“Now I am not constrained by regulations”
On Tuesday, the political elite celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Liberal Democratic Party’s victory in the parliamentary elections. Then, in 1993, the success of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s party became a sensation. Today, the most charismatic leader of the Liberal Democrats is no longer there, and his associates are having a hard time. On November 1, the youngest State Duma deputy, Vasily Vlasov, was stripped of his mandate for absenteeism. This happened for the first time since 2016.
The disgraced LDPR deputy is going to sue the State Duma. “MK” talked with a former deputy about the sauna with Zhirinovsky, party turnover and the dying will of the party leader.
“When a person leaves power because of crime, it’s one story; when he leaves because he tells the truth too much, it’s stupid to be offended by it,” says 28-year-old ex-State Duma deputy Vasily Vlasov. – Vladimir Volfovich began his political career at the age of 40. I haven’t finished my career yet and will continue it. You need to understand that deputies are unlikely to be younger.
The following sign hangs in my office: “The youngest deputy of the State Duma.” 21 years, 3 months and 8 days. 7771 days. I don't regret anything.
– Yes, just the other day I freed her. This is a one-room apartment, 50 meters. When I moved into it, there wasn’t even a bed, just a fold-out sofa. A chain-link mesh and a mattress as thick as a little finger on it are not entirely adequate conditions. I lived in this apartment for seven years. The buses from Olof Palme street were convenient for getting to work. There were three flights in the morning: at 8:00, 8:20 and 8:40. To order cars individually, there was a long wait in line. And here you know the bus schedule, it’s warm inside, you can still discuss the agenda with your colleagues.
– At the age of 16, I came to the cradle of the party – a two-story mansion on Chistye Prudy, to the LDPR youth organization. We immediately went to stop the picket. Then I, a minor, was asked to stand aside. Then I brought “handouts” (leaflets) and helped in the elections. Then he headed the Moscow branch of the party, then the All-Russian youth organization, climbed the career ladder and at the age of 21 was elected to the State Duma.
– In the last few years, mine and Vladimir Volfovich’s office had a single reception: to the left to Zhirinovsky, to the right to me.
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– When Zhirinovsky was in the hospital, he only called me. And we had several conversations, I recorded them – he asked to always record any meetings and conversations due to the fact that Zhirinovsky gave instructions. And indeed, in one of the conversations he said that he would like me to lead the faction during his absence. This parting word was not fulfilled.
“They thought I was too young.” And the whole plan regarding the current leader of the faction did not arise suddenly. Naturally, I have less administrative resources than he does. In that case, I lost the fight for the post of leadership of the faction. Vladimir Volfovich turned out to be right about what is happening in the party now.
Everyone says that the LDPR is a party of one person. Not at all like that. Vladimir Volfovich created a serious team in which competition between members was healthy and drove progress. Now your colleague Alexander Dupin, who headed the press service of the LDPR for more than seven years, has left the team.
It is quite difficult to work with Vladimir Volfovich. These are constant events, regular complex comments. This is work 24 hours a day. Vladimir Volfovich woke up at four or five in the morning and could already call at six o’clock to say that VDNKh was hosting an exhibition that was worth visiting. And by 10 o'clock we must be in place and gather the press.
– Yes. This event was part of the election campaign for the mayor of Moscow, so I will not be shy about this question. There is a well-known photo in a bathhouse with candidate for mayor of the capital Mikhail Degtyarev and with fifty other journalists – men and women who came to Sanduny. At that time there were elections for the mayor of Moscow, to which Vladimir Volfovich said that the real mayor of Moscow should be with his voter everywhere: in the pub, in the bathhouse, in the subway, in a taxi, and at the station. We came to this first category hall, which was filmed in the film “The Irony of Fate.”
– No, I never went. And that event was public. For some politician, it can be a mess to go to a glass shop, pancake house, or bathhouse, go to the station to visit the homeless, or come by train to the most shabby village, where there has never been a tsar or a president. Buy ice cream on Arbat and give it to passers-by, or take a wad of money and give it to people. This is all the style of his work and the style of his propaganda. And to reproach Vladimir Volfovich for not being good at propaganda is stupid.
– This is not a race. Every politician has his own voter, and Zhirinovsky in particular. I am sure that we would have a high result if Zhirinovsky always remained Zhirinovsky. Sometimes, in order to maintain a stable situation in the country, he had to give in somewhere. This is politics, high matters. And it is clear that this may have resulted in a situation where the LDPR received only 19 seats in parliament.
Vladimir Volfovich left behind a party that was completely motorized – from the point of view of transport. And in terms of real estate – the richest and largest. Left about 2 billion rubles.
He told us that this is for the next election campaign, if something suddenly happens to me, then you can easily run for election two more times – everything is paid for. How this money is spent now, I don’t know, but so you understand, even in his will, Zhirinovsky left 70% of the funds to the party, 20% to the children and 10% to the IMC (Institute of World Civilizations, founded in 1999 on Zhirinovsky’s initiative. – Auth.). Who else can write a will where you leave only 20% to your three children?
– Theft. Vladimir Volfovich parted ways with swindlers, those who sold interests or stole party money.
– I wouldn’t say that they were for sale. Only if some deputy or candidate took upon himself the financing of his election campaign – and this can amount to a very large amount. According to the standards of the Central Election Commission, from 5 to 20 million rubles is crazy money. It’s clear that a student at Moscow Pedagogical University, which I was when I was elected, and a person who came from business have different starting positions. And someone can invest 50 million rubles in their election campaign, while others can only invest 30 thousand rubles. We need to look at these things objectively. It is clear that many people who could invest money in this business did.
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– No, absolutely. Boris Yeltsin left the Communist Party, Dmitry Rogozin went through ups and downs in his career. I could easily serve the entire term, like some colleagues, without speaking, without working in the districts. People take vacations at their own expense and generally don’t go to the State Duma.
I have three months to appeal the deprivation of my mandate. I’m preparing to file a lawsuit against the State Duma in the Supreme Court in January. Then everyone will know how many real mistakes she made and how unfairly she behaved towards me.
– If you take a vacation at your own expense and if you take sick leave, then, naturally, your salary is not paid. But at the same time, the deputy’s apparatus remains working. That is, seven assistants (an assistant receives 400 thousand), the deputy’s reception offices are working, money is allocated, but there is no work. The State Duma turned a blind eye to this in the case of deputy Belousov for two years. He could have been stripped of his mandate earlier. And then, together with him, they decided to deprive me.
– I know that the faction discussed the issue of Paikin and Napso. Misses from meetings and voting are checked very easily. Some colleges are not even registered. When the commission asks about absentees, they are told “so he took a vacation at his own expense.” You can take a vacation, then a sick leave, and then go on vacation again – and so on endlessly.
According to the documents, this is correct, but according to conscience, it is not. You won’t find Deputy Paikin’s vote on the State Duma website. He is generally not in the list of deputies on the website. This is fine? Why then are these norms needed when voters monitor the voting of their deputy? It has become a habit for deputies to “play the piano” – when one deputy closes the entire voting row. This is abnormal and wrong.
– We are entitled to deprivation of our mandate for this. But no one is stopping a deputy’s wife or son from doing business. And no journalist can prove that this or that deputy continues to do business because his wife is running the business, and before that, the business was run by a deputy for 20 years. The law has been passed, so be happy about it. The deputies themselves circumvent any law.
For the second year now, deputies have been allowed not to publish an income statement. Well, if they did this, the voter would find out that the deputy is a “semi-homeless” and his wife is an oligarch. If you believe the declarations, then the wife is supporting the whole family – this is common, but now such information is not published.
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