Navalny Katz conflict. Scandal of the day: an ex-employee of Navalny’s headquarters called jealousy the cause of the conflict between Katz and Volkov. The reasons for the lies of Navalny and Volkov: Katz’s version

Volkov was caught with a stripper a few days before the elections

Volkov’s wife reacted calmly to her husband’s “hobby.” "The wife said:" It's good that I wasn't in a gay club“, - .

Volkov's marriage eventually fell apart and he nevertheless found himself a new companion - a specialist in the sociology service of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Anna Biryukova. The new wife is 24 years old, the age difference between the newlyweds is 10 years. The marriage was registered about 8 months ago.

Volkov with his young wife

Yesterday, Alexey Navalny, on Dozhd, accused Maxim Katz of dishonesty. That's exactly what he said:

I have known Maxim Katz for a long time; in addition to joint social activities, we also have business projects with him. Over the years of work, I have never noticed him in any dishonesty. Moreover, I can say that he is one of the most decent people I know. There are many complaints against Katz, but, as far as I know, no one has ever accused him of dishonesty. It was strange to hear this.

In fact, what Navalny said is a continuation of the long-simmering conflict between him and Katz. And it began several years ago, during the elections for the mayor of Moscow. The split occurred right then. Yesterday Navalny presented it this way:

“I try to interact with people who know what ethics are, what normal relationships with the team are, he (Volkov) fired him two weeks before the elections for some reason, and I supported this decision. Therefore, this is not the right person , with whom we can work together."

The people who worked on Navalny’s campaign at that time know the real reasons, and were surprised by Alexei’s outright lies. In fact, the split did not occur because of someone’s dishonesty, but, no matter how trite it may sound, because of a woman. Nobody wanted to make this story public, but since Mr. Navalny touched on this topic, it is necessary to tell how everything really happened. The floor is given to that same woman.

How it really was

In reality, everything was completely different, which Navalny knows very well, but for some reason he considers it possible to lie publicly. How frustrating it is that the man I believed in so much is so disappointingly forgetful. Let's talk about ethics and normal relationships in a team.

Looks like it's time to tell this story a large number of people. I'm sorry it happened this way. I didn’t dump all this out for a long time because I didn’t want to harm the common cause: after all, sexual harassment (in its Western sense) at headquarters is not the most pleasant story for public discussion.

It all started when Volkov fell in love with me. Lenya and I met in 2012 on the day when I came to Navalny to propose the development of a media resource in in social networks and building the infrastructure to activate supporters and automatically distribute content. And since Navalny considered Leonid an expert on the Internet and social networks, he called Volkov to ask me tricky questions. Everyone was satisfied with the answers, and we began to slowly cooperate.

The first project that we launched with Alexey and FBK was the “Krasnodar” project - if you don’t remember, it was a system for sending messages to residents of Krasnodar about Governor Tkachev. The project turned out great, everyone really liked it, Navalny was pleased.

Afterwards, I helped promote the elections to the Opposition Coordination Council by posting promotional videos in various public pages and through the purchase of advertising on Facebook. The project was controlled by Lenya, so I saw him several more times when transferring documents. Nothing unusual happened. On June 5th, I wrote to Navalny that I wanted to develop Internet projects at FBK or for him personally. At that time it was not entirely clear whether there would be an election campaign. Navalny immediately responded and invited me to cooperate.

Shortly before the elections, Veduta and Volkov and I sat opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, discussing the possibilities of independent politics on the Internet. It was a warm May evening, and we drank wine and joked about literary images from Orwell’s book in relation to the current political regime in Russia.

A few days later, Volkov posted this joke on Twitter, targeting only Anya Veduta. I was terribly offended: why was it impossible to involve all participants in the discussion? Or am I not popular enough for this on Twitter? In short, all nonsense.

I didn’t hold back my resentment: the next day I wrote to Volkov that somehow this was wrong, and asked why he did this. The answer shocked me. He replied that if he had started me, his wife (!!!) would have declassified him (!!!) and UNDERSTANDED EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM (!!!).

Then I did not realize the full extent of the cruelty in which I found myself, but, without leaving my state of surprise, I asked for clarification on what could be misunderstood. He asked for a personal meeting for clarification.

A few days later, Lenya and I met in a cafe, and he said that he loved me. Usually, when shit like this comes up, the girl can explain how it happened. Usually, when they tell you something like that, you understand where you provoked something, where you winked, and where you delved too much into the life circumstances of your interlocutor. But here I didn’t understand at all why and how this happened.

My only assumption was that Volkov is an incorrigible romantic, and at this stage of his life he needed a muse that could give him inspiration for further work and choices life path. I was probably a good option for such a transfer: like him, I liked the idea of ​​cloud democracy (I even gave his book to my social studies teacher), I adored the Internet and always wanted to connect quality public administration with Internet infrastructure. What else seemed important to him, I don’t know. Maybe just family life in Yekaterinburg I got him, and maybe something else.

Judging by the fact that he eventually divorced his wife and married Anya Biryukova, who now works at FBK (and previously worked as a sociologist at the headquarters), this theory is not far from reality.

In general, I told him that I had nothing to say to him, I was shocked, there was no talk of any reciprocity, and we agreed not to raise this topic again.

A few days later, Navalny made Volkov chief of staff and introduced us to each other in the mail as staff members on June 14. That's what they decided on.

On approximately the same dates (exactly June 13), I had dinner with Veduta, and Max Katz came to talk with her. That's how we met.

When he went to work at Navalny’s headquarters and took on the enormous work of organizing field activities, our views on the organization of the process coincided, and we often argued with all the other employees of the headquarters on the most various issues. It was then that we had our first serious fight with Veduta, who for some reason was intriguing, although we had previously been close friends. That's when Max had to fire several employees who weren't doing a damn thing except taking up space.

Katz charges his phone at Navalny's headquarters after passing through the municipal filter

Offline could not exist without online in the work of the headquarters, so we began to communicate a lot, coordinating actions and discussing the campaign every night.

It was then, at the end of the campaign, that we planned the “Navalny in Every Home” project, which we continued together until the very end: I led the process, ideas, managed the programmer and mailer, and Max wrote tasks for the project and pulled up offline activities. At first there was no talk of any romantic relationship with Max. There was also a working relationship with Volkov at that time.

Ekaterina Patyulina speaks at a party for volunteers of Navalny’s headquarters, 2013

We worked hard, and we managed to achieve good results.

And then Volkov went crazy.

For example, once for some reason he sat under my window half the night when I myself was at home. And one day, for some reason, he booked a table in a cafe in order to force me to go on a “date.” I managed to get out.

Then he started following me everywhere, not giving me the opportunity to not only build the Internet normally, but also to go to the toilet normally. Without leaving my state of insanity, I somehow managed to restrain his activity so that the headquarters would not accidentally fall apart due to general hysteria.

Closer to the elections, the nerves of all participants in the process were on edge. So you understand, every day we looked at sociology, and it seemed to us: we need to quickly come up with something else, a couple more percent - and we will win. In parallel with this, the toilet at our headquarters will explode, then some idiots will stage a provocation, then a column of paddy wagons will drive up to the headquarters, then everyone will suddenly start bombing from Navalny’s avatar in the MDK - in short, if in my life there was once a greater stress, I don’t remember about it.

A week before the end of the campaign, we had internal disagreements about how to conduct last days before the elections. Max insisted that three meetings with voters should be held in the city center (as was originally planned in the project of meetings with voters) similar to those that took place in Navalny’s yards: many people returned from vacation and missed when Navalny spoke at their area. Plus, three high-profile public events at the end of the campaign, completed with a concert-rally, would be a beautiful final chord before voting day.

Navalny is tired of meeting and speaking: it is very difficult psychologically and physically. But, apparently, he could not say this directly and tried his best to avoid the proposed solution. Maybe there were others real reasons, but the fact remains: his behavior during last week The campaign caused heated debate.

Volkov agreed with Max about these meetings, but he was unable to convince Alexei that they needed to be held.

It seemed to us that the last meetings would give us the 5% of votes we needed like air, and we were guaranteed to take the second round, and this is a different political reality! But it didn't work out.

At that time, Volkov slept little, did not think very clearly, and was constantly worried about his feelings for me. At some point, our communication with Max began to infuriate him.

One day he even came to the office to guard me so that I would not go to dinner with anyone other than him. And when I managed to escape, he threw me into hysterics.

Of course, one fine day I couldn’t stand it and told him that I was no longer ready to communicate with him in a friendly manner and try to contain internal conflicts in the team, mentioning that he should address this to another address.

The next morning he was so furious over this that he didn’t see a better option than to take revenge for all his suffering on the “main culprit” for the fact that my support was no longer there – Maxim Katz. He tried to fire him without cause, informing a small circle of people about it. Max twirled his finger at his temple at this, saying that this was some kind of nonsense, and showed several people the vague wording.

It was September 3rd, and the elections were on the 8th. By that time, all of Max’s work had been assigned to independent execution, except for his participation in writing assignments for dom.navalny.ru.

That evening I met with Navalny. He did not understand what was happening and why Volkov began to attack Max. I explained to him what Max had to do with it.

He said about Lenya:

“I thought he just wanted to fuck you, but it turns out it’s not that simple!”

There were actually three days left before the elections.

Then Navalny met with Max, and together they decided that now for the common cause it was important “not to tease Volkov,” so they separated Max and Leonid from the point of view of activities to different headquarters buildings.

Max and I continued to do tasks and mailings at dom.navalny.ru, coordinating texts and tasks personally with Navalny. Volkov was moved to the headquarters in Lyalin Lane, I worked in Krivokolenny, and Max spent time at the observers’ headquarters. What was broadcast to Volkov at that moment, I don’t fully know, but at the general meetings of the “political committee” (which included me, Volkov, Ashurkov, Rubanov, Marus, Ginzburg, Navalny and, it seems, Veduta - perhaps there was someone else, but I don’t remember) it was said that everyone continues to work as normal, Navalny does not support Volkov’s attempt to fire Max, and everything is fine. All participants in the process were aware of the personal aspect of the story; Anya Biryukova, for example, was aware. Everyone was sympathetic to Lenya’s difficult situation and Navalny’s maneuvers, which were necessary to prevent the story from going public a few days before the elections: no one needed the scandal.

The employees dismissed by Maxim (Sobol and co) began to return to the headquarters. They began to complain about Max, which is logical. At this time, Volkov was constantly mincing next to Navalny, and Max was minding his own business.

Then there were elections, there was no second round. At the last rally, because of this whole story, I was not allowed to speak, which is quite funny to remember.

View from the stage of the rally on September 9

On the 11th I met with Navalny again. He referred to Max’s excessive independence from him and said that he “has his own game” and “politics is a conspiracy.” On the 13th, Maxim and I left for Cuba to spend less time on the Internet. Further, the emotional background only worsened. When I came to chat with Navalny after my vacation, he said that I was now “Katz’s spy,” and one guy whom I fired from headquarters during the campaign would work on Internet projects. It was very disappointing that all the work would be wasted, especially since before the elections I dreamed of building just such an infrastructure.

This is how a significant part of the digital infrastructure continued, including everyone’s favorite dom.navalny.ru and my especially beloved volunteer passport.

Thus began a serious split in the opposition forces, because of this everyone quarreled, first inside the headquarters, and then outside it.

A lot happened after, but initially it was from this situation that the roots of stupid rumors, emotional conclusions and other things grew. Navalny chose to further cooperate with someone who was clearly in the wrong, but was personally loyal to him. Max ended up in this situation entirely because of Volkov’s banal jealousy. Of course, Navalny should have stopped this, and not now lie to live"Rain."

I'm sorry I had to tell this story, which I kept silent about for three years. But you can’t imagine how disappointed I am with the lies and stream of nonsense that I have heard addressed to Max from Alexey’s team during all this time, especially from those who knew about the reasons in every detail.

Here we have a serious scandal. Only at first glance it may seem that this is just another squabble between representatives of the opposition; in fact, this conflict may have far-reaching consequences. With each turn, the parties present more and more serious accusations against each other and, apparently, have no intention of stopping. Since many people are not entirely aware of what is happening, I have prepared a brief summary of the current situation.

WHAT HAPPENED

On May 31, Alexey Navalny, on the air of Dozhd, called Maxim Katz a “dishonest person” and a “crook.”

BACKGROUND

In 2013, Navalny participated in the elections for the post of mayor of Moscow. Maxim Katz worked as deputy chief of his headquarters and was responsible for organizing work (cubes, meetings with voters, logistics, and so on). At the end of the campaign, after everything had already been organized, a difficult personal story happened, as a result of which, 4 days before the elections, the structure of the headquarters was changed and Maxim began to work directly with Navalny.

But recently, on the air of Dozhd, Alexey reported that Maxim was fired from the headquarters 2 weeks before the elections, and called him a “crook.”

NAVALNY'S ACCUSATIONS AGAINST KATZ

Now let's move on to the essence of the accusations. On air, Navalny outlined three reasons why he considers Katz a dishonest person. Within a day or two, Katz responded to each of them, in turn accusing Navalny of lying. Here are the positions of the parties:

Navalny
- Katz himself is a corrupt official, he hid the income and transferred it to his parents’ foreign accounts.
Katz
- Katz is not a corrupt official, he has never worked in the civil service or in a government position. He had a foreign account because he funds foreign poker players to participate in tournaments. Before the elections to the Moscow City Duma, he closed the account due to legal requirements, and transferred the remaining money from it to his parents.

Navalny
- Katz doesn’t know what ethics is and doesn’t know how to build relationships with people. That’s why he was fired from Navalny’s headquarters two weeks before the elections.
Katz
- There was no dismissal from the headquarters. There was an attempt to dismiss for personal reasons, which Navalny canceled, and he also slightly changed the structure of the headquarters. This happened 4 days before the elections.

- They tried to fire Katz not because he is dishonest and not familiar with ethics. The reason for the attempted dismissal was that Leonid Volkov, the chief of staff, was in love with Katya and was irritated by her friendship with Maxim. Due to general fatigue and emotional overstrain, Volkov began to do strange things, and at some point Katya could not stand it and told him that she was no longer going to communicate with him. She accused Leonid of sexual harassment and informed Alexey. Volkov then took it out on Katz, trying to fire him. In the conflict, Navalny took the side of Volkov, who was loyal to him, instead of supporting the too independent Katz. Despite the sexual harassment, he retained Volkov in a leadership position, but still canceled Katz’s dismissal.

VOLKOV'S ACCUSATIONS AGAINST KATZ

June 2, his point of view on events related to Katz expressed Leonid Volkov. He added a new round of accusations against Katz. Here is Volkov’s position and Katz’s answers:

Volkov
- Katya and Katz once again proved their dishonesty by publishing her personal correspondence with Volkov. All this is at the level of Life and NTV.
Katz
- People have the right to publish their (!) personal correspondence when they are unreasonably accused of dishonesty. This is necessary in order to prove that you are right.

Volkov
- Katz wanted to remove Volkov from the post of chief of staff, weaved intrigues and spoiled relationships in the team.
Katz
- Volkov was incapacitated due to his love for Katya and extreme fatigue. Therefore, in a conversation with Navalny, Katz raised the question of who would take control of the headquarters if Leonid failed. Navalny responded by saying that Volkov would remain at his post in any case, and Katz would now work directly with Alexei. (Letters from Katz and Navalny are cited as evidence.)

Volkov
- Katz promised to hand over everyone to the police if members of the headquarters came to the Moscow City Election Commission after the elections and demanded a recount of votes.
Katz
- From the very beginning of his work at the headquarters, Katz stated that he would build a campaign exclusively within the framework of the law. A month before the events described, he unequivocally stated that he would not engage in breaking the law or cover up for other people breaking the law.

On the Dozhd TV channel, Alexei Navalny called Maxim Katz a “dishonest person” and a “crook.” The head of FBK made such a harsh statement in response to a video message from a municipal deputy, in which he asked why Navalny does not support the election campaign of Gudkov Jr., which is led by Katz.

Maxim was also wondering why Alexey was saying such things about him behind his back and ignoring his city projects. Like, I could not have done this, because we worked together in the elections for the mayor of Moscow. Plus, both are oppositionists and must fight the regime together, sort of. But the opposition is different from the opposition.

Navalny said that he would never have any business with Katz, since he is the creator and participant in corruption schemes. During the elections to municipal deputies, Maxim transferred his fortune to the foreign accounts of his parents, the head of FBK is sure. It was for his dishonesty that Katz was fired from Navalny’s headquarters two weeks before the Moscow mayoral elections in 2013.

At the time of his exposure, Katz was sitting on the plane and was unable to respond to Navalny’s attacks in a timely manner, which made him very annoyed. Moreover, Alexei’s henchmen actively promoted the topic of the “murky rogue.”

His comrades-in-arms supported Maxim, saying that ardent fighters against corruption in the persons of Navalny and Volkov themselves resorted to black accounting. They are not just crooks, but actual swindlers and thieves.

Katz, having landed in Germany, responded less emotionally to Navalny’s statements. He accused Alexey of lying and told some details of their joint work in the elections for the mayor of Moscow. The municipal deputy summarized that Navalny quarreled with absolutely everyone and was left with almost no political allies. According to Maxim, he doesn’t really imagine how people will continue to work with the head of FBK.

It is curious that the young lady was again involved in the “Katz-Navalny” story. No, not Natalya Pelevina, but Ekaterina Patyulina, who worked in 2013 together with the participants in the conflict. The discord between the oppositionists was largely due to matters of the heart, which adds spice to the quarrel between the oppositionists. Without this, apparently, nowhere. Ekaterina, having watched Navalny’s interview on Dozhd, considered it necessary to tell everything.

According to Patyulina, Volkov fell in love with her in the summer of 2013. Katya could not reciprocate his feelings. Lenya was very upset and at some point became jealous of his beloved Maxim Katz, with whom Catherine maintained a warm relationship. Volkov began to weave intrigues, and ultimately Patulina and Katz were removed from work at FBK. Then Volkov apologized to both, but the aftertaste remained. It was Navalny who raised him from the bottom, explaining Katz’s dismissal as unprofessionalism.

Navalny does not allow anyone other than himself to act as a spokesman for protest ideas. He has long imagined himself to be number one in the opposition environment and is trying to push out those he doesn’t like. Moreover, on the air of Dozhd, Navalny called for a boycott of the elections, which caused justifiable