**Я 25 лет изучаю Путина / вДудь — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/putin-study-25-years-vdud/

An in-depth interview with Roman Badanin exploring Putin's power, Russian journalism, and historical context of Russian emigration.

## Key Takeaways

- Putin's long tenure and influence make him a central figure for investigation in Russian politics.
- Investigative journalism in Russia faces significant challenges including censorship and personal risk.
- Historical Russian emigration provides perspective on current struggles faced by Russians abroad.
- Putin is viewed as a highly strategic and personal adversary by those opposing his regime.
- The personal and societal costs of Putin's rule are profound and multifaceted.

## What the video covers

- Roman Badanin, a leading investigative journalist, discusses his extensive research on Vladimir Putin spanning 25 years.
- The video covers Putin's influence on Russia and the world, including investigations into his family and inner circle.
- Badanin shares his personal and professional views on Putin as a smart, calculating enemy and the impact on his homeland.
- The interview touches on the challenges of journalism in Russia, censorship, and the role of media figures like Alexei Venediktov.
- Historical context is provided through a visit to Fort Ross, California, highlighting Russian emigration and colonization in the 19th century.
- The video explores the psychological and emotional toll of studying Putin and living under his regime.
- Discussions include the difficulties faced by Russian emigrants and the contrast between past and present hardships.
- The role of language learning and cultural adaptation for emigrants is briefly mentioned with a promotion for a Spanish language school.
- Badanin reflects on the state of global journalism and the challenges faced by reporters worldwide.
- The video concludes with reflections on the personal cost of investigative work and the pervasive influence of Putin.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and Putin Obsession
2. 04:29 The Extent of Putin Investigations
3. 09:11 Historical Context: Fort Ross and Russian Emigration
4. 13:12 Challenges of Emigration and Language Learning
5. 21:00 Russian Colonization and Fort Ross History
6. 27:40 Journalism and Media in Russia
7. 47:10 Personal Reflections on Putin and Investigative Work

Answers

## Questions about this video

Why does Roman Badanin focus so much on Putin in his investigations?

Badanin explains that Putin has been in power for 26 years and is connected to many significant events in Russia and globally, making him a central figure worthy of extensive study.

What challenges does investigative journalism face in Russia according to the video?

The video highlights censorship, personal risk, and the suppression of independent media as major challenges for journalists investigating Putin and Russian politics.

What historical significance does Fort Ross have in the context of Russian emigration?

Fort Ross was a Russian settlement in California in the 19th century, representing the southernmost point of Russian colonization in North America and illustrating the hardships faced by early Russian emigrants.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

You are obsessed with Putin. It's time to repent. The Gelendzhik Mansion of a colonizer.

00:06

Speaker A

It is also located on a cape. Yummy. Both Aleksei and Kirill were KGB agents.

00:09

Speaker A

Smart, calculating enemy. I'm Siberian. We've got to run. You spoke out. Kind of. If you or your ancestors up to the third generation were born in Moldova, you have a right to become a citizen of Moldova.

00:27

Speaker A

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00:36

Speaker A

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00:45

Speaker A

Use promo code Moldova to get a 10% discount. The link is in the description. Roman, recently we have made an episode with Alexei Venediktov, a reporter who calls himself a man of compromise.

01:02

Speaker A

You are considered one of the most principled reporters. We really want to talk about journalism from a more radical point of view. We feel like you are the best fit for this conversation.

01:18

Speaker A

We really want to spend a couple of days with you and talk about your job, you, and the object of your research - Putin and his power.

01:33

Speaker A

Sounds great. Roman Badanin, 48 years old, a reporter, editor-in-chief of Project Investigates Putin. Born in Kurgan. What is your opinion on Alexei Venediktov?

01:48

Speaker A

It's both positive and negative. I think it's quite obvious. He's done a lot for journalism in Russia. He's created a radio station that millions listened to.

02:04

Speaker A

This radio station played a major role in Russian journalism and Russian history in general.

02:09

Speaker A

Unfortunately, Venediktov has lately wasted all his accomplishments. On Twitter, you were a little more rude when you talked about him.

02:23

Speaker A

Recently you replied to him: "You old f\*\*k, you wasted your life, what a ridiculous scarecrow." I did.

02:32

Speaker A

Let me explain. I was sorry for some of the words I said. However, there is a reason why I wrote this.

02:44

Speaker A

He posted a picture of Navalny, of Navalny's family and his entourage, and his entourage.

02:50

Speaker A

And his family, too. Yulia was in the picture. And wrote: look at the people who sent Navalny to die.

02:58

Speaker A

This is beyond any limits. Were you sorry about being so rude? I was. I take the responsibility for what I wrote.

03:16

Speaker A

Dear friends, let me remind you once again that YouTube - and not only YouTube - is banned in Russia.

03:22

Speaker A

Please install a VPN like BlancVPN. I will leave a link in the description. With all the restrictions, we crave your support. Please like this video, subscribe to our channel, and leave a comment.

03:39

Speaker A

Thank you and have a nice watch. People say that you are obsessed with Putin.

03:46

Speaker A

Is it true? This is what Azar says. Ilya Azar interviewed me and he asked me why I was obsessed with Putin.

03:58

Speaker A

I am not obsessed. I've heard this from a dozen other people. Okay. They all know you personally.

04:09

Speaker A

I am obsessed to some extent for an obvious reason. Putin has been in power for 26 years and he is related to a lot of events that have happened in Russia and in the world.

04:22

Speaker A

It would be quite weird not to study him. Have you ever felt that you are going too far?

04:29

Speaker A

Have you felt like it's too much? Too much of Putin? Yes, too much for you.

04:35

Speaker A

I have. Currently, I want to spend less time studying Putin. Let me bring up the list of your investigations to prove my point.

04:52

Speaker A

Almost one third of investigations on Project are about Putin or his family. Putin's health, Kabayeva, Krivonogikh, Luiza Rozova, Shamalov, Katerina Tikhonova, Maria Vorontsova,

05:08

Speaker A

Niece, who is also Tsivelev's wife. Mansions in Sochi, Valdai, Novo-Ogarevo, Igora, Kremlin apartment, bodyguards.

05:20

Speaker A

There are also series of investigations about Putin. The first one is called the Iron Masks.

05:25

Speaker A

Investigation for Putin's 70th birthday, investigation on Putin's fake biography, investigation on Kabayeva's royal lifestyle.

05:34

Speaker A

Moreover, when you worked at TV Rain, you made a series about Putin's entourage in Saint Petersburg.

05:42

Speaker A

And now you've written a book about him. I guess this is enough. Isn't it?

05:50

Speaker A

Well, is there any politician in Russia worth investigating aside from Putin? If we agree that there is only one politician in Russia,

06:11

Speaker A

a politician that has any kind of political power, then it makes sense. If I'm buying a car, I'm buying a Mercedes.

06:24

Speaker A

Can you describe your attitude towards Putin? Do you dislike him? Despise him? Hate him?

06:33

Speaker A

I don't make jokes about him. A lot of people that I knew used to treat him as a dictator from a comedy film,

06:47

Speaker A

which is not true for me. He's much bigger than that. He's a smart and calculating enemy.

07:01

Speaker A

It is very personal. He took my country away from me. He took it away from my friends and colleagues.

07:08

Speaker A

He took away one of my friend's life. He is an enemy. Fort Ross, California. We're at a place that used to be Russia.

07:27

Speaker A

This place was built by Russians. It was called Russian-American Company. They sailed from Chukotka to Alaska. And then they traveled to California.

07:48

Speaker A

The most southern point of this company was Hawaii. There were Russians at Hawaii, too.

07:51

Speaker A

This is one of the few Russian forts here that made it to this day.

08:05

Speaker A

It suffered from a big fire, though. This town was built in the 19th century.

08:11

Speaker A

Does this place feel special for you? This place is windy and cloudy in winters.

08:16

Speaker A

If you enter these houses to see how Russian people lived here two hundred years ago,

08:27

Speaker A

they had no electricity, no Internet, no books, no electronic devices. There was not a lot of hope they would come back to Petersburg.

08:39

Speaker A

Other colonists were buried not far away from here. Emigration can sometimes be difficult, but these people suffered much more than we do today.

09:00

Speaker A

I realized this when I came here. Life here was hard. It can always get worse.

09:11

Speaker A

It can get much worse. Can you imagine moving here from Petersburg two hundred years ago?

09:17

Speaker A

You flew here from some city, I drove from my home. Tomorrow I'll be going to Europe.

09:27

Speaker A

These people could not travel. Thinking that other people suffer more than you doesn't always work.

09:36

Speaker A

It doesn't always help. Does it help you? I don't really struggle. It would be unfair to say that I'm suffering.

09:50

Speaker A

I'm doing much better than thousands of people. I live in a very nice place.

09:58

Speaker A

Fort Ross is not the only landmark here. I am not visiting this place to comfort myself,

10:07

Speaker A

but sometimes this is really helpful to see. What else can be helpful? It doesn't matter where you live - studying foreign languages can be very helpful.

10:19

Speaker A

We've told you about Freeda language school before. Freeda would help you learn a language.

10:26

Speaker A

Some of our viewers moved to Spain to study in Freeda. Now Freeda is launching an online course that can be helpful to people who are not planning to leave.

10:41

Speaker A

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10:50

Speaker A

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10:59

Speaker A

They have an entertaining methodology that allowed thousands of their students to learn Spanish. You can be anywhere from 0 to B2.

11:10

Speaker A

Apply via the link in the description below. If you're already in Spain and haven't learnt the language yet, it's time.

11:18

Speaker A

If you're too busy to be studying every day, Freeda offers evening classes two or three times a week.

11:25

Speaker A

It's the best way to find new friends and to finally understand what's happening at the parents' meetings.

11:31

Speaker A

Find all the details below. Let's go! Back to California. In the early 19th century, 1814, this place did not belong to the US.

11:53

Speaker A

Southern California was Spanish and Russians sailed here from Alaska. Correct me if I'm wrong.

12:01

Speaker A

Russians had no food in Alaska and we sailed to a warmer place to grow food.

12:12

Speaker A

Exactly. And they bought this land in California. I've read that they bought it for a tiny amount,

12:20

Speaker A

for some goods. They paid with matches and ropes. It's true. Russian people didn't speak the language of Native Americans.

12:32

Speaker A

California was mostly Spanish and Mexican. This was scary for Russians. This is why they built a wall.

12:42

Speaker A

They also built the towers. Some of the towers had space for cannons. I don't know if there wer

12:51

Speaker A

What was their private life like? Some of them came here with their wives.. And some of them would marry locals.

13:06

Speaker A

They wouldn't get married.. They would date local women. Yes. Not a lot of Russians could bring their wives.

13:12

Speaker A

The officers could but I'm not sure about the rest. One of the people who stayed here was a future Decembrist leader Ryleev.

13:26

Speaker A

I've heard about this. It is considered that the Decembrists were planning to send the Emperor here.

13:42

Speaker A

They didn't want to murder the royal family. Sending them to Europe would be too risky.

13:52

Speaker A

However, sending them to California would be okay. This would be our Saint Helena. This was a one-way trip for most of them.

14:02

Speaker A

How do you feel about this period from the past? Colonies, empires getting bigger.. This was a natural way to conquer land.

14:21

Speaker A

There was no other way. What Russian, American, and Spanish people did here..It was violent.

14:35

Speaker A

Their actions were cruel. We can't deny this. They always pay attention to this in their museums here.

14:47

Speaker A

If you enter the museum you would learn about the violence that Russians brought here.

14:57

Speaker A

This was the way that people conquered land. There was no other way of land development.

15:03

Speaker A

We can't be judging the events from two hundred years ago with today's morals. We condemn what happened back then but we can't judge anyone as historians.

15:18

Speaker A

I don't know if it's still a thing. It was relevant about five years ago when the US reflected on their colonial past.

15:31

Speaker A

How do you feel about this? People who were considered conquerors are now being condemned. They are even getting rid of statues.

15:41

Speaker A

As a historian, I can confirm that it has been relevant here for a few decades.

15:50

Speaker A

It was also relevant in Russia in 1990s. Revision of history? Revision of history and getting rid of statues.

15:58

Speaker A

And also renaming cities, streets, and facilities. Mostly I understand the logic behind these actions. I agree with this logic.

16:09

Speaker A

Murderers are murderers. If a murderer is dead, the only way to punish him is to erase him from history.

16:16

Speaker A

Does it makes sense? It does. As a historian, I have a rare opinion on this topic.

16:23

Speaker A

I believe that the monuments..They destroyed the statues of General Lee..And they renamed Mount McKinley into Denali..

16:40

Speaker A

We don't give these names to pay respect. We give them names to remember a historic event.

16:47

Speaker A

This is how I see it. I still say Sverdlovsk instead of Ekaterinburg. I grew up there and I had friends from Sverdlovsk.

17:04

Speaker A

I know that this name reminds us of something bad. Even though Sverdlov was quite an interesting person.

17:16

Speaker A

For me this is a phenomena from my youth. It doesn't mean that I dislike the name Ekaterinburg.

17:28

Speaker A

Are you okay with the name of Leningrad? From here it gets complicated. Let's start with Lenin. Our country was obsessed with Lenin and the statues.

17:45

Speaker A

All over the country. This was too much even back then. And then we had Molotov and Stalingrad cities while Stalin and Molotov were still alive.

18:00

Speaker A

They were just praising the dictator. Stalin is a filthy animal. We can't name a city after a person who killed so many Russians.

18:23

Speaker A

That's it. I am not okay with Stalin. So you would typically judge based on the blood on their hands.

18:35

Speaker A

I would of course take this into account. You wrote a book. I did. I didn't do it alone.

18:42

Speaker A

You wrote it with your colleague Mikhail Rubin. We did. Why did you do it?

18:46

Speaker A

I've been a reporter for 26 years. All this time Putin has been around. When I started working in 1999 he was becoming someone big.

18:56

Speaker A

I watched him come all this way. I wanted to revise everything as I remember it.

19:10

Speaker A

I wanted to find something simple and obvious that I didn't notice back then. This was the first reason why I wrote the book. I wanted to do it for myself.

19:28

Speaker A

Another reason is..We started working on the book when the new war with Ukraine began.

19:37

Speaker A

We started the book in the beginning of 2022. It wasn't really related to the war.

19:46

Speaker A

Unfortunately, a lot of things are now happening because of Putin. Wars corruption populism. We realized that it was a right moment for the book.

20:08

Speaker A

And finally, in the book we wrote about Russian media and the damage that they suffered from Putin.

20:20

Speaker A

I have wanted to write a book about Russian media for a very long time.

20:25

Speaker A

I managed to do it in one book. This book was a therapy for me.

20:36

Speaker A

Do you feel better now after writing it? I felt better after finishing the book.

20:41

Speaker A

You spoke out. Kind of. Is it right to say that this book was mainly written for foreign readers?

20:48

Speaker A

I've read about a third of the book and I haven't learnt a lot from it.

20:59

Speaker A

There are some new details in the book but in general it's a digest of the last 25 years.

21:05

Speaker A

You've been following the news a lot, I guess. There are people who don't know as much as you do.

21:14

Speaker A

Even for me a lot of stuff in the book was new. Can you bring up an example?

21:20

Speaker A

Let's talk about the events that we are both familiar with. You made a documentary about these events.

21:28

Speaker A

The terrorist attack in Beslan. In the book we talked to a person who had never talked about Beslan in public.

21:49

Speaker A

Did you mention his name in the book? We did. What's his name? We wrote about the Parliament Commission that held the investigation.

22:01

Speaker A

One of the members of the Commission was a member of United Russia, Akhmed Bilalov.

22:06

Speaker A

He's a Dagestani and that's why they included him into the commission. He was a politician loyal to Kremlin. Eventually he had to..

22:20

Speaker A

Leave Russia because of the Olympics scandal. Exactly. Years later he decided to tell us about the commission.

22:29

Speaker A

I didn't know anything about it. I understood what was its purpose.. Their only goal was to cover Putin's ass.

22:44

Speaker A

And I was curious to find out how they did it. One of the main questions about the attack is who..

22:52

Speaker A

Who fired at the school? What caused the storming. Did they storm the school to prevent negotiations with Maskhadov?

23:02

Speaker A

Yes. And the other version is that there were guns firing.. There was an explosion..

23:10

Speaker A

An explosion caused the storming. What does Bilalov believe in? He told us what the Commission did.

23:22

Speaker A

He said that the Commission didn't even investigate the Maskhadov issue. The Commission never mentioned that negotiations with Maskhadov could lead to terrorists leaving the school peacefully.

23:46

Speaker A

Bilalov believes in Saveliev's Version. He believes that the first shot was fired from the building next to the school.

24:04

Speaker A

This is the leader's house. This is written in Russian. Pardon.. Weapon room. This is the Gelendzhik Mansion of a colonizer.

24:17

Speaker A

It is also located on a cape. It makes sense. Before the drones. They had other tools and other monopolies.

24:27

Speaker A

Rake! This place didn't look like this. What do you mean? They put everything they had in this house.

24:37

Speaker A

It doesn't mean that they had rake in the room. And the roofs are made of sequoia.

24:45

Speaker A

This was very common in California. Building roofs of sequoia?? I rented my first flat in Stanford in 2017 in a house built in 1930s.

25:00

Speaker A

It was terrible but it also had a redwood roof. This is very common here.

25:12

Speaker A

It keeps the house warm. It doesn't suffer from the insects, too. Is this the leader's bedroom?

25:30

Speaker A

I don't know. We are usually staying in similar rooms in AirBnb. It can be actually smaller..

25:38

Speaker A

I mean the bed quality. Is this an original bed? Do they have strawberries here?

25:46

Speaker A

They do. Do you have strawberries here?? We do. I picked some strawberries in Palo Alto recently.

25:53

Speaker A

It's not as good as Russian, is it? It's not. Their land is not as fruitful as Russian.

25:58

Speaker A

We've just made a Reels for Russia Today. This is him and his wife. A spinning wheel.

26:08

Speaker A

And a samovar. And a book. One of the few books that they had. And the rest of them are in the other house.

26:16

Speaker A

Yes, their bookshelf is there. And the icon and a safe. They stored revenues there.

26:23

Speaker A

It's a very humble house. And they would stay here for the rest of their lives.

26:29

Speaker A

Why? Couldn't they be replaced? Some people managed to come back from Aleutian islands. This man was a big boss.

26:39

Speaker A

As far as I understand they didn't feel like they were emigrants. They worked here for their country and for their company.

26:51

Speaker A

They didn't feel like emigrants. However, there were not a lot of hopes to come back.

27:04

Speaker A

They could have fallen ill or fallen from a cliff here. Some of them never had the chance to come back to Russia.

27:13

Speaker A

There was no mail here. And the emails were very slow. This is how their privacy worked. They had huge shutters that would save them some time in case of an attack.

27:28

Speaker A

I would use them to hide from my kids. I know this feeling. You wrote a post saying that we shouldn't have praised the businessmen from the 2000s.

27:45

Speaker A

Can you explain why? I can. You can praise whoever you want.. I wrote this based on my personal experience.

28:00

Speaker A

My career started during a leap in Russian journalism that was caused by a boost in the economy.

28:11

Speaker A

Oligarchs were buying newspapers and websites.. Reporters were getting new apartments..And not only in Russia.

28:22

Speaker A

We could go to the Cannes festival for free. Were they really buying the apartments for the reporters? I've heard about the zero-per cent loans..

28:36

Speaker A

Of course, they were. NTV reporters all had new apartments. They would also get new cars..

28:44

Speaker A

As reporters we faced a era. Our job became a service. It relates not only to business and political media..

29:06

Speaker A

It relates to everyone, lifestyle and sports media, too. This all led to irreversible consequences, such as self-censorship.

29:14

Speaker A

Can you name me any sports media that investigated betting market? This market is their biggest source of income.

29:34

Speaker A

Absolutely. I feel like this market is disgusting. This is a very interesting topic for investigations.

29:47

Speaker A

This relates to all the industries. Vedomosti, Kommersant, and Forbes claimed that we had to support this new class.

30:10

Speaker A

I agree with them on an emotional level. The entrepreneurs? Yes. I agree with this. However, they gave us a bad example.

30:22

Speaker A

A couple of days ago we laughed at a picture from 2005. It is a picture of a fence of what later became the Putin's mansion.

30:43

Speaker A

In 2005 this territory of a former summer camp became private. There were posters on the fence.

30:54

Speaker A

Some of these posters said that this land was also owned by Judo club Yavara Neva, and Judo club Otechestvo.

31:05

Speaker A

These two organizations are related to Rotenberg and Putin personally. It was quite obvious even in 2005. Not in 2010, when Kolesnikov told everyone about this place.

31:26

Speaker A

I feel like we where all blinded by something. We would write about the success. And we forgot about critical thinking.

31:38

Speaker A

Sometimes we would forget about it because these people would bring us to the Cannes festival.

31:44

Speaker A

This is what I meant. Years later we see where this led us. Liza Osetinskaya said that she felt ashamed for working for these people.

32:00

Speaker A

I agree with her. I am ashamed of people that I portrayed as heroes. I don't want to bring up any names..Some people went to prison..

32:17

Speaker A

Then they left Russia being broke..They tried to find a new home.. They are still fighting Putin. They don't have any money. Some of them have cancer.

32:32

Speaker A

They are trying to survive in Lithuania or Latvia, no disrespect to these countries. And these people are not scared. While the wealthy people who can afford a dozen bodyguards don't fight Putin.

32:49

Speaker A

They'd say that they are responsible for thousands of people working in their companies and their counterparties.

32:59

Speaker A

While some people who don't have their wealth are not scared. All the businessmen are pussies.

33:09

Speaker A

Can we judge people for being scared? You called them pussies. Can we judge people for their fears?

33:18

Speaker A

If you run away from a criminal in the streets we wouldn't judge you. If you build your wealth in Russia from the privatization and so on..

33:37

Speaker A

We can judge them. It's a bell. Made in Saint Petersburg factory of a merchant Mikhail Makarov-Stukolkin.

33:55

Speaker A

Made in Saint Petersburg and I can ring it. Can I? You can, you are a guest.

34:05

Speaker A

Oh..I'm so dumb. Not strong enough. Lunch time. I didn't mean to be so loud.

34:21

Speaker A

It's so loud. Oh..Let's go. We've got to run. We were having breakfast in a diner today and there was an elderly couple sitting next to us.

34:41

Speaker A

The woman asked us if we were Russian. And then she said Gospodi Pomilui (Lord have mercy).

34:59

Speaker A

She used to sing in a Russian church even though she is catholic. This is what makes California a beautiful place.

35:12

Speaker A

There could be Krishnaites, Amish people, and so on. Local culture is made of various pieces of fabric.

35:22

Speaker A

In your book you spoke a lot about the church. The book starts with religion.

35:27

Speaker A

Why? Look at him. This has been the most important value for him for some time.

35:36

Speaker A

Talking about faith and God. We wrote about faith and loyalty. Putin believes in God and Putin's friends are loyal to Putin.

35:56

Speaker A

This is very important for him and we started the book with this topic. You claimed that Russian patriarchs Alexei and Kirill were both KGB agents.

36:07

Speaker A

We wrote that they were exposed. It can't be proven until the reporters see the archives.

36:18

Speaker A

This is what I'm asking you about. You claim that this is a fact but is there any actual proof?

36:32

Speaker A

A lot of things can not be proven for 100% until we get access to the archives, which I hope we some day will.

36:44

Speaker A

It is not only related to Alexei and Kirill. It is proven with a different level of confidence.

36:53

Speaker A

We are quite sure about Alexei because he spent some time in the Baltics. From their archives we know this information about him.

37:06

Speaker A

He used to live in Tallinn. He was coming from Estonia. And we know that when Kirill was a Soviet priest, which sounds quite weird..

37:23

Speaker A

He worked abroad. He used to serve in Geneva, I guess. Swiss reporters studied him and came to a conclusion that he was an agent.

37:46

Speaker A

And now we can apply the logic of the Soviet Union. These two people built their careers abroad working with real estate.

38:00

Speaker A

Such issues were always curated by KGB. It is obvious that they cooperated with KGB.

38:14

Speaker A

There is a river called Russian river next to Fort Ross. It used to be called Slavyanka.

38:21

Speaker A

There is also a winery called Russian river. George Lucas famously lives by this river.

38:35

Speaker A

He does. And there is a town called Sebastopol. With a B. Yes. This town is not related to Russia. It was named this way accidentally.

38:49

Speaker A

A big street fight happened there in the middle of the 19th century.. At the same time the Crimean war and the siege of Sevastopol were happening.

39:07

Speaker A

So they called the place of this brawl after another fight that was going on at the same time - Sebastopol.

39:18

Speaker A

They have a very good apple festival every September. Cider, apples, apple pies.. Do they make cider, too?

39:30

Speaker A

They do. Roma, while we were editing this video a lot of stuff has happened related to your object of interest.

39:51

Speaker A

We have called you again to ask you a couple of questions about it. The meeting in Alaska - how do you see it?

40:01

Speaker A

I feel like Putin has won. He has defeated his own insecurities. He's ended a trend. He's got rid of isolation.

40:17

Speaker A

This meeting served no other purpose. This is what I think. Is this a win?

40:22

Speaker A

Every win is relative..Relative to the situation that Putin had been in for the last three years this is a win.

40:31

Speaker A

He's managed to visit another country and not face any consequences. He's meet the leader of the biggest and most powerful country.

40:41

Speaker A

The biggest in terms of economy. They shook hands and laughed. He even had some cultural events before flying back.

40:51

Speaker A

People like talking about small details of such meetings. From the red carpet to the bodyguards.

41:01

Speaker A

When you were following Putin have you noticed anything unusual about such details? It's a great question. When we were studying Putin we watched a lot of this shit.

41:23

Speaker A

Sometimes too much. In the book there is a famous picture of Putin, Dyumin, and Zolotov at the funeral of Sobchak in February of 2000.

41:39

Speaker A

This picture is very funny, even though it was made at a funeral. It's been 25 years already.

41:48

Speaker A

Zolotov is wearing sunglasses. He's standing right behind Putin. February in Saint Petersburg is very grey and cloudy.

42:00

Speaker A

The whole city is grey in February and Zolotov put on sunglasses. It is never sunny in Saint Petersburg.

42:04

Speaker A

People say that Zolotov considers himself a James Bond. We talked about this in the book.

42:12

Speaker A

Dyumin tried to stay as close to his boss as possible. And he put his foot on a grave.

42:23

Speaker A

He stepped on the grave. The place was too packed and he needed to stay close to his boss as a bodyguard.

42:37

Speaker A

What do you think about the state that reporting is in currently? Worldwide, not only Russian reporting.

42:50

Speaker A

These two are different. Russian reporting is in a different state from the rest of the world.

42:58

Speaker A

There are common problems and there are local problems. We are now facing a lot of global challenges. Starting from AI and ending with a traditional challenge called political bias.

43:14

Speaker A

For obvious reasons such as Tramp, Netanyahu, Hamas, and so on this challenge has become even more relevant.

43:28

Speaker A

You said: What is going on? The Economist writes about Putin's 'mother' in Georgia.. The Observer writes that killing is a part of Russian culture.

43:38

Speaker A

What about Jews and Gypsies? Putin can already proud of the results of this war.

43:44

Speaker A

This is one of your quotes. At the same time Daily Beast, which is far from being rubbish wrote an article about Russian feminist Darya Serenko.

43:55

Speaker A

They called her Putin's Biggest Enemy. She felt so embarrassed that she wrote a letter to the reporter asking her why she did this.

44:13

Speaker A

They made her look stupid. You also blamed Forbes and European politicians for protecting oligarch Berezkin.

44:23

Speaker A

We used to believe that the journalist standards existed in these countries. From these cases it looks like there are no standards.

44:38

Speaker A

I agree. When the world is so polarized the media becomes polarized, too. There are 'us' and 'them'.

44:48

Speaker A

The media is always trying to report an exclusive. They are competing with each other.

44:56

Speaker A

This is where click bait comes from. Social networks have made this problem much worse.

45:09

Speaker A

Do you remember where the social networks started from? It was a major breakthrough in communication.

45:19

Speaker A

People could share each others' interests, including the media. We were vey happy to have a new channel of distribution.

45:31

Speaker A

Facebook, Twitter, and so on. And here we are in 2025. Are we in the same spot as we were ten years ago?

45:40

Speaker A

No, it's all about the money now. They are showing you a lot of ads among the cats in your feed.

45:49

Speaker A

The socials are no longer a bridge between the media and the people. I'm talking about Facebook and Twitter.

46:02

Speaker A

The media came back to their old tools, such as clickbait - misleading headlines. Has reporting merged with activism?

46:15

Speaker A

They have become closer. Is this good or bad? It seems like it's inevitable. It's time to repent. I feel this in my work, too.

46:29

Speaker A

It makes me regret later when I don't notice this. It happens a lot and not only in Russia.

46:41

Speaker A

This is your quote on Yulia Navalnaya: Yulia, you are amazing and you are going to defeat this scum. We are going to help you.

46:48

Speaker A

Is this an activist's quote? Or a reporter's? Let me tell you something personal. I wrote this when Alexei got killed and Yulia said she would continue his work.

47:08

Speaker A

Nine days after his funeral my family had dinner together with Yulia and Dasha, and another family of our friends.

47:23

Speaker A

This was a very hard day for us. I got drunk. I was looking at Alexei's daughter Dasha..My daughter was also in the room.

47:44

Speaker A

Fathers and daughters always have a special bond. I don't know why. When I come home late and I don't hug my daughter before she goes to bed I can't fall asleep.

48:06

Speaker A

I don't think that Alexei was different from me in this sense. They put him in prison so that he couldn't see his daughter grow.

48:23

Speaker A

And then they killed him so that he would never see her again. I still remember looking at his daughter next to mine.

48:41

Speaker A

Yura, this is very personal to me. I have no problem with this. You asked me if this is activism. Yes, it is.

48:56

Speaker A

We have to share what they did to him. We have to take revenge. If this is activism - okay.

49:04

Speaker A

I didn't say anything about your feelings. It's fine. I know what you feel. I feel the same way about a lot of things that you say.

49:21

Speaker A

Even though I was not a friend of Yulia or Alexei. I admire Alexei a lot.

49:29

Speaker A

Yura, I just wanted to explain.. My question is: doesn't your activism damage your work?

49:38

Speaker A

You are an investigator, not a YouTuber. Your job is not about opinions but about facts and cold calculation.

49:51

Speaker A

Yes - sometimes I feel like our opinion gets in the way, but not in this case.

50:00

Speaker A

I am sorry about it. I don't want this to happen. If we are talking about the investigation of the assassination of Navalny..

50:09

Speaker A

This is my revenge. You can call this activism. This is revenge. What is your opinion on Trump. You wrote a thread on Twitter that starts with 'Trump is an idiot'.

50:27

Speaker A

Did I? This is true. He's narcissistic. He's a great showman. His talent allowed him to become the president.

50:45

Speaker A

He's a pop-star. Everything he does should be seen from this angle. Look at his team. He picked most of them because they had a big audience.

51:11

Speaker A

They all look good and speak good. This is how he picked them. Look at the women in his team.

51:22

Speaker A

They look like soap opera stars. They all have a big audience. Kristi Noem wearing tight underwear in a prison in Salvador.

51:36

Speaker A

Standing in front of thousands of prisoners in handcuffs. Isn't this all a show? Trump's a showman.

51:45

Speaker A

And people like it. I am quite sure that Trump is going to fail as a president.

52:01

Speaker A

I am not sure if he's going to fail like a showman-president. This is the big question.

52:19

Speaker A

If he doesn't fail as a showman we are going to have another showman-president next.

52:25

Speaker A

I don't know who is it going to be. Don't you like a showman-president? I don't have any problems with it if there is something behind this image.

52:33

Speaker A

I like showmen. I would like to go to Las Vegas to see Donald Trump's show.

52:42

Speaker A

It would be fun. Is there anything behind Zelensky's image? I think so. Zelensky is now in an extremely challenging situation.

52:57

Speaker A

When he was elected there was no war in his country. He wasn't ready for the war.

53:04

Speaker A

There was a war..It wasn't as big though. He faced a massive challenge that changed him a lot. There is a lot of meaning behind him now.

53:15

Speaker A

There is a lot of showmanship in Ukraine, too. Including Zelensky. However, he is fighting for his country and his people.

53:34

Speaker A

I don't feel like Trump has any purpose other than ratings. Let's imagine that Trump puts this war to end.

53:46

Speaker A

Would it make you change your opinion on him? It wouldn't. I would not mind if he did this.

53:56

Speaker A

Well..the war.. If he happens to put this war to end.. I would thank him for that.

54:19

Speaker A

I'm one of those people who support ending the war as soon as possible. How did living in the US change you?

54:29

Speaker A

I'm still changing. I don't know.. I didn't plan to move here. I had ties with California because I spent two years in Stanford.

54:48

Speaker A

When Project was announced undesirable I had to leave Russia immediately. I got an offer from Stanford. In some sense it was an accident.

55:01

Speaker A

At the same time it was a conscious decision. One of the biggest problems in Russia is paternalism.

55:14

Speaker A

We rely on the government too much. We feel like they owe us a lot.

55:22

Speaker A

We rely on other people and our employers. America is extremely different in this sense.

55:27

Speaker A

America is far from being paternalistic. It's a radical change. It is. Have you had any problems with it?

55:38

Speaker A

Did you face it when you filing your tax report? This is an obvious example. I can give you another one.

55:45

Speaker A

Early in the morning I'm writing the book at home. And then I hear my family members asking me where's the water.

55:57

Speaker A

I come to the sink and see that there's no water. There is no water in the toilet bowl.

56:07

Speaker A

We leave the home and see some service shutting down the water and putting up a sign saying 'you can no longer have water supply' You forgot to pay.

56:22

Speaker A

I will explain. I always pay for all the services. I am paying for them online.

56:32

Speaker A

It turned out that the company that supplies water had moved to another website. And I didn't see any notifications from them.

56:50

Speaker A

I wasn't receiving the bills for a few months and I didn't even notice. It was my fault. We had to spend the whole day without the water.

57:08

Speaker A

I had to go to their office to pay for my bills. This is how everything works here.

57:20

Speaker A

Do you care about being independent? Separate from everyone. I hope that I've been independent since I was 16.

57:30

Speaker A

It is obvious that I have this flaw as well as many other Russians. I want to get rid of it.

57:43

Speaker A

Even though I often want to have a nanny. This is a quote from Grossman, I guess.

57:59

Speaker A

This was a speech from one of his characters. The events in the book were happening in 1930s, during Stalin's era.

58:09

Speaker A

'Can you imagine if there was actually some information in the newspapers?' 'How many people got hit by a train, what is the crop failure in Kursk, what happened at the latest plenum' 'Can you imagine coming to a library where you can read any book?'

58:27

Speaker A

'When will we finally get to live without a nanny?' It resonates with me. I don't want to have a nanny.

58:38

Speaker A

One of my colleagues who is also a reporter is very concerned about the global problems of reporting.

58:50

Speaker A

Let me read what he wrote to me. 'I can't be sure about anything in the world where there is no trust in media' 'Any proof can be faked by the governments.' 'Social networks create echo chambers where people don't hear the obvious things'

59:14

Speaker A

'I used to trust New York Times, ACF, Medusa' 'I can no longer trust them. We live in the world of opinions, not facts' Does this ring a bell for you?

59:32

Speaker A

It does..Before coming here today I read the investigation by New York Times. They claimed that Netanyahu refused to stop the military operation in Gaza for political reasons.

59:54

Speaker A

His ratings were going down, the coalition was on the verge of collapsing. This is an amazing investigation. Tailored with facts.

60:09

Speaker A

I can't imagine doing such work in Russia. They reported on every minute of every meeting of Israeli officials and their decision-making process.

60:22

Speaker A

Reporting is not dead while there are investigations like this one. It is still possible.

60:32

Speaker A

But I have to agree with your friend that this is becoming a bigger problem now.

60:48

Speaker A

I would like to talk to you about the investigations of Project and how you learn about some of the stuff.

60:54

Speaker A

The investigation on Ramzan Kadyrov got over twenty million views on YouTube. Yes. You claimed that one of his enemy was fed to the lions.

61:08

Speaker A

How did you prove this fact? We didn't put it this way. 'Kadyrov would eventually murder this strong man from his entourage' 'In 2009, according to Chechen bloggers, he got killed by a lion. It sounds crazy but it's true'

61:28

Speaker A

It's true considering.. 'Kadyrov got rid of this man's brother and it's easy to believe that he fed him to the lions' 'Kadyrov, being a dictator, has a private zoo with exotic animals' 'Chechen bloggers wrote that Mamak's brother Akhmet was beheaded..'

61:47

Speaker A

'However they brought up a picture from a prison in Venezuela as a proof of beheading' When we don't have any proof we can only write this based on our sources.

62:07

Speaker A

We mentioned the publication that shared this lion story. It's a real publication from the Chechen opposition.

62:15

Speaker A

Why do you unconditionally trust them? I don't trust them unconditionally. I wouldn't have mentioned them otherwise.

62:28

Speaker A

How sure are you about this fact? About a lion eating this man? Yes. As anything related to Kadyrov, this is very interesting.

62:46

Speaker A

Initially I would not believe in a lot of things that I had heard about him.

62:52

Speaker A

To say the least, we underestimate this person. He's violent. After learning about other acts of his violence I changed my attitude towards this investigation.

63:14

Speaker A

What we found impossible was possible. This is the conclusion that I came to. Let's bring up another fact from the investigation.

63:26

Speaker A

You wrote about the assassination of Kadyrov's ex-girlfriend. And the joy that he felt. This information is based on a person that knows Kadyrov.

63:37

Speaker A

'According to a person who knew Kadyrov, he was happy to hear that the girl died' 'This person told us that Zhanetta was pregnant when she died' We are 100% sure about this fact.

63:51

Speaker A

Are you also sure about how Kadyrov felt? Are you sure he was happy? Do you have enough proof of that?

64:05

Speaker A

We do. It happened in a meeting between three people. One of them told us this story.

64:14

Speaker A

Are you sure that this person was there? I am absolutely sure. I'm asking you about these details because..

64:22

Speaker A

You are doing the right thing. I had a similar feeling when I was reading your book.

64:33

Speaker A

Are these all proven facts or also events that could have happened based on the reputation of the character?

64:50

Speaker A

Not really. There are proven facts and there are interpretations that some people shared with us.

64:57

Speaker A

There is always interpretation in what people say. We mentioned it in the introduction to the book.

65:09

Speaker A

We said that some of the memories can be distorted. You mentioned that Sechin would let Putin have dates in his apartment.

65:20

Speaker A

This fact is also based on one of your sources. You didn't mention this source but you are sure that this is true.

65:27

Speaker A

I know. Did this source work with Sechin and Putin? Probably. Did he tell you that Sechin's wife shared this with Putin's wife?

65:41

Speaker A

Yes. And you are sure about it. I am sure about the fact of infidelity and about the conflict.

65:52

Speaker A

How sure are you about Putin bathing in deer antlers? We said that Russian politicians including Putin, Shoigu, and Miller take such baths.

66:06

Speaker A

I'm sure about this. You mentioned 'Putin's acquaintance' as one of your sources. We did.

66:13

Speaker A

A person who knows Putin was willing to share some facts about him with a media that hates Putin?

66:24

Speaker A

I can only nod my head. The number of such anonymous sources have been growing lately.

66:35

Speaker A

Do you have such sources? We do. There's not a lot of them. We've got to understand that there are imposters among them.

66:53

Speaker A

This is one of our problems as Russian reporters. You blamed Medusa and Pertsev for their insiders.

67:07

Speaker A

You even published an article about this. We didn't only talk about Pertsev in the article.

67:11

Speaker A

This article says that Medusa is publishing a lot of rumors from Kremlin and most of these rumors are false.

67:32

Speaker A

You were implying that the sources would share the wrong information on purpose. Or these sources don't actually possess the actual information.

67:47

Speaker A

Is it possible that your source are similar to them? There is always a risk. We are working hard to avoid this.

67:59

Speaker A

This might still happen in current circumstances. You know what I mean. I do. We're far from Russia and we are dangerous to them.

68:14

Speaker A

Our sources are not very reliable. Why would real sources risk so much and share anything?

68:27

Speaker A

It depends on the person. If we're talking about people who have left Russia but still choose to stay anonymous..

68:36

Speaker A

This is the majority of our sources. They don't want to risk their lives even though they've left the country.

68:44

Speaker A

They are sharing this information because they do not support Putin. We still have some insiders from the system.

68:55

Speaker A

It's very complicated. One of their motivations is the red folder. People in the system are fighting each other. They are fighting their rivals.

69:15

Speaker A

They would use Project to fight their rivals. They would. This doesn't mean that we are following the same goals.

69:26

Speaker A

Some of them are experienced enough to have a lot of connections. Do you consider yourself a patriot of Russia?

69:40

Speaker A

I do. I really do. A lot of people wouldn't believe me. Can you explain?

69:48

Speaker A

Why are you a patriot? Why am I a patriot? I dream about Russia a lot.

69:57

Speaker A

I want to come back. Do you dream of home? I do. Three days ago I dreamt of Kurgan, my hometown.

70:07

Speaker A

When I woke up I couldn't remember what I saw in the dream. I spent the whole day trying to remember it.

70:15

Speaker A

It must have been some crazy shit. As usual. Do you have good dreams about Russia?

70:23

Speaker A

Not always. I've met people who have dreams about going to prison in Russia. And these people are patriots.

70:54

Speaker A

I had a dream where they were driving me to Chechnya. Were you scared to release an investigation on Ramzan Kadyrov?

71:05

Speaker A

To some extent. It's been quite a while..This wasn't our first investigation about him. Project released three investigations on Kadyrov while we were still in Russia.

71:24

Speaker A

The first one was about him making money by stealing businesses. We told about Delimkhanov and his dirty work.

71:34

Speaker A

When we released the investigation..I lived next to Bitsevsky park in Moscow. I love this place. I would walk in the park every morning.

71:45

Speaker A

We released the investigation and I went for a walk in the park. When I left the park I saw a message from my colleague 'this is brave' It's nice to hear but I didn't' feel that way.

72:07

Speaker A

I realized this only when we left Russia. I realized that we were doing something very dangerous.

72:18

Speaker A

I wasn't too scared to release the latest investigation. I worried about the reception that it would have.

72:29

Speaker A

A three-hour documentary was a new format for us. This is what I worried about.

72:37

Speaker A

I wasn't too scared. We had a meeting with my colleagues, who live all over the world.

72:50

Speaker A

Some of them live closer to Russia than you. Presumably. Luckily, we don't know which country is more dangerous to be in.

73:00

Speaker A

At the meeting we all agreed to do it. Agreed to do what? Agreed to release the video.

73:08

Speaker A

Putin considers peace in Chechnya to be an accomplishment, despite the price. Do you think that it's an accomplishment?

73:17

Speaker A

Peace is always better than war. Until 2007 Kremlin had a lot of chances to do it differently.

73:35

Speaker A

How exactly? They could have allowed political competition in Chechnya They could have encouraged it.

73:42

Speaker A

They shouldn't have ignored the crimes. It became a vicious circle. After ignoring the first crimes they couldn't prevent new crimes from happening.

73:51

Speaker A

When Kadyrov murdered his opponent they could have stopped him. It's too late now because Kremlin is an accomplice now.

74:04

Speaker A

Back then there had an opportunity to stop him. We can't talk about Chechnya separately from Russia..

74:12

Speaker A

The same stuff was happening in Russia. Peace is definitely better than war. What do you think is going to happen once Kadyrov is no longer at power?

74:26

Speaker A

Kadyrov is going to lose his power once Putin loses his power. It doesn't matter if he dies or retires..

74:33

Speaker A

These two are connected. Kadyrov's family is tied to Putin. Chechnya is a part of Russia.

74:45

Speaker A

Kadyrov family is going to lose their power once Putin's family lose their power. Is Adam Kadyrov the next head of Chechnya?

74:52

Speaker A

This is what most of our sources believe. He is closer to it than the other kids.

74:59

Speaker A

According to law, no person below 30 can become a head of a Russian region.

75:12

Speaker A

In the nearest future someone else is going to be the head of Chechnya. Adam Delimkhanov. In the last three years Kadyrov has made everyone marry each other.

75:27

Speaker A

Three out of four biggest families in Chechnya are now all connected. Delimkhanov, Kadyrov, and Geremeev families are all connected now.

75:38

Speaker A

Daudov is the only single man there. They are doing it for the safety of the next leader.

75:49

Speaker A

Do you have any information on Kadyrov's health? I don't. Apart from what we mentioned in the investigation..

75:59

Speaker A

We said that he had got problems with his kidneys that he managed to resolve.

76:03

Speaker A

I have noticed two things when we were making the film. The first is: one of our sources told us about something that happened a few times.

76:21

Speaker A

Ramzan Kadyrov asked one of his wives to call one of his rivals and talk to them.

76:41

Speaker A

He would sit next to her and listen to the conversation. He was paranoid. He wanted to find out what others thought about life in Chechnya.

76:55

Speaker A

Sometimes he would interrupt. Sometimes he wouldn't. He likes to challenge others and look at their reaction.

77:08

Speaker A

I believe that he likes all the rumors around his health. He likes to come out looking healthy and young. He's done it twice already.

77:22

Speaker A

Health is one of the most private topics. When people tell me that he's got pancreatic necrosis..

77:35

Speaker A

I doubt it. Is Putin a patriot of Russia? I think that sometimes he thinks so.

77:49

Speaker A

We don't know if he's capable of being honest to himself. Can liars be honest with themselves?

78:08

Speaker A

I'm not sure about it. This is a very rare skill. By nature we don't like asking ourselves honest questions.

78:17

Speaker A

By nature? To prevent us from dying out. A lot of people tend to damage themselves.

78:23

Speaker A

They do. This is why mental health is such a big problem nowadays. People have finally realized that they are harming themselves.

78:33

Speaker A

This is a very important experience for everyone. Sometimes we've got to be honest to ourselves.

78:40

Speaker A

Even though it might not feel very nice. I can't say that I'm good at it.

78:47

Speaker A

Putin is a very big liar. He doesn't lie about doing the dishes. His lies are much bigger than that.

79:01

Speaker A

Can he be honest with himself? If he does and then continues to lie - things are really bad.

79:10

Speaker A

Are there any signs that there is more censorship now with Trump? Do you feel it?

79:23

Speaker A

This is true. It's very much real. Big American businesses are now playing the same game that Russian businesses used to play. It is called flashy loyalty.

79:47

Speaker A

American businesses are not only CostCo, Walmart but the media, too. Bezos owns the biggest online company and he also owns Washington Post.

80:08

Speaker A

You must have heard about all the Washington Post scandals during the elections campaign. Bezos and his media managers chose to be more careful with politics.

80:26

Speaker A

This is what was happening in Russia in the early 2000s. Mask is another example of that.

80:37

Speaker A

Facebook is now staying out of politics. Another obvious example. The Paramount deal created a danger for CBS.

80:55

Speaker A

CBS can lose a big chunk of their company from this merger. This is a reality.

81:01

Speaker A

Russian emigrants are now discovering a lot of things. When we lived in Russia we believed that everything was different in the West.

81:18

Speaker A

I don't want to say that we were stupid. But when you don't know something very well you believe that they have some principles and standards..

81:32

Speaker A

And then we faced the harsh reality. It turns out that local media are not rushing to the barricades.

81:43

Speaker A

Another thing that I discovered in the last couple of years.. I was shocked to see people who ran from Putin's boot willing to find another boot to kiss.

82:08

Speaker A

In different forms. We need an example. I can explain. Some of my friends and colleagues stood for the idea that not all Russians are to blame for Putin.

82:25

Speaker A

It's true, isn't it? Some people blamed all the Russians for Putin. They blamed us for electing him and then for not protesting enough.

82:35

Speaker A

So what did your colleagues do? Did they agree? Let me explain. They said that Russians were not responsible for not throwing Putin off.

82:48

Speaker A

I share these principles. But now a lot of them say that Hamas and arabs are the same thing.

83:01

Speaker A

They say that arabs elected Hamas and that they don't deserve to eat now because Hamas is evil.

83:14

Speaker A

Another example. A lot of my colleagues used to believe that any secret services were mean.

83:26

Speaker A

They would never cooperate with FSB. But now they are cooperating with Ukrainian intelligence. Kirill Budanov and all this sh...

83:43

Speaker A

All the secret services are bad. This is one of the things that I learnt in the emigration.

83:51

Speaker A

We're facing the same problems here. Who is funding Project? We don't have a lot of funds..

84:01

Speaker A

We're being funded by donations. 10% of them are individual donors. And 90% of them are institutional organizations.

84:18

Speaker A

What kind of organizations? I can't tell you the names. I'm not trying to be mysterious. I don't want these people to get arrested.

84:27

Speaker A

These organizations either support the democracies or support the reporters. When it comes to Russia most of them support democracies, unfortunately.

84:40

Speaker A

In America it's the opposite. What is the difference? Does the first type of organization have a political bias?

84:51

Speaker A

No, they are funded by the governments. Organizations that aim to introduce political reforms in Russia are good but they are funded by certain states.

85:08

Speaker A

The EU, the US, Canada, Australia, and so on. If we talk about supporting reporters, most of these foundations are private.

85:19

Speaker A

Sandler family created ProPublica. Or Knight Foundation, that supports reporting in the US. And many other private organizations.

85:32

Speaker A

This is the biggest difference between the two. After working with both types for a long time..

85:46

Speaker A

I worked in Stanford and I was getting paid by Knight Foundation. Project is being funded by some political organizations.

85:56

Speaker A

After working with both types I realized that they are the same in terms of methods.

86:03

Speaker A

None of them break the rules of cooperation. They are not asking for anything in exchange for their money.

86:15

Speaker A

They are paying for our reputation. If we care about it, we are going to work well.

86:21

Speaker A

And we would stay independent. If we stop being independent and ruin our reputation we are not going to get any more money.

86:29

Speaker A

How does this work? Is there any KPI that they are tracking? I don't know how it works in general..

86:40

Speaker A

Tell me about yourself. We don't have any KPIs. I have heard that they have some requirements..

86:53

Speaker A

On daily views.. This is fine. I've heard that would interfere into the policy of the media.

87:03

Speaker A

Wouldn't they? This is nonsense. It's a red flag. I've never faced this. I would never imagine hearing this from my donors.

87:19

Speaker A

This violates the basic principle. However, it's now changing because of Trump. This was one of his first policies.

87:38

Speaker A

He required the organizations that received government money, such as USAid, to give them a guarantee..

87:57

Speaker A

A guarantee saying that their actions would follow the interests of the US. Oh.. This is unimaginable. And this is considered a crime for a person who signs this guarantee.

88:17

Speaker A

Think of an organization that saves Russians from mobilization. Imagine that they are funded by USAid.

88:33

Speaker A

And USAid requires them to sign this paper.. This is treason. It is treason. Can you investigate Ursula Von Der Leyen's corruption using money given by the EU foundations?

88:51

Speaker A

Can we? Yes, for example. Do we have any limitations? Are you funded by any EU organizations?

89:01

Speaker A

Of course, we are. Okay, these foundations receive money from the EU government. They give you money to do your job.

89:09

Speaker A

Can you investigate Ursula Von Der Leyen? There are no such limitations. We are not investigating on her for another reason.

89:25

Speaker A

Why don't you do it? This is not what we do. This is not what you do. Imagine that one of your reporters..

89:36

Speaker A

What if we find out that a European authority.. Sends weapons to Russia. Yummy. Would you publish this investigation?

89:48

Speaker A

We would What if it's Ursula Von Der Leyen? What if it's a top level authority?

89:53

Speaker A

It makes the investigation hotter. And you would have no problems with publishing this. No.

90:00

Speaker A

In your book Mikhail Rubin described a meeting of editors in the president's administration. And Timur Prokopenko offered him an envelope to thank him.

90:21

Speaker A

They offered him a bribe. They had nothing to thank him for. It was an offer.

90:30

Speaker A

It was an offer. He said that he denied this envelope even though he was really curious how much they offered.

90:38

Speaker A

He also said that he got an offer from a government media. They told him that they would not betray him.

90:50

Speaker A

If you want a Lamborghini - you'll get one. Was this one of Chemezov's media?

90:57

Speaker A

It wasn't. I guess, it was Kostin's media. Kostin was about to launch a new media.

91:10

Speaker A

Have you ever had to do something unusual when you were talking to a source?

91:19

Speaker A

Can you drink with your sources or bribe them? Do you need to pay them for the information?

91:30

Speaker A

I've never paid them anything. You are asking me if there's a line that I can't cross.

91:41

Speaker A

Yes. There is a line. I am not paying for the information. If we are talking about more than 50$..

91:53

Speaker A

Paying for them during a lunch is about 50$. Is this the rule in Project?

92:04

Speaker A

Yes, it's the rule. It's quite common. When I worked for Forbes Alisher Usmanov gave us one of his only two interviews.

92:23

Speaker A

A week after the interview a courier brought the interviewer a Hermes-Birkin purse. This purse was worth about 30 thousand dollars.

92:45

Speaker A

It wasn't the most expensive one but it wasn't the cheapest. We held a meeting..It cost a little more than 50$.

92:58

Speaker A

We had to decide what to do. How can we send it back and keep the interview?

93:14

Speaker A

The interview wasn't out yet. It wasn't out. I might be wrong.. We sent the interviewer to him to explain to him that she couldn't have the purse.

93:32

Speaker A

'We can't be mad at you mr Usmanov because you don't know our rules' 'Next time please don't try to bribe us' I've had similar conversations, too.

93:49

Speaker A

One of our sources invited me on a trip across the Caribbean. He wanted to meet me there.

93:59

Speaker A

You didn't go. I paid for the trip. Our company paid for this trip. You paid for the flight to Saint Bar?

94:05

Speaker A

They wouldn't let me in Saint Bar. I flew to another island. Our job is not the cheapest one.

94:16

Speaker A

Was it worth it? Very much. Was this a source for the book or something else?

94:22

Speaker A

For the book and for the articles that will come out soon. I've mentioned this person in the book.

94:34

Speaker A

This conversation was quite funny. He told us about some things..And he used the word 'give' a lot.

94:54

Speaker A

It always meant to bribe someone. It doesn't sound funny now but it was very funny when he said it.

95:10

Speaker A

We gave him..We gave her, too. I started counting how many bribes he gave.. There were almost fifty bribes that he mentioned in a brief conversation.

95:26

Speaker A

The new articles..Are these about Putin? The new ones? Yes, that will come out soon.

95:31

Speaker A

No. Wow. Sometimes our articles are not about Putin. You write a lot about media and funding media.

95:41

Speaker A

Here are some of your quotes. When Radio Svododa fired their employees and we found out about their budget..

95:48

Speaker A

BBC was going to cut 130 employees to save six million pounds per year. You wrote: 'They could save seven million dollars by cutting these people and the readers wouldn't even notice' 'I've got to tell my employees' When Radio Svoboda was planning to launch a TV channel with celebrities like Maxim Galkin you wrote:

96:23

Speaker A

'How can we keep spending millions of dollars with low effectiveness' When Vot-Vot TV Channel launched anti-colonial cooking show you wrote: 'Finally! Hipsters have found a way to waste the American taxpayers money' Let's keep the idea of an anti-colonial cooking show aside.

96:56

Speaker A

What about the rest of their content? They had some online concerts.. I liked their music shows. I liked how they filmed these and supported artists who left Russia.

97:13

Speaker A

Do American taxpayers actually care where their money goes: on investigating Kadyrov or on anti-colonial cooking shows?

97:24

Speaker A

I'm one of them. I care. I'm an American taxpayer. This is why I wrote these publications.

97:33

Speaker A

You're paying your taxes from the income that you also get from American taxes. As well as half of the people here.

97:43

Speaker A

Americans still care about where their taxes go. People care a lot. It doesn't mean that they follow Vot-Vot or Golos Ameriki..

98:09

Speaker A

Or Radio Svoboda. Let's be clear. Government organizations are always less effective than private or even non-profit organizations.

98:21

Speaker A

Any big organization is less effective than a small one. We've been following Golos Ameriki and Radio Svoboda for a long time.

98:36

Speaker A

If the answer is no than they shouldn't be spending money on them. Why would American taxpayers fund Russian media?

98:51

Speaker A

I can only speak for myself as a taxpayer. A lot of people in America think that they shouldn't.

99:00

Speaker A

I believe we should but we've got to do it effectively. Why? Because America is still an example of democracy in everyday lives.

99:18

Speaker A

At least when it comes to media and human rights. It's an example worth sharing.

99:26

Speaker A

It is also beneficial for the US. The more people follow your rules, the better it is for you.

99:37

Speaker A

You published an investigation that Novaya Gazeta was funded by Sergei Chemezov's companies. By Adoniev's companies. Adoniev is a ..

99:48

Speaker A

A businessman close to Chemezov. He owns his wealth to Chemezov. How do you feel about Novaya Gazeta being funded by such people?

100:01

Speaker A

They used to be funded by them. Yes. I don't like it. But I get it.

100:11

Speaker A

It was a sensitive topic for me, too. I talked to Dmitry Muratov. This was the inevitable evil for them.

100:23

Speaker A

They accepted it. They didn't have a lot of choices. But I can't say they had no choice.

100:30

Speaker A

They wanted to remain independent as they were in the 1990s. They were a unique group of journalists.

100:41

Speaker A

They have done a lot. In the article we wrote about donations that they were receiving.

100:52

Speaker A

At some point they almost went broke. They were facing very big challenges. They decided to save the company whatever it took.

101:11

Speaker A

They agreed to receive the money from Chemezov through Adoniev. Did they have any other choice? I believe that there is always a choice.

101:22

Speaker A

They could have cut some costs. They could get rid of the newspaper. It is a very painful process. They chose to leave everything as it was.

101:37

Speaker A

I wouldn't like to be in Muratov's shoes. I don't think I would have done the same.

101:46

Speaker A

Why Novaya Gazeta being funded by Chemezov is not okay while RBK being funded by Prokhorov was okay for you?

102:00

Speaker A

First of all, it was public information that Prokhorov owned RBK. This is different. This is very different.

102:09

Speaker A

It's not about the money. It's about what they write on the envelope. In the article we mentioned the restrictions that Novaya Gazeta faced.

102:21

Speaker A

They believed that these restrictions were not too broad, but still - there were restrictions.

102:24

Speaker A

Can you remind me - Putin's private life? Putin's private life and Chemezov. Some of the articles about Chemezov were banned by Chemezov.

102:35

Speaker A

And sometimes they would write articles that he would benefit from. They looked like commercials.

102:45

Speaker A

When I signed the contract with RBK I had no restrictions. That's the whole difference.

102:56

Speaker A

Have you ever thought about facing censorship in the US? There is also a risk that Putin becomes Trump's ally and Putin's enemies are forced to leave the country or get prosecuted.

103:22

Speaker A

I have thought about it. I don't think that I would be one of the first to suffer from such situation..

103:33

Speaker A

I have a source who's much bigger than me. He's trying to get a political asylum here.

103:47

Speaker A

He's Russian and Azerbaijani. Trump has recently praised a lot of scumbags. Lukashenko, Aliyev, Putin.

104:05

Speaker A

There were others, too. He's become friends with Azerbaijan after signing the peace deal. I got a call from my source.

104:20

Speaker A

He told me we needed to meet. He was scared to death. He doesn't have enough documents to stay in America.

104:36

Speaker A

He might get denied in asylum. They'd tell him that Aliyev is a good man and that he should go home.

104:47

Speaker A

We don't see it a lot but Aliyev is much more violent than Putin. He's more straightforward than Putin. If he wants to attack someone or murder someone he'd do it.

105:06

Speaker A

For some time my source was being protected by FBI because Azerbaijani officials hired someone to assault him.

105:21

Speaker A

They found some Afghani refugee on Telegram and hired him to assault this man. They don't only attack people in Riga..I mean in Vilnius.

105:39

Speaker A

This man was terrified. There was nothing that I could tell him. Trump is beyond our power.

105:50

Speaker A

This might happen to me, too. Here I can try to fight him. Even though Trump's administration is powerful I can still fight him in court.

106:06

Speaker A

I can lose or almost lose.. You must have heard about Kilmar Abrego Garcia.. The whole country is fighting for him.

106:17

Speaker A

Trump is trying to deport him. He failed to deport him to Salvador and now he's trying to deport him to Uganda.

106:24

Speaker A

Next time I'll meet you in Uganda. Some time ago Maxim Katz published a video about Zhelezniak's connection with ACF.

106:44

Speaker A

Project was one of the media that received the documents related to this case. You chose not to write an article about it.

106:54

Speaker A

Can you briefly explain why? Let me generalize this. What is reporting about? It is about public interest and transparent work.

107:10

Speaker A

We are getting a lot of information from different sources. Some of them are anonymous.

107:22

Speaker A

We also received information about Katz's wife long before this information got published. We refused to publish it, too.

107:37

Speaker A

The reason is the lack of public interest. This whole Zheleznyak-Leontiev bank fraud had public interest about ten years ago.

107:54

Speaker A

In these ten years there were a few articles about this case. There were articles both about the crime and the pressure that the bankers faced.

108:18

Speaker A

They were forced to leave Russia. This topic is outdated. There was nothing new about it.

108:28

Speaker A

We tried to study what was the source of the leak. There was a red flag in the leak.

108:40

Speaker A

The source was one of the former employees of Zhelezniak. He was upset and he collaborated with United Russia to protect the customers.

108:51

Speaker A

As far as I know now he works in a military plant. We felt like the source had an intention when they sent us the files.

109:06

Speaker A

I still think so. I don't know who's responsible for this attack on ACF. It might have been Nevzlin or Gusinsky..

109:18

Speaker A

There were signs that ACF was the target. Ethically this was an ambiguous case for us and we refused to publish it.

109:28

Speaker A

Don't you ever face sources that have personal intentions regarding the other side? We do. We have to be able to mention this in the article.

109:51

Speaker A

Why couldn't you do it this time? We don't know who needed to attack Zhelezniak ten years after the bank fraud.

110:06

Speaker A

We felt like we were being exploited. Isn't there public interest in the fact that the organization..

110:15

Speaker A

Bingo! According to reporting rules, there is no public interest in this fact. Unlike some bloggers we called ACF and Zhelezniak and asked them what he was doing in the company.

110:39

Speaker A

And we found out that he was a nominee director. It doesn't matter if he was nominee or real. There is public interest in this information.

110:51

Speaker A

You're telling me that he wasn't doing working for ACF. And how much did ACF protect him with their influence?

111:04

Speaker A

These are all different aspects of the problem. The problem is the following: An organization that taught us to be transparent violated its own rule.

111:26

Speaker A

And they hired a person with a questionable, to say the least, reputation. And I feel like there is public interest in this information.

111:38

Speaker A

Isn't it? Ethically - probably, but we didn't find it big enough. We have talked to ACF, Zhelezniak, and the source of the leak - Nerces Grigoryan.

111:52

Speaker A

We learnt that even though Zhelezniak was a top manager in ACF he wasn't doing any work.

112:06

Speaker A

We decided not to hype it up as Maxim Katz did. Did you really consider this unimportant or did you do it because ACF are your friends?

112:18

Speaker A

It is unimportant. A couple of months before we published the news about Friedman and Volkov.

112:29

Speaker A

This case didn't look unimportant to us. I feel like ACF were wrong. Leonid Volkov protected..

112:40

Speaker A

As well as many other people that nobody cared about.. They protected Friedman from sanctions.

112:47

Speaker A

My friendship with ACF didn't stop us from publishing the article. Can you tell us about your relationship with Alexei Navalny?

112:56

Speaker A

I've already told you one story..We weren't too close. We met in person when he ran for Moscow Mayor.

113:12

Speaker A

We would mostly talk about investigations. We would call each other and say 'your new investigation is great' or 'your new investigation sucks' We would sometimes argue.

113:28

Speaker A

We argued about the Golunov case. Alexei Navalny criticized Golunov a lot. Yes. And you told him he was wrong.

113:37

Speaker A

He was right but he got too emotional. In the chat he accused everyone who disagreed with him.

113:51

Speaker A

Oh. I didn't like it and said it to him. And he was fine about it. He heard me.

114:03

Speaker A

He was fine about what? He was fine about people disagreeing with him. Did you tell him that one of his investigations sucked?

114:16

Speaker A

I didn't say they sucked.. Did you disagree with any of them? I can't remember.

114:25

Speaker A

I can tell you about the investigation that I praised and was jealous of. The Mansion.

114:31

Speaker A

They have managed to find everything. They knew that most of the information was already known but it was still worth it.

114:42

Speaker A

And they made this huge movie. This was a big success. Do you know where they got the visualization from?

114:50

Speaker A

It was drawn by a visual artist. Is this really how the mansion looks from the inside? Or is it one of the ways it could look?

115:05

Speaker A

This was drawn based on real drawings. I kind of know where they got the drawings from.

115:17

Speaker A

A couple of years later we released a new investigation where we had new visualization.

115:27

Speaker A

It was based on the leak of the floor plan of the mansion. I'm not going to tell you where we got it leaked from.

115:32

Speaker A

What do you respect Navalny for? I respect him for his bravery. In all senses.

115:39

Speaker A

He was brave enough to do things that people wouldn't be happy about. And he was also stubborn.

115:54

Speaker A

This is a very important quality for his job. Let's think of a situation where you receive a leak that would damage Navalny's reputation and legacy.

116:07

Speaker A

May he rest in peace, this is just an exercise. Let's imagine that you receive documents proving his connection to Putin.

116:20

Speaker A

These papers would erase his reputation. Would you investigate and publish such papers? If we're talking about connections with Putin..I would.

116:38

Speaker A

I think yes. We would talk about it first but I believe that we would do it.

116:44

Speaker A

For some people Zhelezniak was a problem.. I don't see this as a problem. So it all depends on the leak.

117:01

Speaker A

When Katz released his investigation you replied to him on Twitter. You wrote: 'Listen to me you schmuck. You're a nobody, a clown.' 'I can't afford talking to you' 'I want you to get offended and to disappear from my Twitter. I'm going to ban you now'

117:24

Speaker A

Why would you be so rude? I was too emotional. Well..It wasn't worth it. I should have ignored him.

117:39

Speaker A

This is his nature. He thrives from such fights. He started a scandal because we didn't reply to his question about Zhelezniak on Twitter.

117:55

Speaker A

He asked you if Zhelezniak supported you or not. It's very simple. This is not how reporters ask questions.

118:05

Speaker A

He should have sent me an email and I would have replied to him. Is Zhelezniak one of your donors?

118:15

Speaker A

He's fucking not! This is not only unprofessional but stupid, too. I don't know if Zhelezniak actually supports anyone.

118:26

Speaker A

He's suing Gusinsky for an amount fewer than Katz's six month revenue.. I don't think he's rich.

118:36

Speaker A

Let me reply to Katz and to everyone who told him to attack ACF. Nowadays oligarchs can no longer own media and tell them what to do.

118:54

Speaker A

They believe in it but Zhelezniak can never own a media. Nobody can own Project.

119:12

Speaker A

We talked about the Putin's Mansion investigation by ACF. Yes, the Gelendzhik mansion. Why didn't Project do this investigation first?

119:25

Speaker A

We're just awkward freaks. We were too slow. Nowadays you can't be slow if you're a reporter. This is why we wrote the book.

119:41

Speaker A

We've got to understand that putting together everything that we know about the past is also a genre.

119:58

Speaker A

We tend to forget that there is a new generation of people around us who are not familiar with all these facts from the past.

120:12

Speaker A

They don't know that A caused B. We have limited access to information now.. And sometimes when you go through something old you would find something that you'd never noticed before.

120:32

Speaker A

When ACF studied the mansion they discovered the whole offshore system. I believe that this was the most valuable chunk of information from the film.

120:51

Speaker A

I am a big fan of Leonid Parfenov, and it doesn't matter what year it is today.

121:03

Speaker A

I am now getting more obsessed with history. Parfenov has created the best format of all.

121:17

Speaker A

The way he works with archives..We don't have any video archives in our country. You've to go negotiate a lot to get access to archives.

121:30

Speaker A

Parfenov is doing an amazing job. We've got to learn from him. Sometimes looking back at our past and putting it together is more important than a new story.

121:44

Speaker A

I have two more questions about your emotions. You wrote: 'One servant writes to another servant in Kommersant' 'They are not only known for their military reporters but also for praising their rapists' 'His last name should be Grobov, not Gromov'

122:00

Speaker A

Did you mean Aleksandr Chernykh when you mentioned military correspondents? I did. And not only him. I'm not really following Kommersant.

122:12

Speaker A

What is your problem with Chernykh? He works for the servile newspaper and he writes servile articles.

122:19

Speaker A

It's simple. What do you think about his article from Kursk region? We had a discussion of this article in Project.

122:30

Speaker A

I felt like this article was important and other media could not write it outside of Russia.

122:40

Speaker A

I found this article useful for my knowledge. The problem was that this article won the only independent media award.

122:54

Speaker A

I believe that it shouldn't have won the award. We can't ignore the fact that this is a servile newspaper.

123:07

Speaker A

They don't call this war a war. Their editor-in-chief got fired for saying the name Navalny.

123:14

Speaker A

I didn't ask you about the award. I asked you about having any problems with Chernykh.

123:22

Speaker A

Do you admit that this article.. was useful. It was. Doesn't it make you respect him a little more?

123:37

Speaker A

In these circumstances he did what he could to write the article that neither me not you could write.

123:45

Speaker A

I don't get the question. What do you mean that he's doing what he can?

123:49

Speaker A

I think he can do much more. Can't he? They released an article about the growth in the prosthesis market. And they didn't mention the reason of this growth.

124:07

Speaker A

This is embarrassing. It's not doing what you can. It's called faking. Write, forget, go to a pub.

124:15

Speaker A

This is what I mean. I don't want to behave like Ksenia Sobchak. I felt like the only purpose of her interview was to ask you why you were so rude.

124:38

Speaker A

It's true. 'You wouldn't have to leave Russia if you were a little softer' I don't want to look like her.

124:45

Speaker A

I have made my choice, too. But don't you feel like when we accuse our colleagues in Russia..

125:14

Speaker A

Who are not involved in the war and its propaganda.. We should not be looking down on them? They are doing an important job.

125:29

Speaker A

I can reply. Even though there is a huge elephant in the room. I am not calling to murder them like some other people do..

125:39

Speaker A

Oh.. This is not the problem. They are creating an illusion, a fake world. A fake world of reporting.

125:52

Speaker A

With some rules, norms, or standards. What standards? You've got to name things right. This is what I'm against. I'm against creating a fake world.

126:03

Speaker A

Chernykh is involved in it. As well as other reporters in Kommersant. This didn't start in 2022.

126:13

Speaker A

They fired the editor-in-chief for posting a picture of a real bulletin. Are you talking about Kovalsky?

126:27

Speaker A

Yes. This is what comes to mind first. This dummy of a media has existed for many years. I can't respect the people who turned my job into a dummy.

126:42

Speaker A

I told the same thing to Sobchak.. I've only asked you once.. A Russian cemetery.

126:52

Speaker A

This is where people of Fort Ross were buried. It looks very American. Just crosses on a field.

127:02

Speaker A

Even though these crosses are Russian. These are Orthodox crosses. This is where they buried baptized people.

127:10

Speaker A

It doesn't matter of what religion. There is a plate that says where all these people were from.

127:18

Speaker A

Most of them were Aleuts, Indians.. Locals but they had Christian names. Russians turned them into Christianity.

127:32

Speaker A

Trofim Roman.. And they had Indian last names. They were Orthodox Christians and that's why they are buried here.

127:40

Speaker A

This is very odd. The flowers..Is anybody looking after the graves? I think that the Fort caretakers are doing this.

127:51

Speaker A

It is blown away. Shall it put it back? Yes. I'm not an expert..I think these flowers belong here.

128:00

Speaker A

I hope I didn't break any rules. As far as I remember this cemetery was in a very poor condition before the restoration of Fort Ross.

128:13

Speaker A

These crosses might actually be quite recent. They might be a couple of decades old.

128:20

Speaker A

This is so unusual. There was a priest who served in Alaska for 44 years.

128:37

Speaker A

And then he came back to Russia and served in Kolomna. Can you imagine..? He's very lucky. He managed to come back after spending 44 years in the East.

129:00

Speaker A

He was quite old when he came back. I don't think he was very healthy.

129:06

Speaker A

How do you feel about dying? I'm scared of dying. Do you believe in afterlife?

129:12

Speaker A

No, I'm an agnostic. There might be something.. But I don't believe in it. I think our lives end with our bodies.

129:24

Speaker A

Is this the only life we have? It is. Unfortunately or luckily. You also wrote about Urgant and Slepakov.

129:35

Speaker A

'I would like to know why Urgant, Slepakov, and other schmucks are still silent if they understand what is going on.' 'Are they scared of draft notices or is everything still ambiguous for them? ' What was the cause of this post?

129:52

Speaker A

Mobilization, I guess. Without knowing the context I would like to apologize for being so rude.

130:02

Speaker A

We were all too emotional because of the war. During the mobilization I evacuated my sons from Russia.

130:10

Speaker A

This is what I meant. It is very important. For me Urgant and Slepakov are the embodiment of Russian TV.

130:22

Speaker A

They were silent. Why did I mention them? Is it true that they are the symbols of our TV?

130:30

Speaker A

Yes, they are the superstars of Russian show business. I believe that TV played a major role in this situation.

130:43

Speaker A

Everything would have been different if television was different. Television still rules Russia. Leave Putin aside.

130:56

Speaker A

If the TV told us that hating on gay people was bad.. Our country would be different in this aspect.

131:06

Speaker A

It's not a lot that needs to be done. They were too busy making jokes and making money.

131:12

Speaker A

There is nothing wrong with making money. But if you are silent on every relevant topic.

131:19

Speaker A

This is embarrassing. Don't you feel like you're expecting everyone to be a hero? They were tightening the screws all the time.

131:29

Speaker A

Standing against it would take a lot of courage in 2022. People who protested were special, if we omit the word heroic.

131:55

Speaker A

Not everyone is special. Can you blame the people who are not involved in the war and its propaganda for being different from you?

132:10

Speaker A

Or different from celebrities who spoke out against the war. You are right. Probably. I can't blame them. I don't know them personally.

132:24

Speaker A

I would like them to be a little more brave. If this is too much I can admit it.

132:34

Speaker A

This is my wish. We always want our heroes to do something. We expect them..I think that they are heroes for millions of Russians.

132:52

Speaker A

We expect more from them. And they should know this. If you're an idol for some audience you realize the responsibility that you have in front of them.

133:03

Speaker A

You shouldn't say anything stupid. I don't know if Slepakov thinks about being anyone's idol.

133:09

Speaker A

Does he realize that his opinion is a big deal? I guess, you have not been following them.

133:19

Speaker A

Slepakov has left Russia, he is a foreign agent. I don't think that you should have any problems with him.

133:30

Speaker A

Okay. Don't you feel like you've mistaken their job with their personality? You're judging them based on their profession.

133:45

Speaker A

If we're talking about public figures there's no other way to judge them. I don't know them in person.

133:53

Speaker A

It's a trap. It is, I agree. This is how show business works. We have no idea about their real personalities.

134:07

Speaker A

This is how it works and everybody knows that. Considering what you said about Slepakov..

134:19

Speaker A

It can also be applied to Zhelezniak. Anyone who spoke out..It doesn't matter when or what their motivation was.

134:30

Speaker A

Anyone who changed their opinion..Every single one of them is precious. I am very glad to see this.

134:50

Speaker A

Who is Hank? Hank is a nice guy, one of Californian traditional hippies. I don't know what he did before going to Soviet Union to work as a huntsman near Baikal.

135:10

Speaker A

He'd lived there for over ten years. He found a wife there and became a citizen of Russia.

135:17

Speaker A

He likes Russian nature much more than I do. When he came back to California he went to work in Fort Ross.

135:30

Speaker A

This is the biggest Russia-related museum in California. He's worked there for a long time.

135:39

Speaker A

He also lives high in the mountains in a stunning place. He lives there like a huntsman.

135:52

Speaker A

Roman told us he would introduce us to Hank. Hank used to in Fort Ross for a long time.

136:07

Speaker A

And Hank is actually related to Russia. Roman brought us to your home. This is your home. Do you live here?

136:15

Speaker A

I do. I've only seen this in movies or magazines. We're about forty minutes away from the highway.

136:24

Speaker A

This place is stunning. And here is your house. It looks like Rembo's house. This is a one-bedroom house. You are growing raspberries here.

136:40

Speaker A

It just grows here. And you also have a bathtub there. I do. Surrounded by sequoias. I can look at the stars, the pearls in the sky.

136:58

Speaker A

What is this? This is my horse. My electric horse. Do you charge your car here?

137:07

Speaker A

Of course, I do. I don't need any petrol anymore. I don't need it. We're in the middle of nowhere.

137:25

Speaker A

Yes, but I have the power supply. Do you have a socket here? I also have water supply. And power supply.

137:34

Speaker A

Your bathroom has no doors. Do you just walk around naked? There's nobody here, right?

137:45

Speaker A

I'm not an exhibitionist. There's just nobody here. There are sheep or goats here..I am an old goat, too.

137:58

Speaker A

Can you tell us about yourself? You spent fifteen years in Russia. I was born here. During the Cold War I was worried about the nuclear war.

138:20

Speaker A

People are now worried about the climate change and other challenges. Back then we were worried about the nuclear war.

138:40

Speaker A

I became a civil diplomacy activist. I would travel to Russia and eventually I got married there. I got married twice in Russia.

139:07

Speaker A

I loved my wives. I lived in Russia for fifteen years. I worked in the Irkutsk Institute of Foreign Languages.

139:21

Speaker A

And later I would work in cultural and ecological exchange programs. I spent a lot of time at Baikal.

139:32

Speaker A

I worked in the Pribaikalsky National Park as a huntsman. I really enjoyed living in a village in the forest.

139:46

Speaker A

This was probably the best time in my life. And then I got married again and had kids.

139:57

Speaker A

My kid is 25 years old now. We moved here. Welcome to the paradise. What do you think about Baikal?

140:13

Speaker A

I'm so thankful to mother nature for creating such a miracle. It is a very powerful lake. The deepest lake in the world.

140:34

Speaker A

It is full of energy. Father Baikal has saved my life a couple of times.

140:49

Speaker A

Have you ever heard about Juno & Avos? Of course, I have. It took place before Fort Ross was built. It took place in 1806 in San Francisco.

140:58

Speaker A

Conchita is buried not far from here. Correct me if I'm wrong. The Court was traveling and fell in love with a daughter of a governor in San Francisco.

141:17

Speaker A

They had a romance. And what happened next? She was Catholic and he was Orthodox.

141:28

Speaker A

He told her they needed to go back to Russia. When he went home he fell sick and fell from his horse.

141:52

Speaker A

He died in Russia and she waited for him. She never got married and became the first nun in California.

142:02

Speaker A

This is what a Russian man did to an American woman. Did she become an Orthodox nun?

142:09

Speaker A

Catholic. Have you heard about the Russian musical Juno & Avos? Of course, I have.

142:16

Speaker A

Have you ever watched it? I have, in Irkutsk. Did they come to Irkutsk? Of course, they did. Moscow is not the center of the universe.

142:24

Speaker A

Bravo. You've just slapped me. I'm Siberian. Half-Siberian. How do you feel about people being so interested in Russia?

142:37

Speaker A

I'm happy to know them. I am happy. This is very important. Let's be honest. Russia is the only country that I am interested in.

142:53

Speaker A

I would love to be an expert in New Zealand or Australia or Africa.. I don't know about these places as much as I know about Russia.

143:02

Speaker A

I like meeting people who want to learn more about Russia and who care about Russia.

143:15

Speaker A

There's a lot of them in California. Would you like to come to Russia again?

143:21

Speaker A

I can't. They would send me to prison. This American woman donated fifty dollars to Ukrainian Charity and they sent her to prison when she went to Ekaterinburg.

143:43

Speaker A

She got swapped recently. Yes. Did you also donate to Ukraine? I did. More than fifty dollars.

143:52

Speaker A

I had refugees here and I supported them with my money. Sunflowers! They don't need to have any meaning. They're just beautiful.

144:11

Speaker A

Did you plant them for a reason? Of course, I did. You planted them to support Ukraine.

144:18

Speaker A

Of course, I did. Life is beautiful. We should be looking at the sun. You said that you spent your whole career studying Putin and most of your projects were banned by him.

144:42

Speaker A

They were. Have you ever felt like your work was useless? That you did it all for nothing?

144:54

Speaker A

I have. But not because of Putin. This is my personal and artistic concern. It happened not long ago. It felt like a catharsis.

145:15

Speaker A

I like listening to music and I can say that I know quite a lot about it, even about Russian rock music.

145:22

Speaker A

Spotify recommended me a man called Konstantin Stupin. Oh.. I was listening to his music..I didn't figure out who it was.

145:40

Speaker A

I listened to a record and when I came home I remembered about reading an article in Takie Dela in 2015.

145:57

Speaker A

This article was dedicated to his life and death. I'm not going to dive deep into details..

146:06

Speaker A

It's a classic rock'n'roll story. I asked myself what I was doing in 2015. There is nothing sensational about this article. It's a decent article.

146:25

Speaker A

A tale of a punk. Coming from Orel, I guess. I was working in RBK trying to create a business media.

146:39

Speaker A

UralVagonZavod has decreased the production of wheels.. Was there any use of my work? There probably was.

146:53

Speaker A

But did I care about the right stuff in 2015? I might have been doing the wrong stuff.

147:08

Speaker A

Nowadays I care about people like Stupin much more than I did in 2015. Have I ever felt useless? This is my reply.

147:26

Speaker A

Do you enjoy your work much more now than you did in 2015? I don't. In 2015 I didn't see what was going on around me.

147:42

Speaker A

I didn't see the people. The people behind the wheels. What about being a reporter? Don't you feel like it was all useless?

147:52

Speaker A

All the investigation about Putin, his entourage, their crimes..It all led to nothing. It led to a lot of things.

148:03

Speaker A

We are here now because of our work. We're now emigrants. Yes, our work led to emigration.

148:14

Speaker A

It led to the war. We didn't make him start the war. As the world learnt more about him he became more violent.

148:27

Speaker A

The good guys are always fighting the bad guys. Do you consider yourself a good guy?

148:33

Speaker A

Do I consider myself a good guy? I'm trying to be a good guy. I'm not sure about it.

148:40

Speaker A

In your book you wrote about Putin's last meeting with his father. Your sources told you that his father understood that Putin would become a president and he wished that Crimea became Russian again.

149:12

Speaker A

And he also wished to bring back the anthem. He liked the Soviet Anthem. Do you realize that this might be fake?

149:18

Speaker A

How much do you trust your source? We're 80% sure that this is true. Based on the source and his reliability.

149:35

Speaker A

One of the main conclusions of the book is: 'Putin obviously had no ideology. He just wanted to look good and to stay at power for the rest of his life' 'That's the whole ideology of his regime' Are you sure about it? What about conservatism, traditionalism, conquering the land..

149:59

Speaker A

Isn't this all his ideology? Everyone possesses ideology on this level. Putin mixes all these ideas very weirdly.

150:10

Speaker A

Depending on time and place he behaves very differently. There is an obvious example. In 1991 and 1992 he worked for Sobchak..

150:40

Speaker A

And during the coup he didn't believe that the collapse of the USSR would be the biggest tragedy of the century.

150:50

Speaker A

He only said this during his second term. We wrote a lot about him during this tragedy.

151:05

Speaker A

Putin never fought to keep the Soviet Union. He never cared about it. When the Soviet Union collapsed in December of 1991 Putin was trading resources for food.

151:31

Speaker A

Salie described his letters to Aven.. He was protecting his friend's company. He was protecting Timchenko and Yakunin's businesses.

151:51

Speaker A

What were people doing on January 2, 1992? Drinking. Not working. Putin was protecting his friends' companies.

152:05

Speaker A

On May 9, 1992 he went to a villa in Finland. It was obviously a bribe.

152:25

Speaker A

He spent the holiday with Sobchak, Zolotov, and their wives on a villa in Finland.

152:36

Speaker A

He was invited to this villa by a Finnish company that wanted to buy wood from Leningrad region.

152:43

Speaker A

They bribed him with a villa. In a country that had just faced a major disaster.

152:50

Speaker A

What were they talking about? About mansions in France. This video is now available. It was published about three years ago by a Finnish TV channel.

153:09

Speaker A

He should have been devastated by the collapse of the Soviet Union if he really cared about it.

153:18

Speaker A

We're walking around Fort Ross looking at a place that used to be our colony.

153:33

Speaker A

People who built this colony are now in our history textbooks. There is no negativity towards them in these textbooks.

153:41

Speaker A

Are you talking about the Russian American Company? Yes. And everyone who developed the land here for Russia.

153:51

Speaker A

Is this what they're going to write about Putin in the textbooks? In a hundred years.

153:55

Speaker A

Yes - probably. But only to some extent. We can't compare these two periods.. The early 19th century when the world was still being divided and the current world..

154:14

Speaker A

We all believed that our world was stable. If you drive south there is a Drakes Beach here.

154:31

Speaker A

For some reason he failed to conquer this place..And still they named the beach and the street after him.

154:38

Speaker A

And even some town. This is what everyone did two hundred years ago. Do you think that in a hundred years from now the historians would be looking at Russian borders that were drawn by Putin.

155:06

Speaker A

Or not. Or not. Do you think they would care about the annexation of Crimea?

155:16

Speaker A

Would they still know this? It depends on what happens to Putin. If Putin loses in the end, he's going to be condemned.

155:33

Speaker A

If he doesn't lose, people might forget about his crimes. Medinsky is already writing these textbooks. We don't need to wait for a hundred years.

155:44

Speaker A

Our goal is to condemn Putin's morals. Everyone should understand that he's lying, doing mean stuff, killing people.

155:57

Speaker A

This is our goal. We can't prosecute him whatever it takes. We should tell the truth.

156:11

Speaker A

If we condemn him, then it's good. When I talked to your colleagues about your obsession with Putin they told me that..

156:26

Speaker A

If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. Have you felt like you're similar to Putin in some sense?

156:35

Speaker A

In being an autocrat and strict. It is not related to Putin. My job has affected me a lot.

156:49

Speaker A

My job has a negative effect on me. It is a stressful job. I'm becoming tolerant to shit.

157:00

Speaker A

A lot of stuff that should surprise me no longer surprises me. I am used to it.

157:10

Speaker A

As an editor I am no longer excited about the articles that I see. I see these things as very usual.

157:23

Speaker A

It damages my work and also damages me as a person. I'm surrounded by scumbags. I'm studying them on my computer.

157:36

Speaker A

And then I come home to my family. It affects me personally. Do you have a dream in your job?

157:48

Speaker A

To find a new step. It doesn't have to be related to reporting. I'm at a stage where I'm desperately trying to understand what's next.

158:00

Speaker A

Not related to investigating Putin. Not another investigation. Do you have a dream in life?

158:07

Speaker A

I've had a lot of dream. My current dream is quite simple: I want to go to Russia.

158:14

Speaker A

And the final question: what is power? I have been warned. Two things. Curiosity and skepticism.

158:28

Speaker A

Like a knife and a fork. Grab with one and cut with another one.

Topics: Putin Roman Badanin Russian journalism Investigative reporting Russian politics Fort Ross Russian emigration Media censorship Alexei Venediktov Russian history

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