Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in the fall of 2011 by the then 22-year-old Nadya Tolokonnikova, it has had a membership of approximately 11 women.[4][5] The group staged unauthorized, provocative guerrilla gigs in public places. These performances were filmed as music videos and posted on the internet.[6] The group's lyrical themes included feminism, LGBTQ rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his policies[7] and his links to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.[8]
The group gained global notoriety when five members of the group staged a performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February 2012,[9][10] an action condemned as sacrilegious by the Russian Orthodox Church. Three members of the group were arrested, tried, convicted, later amnestied and released on probation. The trial and sentence attracted considerable attention and criticism,[11] particularly in the West. The case was taken up by human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which designated the women as prisoners of conscience,[12] and by a number of prominent entertainers.[13] Public opinion in Russia was generally less sympathetic towards the band members.[14][15]
In December 2025, the Russian Ministry of Justice added Pussy Riot to its list of extremist organizations.[16]
Origins
Pussy Riot is a collective formed in late 2011 in response to national politics in Russia.[17] Its name, consisting of two English-language words[18] written in the Latin alphabet, usually appears that way in the Russian press, though it is sometimes transliterated into Cyrillic as "Пусси Райот".[19] The group consisted of around a dozen performers.[19]
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were members of the anarchist art collective "Voina" from the group's early days in 2007,[20] until an acrimonious split in 2009.[21]
Membership
The group was started by 15 women, several of whom were previously involved in Voina.[17] While there is no official line-up and the band says anyone can join, it usually has between 10 and 20 members.[24] The members prefer anonymity and are known for wearing brightly colored balaclavas when performing and using aliases when giving interviews.[25] At the start, the group was relatively unknown, but this changed following a February 2012 performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.[26] Following the performance, three women, Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, were publicly identified and eventually convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.[27] Two other women involved fled the country and have never been named.[28]
Musical and performance style
In an interview with Gazeta.ru, a band member described their two-minute concerts as performance art, creating images of "pure protest, saying: super heroes in balaclavas and acid bright tights seize public space in Moscow." Another band member, who went by the pseudonym Garadzha, told the Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper that the group was open to women recruits with limited musical talents. She said: "You don't have to sing very well. It's punk. You just scream a lot."[39]
The group cited British punk rock and Oi! bands Angelic Upstarts, Cockney Rejects, Sham 69 and the 4-Skins as their main musical influences.[6][40] The band also cited American punk rock band Bikini Kill, performance artist Karen Finley and the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s as inspirations. They stated:[41]
Costumes
Costumes usually consisted of brightly colored dresses and tights, even in bitterly cold weather, with faces hidden by balaclavas. During interviews, band members used nicknames such as "Balaclava", "Cat", "Seraph", "Terminator", and "Blondie".[44]
Ideology
Civil society
In an email interview with The St. Petersburg Times, the group explained their political positions further, saying that members' perspectives ranged from anarchist to liberal left, but that all were united by feminism, anti-authoritarianism and opposition to Putin, whom members regard as continuing the "aggressive imperial politics" of the Soviet Union. Group concerns include education, health care, and the centralization of power, and the group supports regional autonomy and grass-roots organizing. Members regard unsanctioned rallies as a core principle, saying that authorities do not see rallies that they have sanctioned as a threat and simply ignore them. For this reason, all of Pussy Riot's performances were illegal and used co-opted public space.[41] Interviewed by the BBC during rehearsals the day before the Cathedral of Christ the Savior performance, band members argued that only vivid, illegal actions brought media attention.[45] In an interview with Slate in the spring of 2018 during the band's first North American tour, Tolokonnikova stated that economic inequality "is a big issue for Pussy Riot", highlighting that such inequality was a notable feature of both Russian and American society, and that discussion of inequality was absent from mainstream political discourse in both the US and Europe.
Songs and videos
Pussy Riot released seven songs and five videos. An Associated Press reporter described them as "badly recorded, based on simple riffs and scream-like singing" and stated that critics had dismissed them as "amateur, provocative and obscene".[56] The A.V. Club described them as an "excellent band" with "fuzzed-out guitars and classic Riot Grrrl chants".[57] In an opinion piece for The New York Times, Pitchfork Media reviewer Michael Idov wrote, "judging [Pussy Riot] on artistic merit would be like chiding the Yippies because Pigasus the Immortal, the pig they ran for president in 1968, was not a viable candidate."[58]
Pussy Riot have not released any conventional albums. However, their songs are freely available for download on a number of Internet sites, collected together under the title Ubey seksista ("Kill the sexist").[59]
2012 arrests, trial and imprisonment
On March 3, 2012, two of the group's members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with hooliganism related to their performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. A third member, Yekaterina Samutsevich, was arrested on March 16 with the same charges. Denied bail, the three were held in custody until their trial began in late July. On August 17, 2012, Alyokhina, Samutsevich and Tolokonnikova were all convicted of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and each sentenced to two years' imprisonment.[102][103] On October 10, following an appeal, Samutsevich was freed on probation and her sentence suspended. The sentences of the other two women were upheld.[104]
Pussy Riot accused Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church of orchestrating the case.[105] Samutsevich said "The trial was built in such a way that we couldn't defend ourselves. They didn't listen to us."
Subsequent court cases and other events
Claims for moral damages
In August 2012 Novosibirsk resident Irina Ruzankina filed a claim for 30,000 rubles (about $1,000) for moral damages, claiming that a Pussy Riot video had caused her headaches and increased blood pressure. The claim was rejected by the Kuntsevo District Court in Moscow on September 7, 2012.[109] Similar claims by Berdsk resident Yuri Zadoy and Novosibirsk resident Ivan Krasnitsky were dismissed by the same court on October 3,[110] as was a subsequent appeal by Ruzankina to the Moscow City Court on February 18, 2013.[111]
Extremist videos decision
In early November 2012 prosecutors applied under anti-extremism legislation to Zamoskvoretsky District Court to ban several Pussy Riot videos, including the video of the group's performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
In popular culture
Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina appeared in House of Cards season 3, episode 3, as themselves. The episode also features Pussy Riot concert footage.[151][152] Tolokonnikova appeared in artist Fawn Rogers' "I Love You And That Makes Me God".[153] In 2016, the Norwegian songwriter Moddi released a cover version in English of "Punk Prayer" in his album Unsongs.[154] The costume for Emilia Clarke's comic book protagonist Maya from "Mother of Madness" is based on the balaclavas of Pussy Riot.[155] Riot Symphony: The Sun Still Shines by Conor Mitchell is a musical with Ulster Orchestra based on Pussy Riot, Sinéad O'Connor, & Sophie Scholl.[156]
Discography
Studio albums
Mixtapes
- Wont Get Fooled Again/Riot Across the World! (2014)
- In Riot We Trust (2017)
- Matriarchy Now (2022)
Awards, honors, and nominations
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" ! scope="col" | Award ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" | Nominee(s) ! scope="col" | Category ! scope="col" | Result ! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Ref.
!scope="row" rowspan=2|Berlin Music Video Awards !scope="row"|Music Video Festival !scope="row" rowspan=1|Woody Guthrie Prize
In 2019, Time created 89 new covers to celebrate women of the year starting from 1920; it chose Pussy Riot for 2012.[165]
- -
- -!scope="row" rowspan=1
- Soratnik Prize
- 2012
- rowspan=1|
- Won
- [158]
See also
- 1950 Notre-Dame Affair
Further reading
External links
- (english)
- (cyrillic) (2011-2015)
References
- Putin's trigger Meduza, 2022-01-22, retrieved 2023-09-27^
- Pussy Riot: 'De tegenpartij wint als je je zorgen maakt over de consequenties van activisme' Brabant Nieuws.nl, 14 July 2025^
- Der lange Arm Turkmenistans Die Tageszeitung, 2025-09-07, retrieved 2025-09-07