One of the members of the group, Maria Aliokhina, under the threat of a prison sentence in Russia, was able to leave the country illegally, disguised as a meal delivery girl, and join on stage, Thursday evening at the Funkhaus in Berlin, the Pussy collective Riot for their first gig in over two years.
“Slava Oukraini” (Glory to Ukraine)”, she launched during this concert at the Funkhaus, former television headquarters of the former communist East Germany, marking the kickoff of a European tour whose proceeds will go to organizations helping Ukraine.
Maria Aliokhina, 33, arrived in Germany after crossing the border with Belarus, and transiting through Lithuania and Iceland.
This Russian feminist punk group rose to fame after a performance deemed outrageous at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 2012. Young women in the group sang a punk “prayer” asking the Virgin Mary to “drive out” Putin. Three of them, including Maria Aliokhina, were sentenced for acts deemed blasphemous to two-year prison terms in a camp.
Since then, Pussy Riot have continued to warn against “the totalitarianism” that has developed under the regime of the Russian president.
The performances are inspired by a book by Maria Aliokhina narrating the action of Pussy Riot at the cathedral in Moscow and the two years of detention in a camp.
Combining video projections, uttered words and chanted rap against a background of saxophone, acid jazz and electronic beats, the artists denounce the Putinian system associating repression at home and aggression abroad.
The show was updated with terrifying footage showing the suffering of civilians in Ukraine.
“Boutcha! Boutcha! Boutcha!” screams Maria Alyokhina as the name of the martyred city in the kyiv region, where Russian soldiers are accused of having committed war crimes, appears in red on the screen. The Kremlin has denied any involvement of Russian forces in the atrocities.
“Mom, there are no Nazis here,” she whispers, playing the role of a fictional Russian soldier convinced by his superiors that he was fighting to “denazify” Ukraine.
Before the show, Ms Aliokhina explained that she wanted to exploit the notoriety of the group to shine the spotlight on “the crimes” of Vladimir Putin.
“We now have the worst censorship in Russia and you can be imprisoned for 15 years just for posting photos of Boucha,” she said, speaking in English.
“And it’s illegal to call war war, but we want to call war war because it’s war and not a special operation,” she added.
– “Deep respect” –
Last September, Maria Aliokhina was sentenced to one year of “restrictions” on her freedom (judicial control, night curfew, ban on leaving Moscow) for having called for a demonstration against the arrest of the main Russian opponent Alexei Navalny. But in September, Russian justice had toughened these measures, converting them into a prison sentence.
For her, it is crucial that Western public opinions use their freedoms to put pressure on their governments in order to be uncompromising in the face of the Kremlin.
“The most important thing is not to be indifferent to the situation and not to pretend that it does not exist,” she told the press.
“People are dying and people in Russia are going to jail, for me the worst is indifference,” she said.
Berlin offered medical treatment to Pussy Riot member Piotr Verzilov after a suspected poisoning in 2018 as well as to Navalny two years later. Both men blamed Russian authorities for the poisonings, charges denied by the Kremlin.
Pussy Riot member Olga Borissova has accused Western countries of “hypocrisy” for not taking tougher action against Moscow after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and for continuing imports of Russian gas.
“Stop buying (Russian) oil and gas because this money is used to imprison us and fight us in protests, poison opponents, be used for repression and killings of innocent Ukrainians”, did she say.
A student of ancient languages from Crimea, who introduced herself only as Yana, 28, to protect her Ukrainian family, points out that Pussy Riot understood a decade ago what we are starting to realize in the West only now.
“They have sacrificed so much freedom to tell the truth. They have my deep respect,” adds the student.
https://www.lexpress.fr/actualites/1/monde/le-groupe-russe-punk-pussy-riot-en-tournee-europeenne-pour-aider-l-ukraine_2173464.html
