Alexey Navalny came under harsh criticism from Russian opposition movement colleagues as soon as he was released from Kirov jail on a “podpiska,” (an agreement to stay at his current place of residence — the Russian equivalent of making bail), and as soon as it became clear that he would continue to run for mayor of Moscow throughout the appeals process for his 5-year long prison sentence. These fair-weather enemies restrained from public disagreement while it appeared that Navalny was getting the full brunt of government persecution in a trial most view as unjust and political in nature. However, now that Navalny stands a chance to keep himself out of prison by garnering a critical mass of public support in the mayoral elections against current mayor Sergey Sobyanin, the flood-gates have opened. First, Evgenya Chirikova, environmental activist and former opposition darling with her own mayoral ambitions [GV], wrote a harsh blog post [ru] attacking Navalny for skipping the environmental policy section in his electoral platform [GV]. Navalny responded to Chirikova's criticism promising to include the environment, but could not refrain from dismissively joking that her and her supporters would be distributed propaganda materials made out of “sticks, moss and tree bark. [ru]” It is partially his abrasive sense of humor and uneven tone that got Navalny in the next bit of trouble. The same day that Chirikova wrote her blog, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Moskovsky Komsomolets Ayder Muzhdabaev wrote an open letter [ru] in his Facebook asking questions about the opposition candidate's perceived nationalist views. Navalny has never hid his sympathies for the Russian nationalist movement — only a few weeks ago he co-authored a statement on ethnic violence in Pugachev [ru] with prominent nationalist opposition leaders. Muzhdabaev's questions, however, were much more personal. In particular, he addressed allegedly racist episodes in Navalny's biography — one in which he reportedly called a female Azerbaijani co-worker a “darkie” (“chernozhopaia,” literally “black-assed”), and another in which he referred to Georgians as “rodents” (a play on words: Gruziny (Georgians) and gryzuny (rodents)) during the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Navalny's answer wasn't gracious. He started by tweeting [ru]: Мой штаб требует, чтоб я ответил на какое-то отвратное открытое письмо. Ненавижу такое. Бездарная потеря времени. Тошнит просто — Alexey Navalny (@navalny) July 22, 2013 My staff demands that I answer some kind of disgusting open letter. I hate stuff like that. Total waste of time. It sickens me With a mindset like this, it's no wonder that Navalny ended up with a letter [ru] that can be described as patronizing. After prefacing with how much he dislikes writing answers to such “pointed” [the scare-quotes are Navalny's – A.T.] questions, and how he is going to do it anyway because its his “duty,” Navalny petulantly wrote that he has already answered them 138 times (later he upped that figure to 138,000). At one point he started an answer with an exasperated “Hellloooowwww.” In fact, Navalny seemed so rude that some people drew comparisons between him and President Putin. Olga Allenova, a Kommersant journalist, wrote [ru]: Этот хамский, снисходительный тон в ответах журналисту никого нам не напоминает? По-моему, парень – истинный преемник ВВП. Does this boorish, condescending tone when answering a journalist remind you of anyone? I think the guy is a true successor to VVP [Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin] Journalist Stanislav Minin made a similar connection [ru] to Putin's patented “macho” style of answering questions. Rudeness aside, the biggest point of contention turned out to be the alleged ethnic slur against Saadat Kadyrova, who worked for the Moscow office of the opposition Yabloko party in the early 2000s together with Navalny. While in the original letter Muzhdabaev referred to statements that Kadyrova herself made about the incident (probably this November 2012 interview [ru] with Kadyrova where she says that Navalny's behavior forced her to leave the party), Navalny chose to interpret the question as referring to a blog post by a different former party colleague. He linked to a November 2011 post [ru] by Engelina Tareeva, an 88 year old woman who briefly mentioned the incident in her LiveJournal, but seems to have a generally positive view of Navalny. In this way Navalny evaded answering “Yes” or “No” to the original question, instead intimating that the incident was simply imagined by a half-senile “grandma” who only saw him a few times at the office. This claim forced several of Navalny and Tareeva's Yabloko colleagues to chime in with their own recollections.