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Darya Pylnova: Hello. This is Glasnost Territory,
and our guests in this studio today are Kirill Rogov,
a political analyst associated with the Institute for the Economy in Transition,
and Yevgeniy Gontmakher, an economist.
Good afternoon.
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: Good afternoon.
Kirill Rogov: Hello.
Darya Pylnova: My first question is about the trial
of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev.
What was your perception of the trial
like before you went to the court to see it and now?
Kirill Rogov: I follow the trial by reading the Web site
of the Press Center, which always posts
what Mikhail Borisovich [Khodorkovsky] says.
I read that with interest,
without missing a single report,
because they are interesting.
As I have written in a column of mine,
that sounds like what court should look like.
When Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaks,
we hear a conceptual system and a system of argumentation
that must sound in a court of law
but sounds very rarely in Russian courts.
In this case, we hear it from a defendant
who speaks in his own defense.
Darya Pylnova: Yevgeniy Shlemovich, what is your take?
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: I feel, of course, complete unprofessionalism
of what the prosecution is doing.
Very interestingly, when page after page of the indictment
is projected to the rear wall of the courtroom,
yellow highlights show portions of it
that Khodorkovsky analyzes word by word,
and the unprofessionalism of
what the prosecution team has produced
is so glaring, so obvious.
I am shocked at the unprofessionalism of the prosecution
and, on the other hand, indeed, what Kirill has said,
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky absolutely brilliantly,
very professionally deals with it,
regrettably, has to deal with it,
as professionally as he was doing business in his time
and had the best oil company in our country
and in general, I think, the best company
as far as management was concerned,
with all the state-of-the-art information technologies,
with electronic documentation system –
what now is only being discussed,
he had it all in place back then.
Thus, just as professionally, he is going about his defense.
Darya Pylnova: From the point of view of the economy
and political steps of the government,
how would you characterize the interdependence
of the trial and the events unfolding in our country?
Kirill Rogov: From the political point of view,
this is a hostage trial, as I see it.
In turn, however, society and our judicial system
and our political processes are taken hostage as well,
because the fact of such a trial cuts off an enormous number
of possibilities in development trajectories
and what is left is only one line.
That is the way this trial works.
All talk about reforming the judicial system
is senseless when things like that take place.
Darya Pylnova: Does that mean that the point of no return
is not behind us yet and things can still be changed?
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: If the sentence is a conviction, god forbid,
then all the hopes that still linger (they may be tiny),
hopes that our country may one day get out of this vicious circle
in which we all have been finding ourselves for a century now,
then all those hopes will fade.
If the sentence is an acquittal or if the trial ends
without any consequences for the defendants,
then that may be a sign of that there may be a chance.
In this sense, we are not yet past the point of no return.
Judging by the pace of the trial, the end of the trial
will coincide with the beginning of a new political cycle,
which is 2011, the Duma elections,
and more importantly, 2012, the presidential election.
And, I repeat, this event will in any event become deciding,
maybe even for the future fate of our country.
In this sense, Mikhail Borisovich [Khodorkovsky] and Platon Leonidovich [Lebedev]
are hostages of the system, and the system is their hostage.
That is the way I see it.
The fate had its say, and, of course,
I would like the fate to be right in its say.
Darya Pylnova: We ask many of the experts who come to this studio
to take part in this program about the same thing,
namely, about their forecast for 2012.
We see that there are already signs of an election race,
and there is already information that Dmitriy Medvedev will run
and so will Vladimir Putin.
I want to ask you that same question:
Is any third option possible?
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: I think that very intensive negotiations are apparently going on there;
they sort out their relationship, look for a compromise,
because it is clear that one of them must go.
I think that the Khodorkovsky factor is very important here,
because it is no secret that the first trial
and in general this entire affair related to the arrest
of Mikhail Borisovich and Platon Leonidovich began in 2003,
when Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was our president.
He gave the go-ahead to that in one form or another,
and of course that, apparently, is very important for all,
for both Putin and Medvedev and, in general, for our entire society.
And, in my opinion, no decision has been made yet.
Darya Pylnova: Kirill, what do you think?
Kirill Rogov: I believe that the situation is more complex:
from the point of view of economic dynamics,
we are heading toward a stagnation that may be rather prolonged.
And in principle, the resources of the political system
that has been established are not very significant.
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: Indeed, our leading elite is feeling
that something they have no control over is approaching.
Is that why they all are so nervous?
The international economic situation in general is changing;
investment processes are not moving at all,
and investment goes nowhere.
Even official data show that.
All those microscopic rates (when season factors are considered)
of industrial growth and of GDP growth mean absolutely nothing.
I think that they feel that they have lost control
and they do not understand what they are to do.
When oil prices were high, there was money
and there was the stabilization fund,
and they could channel money here or there.
Darya Pylnova: What will be the role of the opposition, in your opinion,
or what is it now, and what is the state of the opposition?
And if we consider the prospects of 2012,
may anything emerge there do you think?
Kirill Rogov: I think that there is a big problem with the opposition.
Indeed, we now have a kind of a burned-down field;
all those processes have been somewhat interrupted.
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: Russia has lost investment.
Even the investment flow that we had in the so-called oil years
was mainly going to stock markets,
where a profit could be received rather quickly
in the matter of months or maybe one or two years.
But Russia, and it was clear already back in the 1990s,
needed then and needs now, indeed, even if in the narrow sense,
technological renovation, and those are long investments,
where people must invest for 5 or 10 years,
and only then will they receive a profit.
That means that during all those long years
you have to have guarantees
that nothing will happen to you or your business, etc.
And the Khodorkovsky case in 2003 put a sharp end to it.
By the way, the investments that we had in Russia,
mainly in those financial bubbles, was our Russian money,
taken out into offshore zones
and then returned here to earn that quick profit.
As a result, having looked back
(and the crisis has created a very good situation for looking back),
we saw what we have.
We have a totally backward economy
even from the technological point of view,
when 70 percent of the technological base is worn out,
and all that is, regrettably, thanks to the Khodorkovsky case.
Let us remember what the year 2003 was.
Before that, during the first years, 2000, 2001,
and even 2002, the government and Putin as president
were trying to conduct a more or less
liberal economic policy, at least there were such intentions.
Darya Pylnova: There were certain hopes.
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: There was the Gref Program –
whatever people say about it,
on the whole it was of a positive economic nature.
There was a fairly open stance with respect to the West.
And then this case came as an absolute turnaround,
followed by a number of other cases.
We remember about Mechel, about Gutseriyev…
Darya Pylnova: Now it is Magnitsky and Chichvarkin.
Yevgeniy Gontmakher: Magnitsky is a very recent story.
But, I repeat, Russia in this sense lost its chance
for a technological and economic modernization.