Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova Laughs Off Possible Criminal Charges: ‘It’s All You Can Do’

A little over two weeks have passed since the art installation Pussy Riot: Putin’s Ashes closed in Los Angeles. Now sources in the Russian media report that the activist-art group’s Nadya Tolokonnikova may face criminal charges in Russia for staging it.

“My job is to hurt Putin as much as possible, and [the threat of lawsuits] means that he and people around him are actually getting hurt by Putin’s Ashes, so that’s great news,” Tolokonnikova tells Rolling Stone in a Wednesday Zoom interview. “I’ll keep doing my work and keep pushing.”

The heart of the installation is a film Tolokonnikova made alongside 12 women who “experience acute hatred and resentment toward the Russian president”; the website for art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, whose L.A. gallery hosted the installation, reported that most of the women were Ukrainian, Belarusian or Russian. In the film, the women marched holding a button that Tolokonnikova pressed to ignite a 10-foot by 10-foot painting of the Russian president. Then, she and the women stabbed the ground and collected the ashes. “They performed rituals and cast spells aimed to chase Putin away,” Deitch’s site says. The premiere attracted support from artist Shepard Fairey, and Kesha even attended, according to The New Yorker.

Although Tolokonnikova has not yet seen the charges against her, Russian news site RBC reports authorities will charge her with violations of Article 148 of the country’s criminal code. She faces a fine of up to 300,000 rubles (approximately $4,000) and up to two years imprisonment.

Tolokonnikova proudly says the government wrote this law as a response to Pussy Riot’s incendiary “Punk Prayer,” in which she and other balaclava-wearing women stormed a church and prayed to “drive away” Putin. At the time, Russian authorities tried her and two other women for hooliganism, a much harsher charge than Article 148, or the “Pussy Riot Article,” as she calls it. (Tolokonnikova subsequently spent two years in a labor camp.) Specifically, the Pussy Riot law punishes people who offend people’s religious beliefs, though there’s no overtly antireligious message in Putin’s Ashes. Russian authorities detained another Pussy Riot activist, Rita Flores, and confiscated her laptop and phone for her association with the installation.

When reached for comment, a press representative for the Russian Embassy directed Rolling Stone to the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A rep for the MFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As Tolokonnikova and her lawyer await formal charges, which may come in next week, the artist and activist is reveling at upsetting the Russian president. “We’re talking with a number of art institutions in Europe about bringing it closer [to Russia] to Putin to hurt him even more,” she says.

How did you react when you heard charges might be brought against you for Putin’s Ashes?
I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it means that our job is effective. On the other hand, it’s annoying to get your house searched. It’s annoying to get detained. And in regards to this criminal case, a couple of people were detained and their houses raided by cops, and their computers and phones were taken away. One of them is a relative of mine, who doesn’t want to be named, and another is Rita Flores. They get it; it’s just a part of being in this scene, but it’s especially terrible that they target relatives who are not necessarily politically active.

Have you seen the charges the government is considering?
My lawyers are working on it. We’ve just seen orders issued by a court, because that’s what you ask for when police want to search your house. They just show it to you briefly; they don’t give it to you. It takes a while to get to the materials of the criminal case.

The Putin’s Ashes film is visually stunning. You said earlier your goal is to hurt Putin. Were you expecting criminal charges while making this?
Not really. You always know that something can happen, but you don’t really rely on it.

I don’t believe in fear. I don’t think it’s a good useful emotion to experience when you go against the dictator because it’s their primary tool. And it’s the reason why they tried to kill my ex-husband [Pyotr Verzilov]; they tried to kill my friend, Alexei Navalny. This is why they put him in jail, to make us all fear. If you collectively refuse to fear, then it’s going to be Putin’s last day. [Editor’s note: Officially, doctors have said there was a “high plausibility” that Verzilov was poisoned, though the Russian foreign ministry did not comment when CNN inquired about it. Navalny’s lawyer has said he’s been deprived of medical attention while imprisoned.]

After everything you’ve been through, your prison sentence in Siberia, and the trial, it sounds like he can’t scare you.
It was quite scary to me when we were attacked multiple times since 2014; we protested against the war in Ukraine really actively back then. I still do. But the war started in 2014 when Crimea was annexed. We would go to rallies in support of Ukraine. And it was a big trigger for Putin’s government. So they did a number of physical attacks on Pussy Riot activists, including me, and that was really shitty. There is an animal in us that just gets really scared when somebody throws a physical object at you, tries to burn your eyes, or just whips you. So it really took me a while to recover from that trauma.

And I’ve heard the same thing from other Pussy Riot activists, like Rita Flores. She said it’s annoying to sit in the police department, but the trauma from it doesn’t last as long as trauma from a physical attack. And a couple of years ago, cops threw actual human shit in her face in the middle of the street in Moscow. Every time when she crosses the street now, it triggers her, and this little scared animal inside her appears, and just feels scared and anxious, and intimidated. But then her frontal lobe tells her it’s not necessarily going to happen right now.

How is Rita doing since being detained?
She’s just as fine as it gets under the circumstances. We raised money for her new phone and computer because the police are not going to give it back to her. This is just not what they do. Once they take away things from you, they don’t return them to you. By the law, they should, but it just isn’t what happens. They probably sell it. We’re raising $3,500 to replace Rita’s devices.

The penalty for violating Article 148, the “Pussy Riot Article,” is 300,000 rubles and up to two years in jail. Does that scare you?
At this point, we’re just laughing at all of this stuff because the only thing you can do.

You sound like a good candidate for political asylum. Is that something you’d consider?
No, I just didn’t like the sound of “political asylum,” for me personally. Let’s say I need to travel to Russia — but I get political asylum somewhere — under the rules of political asylum, you cannot go back. And it’s important for me to be able to go back if it is needed. If something changes, and I can be useful in Russia, somehow, politically as an activist is an artist, I’ll do that. I don’t want my hands to be tied.

So you’re still a Russian citizen?
Yeah. I’m Russian citizen, this is the only passport I have, which is really unfortunate, because I cannot travel to the country I love, Ukraine. I cannot be helpful there anyhow. Because currently, they don’t let anyone with a Russian passport in.

This week marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. What message do you have for your Ukrainian friends?
I believe that Ukraine will win because the truth is on its side, and Russia will inevitably fail. And I hope it’s going to fail sooner than later.

How has it been for you making art and music when you know that the Russian government will scrutinize everything you do?
It sucks. One time when I was working on music, I was literally writing songs with the Russian Criminal Code in my hand, checking if this lyric could fall under something or if this one could fall under another one. And it turned out that everything I write can fall under the whole range of criminal articles of Russian criminal code. So at some point, I just stopped worrying. Because it drove me crazy. It really drove me to the point where I wasn’t able to write one line because I either had to write about flowers and sunshine, which is not in my nature and not Pussy Riot art, or you just say fuck it and go for it and then see what happens.

One of the important things I’m working on these days is to find partners in Europe to bring this installation there. Because I see Putin’s Ashes as a traveling installation, I want to show it to more people and maybe bring it to Berlin or London.

Do you see yourself ever stopping speaking out against Putin?
Well, if he’s tried as a war criminal in the International Criminal Court of the Hague, then I’ll happily focus on something else. But before that, I’ll just continue pushing.