Pussy Riot's Nadya Tolokonnikova Opens Up About Moscow Arrest: 'We Are the Many and They Are the Few'

By Nadya Tolokonnikova, The Daily Beast

12 September 19

On Sept. 7, Nadya Tolokonnikova and 15 other members of the Russian punk rock/art collective Pussy Riot were detained by Moscow police. Here is their side of the story.

magine a situation: the second you step out of your house you’re immediately, brutally arrested with no explanation why, then you’re brought to the police station where you spend your next six hours till 1 a.m.. You’re forced to go through a search, and everything that seems suspicious to the police officers is taken away from you (i.e. everything that mentions Putin), and you will never ever see it again. Well, this situation is something that Russian activists go through on a daily basis. 

On Sept. 7, me, my 17-year-old sister Polina Tolokonnikova, and 14 other Pussy Riot activists were arrested when we left my apartment. We were planning to walk around Moscow with a rainbow flag and Pussian Federation flag, also we had a “PUTIN YOU’D BETTER LEAVE BY YOURSELF” banner and a handful of colorful smoke cannons. Our ultimate goal was the [Russian] White House—we wanted to make an art statement in front of our government. It was a day before the elections in Moscow City Parliament; elections that put Moscow on political fire this summer, causing mass protests and crazy outrage by cops who beat and injured people. 

“Why are we arrested? We just left the house, we did not do anything. Please tell us your name! Why are you using physical force against us? Where are you bringing us? Why did you take away my phone—give it back!”—that’s what I was asking the police, but they did not reply, and just threw me in the car alongside the others. It was the first time I was arrested with my sister. 

Then came long hours in the police station, with cops trying to force us to give our fingerprints, trying to divide us, trying not to let our lawyer see us, trying to send a 16-year-old activist to spend a night in a hospital (because she’s younger than 18, and her parents were not able to come to the police department). Why all this malicious activity, why all these intimidations? For people just leaving a house with their friends?

We were not scared though. And it’s a sign of our times. It’s true for us in Moscow right now—more and more people are getting angrier. Being politically aware is a new norm. If you respect yourself, you go to rallies. If you respect your country, you’re not afraid or the riot police because, in the end, the country is ours. We are the many and they are the few. 

See Pussy Riot’s call to free political prisoners in Russia.