Who is Alexei Navalny? Where is Navalny now and what is he doing? Social and political activities

Biography

Alexey Anatolyevich Navalny is a Russian politician, public figure, and investment activist. The creator of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which unites subsidiary projects aimed, as the creators proclaim, against corruption and state propaganda (RosPil, RosYama, RosVybory, Good Machine of Truth, RosZhKH). Known for his investigations into corruption in Russia. Author of one of the highest-rated socio-political blogs on LiveJournal. Former member of the board of directors of Aeroflot.

He took second place in the 2013 Moscow mayoral elections, receiving 27.24% of the vote, losing to Sergei Sobyanin. Since November 17, 2013, he has headed the Central Council of the Progress Party political party. In December 2016, he announced his intention to participate in the Russian presidential elections, which are scheduled to take place in March 2018.

Since the beginning of the 2010s, he has been an accused, defendant and witness in a number of criminal, administrative, civil and arbitration cases. The most resonant of them are the “Kirovles Case” and the “Yves Rocher Case”. In July 2013, he was sentenced by the Kirov Regional Court to a 5-year suspended sentence in the “Kirovles case”; in 2016, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned this sentence; in February 2017, the Kirov Regional Court sentenced him again to 5 years of suspended imprisonment; the sentence entered into legal force. In the Yves Rocher case, on December 30, 2014, Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years of suspended imprisonment (the sentence entered into legal force).

Alexey Navalny was born on June 4, 1976 in the military town of Butyn, Odintsovo district, Moscow region.

Navalny’s parents own the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory in the Odintsovo district, where Alexey is the founder and co-owner.

Family

Father - Anatoly Ivanovich Navalny, co-owner and general director of the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory enterprise, was born and graduated from school in Zalesye (formerly Chernobyl district, now Ivankovsky district, Kiev region), after graduating from the Kiev Military School of Communications, he was appointed near Moscow. Grandfather Ivan Tarasovich was a carpenter and, like his wife Tatyana Danilovna, worked on the local collective farm almost all his life.

Mother - Lyudmila Ivanovna Navalnaya, co-owner and commercial director of the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory, comes from a rural area near Zelenograd, Moscow region, studied at the Moscow Institute of Management named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze, worked as a laboratory assistant at the Zelenograd Research Institute of Microdevices, got married in 1975 for Anatoly Ivanovich, after graduating from the institute she worked as an economist, and since 1987 - deputy director for economics.

Wife - Yulia Borisovna Navalnaya (maiden name Abrosimova). Two children: daughter Daria (born 2001) and son Zakhar (born 2008). Brother - Oleg Anatolyevich Navalny, until May 2013 - Deputy Director of the Automated Sorting Centers company, a branch of Russian Post, First Deputy Director of the express delivery company EMS Russian Post. Cousin - Marina Navalnaya (Ukrainian) Russian..

According to A. Navalny, all his relatives lived in Ukraine, and until 1986 he himself spent every summer in the Kyiv region. But after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, some of the relatives moved to other regions of Ukraine. He considers himself mostly Ukrainian due to “some kind of roots and genetics.” According to his uncle, more than half of Navalny’s relatives live in Zalesye and Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky.

As of 2015, Navalny lives in the Maryino district of Moscow.

Education

In 1993, Navalny graduated from the Alabinsk secondary school in the military village of Kalininets in the vicinity of the village of Taraskovo near Moscow, and in 1998 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.

In 1999 he entered the Faculty of Finance and Credit of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation (specialty “Securities and Exchange Business”), from which he graduated in 2001.

Work and business

Navalny's relatives have shares in the authorized capital of Kobyakovskaya Wicker Factory LLC. Navalny owns 25% of the authorized capital of Kobyakovskaya Wicker Factory LLC (in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region).

For some time he worked at Aeroflot Bank.

In 1997, he founded Nesna LLC, the main activity of the company was hairdressing services. For some time, Nesna handed over “zero” balances, and then was sold.

In 1997, he registered Allekt LLC. In 1998-2005, he served as Deputy Director for Legal Affairs in this company. During the 2007 Duma elections, the Allekt company was an advertising agent for the Union of Right Forces party. In total, SPS purchased advertising worth 99 million rubles through Allect, Navalny received a commission of 5% from this, that is, 5 million rubles. As of 2011, Allekt LLC was in the process of liquidation.

In 1998-1999 he worked at the development company ST-group. Among other things, he dealt with currency control and antitrust legislation.

In 2000, together with friends from the RUDN Faculty of Law, he opened the company “N. N. Securities". Navalny was the owner of 35% of the shares of this company and served as its chief accountant. "N. N. Securities traded securities on the stock exchange, and as a result, the company went bankrupt. According to Navalny, while playing on the stock exchange, he lost “the little money” that he had.

In 2001, Navalny co-founded Euro-Asian Transport Systems LLC. The company was engaged in logistics, making money from road freight transportation.

In 2006, he was the host of the “Urban Planning Chronicles” program on the “Echo of Moscow” radio station.

In 2009, Navalny passed the qualifying exam at the Bar Chamber of the Kirov Region. In 2010, Navalny transferred to the Moscow City Bar Association. During his legal practice, he participated in 11 cases in arbitration courts, and only in two of them personally, and in other cases his representatives acted on his behalf.

In 2009, Navalny established Navalny and Partners LLC; in 2010, this company was liquidated.

In February 2012, the National Reserve Bank (NRB) of Alexander Lebedev (owns 15% of Aeroflot) nominated Navalny as a candidate for the board of directors of Aeroflot. Navalny agreed to become director, saying that if elected, he would focus on corporate governance and anti-corruption efforts. On June 25, 2012, Navalny joined the board of directors of Aeroflot in accordance with the decision of the annual meeting of shareholders. 787 million votes were cast for Navalny, which, with a total number of votes of 12.1 billion, is 6.5% (votes of the NRB and a number of other minority shareholders). Navalny became a member of the Personnel and Remuneration Committee of the Aeroflot Board of Directors. In February 2013, it was reported that Navalny was not nominated as a candidate for the new Aeroflot board of directors.

After the verdict in the Kirovles case came into force on November 16, 2013, the Moscow Bar Chamber deprived Navalny of his lawyer status.

Political activity

In 2004, he founded and was one of the leaders of the “Committee for the Protection of Muscovites,” a citywide movement of opponents of corruption and violations of citizens’ rights during construction in Moscow.

In 2005, together with Maria Gaidar, Natalya Morar and others, he became the founder of the “YES!” Youth Movement. Coordinated the “Police with the People” project.

Since 2006 - coordinator of the “Political Debates” project, chief editor of its television version “Fight Club” (TVC, 2007). As the host of “Political Debates,” he took direct part in incidents during the debates of Maria Gaidar and Eduard Bagirov, as well as Maxim Kononenko and Yulia Latynina, which were widely covered in the press.

On June 23, 2007, he became one of the co-founders of the “People” movement. In 2008, he founded the public organization “Union of Minority Shareholders”, which protects the rights of private investors. Actively working on the problem of increasing transparency of natural monopolies' expenses.

In 2009, he was a freelance adviser to the governor of the Kirov region, former leader of the Union of Right Forces, Nikita Belykh. In 2009, he co-founded the Foundation for Supporting Initiatives of the Governor of the Kirov Region.

Yabloko Party

In 2000, he joined the Russian United Democratic Party “Yabloko” and was a member of the Federal Political Council of this party. In 2002, he was elected to the regional council of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party. From April 2004 to February 2007 - chief of staff of the Moscow regional branch of the Republican Democratic Party "Yabloko".

During the period of party activity, he became friends with SPS functionaries Nikita Belykh and Maria Gaidar.

In December 2007, during a meeting of the Yabloko Party Bureau on the issue of Navalny’s expulsion from the party, he demanded “the immediate resignation of the party chairman and all his deputies, and the re-election of at least 70% of the Bureau.” Expelled from the Yabloko party with the wording “for causing political damage to the party, in particular, for nationalist activities.” According to Navalny, the real reason for the expulsion was his demand for the resignation of the party founder, Grigory Yavlinsky.

Movement "People"

In 2007, Navalny co-founded the national democratic movement “People”. On June 23-24, 2007, the founding conference of the movement and the first meeting of its political council were held in Moscow. The co-chairs of the movement were Sergei Gulyaev, Alexey Navalny and Zakhar Prilepin. On June 25, 2007, the Manifesto of the movement was published with 11 signatures: Sergei Gulyaev, Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Golyshev (editor-in-chief of the NaZlobu.ru website), communist Pyotr Miloserdov, leader of the St. Petersburg branch of the banned National Bolshevik Party Andrei Dmitriev, editor-in-chief of Limonka » Alexey Volynets, nationalist Bolshevik writer Zakhar Prilepin, Pavel Svyatenkov, Igor Romankov, Mikhail Dorozhkin, Evgeniy Pavlenko. Subsequently, it was assumed that the “People” movement would join the “Other Russia” coalition, but this did not happen.

Navalny noted that nationalism is one of the “key, defining points” of the movement’s ideology, and he considers himself one of the “normal Russian nationalists.” According to Konstantin Voronkov, a biographer of the politician, Navalny “calls himself a national democrat because he separates nationality from the nation,” emphasizing the social rather than the ethnic component of this concept.

Navalny took part in the nationalist Russian March marches in 2006 and 2008, first as an observer from Yabloko, then as a representative of the People movement. At the 2008 march, he witnessed the brutal detention of the leader of the “Slavic Union” Dmitry Dyomushkin by riot police and stated that, despite Dyomushkin’s controversial reputation, he was ready to testify in court in his defense.

In 2008, the creation of the “Russian National Movement” was announced, which included the organizations DPNI, “Great Russia” and “People”. Co-chairman of the “People” movement Navalny promised that the new association would participate in the next State Duma elections, with a chance of winning. He noted: “I think such an association will receive a fairly large percentage of the votes and will claim victory... Up to 60 percent of our population adheres to spontaneous nationalism, but it is not politically formalized in any way.”

In June 2008, at the joint conference “New Political Nationalism,” DPNI and the “People” movement signed a cooperation agreement (information exchange, coordination of activities, monitoring manifestations of Russophobia). Navalny said that “new political nationalism” is a democratic movement, in which it will give “a hundred points ahead to the notorious liberals.” Navalny considers Alexander Belov’s DPNI and Andrei Savelyev’s “Great Russia” to be moderate organizations, emphasizing that nationalism “should become the core of Russia’s political system.”

Participation in the elections of the mayor of Moscow

In 2013, in the early elections for the mayor of Moscow, he was nominated as a candidate from the RPR-Parnas party and appointed Ural politician Leonid Volkov as head of the election headquarters. On July 10, he submitted documents for registration to the Moscow City Election Commission, including 115 signatures of municipal deputies, and was registered on July 17.

On August 23, in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio, A. Navalny said that if he wins the elections, the powers of local self-government will be seriously expanded, conflict situations around any new construction will be resolved through a referendum of local residents, the city’s migration policy will be radically changed, the performance of the Lezginka in public place by immigrants from the Caucasus, provoking citizens, will be qualified as a violation of public order, at the same time, gay pride parades will be allowed, as falling under the constitutional right of citizens to assemble peacefully and without weapons. He called the meaning of his political reform a change in the system in such a way that if they were dissatisfied with his activities as the head of the city, the townspeople could immediately remove him from this post and elect a new mayor.

According to one of the LiveJournal bloggers during the election campaign, it became known that A. Navalny (together with Maria Gaidar and Mikhail Eshkin) is the founder of the construction company MRD COMPANY registered on November 20, 2007 in Montenegro. At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that according to election legislation, candidates must provide information about income, property and foreign assets. The head of Navalny's campaign headquarters, Leonid Volkov, put forward a version that the website of the Montenegro tax service was hacked, and later claimed that the company was registered without Navalny's knowledge. However, the Montenegrin tax service denied both the version of the site being hacked and the registration without the knowledge of the co-founder, stating that there are documents signed by all co-founders. The Montenegro Tax Service noted that the company was not registered for tax purposes and has not carried out any activities since registration. The head of the Moscow City Election Commission, Valentin Gorbunov, said that Russian legislation prohibits candidates from having real estate and accounts abroad, but there is no direct ban on foreign business in other countries. Meanwhile, Navalny, according to Gorbunov, has neither accounts nor securities abroad.

According to the voting results, he received 27.24% of the votes of active voters (632,697 votes), gaining more votes than Melnikov (KPRF), Mitrokhin (Yabloko), Degtyarev (LDPR) and Levichev (A Just Russia) combined and second only to the acting mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin with his 51.37%. It received the greatest support in the central regions of Moscow, the least in the periphery of the city and annexed territories. He did not recognize Sobyanin’s victory in the first round, repeatedly stated that Sobyanin’s decisive 1.37% was obtained through the use of “administrative resources” (otherwise a “second round” should have been held), filed an application with the Moscow City Court demanding a review election results due to violations committed. On September 20, the Moscow City Court refused to satisfy Navalny’s demands.

International activity

In November 2010, the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress, headed by Senator Benjamin Cardin, held hearings on corruption in Russia. One of the Russian speakers at the hearing was Navalny. The speakers' testimonies were published in the Congressional Gazette. Gazeta.ru wrote that “Navalny’s main recommendation to the Americans is stricter enforcement of American laws aimed at protecting property and combating money laundering.” Navalny claimed that the commission reacted positively to this idea.

On March 20, 2014, during the Crimean crisis, The New York Times published an article by Navalny in which he asked for additional sanctions against “Putin’s inner circle.” In particular, Navalny called on Western countries to freeze financial assets and confiscate the property of large Russian businessmen. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation has prepared an expanded list of persons for sanctions by the European Union. This document was published on the website of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

Social activity

According to the Vedomosti newspaper, in the spring of 2008, Navalny bought shares in Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, and Gazprom Neft for about 300 thousand rubles. After which he began to fight for his rights as a minority shareholder.

According to the Kommersant publishing house, Navalny is a minority shareholder of large Russian companies, including Surgutneftegaz, Transneft, Rosneft, Gazpromneft, Gazprom, TNK-BP, VTB Bank. According to journalist Oleg Kashin, “Navalny has shares in almost all major Russian companies, and as a minority shareholder, he regularly causes scandals, accusing top management of companies of numerous abuses.” By filing lawsuits against company management, it seeks disclosure of information on issues that directly affect shareholder returns and company transparency.

On May 15, 2008, Alexei Navalny announced that he and a group of like-minded people intend to find out why oil from the largest Russian state-owned companies is being sold by the trader Gunvor and who are its beneficial owners; he stated that the companies Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, to whose management minority shareholders unsuccessfully asked for clarification about Gunvor, are hiding information from shareholders about their cooperation with the oil trader.

Statement of theft at VTB

In 2006, a subsidiary of VTB Bank, VTB-Leasing, purchased 30 drilling rigs manufactured by the Chinese company Sichuan Honghua Petroleum Equipment from the Cyprus company Clusseter Limited. The amount of this contract was $456.9 million. The third party to the contract (lessee) was the Russian company Well Drilling Сorporation, which, in turn, had a contract for the subleasing of drilling rigs to the Northern Expedition company (both companies belonged to the same shareholders headed by Yuri Livshits). Well Drilling made an advance payment of $45 million, but at the end of 2008, when the crisis struck, it stopped paying under the contract and then fell into bankruptcy proceedings. The same fate befell the Northern Expedition. At the same time, VTB Leasing in 2009 had unexpected problems with the return of the property itself - the Grant company, also affiliated with Livshits, which had the installations in storage, wanted to keep them and resell them. A long trial followed, which ended not in favor of Livshits and Grant.

In November 2009, during the legal proceedings between VTB Leasing and Grant, Navalny published on his blog an entry about the purchase of drilling rigs by VTB Bank in China in 2007 through an intermediary company at a price one and a half times higher than the market price. He accused the management of VTB and VTB-Leasing of embezzlement, the amount of which, according to his estimates, amounted to $156 million. Navalny also published copies of documents related to this deal. In addition, Navalny argued that in fact the installations were not actually leased, but were lying, as his 2009 trip showed, in an open-air swamp at the Purpe station. Later, in a conversation with blogger Rustem Adagamov, Navalny admitted that comparing the installation site to a swamp was an artistic exaggeration.

Navalny’s main argument is that the cost of the drilling rigs was actually $10 million per installation, and not the $15 million for which VTB bought it. As the main evidence of this price, Alexey cited parts of the contract between the Cypriot offshore and the Chinese plant and an independent expert assessment of the drilling rigs by the Expert company.

However, in September 2012, the media doubted the authenticity of the agreement presented by the blogger. In addition to the fact that Navalny never laid out the contract in full, there are completely blank pages in it, including the page of the “Equipment Arrival Confirmation” appendix. Also, the copy of the contract does not show the characteristic traces of firmware, “which is always used to seal such documents in order to avoid forgery of individual pages.” The Chinese factory did not confirm the existence of the contract.

The expert opinion on the price of the drilling rig also raised doubts. On the first page of this document it is stated that the assessment was carried out by the Expert company at the request of the same Grant company that was suing VTB-Leasing.

The director of Expert was Vadim Yaroslavtsev. He worked in the company together with his wife Elmira. On some electronic platforms on the Internet you can easily find advertisements for the sale of drilling rigs on behalf of Elmira Yaroslavtseva. Judging by the numbers, these are the same installations that Grant tried to sue from VTB. Also in September 2012, it turned out that Alexey Navalny was familiar with the owner of the Grant company, Vadim Smolyar, and actively corresponded and met with him. The media expressed the opinion that Smolyar could help the blogger with information about the details of the deal. Later, at a meeting of the advisory council of shareholders of VTB Bank in September 2012, Navalny confirmed that he had received most of the documents from Grant CJSC.

The Department for Economic Crimes of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate, which conducted an investigation into this transaction, reported that no violations were found. According to Oleg Anisimov, a member of the VTB Shareholders Advisory Council, who referred to the words of Andrei Kostin, partly as a result of these transactions, the head of VTB-Leasing was fired.

In March 2011, Navalny filed a lawsuit against VTB in Cyprus, paying 70 thousand euros in legal costs.

In June 2011, an arbitration court was held on Navalny’s claim to invalidate the deal. Navalny's claim was rejected by a court decision.

Speaking at the annual meeting of shareholders in 2011, Andrei Kostin said that he contacted law enforcement agencies, there were repeated checks - no crime was found there. In support of these words, VTB posted on the Internet a copy of its 2009 application to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and photographs and videos of working drilling rigs.

At the annual meeting of shareholders in 2012, Andrei Kostin, answering a question about drilling rigs, said that 20 rigs were already operating, and 10 were rented. He also invited interested minority shareholders to check his words and visit the regions where the drilling sites are located.

At the beginning of September 2012, VTB organized a trip for minority shareholders, journalists and bloggers to VTB-Leasing drilling rigs in the Orenburg region and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

Alexei Navalny was also invited to participate in the trip, but was unable to go because at that time he was under recognizance not to leave, and the investigation denied his request to participate in the trip.

After the trip, on September 26, a meeting of the advisory council of shareholders of VTB Bank was held, at which Alexey Navalny was present. Following the meeting, the bank reported that “the members of the advisory council had no questions left on the issue under discussion.” Navalny said that “everyone stayed to their own”: in his opinion, the bank is insisting that the drilling rigs are working. At the same time, Vladimir Sinyakov, a minority shareholder who was present at the meeting and previously spoke in favor of Navalny’s version, pointed out that “there are two sides: there is efficiency, and there is theft, and the fact of theft has not been proven,” as well as the “VTB-Leasing connection “with a Cypriot offshore.” Some shareholders participating in the meeting came to the same conclusions. .

Also, some of VTB’s minority shareholders began to doubt that Navalny was actually pursuing the interests of the bank’s shareholders by starting legal proceedings against VTB, since recognition of the transaction through the court as invalid threatened the state-owned company with losses of about $500 million and the deprivation of equipment that generates profit.

Prizes and awards

At the end of 2009, Alexey Navalny became a laureate of the fifth annual award of the Finance magazine in the category “For the protection of the rights of minority shareholders.”

In October 2010, after Yuri Luzhkov was removed from the post of mayor of Moscow, he was declared the winner in the “virtual elections for the mayor of Moscow” organized by the Kommersant newspaper.

He was included by the editors of the Openspace.ru website in the list of “Heroes of 2010” “for work behind enemy lines” and took first place in the vote of site visitors.

Alexei Navalny’s blog on LiveJournal won the “Best Blog of a Politician or Public Figure” category, and the entry in this blog “How they cut in Transneft” won the “Best Investigative Blog” category of the “Runet Blog 2011” competition.

The RosPil project received an award from the International Competition of Blogs and Online Communities The BOBs in the category “The Most Useful Resource for Society”; the award was awarded by both Internet users and an international jury.

At the end of 2011, the British newspaper Financial Times put Navalny first in its list of “25 Russians who represent the “driving force” of Russia.”

At the same time, Kommersant Vlast magazine placed Navalny in fifth place in the ranking of global popularity of Russian citizens, based on their mentions in foreign media in the fourth quarter of 2011.

In December 2011, the Vedomosti newspaper named Navalny “Politician of the Year.”

Currently, Alexei Navalny has been convicted and is under house arrest; in addition, several more criminal cases have been opened against him, some of which are already being considered in court. All these cases have one thing in common: objectively, there is not a single injured party from whom Navalny stole something. Moreover, recently in one of the cases - Yves Rocher - it turned out that his activities brought profit to the company and the company itself has no claims against him. But, of course, he will be convicted, since the Investigative Committee of Russia (IC RF) has “claims” against him. There is no other way. Why does “evil fate” haunt one person so much?

Background

Alexei Navalny entered politics in the early 2000s. He came to the Yabloko party. But in 2007 he was expelled with the wording “for causing political damage to the party, in particular, for nationalist activities.”

In fact, Navalny himself never hid his nationalist views, taking part in the formation and leadership of moderate nationalist movements, rallies and marches. Perhaps, over time, becoming an increasingly popular politician, he only became more careful in his statements, so as not to scare away the possible liberal electorate with such intolerant views. It is certainly impossible to call Alexei Navalny an ultranationalist and it would not occur to anyone, but... Despite all his political maturation, the small liberal-democratic public, one way or another forming a reputation, will have questions about his views. They will remain, since the media space contains stinking gems that the politician made in early discussions on this topic. At the same time, Navalny has always successfully managed to balance on a fine line between national-democratic and ultra-nationalist views, and just over a year ago he consistently substantiated his nationalist views, expressing in one of the discussions the conviction that “he must become the core of the political system of Russia "

Story

By the time Navalny “parted” with Yabloko, social network diaries and, most of all, Live Journal had gained popularity on the Internet, where Alexey became one of the highest-rated bloggers, publishing socio-political posts - trolling - about corruption. His greatest popularity came from his post and then from his legal battle with the Russian state-owned company Transneft in 2008, which he won. It was then that he immediately became closely “engaged” with the Russian Investigative Committee. Moreover, it was in 2008 that Alexei Navalny’s political career began to gain rapid momentum: he acquired numerous sincere supporters who freely help him fight the difficult fight against Russian corruption. In the same year, the creation of the “Russian National Movement” was announced, which included the organizations DPNI, “Great Russia” and the “People” movement headed by Navalny.

After 2008, Navalny and his supporters exposed thieving organizations, banks and companies that were wasting the country’s budget, officials who received kickbacks for permission to carry out this or that activity and enriched themselves at the expense of the working people and the simple middle class, while simultaneously buying up luxury real estate far beyond Russia’s borders, began to take on cosmic proportions. Among those exposed: status “sharks” from VTB Bank and the Investigative Committee of Russia, top managers of monopoly State-owned companies and deputies of the State Duma, and all of them, for the most part, are successful members of the United Russia party.

It was the fact that most of the exposed corrupt officials belonged to the United Russia party that once gave Alexei Navalny the opportunity, during a radio broadcast, to improvise a phrase that later became a catchphrase and a popular Internet meme: “the United Russia party is swindlers and thieves,” or briefly - PZhiV . To be completely precise, the popularization of this slogan was unexpectedly helped by lawyer and also a member of United Russia Shota Gongadze, who apparently had not previously heard about the “Barbara Streisand effect” and was unfamiliar with the Internet community.

Modernity

Alexei Navalny is a modern politician, but born in the 70s of the last century and caught up in the old - without the Internet - political era. Probably, this also allows him to freely navigate the sometimes callous political and economic thinking of the older generation of politicians inhabiting the modern political space of Russia.

Meanwhile, he, like most of the people of his generation, is fluent in new technologies and feels free on the Internet, where, with varying success, but honing his skills even while under house arrest and cut off from modern devices, he waged and is waging Internet wars : with the leaking of compromising evidence and fabulously successful trolls who are on the payroll of certain government agencies.

His ability, under constant pressure both in the virtual and in the real world, which smoothly flow into one another, cannot but inspire respect, to lead and direct both his supporters and those who work directly on the projects created by Navalny and his like-minded people: “RosPil”, “RosYama”, “RosVybory”, “RosZhKH”, “Good Machine of Truth”, “Anti-Corruption Foundation”, “Progress Party”.

In the last two and a half years, the life of politician Alexei Navalny has been extremely eventful: a surge of protest activity in December 2011 put him on the pedestal as practically the only leader of the protest democratic movement, trial and conviction by the Kirov court, the award of a real sentence of five years with serving in a penal colony regime, replaced by a suspended sentence, participation and almost victory in the elections for the mayor of Moscow, placement under house arrest, trials in the order of 5-7 criminal cases at the same time, causing sincere bewilderment among both independent specialists and the public. Not a single politician of our time - from the early 90s of the last century to the 10s of the 21st century - was born under such continuously increasing repressive pressure.

The name of Alexei Navalny is gradually becoming a household name as a person who consistently defends the need for parliamentary rule in Russia, and not authoritarian rule, as is the case at present. The attitude of the authorities towards him is a kind of indicator of the level of repressiveness of its thinking and a code signal sent to the democratic-liberal public. How much and when this level will cross the waterline will be shown in the near future, since any of the strange criminal cases can turn a suspended sentence into a real one. But perhaps it is then that the name of Alexei Navalny will be forced to be uttered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has so far successfully avoided this.

Sources:

Tip 2: Alexei Navalny: biography, creativity, career, personal life

The name of political and public figure Alexei Navalny in Russian society is associated with the scandalous reputation of the leader of the non-systemic opposition. The main anti-corruption fighter is the author of a popular blog on LiveJournal and the RosPil project.

early years

The future politician was born in 1976 in the town of Butyn near Moscow, where his father served. In the 90s, my parents became the owners of a wicker weaving factory. Today it is a family business where Alexey, along with his parents and younger brother, owned 25% of the enterprise, which he sold.

After graduating from a school near Moscow, Alexey continued his education at the Peoples' Friendship University. Five years later, the certified lawyer entered the government academy to become a financial specialist. After this, under a grant program, he attended a 6-month course at Yale University.

Businessman

Navalny’s work biography began during his student years. Having gained his first experience in the legal service of Aeroflot, Alexey opened several of his own businesses. Their scope of activity was quite wide, but all firms had one thing in common - they had a zero balance. After a short existence, the creator of the companies sold them, receiving a good income. In the late 90s, the lawyer carried out work on currency control. In subsequent years, Alexey was involved in logistics, traded assets on the stock exchange, and even broadcast on the Ekho Moskvy radio station.

In 2009, the lawyer confirmed his qualifications as a lawyer and registered Navalny and Partners LLC, however, the company did not last long. In 2011, he received an order to provide legal services from the American Institute of Modern Russia and joined the board of directors of Aeroflot.

Politician

His political career began in the mid-2000s with active anti-corruption actions in the “Committee for the Protection of Muscovites”; he participated in the “YES!” projects. and “Police with the People”, prepared “Political Debates” on television.

In 2007, Alexey Anatolyevich founded a new movement “People”. Until that moment, he was a member of the Yabloko party and even served on the political council. At one of the meetings, he demanded the resignation of the leadership, for which he was expelled from the party ranks. The leader of “People” participated in the “Russian March” and called himself a “normal Russian nationalist,” emphasizing not the ethnic, but the social component of the concept. Soon the movement became part of the Russian National Movement, which collapsed three years later. At the same time, the politician believed that the raised topic of interethnic conflicts was relevant for the state.

In 2011, the politician for the first time openly assessed the activities of United Russia, calling it “a party of swindlers and thieves.” Further, he repeatedly confirmed his own position, making publications on the Internet and speaking on the radio. Alexey called on Russians to vote “for any party” in the State Duma elections, but not for the ruling one. He actively participated in rallies and protest marches in the Russian capital, and after one of these events he received 15 days of arrest. However, later the European Court recognized that human rights were violated, and the victim received good compensation.

In the election of the head of the capital

Gradually, Navalny became the leader of the non-systemic opposition, and the number of his supporters grew. In 2013, the politician proposed his candidacy for the post of mayor of the capital, but lost the fight to Sergei Sobyanin with 27% of the votes.

In the same year, proceedings began in the Kirovles case, where Alexey was accused of embezzlement in this state-owned enterprise in the position of adviser to the head of the Kirov region. Forest products were sold at low prices, causing damage to the enterprise. The court made a decision, setting a term of 5 years. Protests took place in Russian cities in defense of the famous politician, perhaps because of this the sentence was replaced with a suspended sentence. This was followed by investigations into other cases: about the RosPila logo, the Yves Rocher case, the Allekt company, MPK LLC and others. The politician was arrested 10 times. In 2013, Alexey Anatolyevich was stripped of his lawyer status.

In the presidential elections

Since 2017, Navalny has actively encouraged the population to participate in protests against corruption in the country. The oppositionist was supported by 150 Russian cities, the number of participants was more than 90 thousand people, many were arrested. Much work in this direction was carried out by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, created by the politician. The non-profit organization united the projects “RosPil”, “RosYama”, “RosVybory”, “RosZhKH”. The involved specialists conducted their own investigations in the field of illegal government procurement. The result of their work was films telling about crime in business. The main goal of the fund is to push the authorities to ensure transparency in the use of budget funds.

The politician has always had a special point of view regarding the events in Ukraine. The roots of his family remained there; he spent all summer school holidays with relatives near Kiev. That is why the topic of life in the neighboring state does not leave him indifferent.

Navalny’s desire to run in the presidential elections in 2018 did not surprise anyone. In record time, more than 700 thousand signatures were collected in support of the candidate, hundreds of volunteers worked, and donations were collected. We can say that Alexey Anatolyevich was one of the few who organized a full-fledged campaign before the elections. But Navalny was not included in the electoral lists, since the next verdict in the Kirovles case came into force. While in custody, the opposition leader continued to lead protests throughout the country. European colleagues joined the Russian public in expressing doubts about the democracy of the upcoming elections. Alexey was released in December 2017, but the Central Election Commission withdrew his candidacy due to his outstanding criminal record. The editors of the Vesti newspaper recognized Navalny as politician of the year.

Personal life

The private life of the politician remains in the shadows. For almost two decades, his wife Yulia has provided him with comfort and a reliable rear. Alexey met his future wife on vacation in Turkey in 1999. Friends consider the family that emerged from the holiday romance to be strong. The wife supports her husband in his professional endeavors and manages household chores. The couple has two children: daughter Daria and son Zakhar. The family lives in an ordinary Moscow high-rise building in the Maryino district.

In our article we will look at the biography of Alexei Navalny. Date of birth: June 4, 1976. Politician, prominent public figure, blogger. But he calls himself an investment activist who investigates corruption cases in the Russian Federation. A. A. Navalny created the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation).

In the elections for mayor of the capital, he lost to S. Sobyanin, taking second place. At the end of 2016, Navalny announced that he planned to run for the presidential elections, which took place in March 2018. And Alexei Anatolyevich decided to promote himself with Prime Minister D. A. Medvedev.

Childhood

The biography of Alexei Navalny (photo given in the article) contains many curious cases, but it all started quite standardly. Born into a Soviet military family. My father is from Ukraine, he served in the Odintsovo district in the Moscow region after graduating from the Kyiv Military School of Communications.

Alexey himself considers himself more Ukrainian than Russian. Many of Navalny’s relatives live near Kyiv. Alexei's mother was born in the Moscow region, in Zelenograd. She studied at the Ordzhonikidze Institute, and after graduation she worked at the Microdevices Research Institute. Today, Alexey’s parents are co-owners of the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory.

As for my grandfather and grandmother, they were simple workers, they worked on the Zalessk collective farm. Before the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, Alexey lived with them every summer.

School and idols

The biography of politician Alexei Navalny is quite rich. Since his father was a military man, he had to move often, so the children changed schools like gloves. Since childhood, Navalny has adored Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is quite possible that it was the characters from films with this actor who became an example for Alexey. The politician claims that he could beat anyone except high school students. Alexei Navalny's height - 188 cm - and physique allow him to fight back.

In 1993 he graduated from high school and entered the RUDN University to study law. Five years later, in 1998, he successfully graduated from this department. The following year, Alexey entered the Financial Academy, organized under the government of the Russian Federation, and graduated three years later in 2001.

Business and work

While studying at the university, A. A. Navalny tries himself in business. A year before graduating from RUDN University, Alexey founded Nesna LLC, which provides hairdressing services. But soon he successfully sold the company in order to register a new Allekt LLC.

Alexey works at Allekt LLC as deputy director for legal issues. At the same time, he works in the development company ST-group, dealing with real estate, antimonopoly laws, and currency control. I even worked for a short time at Aeroflot Bank. According to Alexey, it was at this time that he encountered numerous violations of the law and corruption.

These were the difficult 90s, for some there were no laws at all; instead of bribes, certain people used the physical elimination of unfit people. Therefore, corruption is the most harmless thing that could stand in Alexey’s way.

Early 00s

To this day, Alexey has a share in the family business. He is the owner of a quarter of the authorized capital, the rest belongs to relatives. At the Faculty of Law, Navalny met several people with whom in 2000 he founded the company “N. N. Securities". Alexey owned 35% of the shares, in addition, he was listed as the chief accountant.

The company traded securities on stock exchanges. Navalny himself recalled that the game on the stock exchange was very addicting to him. As a result, he himself lost all the company’s money, which was the reason for the collapse. But Aleksey already in 2001 opened a company engaged in cargo transportation - Euro-Asian Transport Systems LLC.

Wife, children, brother

The wife of politician Alexei Navalny, Yulia Borisovna (née Abrosimova), is his supporter and supporter. They have two children - the eldest daughter Daria, born in 2001. and youngest son Zakhar, born in 2008.

It is worth noting that few people are interested in the personal life of politician Alexei Navalny. But criminal cases and various intrigues take first place in the top news. Few people know that Alexey’s brother Oleg, who worked as deputy director of the Russian Post branch until 2013, received a well-deserved prison sentence for money laundering (Yves Rocher case).

Social media

Today, social media is the place to reach the public. Alexey Navalny actively uses Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and a personal blog on LiveJournal. On social networks, he communicates with subscribers and expresses his position on various issues. He also uses quite provocative methods of promotion.

Once, for 10 thousand rubles, Alexey filmed a video of him walking with his wife in the park. But they promised more, as Navalny himself claims. Another dubious move: Alexey posted a photo of himself on Instagram, in which he greedily devoured instant noodles. And he signed: “I love doshik.” If he had known how many “photographs” and parodies would appear after this publication, he would have thought a hundred times before publishing. Although, if you take a closer look, this is also PR for Alexei Navalny. Increased popularity is a logical consequence of the hype. And after such an avalanche of attention, everyone started talking about Navalny.

Policy

In 2000, Alexey Anatolyevich joined the Yabloko party, even becoming a member of its political council. In the period 2004-2007. he heads the regional branch of the party. And in 2007 it was excluded from it for the following reason:

Causing political damage to the party, in particular for nationalist activities.

The interests of what nationality Alexey represented were not stated. But, since 2006, Alexey has established a large number of public structures and organizations. These are the “Union of Minority Shareholders”, “Political Debates”, “Police with the People”, “Committee for the Protection of Muscovites”.

With Natalya Morar and Maria Gaidar organizes the youth movement “YES!” Every year he only increased his recognition through the media. On “Echo of Moscow” he hosts the “Urban Planning Chronicles” program, on TVC he is the editor-in-chief of the “Fight Club” program.

And in 2009 he worked as a freelance adviser to the governor of the Kirov region. At the same time, he has close contacts with Nikita Belykh (who was arrested and accused of corruption). Belykh was found guilty of receiving a very large bribe.

Yale University and the mayoral election

But one day Alexey became seriously interested in the Yale World Fellows program. Every year, about 15 people from different countries are chosen around the world. Based on the recommendations of Garry Kasparov, Evgenia Albats, Sergei Guriev and Oleg Tsyvinsky, Navalny was offered to the university. And in 2010, Alexey successfully completed the 6-month course. Many Russian politicians did not approve of this move. According to the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G. A. Zyuganov:

Mr. Navalny is a political product manufactured in US laboratories for the next pogrom of Russia.

In 2013, Navalny ran for mayor of the capital, but lost to Sergei Sobyanin.

"The Kirovles Case"

Navalny has repeatedly been a witness in administrative, arbitration and civil cases. The article contains photos of Alexei Navalny in which he speaks in court. It is impossible not to mention the famous “Kirovles case”, in which Alexey was a defendant. The accusation was that he, as an adviser to the governor of the Kirov region, in the period from May to September 2009 entered into a conspiracy with the general director of Kirovles and the Vyatka Forestry Company.

As a result of such a criminal conspiracy, over 10 thousand cubic meters were stolen. m of forest (if in money, then this is more than 16 million rubles). Alexey was sentenced only in 2013 to 5 years in prison, but later the term was replaced with a suspended sentence. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation overturned this verdict in 2016 for the following reasons:

Taking into account the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, which found a violation of the right to a fair trial in the investigation documents.

This caused a retrial, the court sentenced all suspects to suspended sentences. And Kirovles is filing a claim for the recovery of 16 million rubles from Navalny, Opalev and Ofitserov as compensation for losses. But the Nikulinsky court decided to recover an amount of 2.1 million rubles.

"Yves Rocher" and Alisher Usmanov

Together with his brother Oleg, Alexey was accused in the Yves Rocher case. The company made claims against the brothers. The court proved guilt; Navalny laundered money fraudulently. At the end of 2014, Alexey was sentenced to 3.5 years of probation. And in 2017, the probationary period in the Yves Rocher case was extended by 1 year.

May 2017 - the beginning of a conflict with businessman Alisher Usmanov. He filed a lawsuit against the Anti-Corruption Foundation. A. Usmanov stated that his honor and dignity were hurt. Mr. Usmanov also recorded a video message in which he responds to accusations against him from FBK and Navalny. In one day, this video was viewed by more than 6 million people. And the second message to Alexei Navalny is pure criticism. Usmanov compares Alexey with Bulgakov’s hero Sharikov.

Navalny and Shariy

Anatoly Shariy is a Ukrainian journalist who tried to make money on many things. I even played in casinos when I was young, but did not achieve success in this matter. But he succeeded in journalism and vividly covered the events taking place in Ukraine since the end of 2013. But, apparently, he hooked Navalny with some of his phrases. The politician reacted sharply to Shariy’s statements.

This is where the struggle between the two bloggers began. Unfortunately for Alexey Anatolyevich, his legal education did not help him in this conflict. Shariy covered Navalny’s entire path to the presidency in his video publications. But the path was short, Alexey very quickly left the race due to the fact that a significant part of his electorate were people under 18 years of age who did not have the right to vote. This is one of the facts that has been ridiculed in numerous videos.

Election race

In 2016, Alexey announced his desire to run for the Russian presidential elections, which took place in March 2018. In numerous debates in which Navalny took part, the advantage was not on his side. Even his allies drove him into dead ends with their speeches, from which it was difficult to get out. K. Sobchak, who is also an oppositionist, as it turned out, is clearly not on Alexey’s side.

In 2016, the Supreme Court of Russia overturned the verdict in the Kirovles case. This gave Navalny the opportunity to take part in the elections. But in 2017, the court again returned a guilty verdict. Alexey officially dropped out of the election race, although he tried to continue the fight.

Rallies in support

“March of the Burrs”, “Children’s Battalion” - they name the electorate of A. A. Navalny. Although, if you look closely, you can understand that in his support group there are many people of different age categories: from high school students and students to retirees.

Alexey invites his supporters to rallies quite often, but sometimes the events end in dispersal and arrests. The reason is simple - any demonstration must be coordinated with local authorities, who set the date, place and time of the event. There were cases when Alexei’s supporters were satisfied with the date and time, but not with the place. It is quite possible that these were provocations on the part of opponents. And it turns out that the rally is illegal (after all, it is not being held on Arbat, for example, but on Tverskaya).

In the village of Butyn, Odintsovo district, Moscow region.

In 1998 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. In 2001, he graduated from the Faculty of Finance and Credit of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation with a degree in Securities and Exchange Business.

Studied at Yale University (USA) under the Yale World Fellows program.

On July 31, 2012, the Investigative Committee of Russia charged Alexey Navalny with KOGUP "Kirovles" on an especially large scale. , Alexey Navalny, being an adviser to the governor of the Kirov region on a voluntary basis, organized the theft of Kirovles property, conspiring with the director of Vyatka Timber Company LLC (VLK) Pyotr Ofitserov and the general director of KOGUP Kirovles Vyacheslav Opalev. From May to September 2009, more than 10 thousand cubic meters of forest products belonging to Kirovles were stolen.

On July 18, 2013, the Leninsky Court of Kirov established Navalny’s guilt in the case of theft of property from KOGUP “Kirovles” and general regime.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Alexey Anatolyevich Navalny. Born on June 4, 1976 in the military town of Butyn, Odintsovo district (Moscow region). Russian political and public figure, lawyer, investment activist, former member of the board of directors of Aeroflot. Author of one of the highest-rated socio-political blogs on LiveJournal. Positions himself as a fighter against corruption in Russia.

Alexey Navalny was born on June 4, 1976 in the military town of Butyn, Odintsovo district, Moscow region.

Father - Anatoly Ivanovich Navalny, co-owner and general director of the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory enterprise, was born and graduated from school in Zalesye (formerly Chernobyl district, now Ivankovsky district, Kiev region), after graduating from the Kiev Military School of Communications, he was appointed near Moscow.

Grandfather Ivan Tarasovich was a carpenter and, like his wife Tatyana Danilovna, he worked on the local collective farm almost all his life.

Mother - Lyudmila Ivanovna Navalnaya, co-owner and commercial director of the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory, comes from a rural area near Zelenograd, Moscow region, studied at the Moscow Institute of Management named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze, worked as a laboratory assistant at the Zelenograd Research Institute of Microdevices, got married in 1975 for Anatoly Ivanovich, after graduating from the institute she worked as an economist, and since 1987 - deputy director for economics.

Navalny’s parents currently own the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory in the Odintsovo district, where Alexey is the founder.

Brother - Oleg Anatolyevich Navalny, until May 2013 - Deputy Director of the Automated Sorting Centers company, a branch of Russian Post, First Deputy Director of the express delivery company EMS Russian Post.

Cousin - Marina Navalnaya.

According to A. Navalny, all his relatives lived in Ukraine, and until 1986 he himself spent every summer in the Kyiv region. But after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, some of the relatives moved to other regions of Ukraine.

He considers himself mostly Ukrainian due to “some kind of roots and genetics.” According to his uncle, more than half of Navalny’s relatives live in Zalesye and Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky.

In 1993, Navalny graduated from the Alabinsk secondary school in the military village of Kalininets in the vicinity of the village of Taraskovo near Moscow.

He studied well, however, he says, he constantly clashed with teachers - “because it didn’t fit my perception that a teacher automatically becomes an authority just because he is a teacher”.

He grew up as a cynic and anti-Soviet, a kind of juvenile dissident.

“As a child, I was a “Soviet” larva. It is in this formulation. “Sovka”, a person who despises Soviet power and tries to squeeze it out of himself, because already in early childhood, on a subconscious level, it seemed to me that with this country something is wrong. Well, as a larva, since it had not yet formed into clear contours and frames, it was at the level of childhood sensations... there was some oppressive oppression and pressure from the varnished officialdom, running counter to the observed reality... Since the early 80s, we have had a receiver broadcasting the Voice of America...", he says.

In 1997, he founded Nesna LLC, the main activity of the company was hairdressing services. For some time, Nesna handed over “zero” balances, and then was sold.

Registered LLC in 1997 "Allect". In 1998-2005, he served as Deputy Director for Legal Affairs in this company. During the 2007 Duma elections, the Allekt company was an advertising agent for the Union of Right Forces party. In total, SPS purchased advertising worth 99 million rubles through Allect, Navalny received a commission of 5% from this, that is, 5 million rubles.

In 1998-1999 he worked at the development company ST-group. Among other things, he dealt with currency control and antitrust legislation.

In 1998 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.

In 1999 he entered the Faculty of Finance and Credit of the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation (specialty “Securities and Exchange Business”), from which he graduated in 2001.

In 2000, together with friends from the Faculty of Law of RUDN, he opened a company "N. N. Securities". Navalny was the owner of 35% of the shares of this company and served as its chief accountant. "N. N. Securities traded securities on the stock exchange, and as a result, the company went bankrupt. According to Navalny, while playing on the stock exchange, he lost “the little money” that he had.

The beginning of his political activity can be considered the year 2000, when Navalny joined the Russian United Democratic Party “Yabloko” and was a member of the Federal Political Council of this party. In 2002, he was elected to the regional council of the Moscow branch of the Yabloko party. From April 2004 to February 2007 - chief of staff of the Moscow regional branch of the Republican Democratic Party "Yabloko". During the period of party activity, he became friends with SPS functionaries Nikita Belykh and Maria Gaidar.

Alexei Navalny combined business and politics.

In 2001, Navalny co-founded Euro-Asian Transport Systems LLC. The company was engaged in logistics, making money from road freight transportation.

In 2006, he was the host of the “Urban Planning Chronicles” program on the “Echo of Moscow” radio station.

In 2007, Navalny co-founded the national democratic movement "People".

In 2008, the creation of the “Russian National Movement” was announced, which included the organizations DPNI, “Great Russia” and “People”.

According to the Vedomosti newspaper, in the spring of 2008, Navalny bought shares in Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz, and Gazprom Neft for about 300 thousand rubles. After which he began to fight for his rights as a minority shareholder.

In 2009, Navalny established Navalny and Partners LLC, in 2010 this company was liquidated.

In 2009, Navalny passed the qualifying exam at the Bar Chamber of the Kirov Region.

In 2010, Navalny transferred to the Moscow City Bar Association. During his legal practice, he participated in 11 cases in arbitration courts, and only in two of them personally, and in other cases his representatives acted on his behalf.

He says about his studies at Yale that it was there that he decided to seriously take up the fight against corruption in Russia.

“In a nutshell, this is something like a very cool advanced training course for people from all over the world who have already achieved a lot in their profession, but are striving for new heights and expanding their circle of friends. So, Seryozha Guriev (Rector of the Russian economic school) and Oleg Tsyvinsky (professor of economics at Yale) were able, thanks to them for this, to “reach out” to me and insist that it would be nice for me to take these courses, especially in terms of international corporate law. Although in fact the program much broader, everything that wasn’t there, and whoever we met... By the way, it was at that time that we launched “Rospil”, we really took on state corruption, because the State Department is teaching Russians how save budget money...", Navalny said in an interview with Voice of America.

Alexei Navalny - interview with The New Times

On December 5, 2011, the day after the State Duma elections, Navalny spoke at a rally sanctioned by the authorities and held by the Solidarity movement on Chistoprudny Boulevard. The purpose of the rally was to express disagreement with the results of the elections and accuse the authorities of large-scale fraud. After the end of the event, he and several hundred other participants took part in an unauthorized march to the building of the Central Election Commission of Russia on Lubyanka, during which he was detained by the police and subsequently received 15 days of administrative arrest.

On May 9, 2012, he was again sentenced to 15 days of arrest for participating in an illegal public event that took place early in the morning of that day on Kudrinskaya Square.

In February 2012, the National Reserve Bank (NRB) of Alexander Lebedev (owns 15% of Aeroflot) nominated Navalny as a candidate for the board of directors of Aeroflot. Navalny agreed to become director, saying that if elected, he would focus on corporate governance and anti-corruption efforts.

On June 25, 2012, Navalny joined the board of directors of Aeroflot. according to the decision of the annual meeting of shareholders. 787 million votes were cast for Navalny, which, with a total number of votes of 12.1 billion, is 6.5% (votes of the NRB and a number of other minority shareholders). Navalny became a member of the Personnel and Remuneration Committee of the Aeroflot Board of Directors. In February 2013, it was reported that Navalny was not nominated as a candidate for the new Aeroflot board of directors.

On December 14, 2012, the Investigative Committee of Russia opened a criminal case against Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg Navalny for committing crimes under Part 4 of Art. 159, pp. “a”, “b” part 2 art. 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group on an especially large scale and the laundering of funds acquired as a result of the commission of a crime by a group of persons by prior conspiracy and using their official position).

According to investigators, Navalny created the company Main Subscription Agency LLC, with which in the spring of 2008 an unnamed trading company entered into an agreement for cargo transportation of mail. According to the investigation, the agreement was concluded with the participation of Oleg Navalny, who at that time worked as the head of the Department of Domestic Postal Dispatch of the FSUE Russian Post branch - Automated Sorting Centers, who convinced the company's managers to conclude an agreement at a deliberately inflated cost. At the same time, the “Main Subscription Agency” did not have its own material base for carrying out transportation, and in fact it was handled by another company, which was managed by an acquaintance of Oleg Navalny.

Later it became known that a criminal case against the brothers Alexei and Oleg Navalny was initiated at the request of the head of the Russian division of the cosmetics company Yves Rocher, Bruno Leproux. His application addressed to the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, was received by the Investigative Committee on December 10, and on the same day the materials of the criminal case were submitted to separate proceedings.

According to the RF IC, a total of 55 million rubles were transferred to the account of the “Main Subscription Agency”, with the real cost of services being 31 million rubles. Most of this amount, according to investigators, was spent by the Navalny brothers on their own needs, and more than 19 million rubles were legalized by the Navalnys by concluding fictitious agreements with the Kobyakovskaya wicker weaving factory, the founders of which were, among other things, the Navalny brothers themselves.

Alexei Navalny with his brother Oleg

On December 30, 2014, the court announced the operative part of the verdict: Oleg Navalny was sentenced to 3.5 years in a general regime colony, Alexei Navalny was given a suspended sentence of 3.5 years. The brothers must pay more than 4 million rubles to the MPK company, in addition, each of them was sentenced to a fine of 500 thousand rubles.

On April 4, 2013, on the air of the Dzyadko-3 program on the Dozhd TV channel, Alexei Navalny said that in the future he plans to take the post of President of Russia. With this step, he “wants to change life in the country” and ensure that the residents of Russia, a country rich in natural resources, do not live “in poverty and hopeless squalor,” but live “normally, like in European countries.”

In 2013, in the early elections for the mayor of Moscow, he was nominated as a candidate from the RPR-Parnas party.

On March 20, 2014, during the Crimean crisis, The New York Times published an article by Navalny in which he asked for additional sanctions against “Putin’s inner circle.” In particular, Navalny called on Western countries to freeze financial assets and confiscate the property of large Russian businessmen. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation has prepared an expanded list of persons for sanctions by the European Union. This document was published on the website of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

In January 2015, Alexei Navalny in his blog accused the senator and head of the Anti-Maidan movement Dmitry Sablin of owning undeclared real estate. In November 2015, Dmitry Sablin and his wife filed a lawsuit against Navalny for the protection of honor and dignity, demanding compensation for moral damages in the amount of 5 million rubles each. The reason for the lawsuit was, however, not the January FBK investigation, but Navalny’s post of June 12, where, in particular, he called “Anti-Maidan” a movement “in defense of the property of Senator Sablin, obtained as a result of bribes and fraud, thanks to his marriage to the daughter of the governor who stole billions from the budget of the Moscow region." The court found Alexei Navalny guilty and ordered him to pay Dmitry Sablin 408 thousand rubles.

On February 20, 2015, Navalny was subjected to administrative arrest for 15 days for unauthorized campaigning in the metro.

On October 8, 2015, Alexei Navalny’s right to travel abroad was restricted due to the fact that he did not repay a debt of 4.5 million rubles in due time. The representative of the Federal Bailiff Service of Russia in Moscow, Timur Korobitsyn, said that “in the Office of the Federal Bailiff Service in Moscow, enforcement proceedings are underway to collect joint and several debts from Alexey and Oleg Navalny in the amount of more than 4 million 490 thousand rubles in favor of Multidisciplinary Processing Company LLC.”

In December 2015, Alexey Navalny paid fines under the claim of the Multidisciplinary Processing Company and, according to him, enforcement proceedings against him were terminated.

On December 1, 2015, Alexey Navalny posted a documentary film and longread online "Gull", dedicated to the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s investigation into the activities of the sons and colleagues of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Yuri Chaika. In particular, the authors of the investigation claim that the Deputy Prosecutor General is connected with the Tsapka gang from the village of Kushchevskaya, the eldest son of Yuri Chaika, Artem, made his fortune from the raider takeover of enterprises, and the younger, Igor, from illegally obtained government contracts. The film received a special prize at the Artdocfest documentary film festival in December 2015.

The film's budget was 250,000 rubles, and brought in donations worth 3.5 million rubles to the Anti-Corruption Foundation.

On December 7, 2015, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Peskov, said that the film did not arouse interest in the Kremlin, since it is not about the prosecutor general, but about his adult sons.

At the beginning of 2016, Switzerland considered the complaint of Alexei Navalny against Artyom Chaika. On December 8, 2015, the Anti-Corruption Foundation sent a corresponding complaint to the Swiss Prosecutor General's Office that Artem Chaika and other individuals have been laundering money in Switzerland for at least ten years. An audit conducted by the supervisory authority did not find any evidence of money laundering that would be associated with the name of Artyom Chaika. In addition to Chaika, the complaint also listed other persons in respect of whom an investigation was also carried out. To avoid bias in the investigation, the prosecutor's office assigned the investigation to a special police unit in Lugano, Canton Ticino, that investigates white-collar crime.

Ruslan Shumakov (Artyom Chaika’s lawyer) conveyed information to the RBC newspaper that Artyom Chaika received a notice from the Swiss prosecutor’s office that there were no claims against him. Ruslan Shumakov additionally conveyed information that Artyom Chaika, based on his own request, received from Greek officials confirmation of the legality of the transactions he carried out in Greece (purchase of a hotel on the island of Chalkidiki).

On February 8, 2017, the Leninsky District Court of Kirov re-sentenced Navalny and Ofitserov to 5 and 4 years of suspended imprisonment. Navalny noted that the court’s verdict verbatim repeats the old one handed down in 2013. On March 3, an appeal was filed against the verdict in the Kirov Regional Court. At the meeting on March 15, 2017, the court did not consider the complaint on the merits, but returned the case to the district court to eliminate procedural violations. At the next hearing, which took place on May 3, the court confirmed the earlier verdict. Navalny's defense reaffirmed their intention to appeal the verdict to the ECHR.

On March 2, 2017, FBK published an investigative film “He’s not your Dimon” about the alleged assets of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The narrator of the film is Navalny, who claims that Medvedev heads a multi-level corruption scheme, owning multi-billion dollar real estate acquired through charitable foundations and organizations, legally registered in the name of proxies, with money from oligarchs and loans from Gazprombank.

According to Navalny, said in the video, his investigation took more than one month. A spokeswoman for the Russian Prime Minister, Natalya Timakova, said that it is “pointless” to comment on Navalny’s investigation, since it represents a “propaganda attack” by the oppositionist. Medvedev himself at first did not comment on the FBK investigation and on March 10 blocked Navalny on Instagram.

Navalny called on his supporters to go to rallies on March 26, 2017. Protests took place in 82 Russian cities, some of which attracted several thousand people. After the rallies, Medvedev described Navalny as a “convicted character” and called the FBK investigation “nonsense”, filmed for “big money” not from the “people”, but from “private sponsors.”

Speaking in the State Duma on April 19, 2017, Medvedev refused to comment on the investigation, calling it “absolutely false products of political crooks.”

In its turn, entrepreneur Alisher Usmanov filed a lawsuit against Navalny and FBK in April 2017, and on May 18 of the same year he recorded a video message to Navalny, in which he harshly criticized him, noting that he felt “the terrible envy of a loser and a failed businessman who started his business with kickbacks on small transactions,” and also rejected the accusations against him, emphasizing, that Navalny’s attempts “to slander me are a pug barking at an elephant.”

On May 24, 2017, Usmanov, in response to Navalny’s challenge to come to the debate, where he promised his opponent to give an answer to all charges, recorded a second video message, where he noted that he “was expecting an apology, not a debate,” instead of which “he heard from him more accusations, lies, cheap populism.”

Usmanov compared Navalny with the character of M. A. Bulgakov’s story “Heart of a Dog” Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov, “who dreamed of taking away and dividing everything” and expressed the opinion that Navalny is his “worthy successor.” In addition, he pointed out that “if Sharikov is a stupid and uneducated demagogue,” then Navalny is “not just a demagogue, but also a highly artistic liar” and stated that when Navalny’s lies are documented, he begins to get scared and declare that he threaten. Usmanov refused the debate, believing that it was a “debate between truth and lies” and summed up that all “the debate will be in court,” where Navalny, whom Usmanov called “Alexey Poligrafovich Navalny,” will “explain the difference between truth and lies.”

On May 31, 2017, the Lyublinsky District Court of Moscow fully satisfied Usmanov’s claim against Navalny and ordered the defendant “to delete videos and publications posted at the specified addresses within 10 days and publish a refutation for a period of at least 3 months at these addresses.” Thus, the court ordered the removal of the film from YouTube, as well as the removal of the website where the investigation was posted and the removal and refutation of the post stating that Usmanov gave a bribe to Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, and information about censorship in the Kommersant publishing house, controlled by Usmanov.

Alexei Navalny - Mind Games

Director of the Foundation for Effective Policy Gleb Pavlovsky expressed the opinion that Navalny’s goal is to create a “political project” with the formation of a certain “electoral sector” with the aim of its further transfer, under certain conditions, to one of the opposition parties or movements. Pavlovsky believes that the idea of ​​​​creating such a social-populist project was taken from the West, comparing, in particular, Navalny’s activities with the Tea Movement in the USA.

According to the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov, expressed regarding the mayoral elections in Moscow in 2013, “Navalny sat with Saakashvili on the same bench, trained in America on how to fool Russian citizens.”

Alexei Navalny's height: 188 centimeters.

Personal life of Alexei Navalny:

In 1999, while on vacation in Turkey, Alexey met his future wife Yulia (Yulia Borisovna Navalnaya, maiden name Abrosimova). The holiday romance ended with a wedding.

Alexei Navalny with his wife Yulia

The couple has two children: daughter Daria (born in 2001) and son Zakhar (born in 2008).

Alexei Navalny with his family

The couple say that at home there is a complete delineation of spheres of influence: Julia supports her husband’s political views, but does not give advice on work, and he does not interfere in the household and raising children.

Navalny’s family lives in the Maryino district of Moscow region in an ordinary panel house in an “economy class” apartment with an area of ​​about 80 square meters.