Political Girl

2014: Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics. Russia invades Crimea. Putin is re-elected president. Several political prisoners are amnestied and released early from prison. Maria Alyokhina is among them. She had spent two years in a penal colony after performing the punk prayer 'Virgin Mary, Banish Putin' with her friends in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. They had warned the rest of the world of the dangers of authoritarianism but the Russia she finds when she gets out of prison is even more oppressive. What can you do, she asks, when your country has been seized by all-powerful men who are waging war against another country and their own citizens?As Masha recounts her brave and colourful protests, we are drawn straight into the world of grassroots opposition and witness the absurd measures the Russian state takes to contain protest. Over and over, Masha and her fellow members of Pussy Riot are tracked and attacked but find ways to subvert the authorities: they throw hundreds of paper planes at the gloomy stone colossus of the intelligence services, they dress up as police officers to disrupt a football match, or they spend the night in a huge Christmas bauble papered over with photos of political prisoners. When the full-scale war against Ukraine starts and the Russian opposition is repeatedly silenced, Masha and her activist friends continue to protest despite the high stakes. They fight increasingly absurd cycles of detention and house arrest: sometimes with the smallest acts such as going for a walk or having a rainbow ice cream. Faced with a new prison sentence, she escapes Russia in May 2022 dressed as a delivery food courier. Her story, like her life, is fiercely courageous, darkly funny and highly inspiring to anyone who wants to stand up for the truth.

Maria Alyokhina