Russian revolution that wasn't, just Putin being revolting

The diary of a Pussy Riot singer recalls how much freer Russia felt in 2011

17 September 2017 - 00:00 By BEN JUDAH

When Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina writes "We came up with an idea to make a film about the revolution", she is writing about a revolution that never happened - the anti-Putin revolution that was only hinted at when, on Christmas Eve six years ago, 100,000 people gathered 10 minutes' walk from the HQ of the Federal Security Service in Lubyanka.
"We were led by a belief in a possibility of change," she writes. "A naive and childish belief that can suddenly awaken in adults and is usually accompanied by a feeling of shame."
I remember the snow and the optimism in that crowd. Like everyone else there, I remember I was freezing, excitedly asking my friends: could this really be it? Could Putin really fall? It was the last day that the future felt wide open in Russia.
Reading Alyokhina's memoir, Riot Days, reminds me of those conversations we had, the ones that went on all night among 20-somethings in Moscow that winter, of which I now feel strangely ashamed. How could we have been so stupid? But that was really how it felt.
The first time I heard of Pussy Riot, in December 2011, they were a Moscow rumour. Hipsters in the know said these underground punks might do something spectacular. Seven months later, as a reporter, I was at their show trial: they filled the courtroom just as the judge seemed to shrink away from it.
But the first time I properly met Alyokhina, with fellow band member Nadya Tolokonnikova, they were bored out of their minds at a human rights jamboree in Oslo, picking up an award from some pompous European diplomats - wondering what had happened to their rock'n'roll.
"Selfie, that's what we do," said Tolokonnikova sarcastically as she gestured to me that I could get myself a selfie, too, if that's what I really wanted.
No latter-day Solzhenitsyn
Alyokhina tells the story of what happened in between the Moscow rumour and the afterlife. Raw and restless, it begins as a vivid diary of the December 2011 protest movement, which briefly filled the streets near the Kremlin, before turning into that Russian classic, a prison diary.
Alyokhina is no latter-day Solzhenitsyn. The writing is rough and often confusing - a diary and not much more. The strength of Riot Days lies in its ability to capture a moment when change seemed possible, but history failed to turn.
"We believed that if we pricked his ass with a pin, Putin would jump out of his presidential seat," Alyokhina writes. "He would leap up, and run to hell. His fleshy, botoxed cheeks would head to the hills and roll off the dustbin of history."
This is why Pussy Riot matter. Not because of their forgettable stunt in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour - shrieking a punk prayer by the altar - but because their trial was one of the first moments that it was clear Vladimir Putin would not roll into the dustbin of history.
What came out of "that magical winter of 2011", as Alyokhina calls it, was not "the big, irrational, metaphysical Canada" that the opposition leader Alexei Navalny wanted to build, but Putin, and more Putin.
We used to argue about whether Russia was an authoritarian state or a failed democracy. The crackdown that began with the trial of Pussy Riot made it obvious that it was a dictatorship.Ra, ra Trumputin
In October 2016, Pussy Riot released a YouTube video called Make America Great Again, in which Nadya Tolokonnikova plays a news anchor who joyfully announces on "Trump TV" that "the great Donald Trump" has won the presidential election.
The lyrics subverted Trumpianism - "Let other people in / Listen to your women / Stop killing black children / Make America great again" - but the irony of hindsight fell as heavily as it did on those who thought Putin would fall.
The makers of the satirical video did not seriously believe that (a) Trump would be president or (b) a channel called Trump TV would be established.
Protest song earns jail sentences
2012On February 21 Pussy Riot perform Punk Prayer: Mother of God, Chase Putin Away in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, to protest against the church's support of Vladimir Putin.
In March, authorities arrest Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda (Nadya) Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, on charges of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.
In June, the indictment is released - 2,800 pages long. During the trial, protests are held around the world in support of the women.
In August, they are convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. Putin announces: "One must not erode moral fundamentals and undermine the country ... They got what they asked for."
In October, Samutsevich is released. Alyokhina is sent to a penal colony in the Urals, 1100km from Moscow, and Tolokonnikova to Siberia, 4,500km from Moscow. Both are mothers of very young children.
2013
In June, Putin passes a bill imposing jail time for homosexuality and for insulting religion. Tolokonnikova goes on a hunger strike.
In September, she is hospitalised. A week later, Alyokhina pledges that the group will never perform in a church again.
In December, Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina are released.
- The Daily Telegraph, London
• 'Riot Days', by Maria Alyokhina, is published by Allen Lane..

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