Screen capture: Vmeste-RF / YouTube

In four years of working in the Federation Council (the upper house in Russia’s parliament), Konstantin Dobrynin has become known as its most liberal senator. He's called controversial proposals by the Duma (the parliament's lower house) “legislative spam,” compared the dismissal of Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater director Boris Mezdrich to the “quasi-censorship of the Soviet era,” and asked the Attorney General to investigate outspoken, conservative St. Petersburg city councilman Vitalii Milonov for extremism. In the summer of 2015, Dobrynin publicly advised Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinskii to find other work, and called for an end to “gay-bashing.” In early August 2015, it became known that Dobrynin had not been included on the list of nominees from the Arkhangelsk Governor, forcing him out of the Federation Council in September. In an interview with Meduza's special correspondent Ilya Azar, Dobrynin said his departure from the Senate was his own choice, and explained that he considers his political views to be mainly centrist. Dobrynin endorses the annexation of Crimea, as well as laws limiting public demonstrations and declaring organizations “foreign agents.” Russia’s main problem, he contends, is the legal illiteracy of its citizens.

You maintain that you left the Federation Council by your own wishes, but for me – as for any person who has been following Russian politics and your occasionally bold statements – this raises suspicion. Are you sticking to this story?

You can't shake the feeling, eh? [Laughs.] This is actually that rare case when you need not doubt. In early June, I myself made this conscious choice. If you see a new horizon, if you understand that in a new place you could make a bit bigger contribution, then why not? Being a senator – that isn’t a goal in and of itself. It’s not like I’ve been at this for decades. What I could do, I have done.

And what have you done?

I had two main areas on which I focused. One was the defense of the rights of citizens with disabilities, and the other relates to the elimination of so-called criminal procedure absurdities. If we begin with the latter, with colleagues from the Federal Chamber of Lawyers, we have generated over ten draft bills. Some of them became laws, others are under review at present, and these are very important things because every imperceptible adjustment to the criminal justice process defends the rights of people.

With reforms to guardianship and custody legislation, we have been working for over two years on a bill that will "open" residential care facilities, allowing us to break the tendency by which the rights of people living there are occasionally violated. It is really a great cause. These are things that I am not ashamed of.

If you had wanted to stay on in the Federation Council, do you think acting Arkhangelsk Governor Igor Orlov would have added you to his list of senatorial candidates?

If I had decided to stay on, my chances would have been pretty good.

On the independent news channel Dozhd, they call you “the only liberal on the Federation Council,” and on Radio Svoboda your interview carried the headline “The Senator Who Wanted Change.” Do you see yourself in such terms?

I really do want change. What is so bad about that? Whether or not I’m the last liberal, time will tell. I do not consider myself to be such a liberal, really. I’m more of a “reasonable man.” Right now in our country the tone is no less – and perhaps even more – important than the content of the discussion. If someone is convinced of their correctness, then they can speak calmly on that issue and perhaps even win me over. There are some things that I don’t really like or with which I do not really agree, but if I see the internal logic of such a legislative norm or I understand the legal basis, then I am prepared to consent. But you need to convince me of this.

But you don’t consider yourself a liberal?

I consider myself a person who adheres to liberal views. The paradox of the present moment in Russian history is that the norm is becoming some sort of outstanding accomplishment. First this evoked my laughter. Now it is annoying, because an accomplishment is something different altogether. I am just saying normal, reasonable things, and they tell me that I am the most liberal. I am not the most liberal – where is that coming from? I am simply trying to stand up for my views as much as possible.

But what's normal is a subjective thing. Yesterday there was one standard, today another.

No, it is not subjective. Everyone has their own internal sense of what's right. It is cultivated within the family. My father was a classic Soviet policeman, working in the OBKhSS [the Soviet financial police]. When people came over to visit, they were greatly surprised becaused they’d expected to see something else. We lived very modestly; in 1999, my father was embarrassed to buy himself a 9-Series in place of his old 5-Series [two models of Soviet/Russian automobiles]. “What, it doesn’t look good. What are people going to think of me?” he said. That is proper in my understanding, and I was raised on such thinking.

In that very same Soviet Union there were other idea about what's acceptable, which are coming back now, including the same censorship against which you’ve spoken out.

Some things can be borrowed from the Soviet Union and others, of course, cannot. But in any case Russia has a European path. Yes, we have now turned away from it a bit, but not for all eternity, and in a short time we will return to it anyhow, because there is no other way.

And what about a “special path?”

There is no need to invent the bicycle when the motorcycle has already been invented. The search for a path is always good, but sooner or later we will understand that the bike has already been invented. Values are generally universal, there aren’t ours or theirs. The state does not grant mercy, or delegate constitutional rights to citizens; its function is to recognize the existence of rights and guarantee their observance. Not everybody understands this important nuance.

Yet in the Constitution, for example, there is the right to free assembly, which de facto does not exist.

The issue of enforcing the law always turns out to be primary in Russia. And this is not only a problem of power; it is also a certain cunning. I think the global problem for our country – one that should have been decided long ago – is the absence of legal awareness among the people. Our population today is illiterate across the board in a legal sense—people do not know the laws, do not know what their rights are, do not know the mechanisms for the protection of their rights. There is no habit of obeying the laws. All other problems follow from this one. And this is not the fault of the powers that be — most of the blame lies with the lawyers.

Legal education could scarcely have helped in the case of freedom of assembly.

In my time, I voted against the law on public demonstrations [which in 2012 heightened restrictions and fines associated with illegal rallies], but I don’t think it was that terrible. I disliked the haste with which it passed. I think that, if there is such an enormous quantity of issues with a draft bill, then we should discuss them and not rush. And law enforcement is always changing; now it’s this way, tomorrow it will be different.

But as a person with liberal views you won’t join a typical opposition party like Parnas?

For starters, in order to join something, you have to be invited by somebody. As of today, I do not see a party that I would want to join. I respect the opposition, but I'm not over the moon about it. It has the same intrinsic flaws as the authorities themselves: populism and intolerance of criticism, to name a few. For them, if somebody says something a little bit out-of-line, they're immediately labeled an agent of the Kremlin. These are growing pains, but still – if today’s opposition is unable to prove its worth, then another will replace it.

From the legal viewpoint, how do you evaluate election officials' refusal to register opposition candidates for regional elections? Was that the authorities overreaching?

If you try to assess the legal basis using publicly available sources, then this is clearly literal compliance with the letter of the law, dotting every "i" and so on. And therein, apparently, lies the problem. From a legal standpoint, I don’t have any issues here, but from an emotional standpoint I do. But there are judicial mechanisms for the restoration of violated rights, and the opposition is obligated to use them.

You have said that in the Federation Council “all people are competent,” but the “Duma is a cross-section of society”…

And what, you want to say that it isn’t so?

What kind of cross-section are we talking about, if there were obvious falsifications in the 2011 elections?

Russia is conservative, and people who adhere to so-called liberal views are still in a minority. The Duma is a cross-section of society, and it isn’t right to say they are people from some other planet. These are our compatriots, friends, and relatives.

But I think you could find 5 percent of Russians who are liberals.

I think so, yes. But you always have to look at the scoreboard. Right now this is the score, and you've got to train harder to win anything.

You proposed amendments to Criminal Code Article 282 [which bans extremist hate speed], so it would apply to Nazi propaganda, as well. Don't you think Article 282 is a generally illiberal law?

The problem of neo-Nazism in Russia exists, and it’s rather serious at that. Irina Yarovaia’s [2014 State Duma] bill is juridically incorrect and doesn’t solve the problem of rehabilitating Nazism.

Our alternative bill, which has already sat in the Duma for a year and a half, answers concrete questions; it's a serious effort to stop the rehabilitation of Nazism, and it's not about anything else. It could change the situation.

But would it be right to prosecute for words rather than actions?

Do you really think that there is no problem with neo-Nazism in Russia now?

There is, and BORN [the far-right Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists] has been tried for concrete actions.

BORN would not have appeared at all if a properly-functioning anti-Nazi criminal policy had been in place in Russia since 1990. But there was none. The law that we proposed is one of the elements of such a policy, because neo-Nazis and BORN didn’t appear overnight.

If we talk to criminal investigators, especially after the [nationalist] “Russian Marches,” they'd tell you a lot of interesting things, and you’d understand that the problem is absolutely real, everyday Nazism.

Okay, but here again we come to the issue of enforcement, when Konstantin Krylov is prosecuted under Article 282 for the speaking the [nationalist slogan] “Stop Feeding the Caucasus!” at a demonstration.

It's absolutely wrong to say we shouldn't work to fine-tune existing laws or create new laws just because they're poorly enforced. Everyone has a job to do. I shouldn't be treating the people tasked with enforcing the law as people who won't do this correctly.

You’ve said that Dmitrii Zimin should not discontinue the work of his Dinastiya Foundation, yet you have not criticized the law on “foreign agents” itself.

I believe that it’s better to set emotions aside and try calmly to change the law together, if it seems to be incorrect somehow. It’s complicated, but it’s possible.

Alright, but who would help you change it? I have not heard a single critical remark about the bill from lawmakers.

I also supported it—I won't deny it. As I understand it, there's nothing terrible in the label “foreign agent,” by itself. We know Russia was itself founded by foreign agents, starting with Peter I, who in 1697 in Holland enlisted and brought the entire Dutch residence here, which ultimately became a significant part of our elite. Stalin was our representative from Georgia's intelligence network, and with Lenin – everybody knows about him [and the Germans]. That is, being a foreign agent in Russia is a great honor and status. Obviously, I’m joking, but it is sometimes necessary to look at things a bit differently and show a little less emotion when it is uncalled for.

Yes, life has become more complicated for NGOs, but the state has a right to refine and tighten legal regulations. The state is a universal regulator. Another matter is that you should be able to work in different environments – both in comfort and constriction.

You have said that you have “a very respectful relationship with Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko, yet she has, for example, actively called for the introduction of a “patriotic blacklist.” Do you also support this?

I do not support all these “patriotic blacklists” and mutual sanctions. This is reactive policy, you see—we react resentfully to something. We need to propose our own ideas. Much of what is going on now seems to me to be incorrect. We are lagging behind in the global legal game. Now the world is totally different, high-speed, and if you’re slow you’ll get eaten. You have to be quick.

And yet all sorts of crazy initiatives from St. Petersburg legislator Vitaly Milonov and State Duma deputy Evgeny Fedorov are passed quite quickly.

For now, not a single proposal from Milonov and Fedorov has been passed, with the exception of the absolutely hilarious law on “gay propaganda.” I think that the time of these Milonovs is coming to an end, because they’re played out. Like the forest is inexhaustible, but oil runs out. Milonov is like oil, I think he’s almost run out.

I know that he’s the main object of your attacks, but just this summer Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin called for the formation of a tribunal on the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Does that seem appropriate to you?

I did not see that statement, but at first glance I don’t see sufficient legal mechanisms for how that could be done.

I don't, either, but you maintain that there are many competent people in parliament, while I see news every day confirming the opposite.

The problem of “legislative spam” now is truly great, and something has to be done about it. It’s sad that the people who generate this legislative spam don’t even try to hide it. Deliberately absurd and implausible proposals are portrayed as reasonable and requiring discussion, and everybody engages in this discussion. If I were a journalist, I would make a weekly rating of troll-legislators. Trust me, nobody would want to end up in those ratings.

People say you are Russia's main defender of the so-called "sexual minorities." Do you consider see yourself that way? Because your proposal to instate in Russia a principle of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” doesn’t really seem to support gay rights.

That’s right. I believe that when there is a problem, the job of the state and lawmakers is not to turn away from that problem and say it doesn’t exist, but to try and find that legal framework which could satisfy both the minority and the majority. When I spoke of the US Army’s principle of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I meant that it worked in the States. There were excesses and abuses, but it was a sort of intermediary step towards the further solution of the problem, because it was precisely that law that helped American gays who wanted not to become activists but to serve their country honorably without worrying they’d be reported by their peers. You have to understand that members of a minority are regular people, they want peace in their lives, not strife. That is what my statement was about.

I mean that gay pride parades, for example, hardly fit into that formula.

Right, perhaps they do not fit in. But if gays are chased off and harassed, it will give rise to a reaction in response. The more gay-bashers, the more there will be fighters for gay rights, the more harshly gay-bashers try to battle the gays, the harder the defense against that battle.

But at some point in Russia – like in America – single-sex marriages will be acknowledged as a constitutional right of citizens?

In actuality, in America the decision on this matter was juridical and not political. The Supreme Court ruled on a concrete question in saying equal rights could not depend on regional preferences and differing interpretations of fundamental human rights, among which, in fact, is entering into marriage. That is what the story was about – no politics at all. How or whether that might happen in Russia is uncertain, because many countries decide this in different ways.

Our Supreme Court could hardly make such a decision.

Why speculate? Will our road be long and what legal form will it take? I think it will be rather long, but even America took 50 years to get there, if not longer.

I cannot remember a single recent decision of the Constitutional Court that would have differed from the regime’s position. You'd likely agree?

If we analyze in detail the enormous quantity of resolutions and rulings from the Supreme and Constitutional Courts, then we can see that it is still not like that.

I could not find a single public pronouncement from you on Crimea or Ukraine. Are you deliberately avoiding them?

Why? Perhaps there have not been very many, but there have been some.

As the deputy head of the committee on constitutional law do you consider Russia’s actions correct?

Which actions in particular?

The annexation of Crimea.

I voted for the inclusion of Crimea as a part of Russia. The Crimean situation cannot not be considered independently from the entire history beginning in 1991. Understandably, after the end of the USSR until spring 2014 the affiliation of Crimea and Sevastopol went unquestioned, but the majority of the population considered it just and historically inevitable that they be unified with Russia.

The whole Ukrainian problem goes way beyond the bounds of the exclusively Ukrainian context, because the root cause of its emergence was the fundamental lack of regulation of a number of issues arising after the cardinal transformation of the post-Yalta world order that took place with the defeat of the USSR in the Cold War. Russia then kept what we might call the informal status of the imperial metropole. We consolidated the nuclear weapons, the permanent seat on the UN Security Council, foreign assets, and foreign debts. At the same time, a number of conflicts were frozen in the post-Soviet space. [The annexation of] Crimea was a resolution to a frozen conflict that took place by peaceful means. After all, as I recall, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Crimeans voted in a referendum for autonomy within the Union, but nobody took interest in it at the time. That is why I consider it to have been a "frozen" conflict.

Right, but you yourself suggest we should be governed by legal precedent, and here you say something completely different.

Why is that? If we are speaking of whether the right of people to self-determination or the right to territorial integrity is the stronger or clearer international principle, then there will be a very big debate. I was sincere in my voting. You can call me a stooge, but then I am the most liberal and progressive stooge. Maybe I’m wrong, but time will tell.

Vladimir Putin addresses Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, regional leaders and public figures in the Kremlin regarding the request of the Crimean Republic and city of Sevastopol to join the Russian Federation. March 18, 2014. Photo: Ekaterina Shtukina / RIA Novosti / Scanpix

In general, though, there are legal laws and there are historical ones. We are simply still living by the laws of the collapse of empire, in which the empire is not Russia in its present form, but the same old USSR. There is no simple collapse for an empire, and God knows what still lies ahead for us.

Ukraine appealed to the European Court on account of Crimea. As a lawyer, do you see any potential in these claims?

Any confrontation between governments – judicial or otherwise – ends in negotiations. So you can file an enormous number of complaints, make a huge number of bold statements, but in the end, no matter what, we’ll negotiate. I don’t know how that is going to look, and it seems there isn’t even a concept for it at present, but one can be developed.

On this note: Russian Investigative Committee Head Alexander Bastrykin has proposed that Russia should reject the supremacy of international law.

You know, one of Aleksandr Ivanovich Bastrykin’s strengths is provoking discussion with his colorful legal pronouncements and his rather original way with posing questions, which later lead to good legal debates. I don’t think his viewpoint will find support, all the more because it’s made moot by a well-known decision of the Constitutional Court [a reference to a June 2015 ruling reaffirming the priority of international norms].

Did you receive advice about how to vote on Crimea? And in general does that kind of thing happen in the Federation Council?

No, that’s a fallacy and a fantasy — the idea that there is always some greater pressure related to voting. Everybody votes as they see fit. They’re all adults, they all make decisions based on their knowledge, their outlook, and their responsibilities.

Right, but on all of the key laws the decision is always unanimous.

Well, what do you expect when the majority of senators are conservatives? That’s how they see things. If, for example, I see things differently, then I vote differently. It is really hard to get into somebody else’s head, but I am sure that each [senator] votes exactly as they believe and nobody is twisting their arms.

Take, for example, the Dima Yakovlev law [banning the adoption of Russian children by American citizens], which senators unanimously supported. Even you didn’t vote against it.

You know, in the case with the Dima Yakovlev law, God protected me. Together with Senator [Vadim] Tiulpanov, we were the only ones who publicly spoke out against it. Then a funny thing happened: Tiulpanov broke his knee and I got bronchitis, a rather serious case at that. But if I had been there, I would have voted against it.

You know, after this conversation, I'd hesitate to call you a liberal. You're more like a centrist – a decent one, but a centrist.

These days, unfortunately, the situation is skewed such that absolutely level-headed, ordinary positions are perceived as ultra-liberal. Sure, I agree that what I say and how I think – by today’s standards – seems liberal, even though in general I am probably closer to centrism.

Isn't the regime responsible for this turn of events, having orchestrated a patriotic frenzy in Russia?

This patriotic frenzy is a cliché. The question is always one of periodicity and cycles. Now there is a particular cycle, but in a while there will probably be another. It’s perfectly normal.

The main thing is to not let another Iron Curtain go up during this cycle.

I don’t think an Iron Curtain is possible now. Now is the time of dialogue, not of nuclear missiles.

Yes, but now there is a war on, though you probably won’t admit that Russia is taking part in it.

I think that Russia should focus on our own internal affairs. Ukraine is an independent country; let it do what it wants. I don’t see any danger of invasion by NATO forces nor invasion by Russia forces. I think that we need to work on our own issues.

Nevertheless, you voted for the right to send troops into Ukraine, which the Federation Council gave Putin?

The right of the president to send troops does not mean troops will be sent, and that right was then revoked. In that period, I think that the president possessed such a constitutional right.

Just in case?

Just in case.

Ilya Azar Moscow