Say hello to Alexei Navalny's libertarian multimillionaire backer
Yasha Levine
Feb 10
Last week Evgenia and I released an episode where we talked about Alexei
Navalny's neoliberalism. We stressed that Navalny isn't against oligarchs or
even the existence of an oligarchy, he's simply against Putin's oligarchs.
Well, we came across another data point that confirms our view of things.
And that data point is Evgeny Chichvarkin.
Chichvarkin is an exiled former Russian billionaire now living in London.
He's famous for setting up "Evroset," one of the biggest mobile phone store
chains in Russia. He fled to the UK after being forced to sell his company
in a shady Kremlin-connected oligarchic corporate raid and has since become
a fashionable merchant, sporting a Nicholas II mustache, wearing ridiculous
outfits, selling wines and spirits, posting workout videos from Dubai, and
professing a philosophy of freedom and hedonism. He's into opposition
politics, too, and a big Navalny fan.
While Navalny was being treated for poisoning and recuperating in Germany,
Chichvarkin was his guardian angel. He bankrolled Navalny housing costs and
picked up some of his medical bills. And this not the first time Chichvarkin
helped out with Navalny's political struggle. He's been backing him for
years and even started a fund in 2019 to allow Russians to donate to
Navalny's campaign while maintaining anonymity. Some of these people, he
told Svoboda, were children of the Kremlin elite who wanted to support
Navalny without their parents finding out.
What's interesting about Chichvarkin is that he's a committed libertarian
and has long been known as an active backer of libertarian and "free-market"
causes in Russia, including providing funds for Russia's Libertarian Party -
a necrotizing outgrowth of a political movement started in America and
foisted on the world by Charles Koch.
Evgenia first became aware of Chichvarkin's libertarian activism almost a
decade ago while shooting her documentary about Russian libertarians. She
never finished the doc, but she put together a couple of short clips from
her footage - including a teaser intro and various interviews with party
leaders and members. They are a weird, thoroughly colonized bunch of people.
They host tea parties and wave around Gadsden flags in the middle of Moscow,
as if it has any relevance to Russian politics.
For all his whacky beliefs in the science of libertarianism, Evgeny
Chichvarkin is an unexpectedly likable character. He very candid, too. And
recently he's been on a media blitz, talking to Russian and Ukrainian
journalists about why he supports Navalny and how he believes Navalny's
politics are now much closer in alignment with his own libertarian and
free-market views.
Navalny and his supporters have worked to obscure Navalny's own politics in
the service of building as big and diverse base of support for his movement
as possible. So Chichvarkin's interviews and media appearances - even if
very brief - are unique and important, giving us a tiny glimpse into the
conversations Navalny has in private with his moneyed backers.
For instance, in an interview with a Ukrainian journalist last month,
Chichvarkin mentioned discussions he and Navalny had about privatizing
Russia's energy infrastructure:
"I sat recently with Navalny and discussed how we would sell Russia's
natural heritage of Gazprom and Rosneft in pieces. Everyone agreed that it
would take several years to prepare, and the right kind of bankers would be
needed so that the state budget gets the maximum price [for these assets],"
he said. "Do you have any idea what income will come in from Nord Stream?
It's a procaine needle shoved into into Europe! Of course it'll be
completed, and the gas will be shipped.Potentially, trillions of more
revenue are waiting."
The re-privatization of Russia's fossil fuel wealth and infrastructure is a
controversial position that I don't think would go over well with a lot of
Russians. So it's weird Chichvarkin is so open about it. But like I said,
he's weirdly candid.
And a few days ago, he dialed into Rain, a Russian liberal opposition
television station, to talk about Navalny's support for the free-market:
Q: Will you continue to support Navalny in the future?
A: If it doesn't move hard to the left, of course, yes. The the recent
direction of his politics has made me more and more optimistic about that.
The last thing we said about [Navalny's political] program, I don't think
that his view on these issues have ever been talked about in public in
Russian. There are still old things, generic positions that will help get
him elected - things like a 25,000 [ruble] minimum guaranteed, I don't know,
salary and things like that. But in general he is almost a disciple of
free-market economics. And for that I thank the council of wise men who have
been around him all this time.
Interestingly, Chichvarkin seems to be implying that the populist and
leftwing economic positions Navalny trots out from time to time are a ruse
meant to get maximum support from the Russian people and don't really
reflect Navalny's own politics or his agenda. It's a weird thing for
Chichvarkin, a Navalny supporter, to say out in the open like this. Whatever
his personal political views, saying it can only harm Navalny's prospects
with the wider Russian public. But there it is.Chichvarkin seems to just
like to overshare.
Anyway, check our episode if you haven't already. And take care.
-Yasha Levine
PS: Thanks to Tarik Cyril Amar for pointing me to the Evgeny Chichvarkin's
interview with TV Rain. Tarik is a great historian. Buy his book!
