Maltsev, Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich
Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich Maltsev(born June 7, 1964, Saratov) - politician, leader of the opposition movement "People's Front of the Saratov Region", president of the environmental organization "Future", coordinator of the Saratov branch of the Great Russia party. In the past - deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma, deputy chairman of the regional Duma
Biography
After graduating in 1981 high school No. 8 Saratov worked as a statistician in the Kirov district committee of the Komsomol and studied at the evening department of the Saratov Law Institute. DI. Kursky.
From 1982 to 1985 he served in the border troops.
After military service, he continued his full-time studies at the Saratov Law Institute. In 1987 he graduated with a degree in Law with the qualification of Lawyer.
From 1987 to 1989 Maltsev V.V. worked as a local inspector at the Zavodsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Saratov, and from 1989 to 1996 - general director Saratov detective bureau "Allegro" (SSB "Allegro").
In May 1994, he was elected as a deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma of the first convocation and until April 1996 was the chairman of the committee on legality, combating crime, security and protection of individual rights, and since April 1996 he was deputy chairman of the Saratov Regional Duma.
In August 1997, Maltsev V.V. was elected deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma of the second convocation. He was a member of the committee on fiscal policy, taxes and use of property in the region and a member of the committee on issues of legality, work with territories and public organizations, while simultaneously working as director of CJSC SSB Allegro, then CJSC SSB Varyag-VM.
From November 1999 to April 2002, he worked in the committee on issues of legality, work with territories and public organizations on a professional permanent basis. In April 2002, he was elected secretary of the Saratov Regional Duma and worked in this position until the end of the term of office of the deputies of the Saratov Regional Duma of the second convocation.
In September 2002, Maltsev V.V. elected as a deputy of the Saratov Regional Duma of the third convocation, and at its first meeting - secretary of the regional Duma, a position in which he served until December 2003. Since April 2005 - Deputy Chairman of the Regional Duma.
Since 2004 - leader of the Popular Front of the Saratov Region.
Since 2006 - President of the Saratov Regional public organization"Ecological organization "Future".
Since 2006 - President of the Foundation. Fridtjof Nansen.
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Today we will tell you who Vyacheslav Maltsev is. His biography will be discussed below. It's about about the Russian political and public figure and blogger. He was elected to the regional Duma three times. In 2016 he joined the PARNAS party. He became a candidate for State Duma deputy from this political force.
Biography
Vyacheslav Maltsev graduated from Saratov Law School in 1987. From 1982 to 1984 he served in the border troops. In 1989, he held the position of district inspector at the Zavodsky District Department of Internal Affairs in Saratov. From 1989 to 1996 he was the general director of a detective bureau called Allegro. Maltsev subsequently sold his property. In 1994, he was elected as a deputy to the Saratov Regional Duma of the first convocation. He got into the regional parliament. Re-elected twice. He was deputy chairman and also secretary of the Duma. In the nineties, he participated in the political force “Fatherland - All Russia”. There I met with Vyacheslav Volodin. In 2007, he became the head of the Saratov branch of Great Russia. Soon he created the city branch of RNDS Kasyanov.
So we discussed how Vyacheslav Maltsev began his career. “Bad News” is a video blog that our hero has been running on YouTube since 2011. The videos are released at 21:00 on weekdays. The duration of each episode is one and a half hours. Periodically, as part of his channel, Vyacheslav Maltsev conducts joint broadcasts and debates with famous figures in various fields. Our hero believes that the revolution in Russia will begin in 2017, on November 5th. In each episode of the video blog, he counts down the number of days until the set date. This man does not deny that, in essence, he is a populist, but he emphasizes that he uses this phenomenon as a method of working with his voters. In 2012, the politician tried to run for the regional Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the single-mandate district of Saratov, but failed.
Nomination to the Duma
Vyacheslav Maltsev decided before the elections that he would take part in the primaries from the PARNAS party. Party members Natalya Pelevina and Ilya Yashin noted that the blogger managed to fully mobilize like-minded people. There were also statements that it was not so much party supporters who voted for the politician, but his direct audience. Maltsev himself noted that he was confident of victory. Although the primaries did not actually take place and were disrupted, it was decided to take their results into account. Part of the leadership of the political force was dissatisfied with the blogger’s victory.
Criticism
In 2016, Vyacheslav Maltsev made a number of statements that related to the President of the Russian Federation and were particularly harsh. The candidate promised that if he took a place in his political force State Duma, will initiate impeachment proceedings. The blogger also connected economic problems in Russia with the head of state. Daria Mitina and note that Maltsev’s behavior and rhetoric resembles Vladimir Zhirinovsky. At the same time, the LDPR politician himself emphasized during the debate that the blogger studied his early speeches.
It doesn’t make much sense to discuss ParNaS’s election program in the context of the presence of any breakthrough points for the development of the state and society, since the ideological stagnation in the liberal environment, which began in the late 90s, has now reached a certain apogee. Political science experts note that in the non-systemic opposition environment, a clear and logical answer for the voter has not been found to the question of how can the ideological followers of the group of people who managed the economy during the period of privatization, and also retained certain levers in government and business -environment, already in the 2000s, act as representatives of the interests of broad groups of the electorate from liberal reforms and from the liberal vision of Russia's place in the world the most affected.
The response to this ideological vacuum, which has constantly led and is leading non-systemic opposition to failures in the elections, there was a course towards flirting with extreme nationalists, which began with Navalny’s campaigns at the “Russian Marches”, and then continued during the period of “Bolotnaya” protests and the subsequent formation of the Opposition Coordination Council. Observers noted that attempts to incorporate representatives of the nationalist camp into liberal opposition structures were determined by the hopes of the leadership of these structures to use nationalists as street infantry, as well as attempts to go beyond the boundaries of the marginal electoral field and appeal to people in the outback and on the regional periphery.
As a result, ParNaS’s attempt to play democracy and conduct a preliminary vote on nominating candidates to the party’s federal list ended first with the victory in these primaries of the famous nationalist video blogger Vyacheslav Maltsev, who during the party congress was included in the federal three along with party chairman Mikhail Kasyanov and ex-professor MGIMO historian Andrey Zubov. The inclusion of the rabid nationalist Maltsev caused considerable disagreement among the delegates during the congress, as Life has already covered.
Maltsev, who is a veteran of Saratov politics and has been repeatedly elected to the Saratov Regional Duma, is known primarily for his outrageous video blog, where he periodically expresses openly xenophobic and nationalist ideas, and also calls for a revolution, the date of which he set for November 5, 2017. Maltsev’s words about a “worldwide Masonic conspiracy,” as well as about the “Jewish mafia,” which, according to the politician, controls the medical industry, also became widely known.
Maltsev’s victory in the ParNaS primaries and his subsequent nomination to the federal troika of the party testifies to the deep ideological crisis of this structure. Following the results of the congress, it is completely unclear what to do for the basic, “core” electorate of liberals, who are called upon to vote for an outright marginal and a person who has no by and large no resource other than media recognition in some circles.
The pre-election configuration determined by the congress thus reduces the already extremely low chances of ParNaS to overcome the five percent barrier and enter the State Duma of a new convocation. Against the backdrop of an extremely ambiguous attitude towards Mr. Kasyanov after the scandal with the publication of video recordings of his meetings with party comrade Natalya Pelevina, as well as Andrei Zubov’s position on Crimea, in which he condemns its reunification with Russia, Vyacheslav Maltsev becomes the de facto media headliner of the party . And now, logically, one of the leaders of the list of the key liberal party will tell a “Masonic conspiracy” and promote a nationalist agenda to those party supporters who stood at Bolotnaya and Sakharov and advocate tolerance and multiculturalism.
Meanwhile, the party itself does not seem to see any problems or internal conflict in the fact that ParNaS will be led to the elections by a person like Maltsev, as deputy chairman of the party Konstantin Merzlikin told Life:
There was no conflict. And a dispute is a normal democratic procedure: yes, someone doesn’t like something, someone, on the contrary, likes it. Voting took place and the decision was made. “I personally have a positive attitude towards Maltsev and have not heard any nationalistic statements from him,” says the politician.
However, experts are not inclined to assess the situation within the party so optimistically. Thus, the head of the Political Expert Group, Konstantin Kalachev, questions the very effectiveness of such an instrument of political practice as Internet primaries, as a result of which the scandalous video blogger won:
Internet primaries have serious drawback. This is not a primary like " United Russia" - in the mode of popular voting, where the will of the people really takes place. If we talk about Internet voting, then it is obvious that here it is possible to inflate the results: there are people who have fans in in social networks and they can call for voting for themselves. But this does not mean that these people are popular, that they are truly respected. That is, the opinion of the Internet audience may differ from the opinion of voters. And this is a serious problem for ParNaS, that they have become slaves to the procedure. Indeed, in principle, the probability of being included in the list of random people as a result of Internet primaries is very high. And it was worth just admitting the mistake, resetting the results and selecting candidates based on other principles. But Kasyanov insisted on the opposite, the political scientist notes.
As a result, ParNaS encounters an active phase of the electoral cycle without a serious socio-political program, with a sluggish internal party conflict and with nationalist Vyacheslav Maltsev in the federal top three on the list. The final assessment of the latest events will, of course, be given by the voter on September 18, but it is already possible to predict further segmentation of the opposition electorate and an increase in apathy and reluctance among them to vote for a party that nominates such odious personalities with a position completely different from the liberal agenda in the federal elections.
At its congress, the People's Freedom Party (PARNAS) determined the top three in the elections to the State Duma of Russia: PARNAS leader Mikhail Kasyanov, Saratov politician and blogger Vyacheslav Maltsev and historian Professor Andrei Zubov
A conflictual atmosphere appeared at the very beginning of the congress, which attracted more than a hundred participants. Delegate Nikolai Sorokin said that he does not trust the proposed composition of the counting commission.
“The congress has not yet begun, and you are already starting a mess,” party leader Mikhail Kasyanov responded delicately, proposing to supplement the commission with oppositionists.
Some delegates did not want to recognize and take into account the results of the incorrectly held scandalous Internet primaries. The leaders there were the very brutal Saratov politician Vyacheslav Maltsev, who has several hundred thousand viewers of his video blog, and the most intelligent person from an academic environment, Professor Andrei Zubov.
Historian Andrei Zubov did not cause any allergies in the audience with his monocle; the liberal speaks radically: “We are going to liberate the people of Russia, and not just to remove Putin’s group from power. The alternative to elections is a riot. And God forbid that it takes place. We Let’s go to the polls so that the revolution will take place from above, a peaceful revolution of renewal and revival of Russia!”
But the Saratov politician was demanded to remove two deputy party chairmen from the list at once - Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin. At the same time, they proposed not to take into the elections the nationalist and prisoner of Lefortov, Alexander Potkin-Belov, who took fifth place in the primaries.
In the discussion, Ilya Yashin set the tone, who said that he did not have an opinion on Maltsev until yesterday’s political council. In response to the question whether, as Maltsev claimed, the “Jewish mafia” dominates medicine, the liberal candidate replied: “Isn’t there any!?” The candidate Maltsev was also found to be talking about a Masonic conspiracy... According to Yashin, due to Maltsev’s anti-Semitism, the party will lose its “nuclear electorate.”
“If Maltsev is in the top three, our voters will go to Yabloko, but Maltsev, as a clone of Zhirinovsky, will not attract fans of the LDPR,” said deputy chairman of the People’s Freedom Party Ilya Yashin.
During a discussion at the political council, former policeman Maltsev put forward a version that Vladimir Kara-Murza was poisoned “out of everyday life” by one of his friends or relatives. Which, of course, did not please Kara-Murza himself, but he presented Maltsev only with claims of disloyalty to true liberalism.
Before the congress, opponents argued three times, Saratov Regional Duma deputy Maltsev called his opponents “political idiots,” which, of course, added fuel to the fire. Maltsev himself said that this was a phrase from his supporter Ignatiev addressed to the “St. Petersburg people.” The leader of the party branch in St. Petersburg, Andrei Pivovarov, spoke out sharply against Maltsev.
- Let's respect the identity. In the race for populism, we may lose our supporters; they will vote for Yabloko. We have a chance in St. Petersburg. And it will be difficult for me to respond to reproaches: in your top three there is a person who believes that there is a “Masonic conspiracy” and a “Jewish mafia,” said Andrei Pivovarov.
Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov recalled that, according to the decision of the Central Election Commission, the result of the primaries cannot be established; they did not take place. The Federal Political Council made a decision: the interim results should only be “taken into account.”
Mikhail Kasyanov delicately remained silent, while his supporters from the regions put forward different arguments and versions.
They say that Maltsev is close to the Russian provinces, it’s not for nothing that his video blog is watched by 100 thousand people every day. These people will come and support PARNAS. In addition, Maltsev has a history of success - a fighter against corruption and three terms as a deputy. Such a Volga hero is needed by a party that is going through hard times.
– I know Maltsev as a fighter against the Putin regime. A person from a place can lead a people. He has a success story. We must defeat the St. Petersburg mafia led by Putin,” Saratov resident Dmitry Ignatiev convinced the audience.
Another strong argument: we must follow the rules of the game, although the primaries were not completed.
“We must give Maltsev the place he won on the list and not repeat the experience of United Russia with its deception of the participants in the primaries,” demanded delegate Vadim Lukashevich.
“They’ll think we’re afraid of the people’s opinion.” Russia is not what pure liberals and democrats think, Russia is what Maltsev sees it,” said businessman Gennady Pushko.
The appearance of a provincial and YouTube star on the list will be proof of the possibility of a coalition with other forces. According to Ryazan resident Yuri Bogomolov, now PARNAS “cannot act from an ideological position as a purely liberal movement.”
Vyacheslav Maltsev himself showed himself to be an experienced tribune and in his speech skillfully deflected accusations: he did not discuss a conspiracy, but only Masonic symbols, as a lawyer studied criminal national groups. And he’s not even an anti-Semite at all: he spoke controversially only once, but he would be an anti-Semite in every speech their would expose. And he left United Russia back in 2003, spoke out against thieves and swindlers and demands that the “Vova group” leave power.
Accusations of political incorrectness were buried in the story of his glorious victories over Governor Ayatskov and United Russia and in the story of his strong friendship with Mikhail Kasyanov. Maltsev admitted that he is a populist, but this is only a tactical method of working with voters.
By the way, Vyacheslav Maltsev casually reported: he tried to run for PARNAS in the last elections to the Saratov Regional Duma, but did not find any common language with the then co-chairman of the party Vladimir Ryzhkov, I had to go to the polls as communists. This, by the way, supposedly did not interfere with communication with Boris Nemtsov.
It’s strange, but such ideological omnivorousness and tricks with the Stalinists from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and participation in the ultra-nationalist party “Great Russia” did not attract the attention of either liberal critics of the politician or supporters of Maltsev’s nomination. Apparently, politicking is a common thing for them.
It must be said that the figure of the persecuted Alexander Potkin-Belov did not attract so much attention. He could not campaign for himself from prison, and his reputation as an outspoken nationalist is undeniable. Most liberals clearly did not want such a neighborhood.
It’s funny that the sons of Vyacheslav Maltsev were at the head of two groups on the list. Apparently inspired by the multiplying Maltsevs, the famous oppositionist Evgeny Domozhirov, who is running in Vologda, proposed right at the congress to nominate his wife Olga in the neighboring constituency.
As for the ideological position of PARNAS, Ilya Yashin drew attention to the fact that the new majority in the leadership has made criticism of the Kremlin much softer than under Boris Nemtsov; the program talks not about dismantling, but rebooting the system; they focus on criticizing not Putin, but the prime minister Medvedev.
“I also do not agree with the program proposed by the leadership of PARNAS. Kasyanov wants to lead the party into elections with the slogan “Let's reboot the system” (not change, but reboot). Criticism is focused on the socio-economic policy of the Medvedev government. “When I was prime minister, this didn’t happen,” Kasyanov says in election videos. I doubt that the idea “let’s return it to how it was under Kasyanov” is attractive to our voters, although he really was a successful prime minister. But the president then was actually Putin, and the contours of today’s catastrophe were already evident then (the war in Chechnya, the defeat of NTV, the “YUKOS affair”).
My position is that it is necessary to attack topics that others are afraid to talk about. No one but us will dare to talk about corruption in Putin’s entourage, about Panamanian offshore companies, about cuts in state corporations. No one but us will dare to demand the resignation and criminal prosecution of Kadyrov.
This is what we need to build our election rhetoric on, and not compete with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Socialist Republic to see who can loudly criticize this pathetic and worthless government of Medvedev. Our chance was to become the bravest party. Only this can convince our voters to come and vote,” said Ilya Yashin.
I was also struck by the softening of the tone of the speeches of PARNAS leader Mikhail Kasyanov. In his program speech, the name Putin was not mentioned at all; the “regime” was denounced.
– The State Duma has ceased to perform a constitutional function; it is an instrument for the formulation of harmful laws. The Sixth Duma is involved in trampling the foundations of the constitutional system together with the executive branch. There is no separation of powers, an independent court, or freedom of the press in Russia. All passed laws aimed at infringing on the rights and freedoms of citizens. There is a systemic crisis in the country; citizens' trust in the authorities has completely disappeared. Personal incomes are falling rapidly, 8% per year. There are no grounds for renewed growth.
The country needs changes in political system, structural reboot economic system. The authorities are unable to prevent a catastrophe. We need an alternative that will restore relations with Europe. We need a new political course, one for development, not vegetation. Power should be changed through elections in a peaceful constitutional manner. Our plan for the change of power: 2016 - PARNAS political faction in the State Duma, 2017 - factions in a third of regional legislative assemblies, 2018 - new president RF. This is the schedule. Step by step, in a peaceful manner, we will fulfill our civic duty and return the country to the trajectory of democratic development and growth. We must win, create a faction in the Duma and initiate a reset.
Many are disappointed in the failed merger with Yabloko. But the list includes about 50 representatives of the Progress Party, the December 5 Party, and the Libertarian Party. We did everything in our power for the union. I don’t think that Yabloko is our competitor or rival. We can provide partnerships. Citizens will figure it out and make a choice in favor of our program: freedom of the citizen, legal states and the inviolability of private property. The party is ready to fight the current regime, said Mikhail Kasyanov.
Vladimir Kara-Murza called for people to go to the polls, noting that those who voted against Hitler in the 1934 referendum did not have gas chambers or war victims on their conscience.
– We must participate in unfree elections. We are obliged to give those who do not accept the regime of theft and aggression a political voice, to support an alternative. Boris Nemtsov thought so, and he himself was going to run in the district in Yaroslavl, and he could win. Some people really didn't want this. We have the opportunity to go to the polls thanks to Nemtsov’s mandate. A congress of our allies, the Yabloko party, is taking place. I would like to encourage you to treat them this way, both publicly and privately. There will be districts where there are candidates in common with Yabloko: Dmitry Gudkov in the Tushino district and Andrei Zubov in the Central Administrative District. We will have to work together after the current regime is consigned to the dustbin of history! – said Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, due to his loss of rights, will not run for office.
Deputy Chairman of the party Ilya Yashin expressed disagreement with the decisions of Mikhail Kasyanov and the majority supporting him and refused to be nominated to participate in the elections.
At the same time, Ilya Yashin said that he would participate in campaigning for the party list and would prepare another expose political report, since “PARNAS is the only party in Russia that is not controlled by the Kremlin.”
Three times vice-speaker of the Saratov Regional Duma in the 2000s, former businessman and veteran of regional politics Vyacheslav Maltsev is now number two federal list PARNAS, immediately after the head of the party Mikhail Kasyanov. It was Maltsev who won the primaries, which many party members, however, consider to be a failure: they managed to attract very few voters, and during the voting, the database of users’ personal data with all passwords “leaked” from the site, opening up opportunities for cheating votes - voting was even stopped half a day earlier .
Kasyanov insisted that the agreements must be respected and that seats still be distributed in accordance with the results of the primaries. True, this did not prevent the congress from removing Alexander Belov-Potkin, who took fifth place, from the list - for nationalism. It was not possible to eliminate the nationalist Maltsev, although a third of the party members at the congress voted against his candidacy, including Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and other members of the federal political council. Now its members cannot publicly express dissatisfaction with the party’s policies: at the congress they adopted a resolution banning criticism of candidates and party decisions.
A source in the leadership of PARNAS called Maltsev’s nomination political suicide for the party. All Democratic voters will now go to Yabloko, he believes, and all that the party will receive in return are dubious votes from nationalists who are not eager to vote for liberals.
"The most open politician"
Maltsev has a noticeable audience: about 100 thousand people watch his YouTube channel “Artpodgotovka” every day. According to the blogger’s own calculations, this number needs to be multiplied by five, since his content also appears on other sites on the Internet. It’s not so easy to withstand the blogger’s monologues, because each broadcast lasts an hour and a half and is visually monotonous: Maltsev’s “talking head” in front of a webcam.
“Maltsev is like a drug. Many people are even tormented by their conscience if they miss the broadcast. It drags on somehow. Many say that he is like a second father to them, others call him “Uncle Slava”..."
“He is the most open politician, not just in Russia, but in the world. For three years, every weekday for one and a half to two hours live, that is, those who watch it for a year know almost everything about it,” says Maltsev’s supporter Stanislav from Volgograd, a certified builder. “I listen and do other things at the same time,” explains Alexey, an assistant director from Moscow, an almost daily viewer.
“Many people write in the chat that Maltsev is like a drug. Many are even tormented by their conscience if the broadcast is missed, - Irina, an employee of the procurement department of a research institute near Moscow, is on maternity leave and actively communicates in Maltsev’s group on the VKontakte network. — It’s somehow addictive. Many say that he is like a second father to them, others call him “Uncle Slava.”
My parents told me about the interesting blogger Irina.
During the broadcast, Maltsev and his assistants read out “letters to the studio.” Supporters have gathered for a mountain hike to Elbrus and want to hoist the flag of Artpodgotovka, Maltsev’s Internet channel, on the top. A woman from Kazan, on her own initiative, scatters leaflets around the entrances after work, urging everyone to watch the program. Vyacheslav reacts to these messages with majestic approval, but without much enthusiasm. He speaks slowly, aphoristically, often in successful formulations, comments on everything under the sun, reading news headlines: “In Roshchino, a mother forgot two children in a train car,” “In Chuvashia, a judge is suspected of beating a pensioner and her son.”
“Having been an opponent of Putin since 1999, I’m not sure that I can draw the line from any, even the smallest event, that it’s Putin’s fault,” says the leader of the Saratov Yabloko, Dmitry Konnychev, who has known Maltsev for more than 20 years. years.
The blogger has answers to any questions. If his prediction comes true, the Internet will be free after the revolution. There will be no taxes at all; on the contrary, every citizen will receive rent for the state's use of national wealth. All officials will have video cameras installed in their offices so that everyone can monitor them. Money will be only electronic, so it will be impossible to give a bribe. He suggests that drug addicts register and receive methadone or even heroin for state money - then there will be no need to commit crimes for the sake of a “dose” or to involve others. Maltsev often refers to world experience: “This is our long-standing idea, but it found a response both in the UN and in the English parliament, where they are not provincial suckers.”
Simple answers
Kasyanov admits that Maltsev is a populist. Although bloggers sometimes get scolded. For example, for the position on Crimea. Back in February 2014, in his program, he said that Crimea should be “taken away,” but Putin will not be able to do this. In March, he was already against the annexation of the peninsula to Russia.
“We understood that something was brewing in Crimea. And for a month every day they discussed it on the air, like people do in the kitchen,” Maltsev says about himself and his supporters. “In the end, we came to the conclusion that we were not ready to fight with the fraternal people and organize this rock and roll for the sake of Crimea.”
He also has a decision on Crimea ready: “With Crimea, the issue is very simple. We need to sit down at the negotiating table with Ukraine and talk with the people of Crimea. In my opinion, it should become a demilitarized zone that will connect Russia and Ukraine, where there may be dual citizenship. In general, we believe that Russian passports should be given to all Ukrainians and all Belarusians who want to take them. I am a Russian nationalist, a national democrat, so I view Russia not as a state, but as a country. In a country of one people there can be several states.”
But the final decision is up to the Crimeans themselves. Maltsev is a big fan of direct democracy and self-organization. Even his video spreads on the Internet on its own, he says proudly: other channels receive money for advertising inserted in front of the video and thereby pay for their services, this is how the system formed itself.
"Black Warrior"
Maltsev says: I’m sure I’ll write bad about him. At the same time, he answers all my questions with a smile, adding that this still will not harm him.
“See the corner window? Vyacheslav Volodin’s office was there. We drive past the regional Duma in a car, Maltsev points up with pleasure. - And then my office. I had a portrait of Che Guevara hanging there.” “He maintains the image of a political hooligan,” explains Konnychev: he also remembers the portrait of Che in the deputy’s office well.
“I earned a lot in the 90s, I was probably the richest person in the region. I had 2,000 people working for me,” says Maltsev about his security company Allegro. Now, according to him, he has sold all his property, and this money will last him for many years to come.
He entered politics at the age of 29, when he won elections to the regional Duma in a single-mandate constituency in Engels. Since then, he has been a deputy of the regional Duma three times, and then unsuccessfully tried many times to be elected from different parties. At the end of the 2000s, Maltsev was completely forgotten in regional politics - until he “shot” on the Internet. When asked by viewers where Maltsev came from, their favorite on air replies: “This is the result of people’s resistance. The people nominate field commanders.”
The introspection presented by Maltsev’s 2007 article goes even deeper: “Why am I constantly drawn to fight all kinds of evil spirits? When did I turn from a person into a “superhero” of cartoons or comics? In the army, on the border? No, it was still almost like everyone else's. Maybe in the police? Or in Allegro? I can’t find this line, I was probably born this way, or maybe I became this way after, in 1987, at the Kaliningrad Zoo, after getting drunk, I climbed over the fence into the enclosure of a rhinoceros, and with a penknife carved it on its side. given name: “Glory,” the rhino didn’t even notice. He was not in pain, he has thick skin, and I love animals, I think, much more than people. A few years later I learned that in Africa only the strongest and bravest black warriors in ancient times performed such a magical act to become invulnerable superheroes. Perhaps ancient African witchcraft has been working all this time.”
“They jump off and make room for us.”
Maltsev, by his own admission, is going to the State Duma with only two goals: to promote the repeal of unconstitutional laws and to ensure that the State Duma impeaches Putin. “When people say, we will come to the Duma and work for the benefit of the people - this is complete bullshit for the reason that there is complete dominance of the Putinites there.” To the objection that the dominance of the Putins makes impeachment impossible, he immediately replies: “I don’t know how impeachment is possible, I will do it. All my life I have been doing the impossible, this is my hobby. For example, to take second place in the PARNAS list, but in fact first - without being a member of PARNAS. Certain idiots there told me that this was impossible. Even Kasyanov, the wise Kasyanov, doubted that this was possible. But I had no doubt.”
Maltsev, in his words, “predicted” the break of Navalny, “Democratic Choice” and other forces with the Democratic Coalition and his subsequent arrival in PARNAS. He has such an amazing talent. “They jump off and make room for us. We immediately turn on the mechanism and fill the void.” When asked why it was impossible to join the Democratic Coalition until other political forces left, Maltsev answers:
- I had to save Kasyanov. If I went there and drove my people, they (Navalny and others. - Ed.) they would have seen that there were a lot of people, and no one would have left there. And if they saw that 72% of the votes were for Maltsev, then the primaries would be disrupted. And would I have gotten this second place then? Most likely no.
— So now Kasyanov needs you?
- Certainly.
— Not only for him,” the leader of the Saratov PARNAS Dmitry Ignatiev intervenes and dramatically adds: “Russia.”
PARNASUS is ours
While I am talking with Vyacheslav, the head of the Saratov branch, Ignatiev, is sitting next to me and laughing at my lack of understanding when I ask my questions. The conversation comes about Maltsev’s predictions, and Ignatiev rushes to list them: he predicted the December fall of the ruble in November 2014 with an accuracy of two days; a few days before the plane crash, the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Irkutsk region said on the air that it was dangerous to send only two planes against Siberian fires; and on the eve of the Turkish attack on the Russian plane, Maltsev dreamed of a plane crash.
“I catch in a distant echo what will happen in my lifetime,” Vyacheslav quotes Pasternak. And he immediately stipulates that 99.9% of his predictions can be explained by simple logic. “But I don’t discount the mystical component either, since I am a believer.”
Dmitry coordinates with Maltsev the layouts of his election posters: Ignatiev is running as a single-mandate candidate for the city duma, on the posters his face is adjacent to Maltsev’s portrait. Maltsev is leading the PARNAS list to the Saratov Duma - he works as a “locomotive”, he does not intend to sit in the City Duma: “Of course, I really love my hometown, but I have political goals. And to ensure that some property is not stolen here, younger people who follow me can take care of it.”
Both adult sons of Maltsev, by the way, are also in PARNAS, and even on the list for the State Duma: Roman is first in the regional group for the Saratov region, Valery is in the Kaluga and Smolensk regions.
Ignatiev appeared in Saratov PARNAS in 2014. A year earlier, in 2013, the Saratov branch quarreled with the then party co-chairman Ryzhkov and stopped work, but did not formally disband. And in 2014, party members learned that the branch in Saratov was being assembled again, without them, but with Ignatiev at the head. The "old guard" came to the meeting uninvited, and there they were expelled from the party. “The Federal Political Council had no influence on the situation,” comments PARNAS deputy chairman Konstantin Merzlikin. “There is a leader there who acts within the scope of his authority.”
In a word, what happened in Saratov, from the position of the federal political council, is a local grater. Whether the department was captured or not, Moscow does not have a clear opinion on this issue.
The local branch of the Progress Party is headed by Ilnur Bayramov, who also has a reputation as Maltsev’s protege, and in the list of founders of the PP branch the surname “Maltsev” or “Maltseva” appears three times.
“The Progress Party, Maltsev and PARNAS cooperate in Saratov,” agrees Nikolai Lyaskin, a member of the Central Council of the Progress Party. - But this is also the case in most regions: there are generally 10 people per region, and they are divided into different parties and organizations. There are regions where there is enmity, and others where, like in Saratov, everyone is friends with each other.
But Parnasovites who oppose Maltsev’s candidacy fear that he will gradually take over the entire party: his supporters will begin to join branches and change the leadership there by voting.
Maltsev responds to such assumptions with a firm “no”: he will not even give reason to suspect him of trying to “squeeze out” the party, so he will separately discuss with Kasyanov whether supporters should join PARNAS. True, Maltsev’s supporters have already begun to come to regional branches: in Novosibirsk, five tried to join. “They are now members of the Liberal Democratic Party. They asked whether it was possible to be a member of both here and there and how to transfer to our party,” said the head of the Novosibirsk branch, Yegor Savin.
Savin did not accept them. “People submit an application, and the department makes the decision. I don’t see any ambush here,” deputy chairman of PARNAS Konstantin Merzlikin is confident: since the leaders themselves decide who to recruit into the party, they will nip any takeover in the bud.
Founding Father
“There is PARNAS, and there are all the other parties,” Maltsev says that he could not be nominated by anyone else, there is no other opposition: “Yabloko, in my opinion, is an absolutely pro-Putin party: if it officially receives money from the Kremlin, then Whose party is this? - he exclaims. To my objection that PARNAS will also receive state funding if it gains more than three percent in these elections, he does not react.
At the same time, over the years, Maltsev changed many parties: in the 90s he was a member of the Fatherland - All Russia party, where he met Vyacheslav Volodin. He boasts that he was one of the initiators of the creation of United Russia: “I am a person who could get everything from this government and took nothing from it: in 2003 I wrote a letter of resignation.” In 2007, he headed the branch of Rogozin’s “Great Russia” in Saratov, and in the same year he created the Russian People’s Democratic Union, the Kasyanov movement, in the city. Since then, he has known both him and the deputy chairman of PARNAS, Konstantin Merzlikin. In 2012, he was unsuccessfully nominated for the regional Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
“Of course, there are presidential ambitions,” Maltsev admits. “I want to work for one term to bring the country to complete democracy, to make the reforms irreversible, so that not a single bastard can bring everything back.” And after that you can completely calmly take care of your grandchildren and walk around Saratov...”
“Maltsev does not miss a single election cycle, although he says that he does not need a mandate. Each time there was a platform ready to nominate him for elections, and each time he did not remain in the next party,” notes Konnychev from Yabloko. “He wants to leave here for the federal level; they don’t take him seriously here,” suggests Alexander Strygin.
“And to a certain extent nationalists”
“We want to rely on a democratic audience, which includes both a liberal and, to a certain extent, nationalist audience,” Merzlikin voiced the party’s position to Novaya. — Yabloko firmly occupies the niche of the left-liberal party. We will all benefit if we take a right-liberal position, where there is a place for conservative values. But they should in no way contradict our basic set: human rights, European choice, private property...” Merzlikin added that a commission headed by Vladimir Kara-Murza has been created to monitor the candidates’ compliance with this “common denominator” of democratic values.
The Parnasov Frond, forced by the party's decision to remain silent, believes that Kasyanov wants to use Maltsev's popularity to get into the Duma, but in the end he will beat himself. “If we gain more percent with Maltsev, it turns out that the leader is not Kasyanov, but Maltsev. And then the party will turn into a nationalist one. Or it will turn out that Maltsev did not add anything to us - and all the sane voters fled anyway,” a representative of the PARNAS leadership spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Yabloko party will benefit most from PARNAS's conservative turn. “Bolotnaya will finally understand that there is only us. PARNAS will completely leave these squares and these memories,” says Yabloko member Konnychev. “Kasyanov is trying to get himself a second chair, but he will fall between them.”
