny has no access to federal television channels, non -standard methods of agitation are being developed in the headquarters. For example, already now in test mode from the windows of the apartments of volunteers, using projectors, they began to broadcast simply the surname "Navalny" on the wall of a neighboring building. But in general, the emphasis is on personal contact of the volunteer and the Muscovite. The declared goal is at least 12 million contacts with citizens, and at a maximum of 20 million.

It is supposed to evaluate the number of contacts through sociological surveys, apartment bypasses and on the consumption of agitmaterials. And the greatest effect, as expected, should be given by campaign cubes - metal frames with banners for which the thesis of the mayor's program of Navalny candidate are made. Every day in the afternoon of Cuba, Cuba appeared at the metro stations: over the past 10 days, the number of such agitation in the city has grown from 2 to 13. The location of cubes is carefully thought out by the headquarters, taking into account the number of voters and the “cross -country” of the territory: people from the “city projects” of Maxim Katz are engaged in these calculations. The calculation here is simple: the more people sees agitation for Navalny, the more of them they will stop, run through the infographics in Cuba, or maybe they will even take a leaflet and talk with agitators.

Each such “cube” is declared in the relevant prefecture as a picket, the standard application for which one volunteer submits. After coordination of the picket, the headquarters of Navalny announces the location of the cube and brings its spare parts and packaging of the leaflets to the appointed time. In addition to the Cuba and its applicant, at each point there are several volunteers who campaign passers -by and distribute leaflets.

“Some prefectures immediately meet and agree on pickets, we get written refusals from others,” Dmitry Krainev, who is engaged in legal issues of accommodation of campaists, explains The New Times. - Some prefectures verbally give a complete refusal and say that under any circumstances they will not coordinate the picket. Some explain the refusal by the fact that the application was submitted with violations, although in other prefectures they accept absolutely identical statements. ”

Settings from the "front"

On cubes, the location of which is noted on a special website , Muscovites are mainly campaigned by young people under 30 years old, including students.

Screenshot of a card with declared cubes

“Mostly grandmothers say about the program itself, more precisely - they argue with you and tell what a bulk scoundrel,” says Volunteer Polina Kirillova. - I want to live well, in this country, in this city, so that my future children also live here. With the regime that is now, it is problematic. ” Polina - from Krasnoyarsk, graduated from the fourth year of one of the chemical universities and campaigns for Navalny near the monument to Yesenin on Tver Boulevard on weekends - when free from summer practice and work. Moreover, she did not immediately trust Navalny: “She went to rallies to Bolotnaya and Sakharov, but faith in this person began to grow after she began to read more materials and watch a broadcast (from the court) along Kirovles. Do you have to believe in someone? Especially in the one who wants to do something not only for himself, but also for others. ”

Muscovites have interest in “cubic” agitation, according to Polina. “On the boulevard, mostly people rest, but several people themselves approached and asked where to put a signature,” the volunteer recalls. - One mother passed, carried the children in her arms, wanted to take leaflets, but her hands were busy. As a result, they gave leaflets to the children, they walked and waved them from side to side. ”

Closer to Cuba for the opposition is campaigned by a 19-year-old student of Alexander: “Navalny has no access to some media, so it remains only to talk about him here, on the street, and constantly convince. I managed to convince several, I was even surprised myself. Most people are not very good about Navalny - they watch a TV a lot - and we try to tell them about the transparency of the Navalny program. I convinced one uncle of 70 years old, who resembles an academician, several more people who are at 40 years old, and they are the largest skeptics: they don’t read anything on the Internet and they learn the news only on TV. Today I am agitating only the first day, then I’m going on, when there will be free time. ”

"Zomboyman on the contrary"

The applicant of the picket on Tversky Boulevard, lawyer Evgeny Kalinin holds out leaflets to three elderly people who do not want to take them: they say that they are called a thief on the Navalny TV and that they will be imprisoned.

“Navalny fights with crooks and thieves, so they want to plant him,” retorts Eugene.

"Plant?" The man asks.

“Plant it or not - depends on us. If we remain indifferent, then they will imprison, ”says Eugene.

"Does it depend on him?" - the man asks again.

“Here the elections in the fall depend on both him and on you and me. In general, the fact that the elections will still be, have achieved those who went to rallies, ”says Eugene.

"But what does the current mayor do not suit you?" - The full blonde is interested in the age.

“Because all of Moscow was rotten in corruption,” 19-year-old Sasha joins the discussion.

“Everything is already rotten to Sobyanin,” the woman answers with a light laugh.

Even after such a short conversation between skepticism, passers-by becomes less: they finally take leaflets and go further along the boulevard.

“Navalny is the only one of the candidates who has a real reputation: he did not deceive anyone, he has many supporters and correct things. When there is a person with such great internal potential, I want to provide him with my resources. I have time, legs, arms, tongue and head, ”says Evgeny Kalinin, The New Times. - Dramatically everyone will not work. Personally, I believe that the purpose of cubes is to influence the undoubted who vote by inertia. In my opinion, there are most of them. And the one who considers Navalny’s traitor does not convince in 5-10 minutes, this is a great system work, they need to turn on the “zombie on the contrary”. Nevertheless, only today there were five people who took 50 leaflets to decompose them in their entrances - they were from 25 to 40 years old. ”

Rainflow cube and 25-minute agitation near the Metro "Oktyabrskaya"

Two friends stop near the cube: one photographs the other against the background of agit structure. A man passing by about thirty is making fun of this scene. The girl who is photographed against the backdrop of a cube asks if he read the Navalny program, he replies that he is not particularly interested in politics, but to Navalny sympathizes: "He even ahead of his time."

At 21.00 the official time of the picket ends. “As a result, we distributed about 1000 leaflets today, yesterday we immediately distributed 750, and the day before yesterday - 4,000. Day per day, but we are well done,” Eugene, Eugene, sums up.

While the volunteers disassemble the cube, the youth on the bench in the neighborhood discusses the elections. “Why did they remove the line“ against all ”? I would only put a checkmark near her, ”says the young man with glasses and a bright blue shirt. “I don’t watch TV, I don’t read Navalny and are not signed by opposition groups, but I understand that“ they ”are so afraid of him that they even sew against a bulk business.”

Photo: navalny.livejournal.com, Anna_veduta and Neoromantic twitter accounts, screenshot of the site cube.navalny.ru