Pussy Riot merges music, performance art and protest into hard-hitting advocacy for human rights—including prisoner's rights—while also utilizing this artistic mélange to express disdain of the current Russian government. Hosts Susan and Todd speak with members of Pussy Riot about the group's development from punk rock band to arts collective, their reflections on protests happening in the United States, and the presidential regimes of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
Pussy Riot's performance income has halted due to the outbreak of COVID-19. To support Pussy Riot's work, consider making a donation to their Paypal : PR.RiotDays@gmail.com
Show Notes:
Riot Days (Book)
Feminist Activist Could Face Prison for Drawings
I'm Susan Barrett, and I'm Todd Thomas. At Barrett Barrera Projects, we believe that ART IS A VERB — it’s the ongoing process of de-constructing and re-constructing our world.
This season, we'll delve deep into the creative processes of some of our most inspiring friends and collaborators, to understand how they are navigating this pivotal moment and working to transform our existing systems, reimagine the status quo, and support each other across disciplines, in order to create a more sustainable, and equitable future for us all.
Welcome to ART IS A VERB, a Barrett Barrera Project. In this episode we welcome two guests, Masha Alyokhina, of the legendary arts collective and Russian political activist group Pussy Riot, and Alexander Cheparukhin, the group's promotor, and the founder and director of Green Wave Music.
We caught up both of them on July 13th, amid ongoing protests against Putin's recent constitutional amendment, which would allow him to remain in power until the year 2036.
We discussed the parallels between Putin and Donald Trump, the destructiveness of their rhetoric, the solidarity Pussy Riot feels with the Black Lives Matter movement, and the unique, and hard hitting blend of art and activism that characterize their work.
Barrett Barrera Projects was set to host a Pussy Riot festival this past summer, but we were forced to postpone, due to the outbreak of COVID-19. In the meantime, Masha and Alexander, we are thrilled to have you here on "Art is a Verb." Thank you both so much for being here.
Let's start by asking... where in the world you are right now?
Masha: [00:01:45] I’m in Moscow. Um,
Susan: [00:01:46] you were just in...
Masha: [00:01:48] So I have a quite nice situation of a travel ban. I already had one for a year. Uh, and now I think I have another one. So, because of my participation in protest, demonstrations, and because of our actions, I have a very huge fine, around like $5,000. And until I pay it I cannot travel. I mean, I will be stopped in the airport. I already said this type of ban in 2018. When we performed in Edinburgh Festival, I was stopped in the border, in Moscow airport.
It was stopped, and I was told that I have this ban, uh, because of community service work, which I did not do that time because of the actions. And, um, so I escaped, uh, for the festival by let's say magic ways, but these ways are not working anymore. [Laughter] So yeah, and we have really interesting and dark periods in our country, because as you probably heard, our constitution was changed just two weeks ago. And now officially, legally, Putin can be a president until 2036.
Alexander: [00:03:22] Oh my God. Well,
Susan: [00:03:23] Let's hope our president is not listening.
Alexander: [00:03:25] Exactly.
Todd: [00:03:27] And Alexander, are you in Moscow as well?
Alexander: [00:03:29] No, I am in a different country. I'm in Montenegro, which is part of ex-Yugoslavia. And actually, just a few weeks ago, like three weeks ago, Masha still was in India. She was kind of locked in India because she was there for the short time to have vacation, but then we had to continue the world tour with our Pussy Riot, Riot Days musical theater project, but everything was canceled because of Coronavirus. And I actually begged Masha to come here to Montenegro, because it’s like safe here, and you know, everything’s okay, we just can stay here. But she decided at the last moment to catch, like, a casual flight from India to Moscow, because she you really, really wanted to participate in some protest action against this anti-constitutional change of constitution. Yeah, it sounds maybe peculiar, but it's [an] Anti-constitutional change of [the] Russian constitution.
And she made like a really, really bright, short video clip when she actually burned the new constitution. And I was really, really shocked and admired what she did in Moscow. She came to Moscow exactly before the campaign to organize this, all of Russia voting for changing the constitution. So she was there to act. I'm proud of her.
Todd: [00:05:02] That sounds fantastic. Is there a place that we can see that clip?
Masha: [00:05:09] We have it on Pussy Riot Youtube, and on my Instagram. It’s on all Pussy Riot social media and in my social media as well. I can send you link.
Todd: [00:05:21] Great. Yes. We'd love to look at that. Masha, how did you get involved with Pussy Riot?
Masha: [00:05:31] Hmm. I was [an] ecological activist before Pussy Riot, and when I joined Pussy Riot, that was also [a] very dark period when Putin decided to be President for the third time. And this particular time became a real nightmare for our country because of the war, which Putin started because of the occupation of Crimea, which he made because of a huge number of criminal cases against political activists and so on. So he decided to be president and Pussy Riot was born [at] this time, for protest against this.
Rehearsals of the song and actions took place in the flat of my very best friend, Anastasia, and I was there as well, and we kind of knew each other because we were in one circle, and I decided to join Pussy Riot for the action “Putin Pissed his Pants,” which we performed in Red Square. And then the next action was in Cathedral of Christ The Savior, which was actually the most, I think, uh, Known...
Todd: [00:06:52] The most visible globally
Masha: [00:06:55] Yep. So that's how it was.
Susan: [00:06:58] I was talking to Alexander before, and I think it's important, Alexander, if you could explain the evolution of Pussy Riot in terms of the rock group, the punk rock group, and then in terms of the artists who are the political activists.
Alexander: [00:07:20] In order to explain this, first I should shortly tell you about how I was involved. I was [an] environmental activist and Perestroika times in [the] Eighties. And then I've done some music projects for environmental congresses and gatherings. And then, step by step, I drifted into music and became [the] artistic director of several international music festivals, but at the same time, I was chairman of [an] environmental international association. So when Pussy Riot made the action in Red Square in 2012, I was really impressed. And this was my favorite action during this time of active protest. And then I even translated the words of their songs, and I sent these words to people whom I knew who were my colleagues, to famous people like Peter Gabriel, Patti Smith, and others.
And then when they were imprisoned, I met Pyotr Versilov, who was [the] ex-husband of Nadya and one of the key person behind the Pussy Riot. So he asked me to help to involve big public figures to support Pussy Riot. That’s how I collected video statements and letters from people like Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, Sex Pistols, and many, many others, and I've done several conferences of them.
So then they still were upon the bench for me. But when Masha and Nadya served their two years in prison, I brought these letters of support from people like Paul McCartney to their prisons, and I visited them in prisons, they were released by amnesty. So we met again already, not in the room for meetings in prisons, but in the free world and started to travel together sometimes.
And then step by step, we realized that Masha and Nadya, they have different creative abilities and different creative tastes. So, Nadya started to do some songs, and mostly she works in America now, and with Masha, we started the project called “Riot Days” based on the wonderful book, which I also helped her to publish all over the world.
And then we produced together, the Riot Days multimedia and the multi-genre show which combines her spoken word, video, action, and songs as well, mostly like all these legendary first songs of Pussy Riot, of the first period. And we consider this not only as a kind of a memoir of Masha, but as kind of our joint punk manifesto.
That's how Pussy Riot kind of developed from direct action, punk band to [a] multilevel, let's say artistic collective, which makes actions, for instance, you remember the action in the final match of Croatia and France football world cup--you would call it “soccer” world cup--two years ago when Pyotr Versilov and several girls, they went to the football field as a protest against police violence. You know, it was a special action in the very final game. So actions--Masha does a lot of actions--hen we have this very theatrical musical, and we've got several international awards for this, including the Herald Angels Award In Edinburgh festival and Total heater Award for [the] Best Innovative Theater, of 2012 in all Edinburgh festival... to let's say, several music projects, which are rather far from initial punk form, which Nadya is doing, and sometimes we have some other people involved who are good musicians, so it's really kind of [a] multi-genre artistic protest art collective right now.
Todd: [00:11:19] I'm curious, what's the kind of percentage of support of what you do there in your country, or are more people kind of on board with the way that you feel, or, what's the sort of majority feeling there? And the second part is, what do you make of what's happening in the States right now with our administration and fake news and the Uprising in the Black Lives Matter movement, all of that stuff kind of converging.
Masha: [00:11:50] Well in Moscow, I think we are on board actually, with everything that's happening. I think the main point of our protest is a protest against Vladimir Putin and his regime, which is [a] real criminal regime.
We have another number of criminal cases appear just two weeks ago, after this constitutional change. One is against one journalist, another is against one politician and it's actually, it's endless, endless...the chain of criminal cases, which is not for, [a] half an hour talk. [Todd: Right.] We have a lot of them. [Todd: Right.]
I should mention [MediaZone], as well, a journalistic project, which we started together with Nadya and Pyotr in 2014, just after our release from prison. It became one of the most popular and quotated media in Russian internet. It’s a first for journalism in Russia, and I'm really proud that almost all the money which we received in 2014, 2015, all of it we put to Mediazone, and now it really helps people to cover the situation with prison violence and police violence and political court trials.
It's really important. And about what's happening now in The States, of course, all of us who are outside of United States, we can analyze the situation and see the situation only from the outside. Um, from the news and from the messages of our friends. [Todd: Right.] But I should say, our first song in English, our song,
“I Can’t Breathe” protest is 100% non-processed song, in a collaboration with several artists like Richard Hell and Nick Zinner, whom we asked in one evening, maybe they want to do the statement together with us. That was just after Eric Garner's death....Murder... And we made it in two days, in one studio, almost without sleep, without break.
And when we came back, we made a huge number of rational, specific problems like canceling venues. And so one video clip, and that was our first English song. And for me personally, it was really, really important because I just could not forget the text, which I transcription of last words of Eric Garner, which I read in some news... when I just... it was in my head and I couldn't do anything to forget it.
So that's why we tried to make this song. I read some news, I see this, the crazy statements of Donald Trump about, “all the antifascists are terrorists, etc.” [Todd: Right.] and what I should say,I heard his speech on Independence Day just recently. And his rhetoric starts to be very similar to Putin’s rhetoric. He starts to use all this, you know, we need in the Second World War as the main point of “Great America” and so on. You know, [the] main point of Vladimir Putin now is, “we need in the second world war.” [Susan: Hmm.] Military parades about that and all the news about that and all the enemies whom here fine. It's actually all the rest of the world, they call fascist. [Todd: Right.] So if you will have the same thing in your countries, that will be...uh...really strange and, um...not good.
Todd: [00:16:01] Yeah.
Alexander: [00:16:02] Could I add something? I'm not exactly twice older than Masha and I first came to America in Eighties during this Gorbachev Perestroika time.
And I'd done a big symposium and music fair, like, a big gathering the people together with a late John Denver, the famous American country singer America... At this time, America was a real symbol of freedom for us. And it looked like [a] free country. [Susan: Right.] And I would say that different presidents of America, whether we like them or we don't like them, but at least in best teachers, they always tried to unite people from America.
They always tried to present themselves as leaders of all Americans, like leaders of all American society, [Todd: Right.] like a uniting force, uniting personalities, and probably the first time when we see the person who is you know, making people enemies... trying to present some people as enemies of the country is the current president, Donald Trump.
And this is a really, really un-used to for America, as we imagine America and...the level of, let's say hatred, which we see in [the] internet, the hatred between different groups of Americans. The hatred between let's say ultra conservative people and ultra liberal people or like, right and left people became so unusual for America, that it really scares us, cause we really hate whatever is happening in Russia.
I would say that within my 62 years of life, I've never felt such disgusting feelings, of lie, of violence of [the] power of big money, power of combination of big money and violence, as now. But at the same time, America cannot serve anymore as a symbol of freedom. And this is a very worrying thing for us. And also it shows us that whatever...
Todd: [00:18:20] It's a worrying thing for us as well, Alexander.
Alexander: [00:18:26] It also shows that the topics of Pussy Riot’s films, and Pussy Riot’s actions are, in a way, universal. They're not only kind of a pure Russian topic, [Todd: Right.] In a way, they’re universal. And we see how one personality can change the whole climate in the country.
And since, like, we spent a lot of time in States altogether, altogether maybe several years, if we put together all periods of time we spent in America, and that's why we cannot be, external observers of what's happening in America. I’m really worried. it really touches my heart so I can see that America is my,second motherland, my two daughters have been born in America. That's why I cannot just like, you know, I observe it without passion. I observe it with some sorrow, and a real kind of feeling of trouble.
Todd: [00:19:21] Right. That's why I was curious earlier when asking about the percentage of people...t's divided here and there's a real majority that thinks one thing, and another majority that has put into action an administration, I'm just curious what that situation is like in your country. Is there such a big divide of people that believe one way versus the people that believe another way, that are like you, that are being active and protesting and questioning these regimes and situations?
Masha: [00:19:53] No. In Russia it’s another situation. Another. We don't have a protest like Black Lives Matter But I think it should be in the future because it cannot be like this.It will happen one day and it will be, I think really strong and probably also violent. Just, um, two months ago, one guy, he was shot for the death by Russian Police in one Siberian, not Siberian rural city. And there were no people on the streets, you know, and we have like hundreds, maybe thousands cases like this.
And now people just collecting them and posting them, and one day they will go to the streets. I, I know because it shouldn't be the other way. He was shot just for nothing. They thought that he stole something from the shop for his flat, but he didn’t, he paid, he said the check in his pocket, but they shoot him.
Susan: [00:21:15] Do you think that COVID is keeping people inside? Do you think that's one of the things, keeping people from protesting
Masha: [00:21:24] Hmmm, at one point, yes. But, we all have internet. We're not China. We're watching your process and COVID in the United States is the same COVID-19 as in Russia. So it shouldn't be the big excuse. I think it's just a question of time, and all of us who are protesting on the streets and have these arrests and fines, we all understand that one day it will be millions of people on the streets.
Todd: [00:22:00] Do you see people take any type of inspiration from the movements or protests that are going on here? The people that are watching from there, is there anything that's informational or motivational for them?
Masha: [00:22:19] People discuss this a lot, but for the majority of the people, honestly, it looks like something which is really far away now. But we have--I don’t know how to say it--a huge, huge level of police violence. In this constitutional changing vote, some of our journalists were observants for, let's say, so-called election. And one policeman, he broke the arm of one of our journalists. Just did it for nothing. Journalist was just observing the election, and nothing else. Standing with a piece of paper and a pen and he broke his arm.
And all the propaganda, because, you know, we have different things. We have real propaganda, all the media belongs to, uh, administration of the president and strictly controlled by the administration of the president and all these media work against us. They call us enemies of the people, enemies of the state, United States spies.
Todd: [00:23:35] Masha you were sentenced to serve time in prison for your protesting. What was your experience as a political prisoner?
Masha: [00:23:44] Uh, interesting experience, uh, we have a very different prison system from yours also terrible post-Gulag system. It's a labor camp where prisoners work six days a week, 14 hours per day. With a salary of $2 or $3 per month. It's no medicine, no normal food, no human rights defenders, independent human rights defenders who can go in and observe the situation, because it's legal slavery, no media before me. There's no media coverage, all these things.
So we started to fight for our rights inside the prison... inside penal colony. We have penal colonies. And that was the very first time, by the way, how I met Sasha because Sasha, Alexander together with Pyotr, is a human rights defender. He came to visit me during my hunger strike. And, uh, that was really...for me, that was so cool and amazing because we start to, you know, talk about music bands and about what kind of concerts we can do inside this penal colony.
And during this hour, I didn’t think about pizza and all these, you know, things you start to think about in the hunger strike, because you always want to eat. So that was really helpful. And before this hunger strike, I also had huge fights with prison administration. We start a court, of four cases and we won these four cases and that's how actually all this small revolution inside the prison started, because they started to fire the prison guards who violated our rights, they start to make the workers day, like, close to eight hours, not 14. They start to reconstruct, uh, the buildings where we were living. So, small things, but, uh, it's extremely important when you're inside, right?
Yeah. And all the support which we received, um, from the activists and from the people who were in this city, who came from Moscow to support me and all the people who covered the situation outside in the world….That was the only hope which I said. And actually the book which I wrote, which we made together...It's all about the fight for freedom in the conditions where the state wants to take out your freedom.
Todd: [00:26:50] And what is the name of that book, Masha?
Masha: [00:26:53] Riot Day.
Todd: [00:26:55] Thank you. we will include that link in our show notes.
Susan: [00:26:59] What do you think that Americans, should we be paying more attention to what's happening politically? What do you recommend? What do you sort of see for us?
Masha: [00:27:08] I recommend you very, very strong. I recommend to you to watch what is happening in our country because it's very short way from freedom to unfreedom and you can look to our examples, of what can happen, if you're not [in] awareness If you mark yourself, like I'm out of politics, and so on, and so on.
If you are out of politics, so your opinions will take politics and it will be probably dictatorship. So just look what is happening in our country.
Todd: [00:27:47] Right. Take a note.
Masha: [00:27:49] Nobody believed, nobody believed... that this constitutional change is possible. Nobody can, but we have, we have this verification of, um, like, you know, zero, zero terms of presidential. You know, term. It's not two terms, now it's endless. And besides that, you have a lot of bad things. Also, they started very brutal propaganda against LGBT people.
They wrote in constitution that the marriage is unite of men and women, which was like that before--we did not have gay marriage in our country at all, but, in writing this, they start to make very, very bad promotional videos showing gay people like real disaster, like it's really terrible videos.
And it made government on our, you know, taxes, and this is real terrible. We have violence. We have teenager suicide. We have, you know, if you’re gay in Russia, he can be killed very easily. We, this constitutional change, like it's a huge deal. Nobody believed that it's possible, especially during continue year, but you know, several dates, and its size.
Todd: [00:29:26] One of Pussy Riot’s main goals has been advocating for at-risk women. Can you speak on the state of feminism in Russia? How does feminism intersect with your advocacy around prisoners rights? And what does the political climate feel like in Russia right now, particularly regarding a global pandemic.
Masha: [00:29:47] It's a really terrible situation with feminism, and it became worse and worse because of the official state politics. So we are the only country in Europe who doesn't have a law against domestic violence. And all the discussions, which was quite bright, and strong last year was oppressed by the state, by the ultra-conservative people inside state politics and outside state politics, who says we don't need these data sets.
Like the main statement was that the law against domestic violence is the law against feminine. Can you imagine, and that was yes, all the old, internet resources, billboards and so on. And another thing is a criminal case, very important criminal case against one young activist, her name is Yulia Tsvetkova.
She's facing two to six years of prison. [I’m] not sure how [the] investigation is going, she didn't receive a prison term, but, but she will. They opened a criminal case because of the drawings in herFacebook, she drops six pictures for the body positive pictures. Like, hair on the legs,” or “all alive women have menstruation” and six pictures like this.
It's [a] criminal case, criminal case on, like, very simple, very obvious, very popular. I believe like everywhere pictures, they call it pornography. And she was just writing that, you know, talking about women's body is not a shame. [To] talk about women's sexuality is not a shame. She didn't put any, photos, like no videos, nothing. Just drawings, like very childish, very... I don't know. And criminal case, and around this criminal case, there is huge discussion, because a feminist community, and me and Nadya also, we all start to post and to do actions, state's actions for Yulia and discussion of course, if you're, and like it's really terrible. Our society is totally not educated because educational system is also belongs to the government, which is really awful. So from two to six years of prison for six pictures. You know?
Susan: [00:33:01] So are you in danger by being in Russia right now
Masha: [00:33:05] In danger? [Susan: Yes.] Well, I don't think about that. And I think, and I believe, that it's our country and we should do everything what we can for fight for this, because if we all will leave the country, it will be their country and I don't want it. And also, when I was in prison so many people start to go to the street and support us, and a lot of them were arrested and beaten and shamed by the state and by some parts of society and they continued, they continued and they were stand with us.
So now it's our turn to stand with political prisoners.
Todd: [00:33:56] Yeah. That's really important thing to be doing and really inspirational for us here, as well. What's next, Alexander and Masha, for you and Pussy Riot. What's in the immediate future and down the road?
Alexander: [00:34:15] Okay. Firstly, so unfortunately, all our life activity, which was our main activity and, which was the only source of making a living for us, stopped, after this Coronavirus and panic attack. So we had to continue starting from March everywhere, starting from Poland to Holland to Germany, United Kingdom.
Hopefully Saint Louis, where Susan actually invited us, and we already agreed that we will do a kind of a festival in St. Louis, but everything has been canceled of course. And there are no signs that we can do our live projects cause European restrictions, they do not allow any actions, any, shows like 50 people or more than one or two people on stage. So we have to find some other ways of, uh, creative, work and we already have done some promising rehearsals over Zoom when, uh, people have been in four different countries or Russia, India, Montenegro and Belarus.
Now Masha is in Russia as well so I think we should explore new opportunities though, of course, it's a very new world for us. We are accustomed to be face to face with our audience. And at the same time, Pussy Riot, as a collective, they had this experience of communicating with the world, mostly through videos because they're the result of their creativity.
We have videos of their protest actions filmed in Red Square, filmed on, like roof of a trolleybus, filmed in the Metro station, filmed in Cathedral. So probably at this very moment, Pussy Riot creatively should somehow come back to his, I mean creativeness should come back to this kind of video online form of creativity, and we are looking for the ways to do it.
And at the same time, I know that Masha and her colleagues, they are really active in human rights activity, and it's [a] very, very important part of our activity. We contributed ots of money from our merchandise sales, to political prisoners, like really thousands of dollars we contributed directly to political prisoners, their families, their lawyers... and Masha and her friends and colleagues, they’re still doing this and they’re still doing protest actions. So, I think all these aspects of Pussy Riot’s activity, such as actions, which is like media activity and creative activity with an ever changing form, remains equally important. [Susan: Yeah.]
Todd: [00:37:25] Yeah. It will be interesting to watch as you emerge from this, and see how that work is transmitted.
Susan: [00:37:33] And how to create a new forum, a new platform.
Todd: [00:37:37] That's been a theme with all of the people that we've spoken with so far is re-imagining how we make things and how we transmit things. Now that the physical aspect is very challenging. So look forward to seeing how you all do that?
Susan: [00:37:56] This has been amazingly inspirational and humbling.
Todd: [00:38:01] Yes, for sure. Thank you very much.
Susan: [00:38:04] I want to thank you both, for taking the time to do this, this has been a bit of a challenge, to come from Montenegro, to come from Russia, two different time zones... and the US... but this is the new world, right? This is what we're going to have to do, and this is how we do come together.
Alexander: [00:38:41] Thank you very much.
Masha: [00:38:43] Thank you.
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