Vladimir, vapes and defending democracy: when the Cable met Pussy Riot in BS3
“There’s only one word for cock in Russian, you know.” As if interviewing Pussy Riot wasn’t surreal enough, this is the part of their conversation I walk into.
When the Cable was invited to interview Olga (Olya) Borsinova and Maria (Masha) Alyokhina, two members of the group, we were hesitant.
The Bristol link feels tangential at best. But it’s not everyday that a world-famous Russian dissident punk band collective comes to your hometown. We’d make it work.
Which is how I find myself, one warm summer evening, walking into a Southville pub to meet them, and arriving slap bang in the middle of a discussion on Russian phallic taxonomy.
This introduction is fitting: the firebrand collective has long blended their protest with the profane and provocative, fiercely critical of Vladimir Putin’s repressive regime.
The pair roar with laughter at my ill-timed arrival: “That has to be the first line of your article!” I promise them it will be.
Living on a Punk Prayer
Pussy Riot started at the end of 2011 as a wave of anti-Putin protests swept Russia. “But we did this with a feminist style,” Masha explains.
The group staged illegal, guerilla gigs performing protest songs and uploading the videos to the internet, clad in now iconic bright balaclavas and tights.
In 2012, they caught the world’s attention for storming a Moscow Cathedral to perform their song ‘Punk Prayer’, calling out the corruption in church and state.
We didn’t see much of Bristol – but we did find this great vape shop here!
“The church leader is an influential KGB agent just wearing robes and calling Putin the ‘miracle of Russia’!” Olya explains. “You could rent it out as a party venue – with smoke machines and bubbles –and it would be tax free because it’s a church!”
The video went viral, and their arrest shone a spotlight on the human rights abuses in the country.
Masha was convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. She was sentenced to two years in prison and transported to a penal colony in the Urals. Her book Riot Days chronicles her time there, somehow managing to be as darkly hilarious as it is harrowing.
Masha met Olya later in 2015, who helped edit the book. “I was from St Petersburg and I was working as a cop, before I realised I was on the wrong side!” she says.
The tone of the book is exactly as they speak: dry, matter of fact, sarcastic. “It’s the Russian sense of humour!” they explain.
The missing Bristol link
The three of us cast around for the Bristol link. Have they seen much of the city, I ask? “No – we have to finish this fucking text!” says Masha.
The pair have been speaking at an event called ‘Democracy in Crisis in the age of Putin and Trump’ at the Hen and Chicken on North Street. They’re staying in South Wales with their translator, working on the next book about Masha’s release from the penal colony in 2014.
“We’re going to show what was happening inside the country during this time, and the crazy goal of Putin,” Olya explains.
“But we did find this great vape shop here!” she adds, both women becoming very animated. “This country prohibits vapes over 600 puffs – but we managed to find a way to put two pieces together and now it’s 5000 puffs!”
We’ve found our link. Sure, they’d supported the Colston statue topplers and the Kill the Bill protesters, but at a small vape shop in Broadmead, the women found their own way to partake in the city’s subversive spirit.
But thinking outside the box has been crucial to Masha’s survival. This is a woman who escaped house arrest by dressing as the Russian equivalent of a Deliveroo rider.
‘I have to protest wherever I can’
In the penal colony, Masha worked in the factory six days a week sewing army uniforms for €3 a month. About 80-100 women slept in one room, in freezing temperatures.
There was collective punishment, and regular strip searches. Masha went on hunger strike to protest the conditions, and won.
“The point of the colony is to kill the personality inside someone,” Masha says. “I just have to protest wherever I can.”
Like the nicotine content of her vapes, Masha’s defiant spirit runs higher than most.
Pussy Riot no longer exists as a defined group, its members now involved in disparate actions. Many are raising awareness and funds for the people of Ukraine, since the Russian invasion of 2022.
It’s all about “just fighting for freedom and democracy”, says Masha.
“Democracy is not handed down to people forever by God,” she adds. “We have to fight for it, or it will easily collapse.”
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