Down and Out in Russia – Rhetoric and Public Relations Ploys don’t Equate to Justice

Interview With Pussy Riot Member: ‘I Want Justice’
By Matthias Schepp – Spiegel Online – 30 December, 2013

Pussy Riot activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova talks about her plans following her release from prison, what she has in common with former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and her five-year-old daughter’s drawings.

Despite the short nights since her release, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova seemed rested and combative when she sat down for a first lengthy interview with SPIEGEL last Friday. The conversation took place in a car, on the trip from Vnukovo International Airport into downtown Moscow. Her husband, Pyotr Verzilov, was sitting next to her. Tolokonnikova, 24, her fingernails painted a bright red, was in good spirits. Before long, she began talking about the “poor conditions in our prisons and our country as a whole.”

She said that she bears no hatred against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that she is determined to change the system he has created. Then the Pussy Riot activist began singing a few lines from a song she had written while in prison, in which she pokes fun at Putin’s tendency to appear in photos that highlight the macho side of his personality.

“You’re catching a fish, but I want rebellion,” she sang. Before attending a press conference at the studio of opposition TV broadcaster Dozhd, she went to see her five-year-old daughter Gera, who had been living with Tolokonnikova’s in-laws since her arrest.

SPIEGEL: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, how do you feel after your return from prison in Siberia?

Tolokonnikova: It isn’t easy to return to reality after being disconnected from it for two years. And to be honest, I feel a burden of responsibility to those who are still in prison, as well as those who have supported Pussy Riot and me in this difficult situation. Since I was released from prison on Monday of last week, I’ve only been able to sleep two or three hours a night. Now is the time to given something back to those who believed in me. Perhaps I’ll make mistakes in the process. I think I’ll need help along this path from people who think in political terms and aren’t indifferent to everything.

SPIEGEL: What was everyday life like when you were in prison?

Tolokonnikova: I spent most of the time at a penal colony in Mordovia. This is what my day was like there: Wake up at 5:45 a.m., 12 minutes of early-morning exercise, followed by breakfast and forced labor as a seamstress. Being allowed to go to the bathroom or smoke a cigarette depended on the guards’ mood. Lunch was greasy and of poor quality. The workday ended at 7 p.m., when there was roll call in the prison yard. After that, we were sometimes required to shovel snow or do other cleanup work. Then we waited in line to wash up a little, and finally we went to bed. …more