Russian activists Pussy Riot have message for Australia

Russian activist Masha Alyokhina has been imprisoned in her home country for her political views. Now touring Adelaide as frontwoman of punk collective Pussy Riot, she has an important message for Australia.

• Review: What we thought of Pussy Riot

Russian activist collective Pussy Riot have a warning for anyone attending one of their RCC Fringe performances.

“If you come, you should expect a riot,” frontwoman Masha Alyokhina says.

And she’s not joking. The Riot Act show is in your face and confronting — part theatre, part punk-rock protest. But it pales into insignificance compared to the performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in February 2012.

Alyokhina and fellow Riot member Nadya Tolokno were subsequently sent to prison camps. Alyokhina spent almost two years jailed in the remote Ural Mountains. It is this protest, and subsequent trial and imprisonment, that forms the basis of the Riot Act show.

“The Gulag system never really went away — they just changed the name,” Alyokhina says. “Everyone works 12 to 14 hours a day, without salary, without medicine, without normal food.”

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER: Masha Alyokhina (centre) and the members of Pussy Riot at the University of Adelaide. Picture: MATT TURNER.

Refusing to stay silent on release, the activist now travels the world spreading the Pussy Riot message.

“Why are we doing this? It’s a political punk protest,” Alyokhina says. “I believe that by sharing this story, we can inspire people to start their own riot. For me, it’s quite clear that now, with the current political conditions, it’s time to wake up. Do your riot!”

And performing outside of Russia is not exactly straightforward for Alyokhina.

“I have an official ban on leaving Russia,” she says. “I cannot travel by aeroplane or train or bus across the Russian border, officially.

“How did I get here? Magic. Will I be in trouble when I go home? I’ll worry about that when the time comes.”

Pussy Riot, Riot Act, RCC Fringe, March 1-3: University of Adelaide’s Creative Revolutionaries talks, March 5: and Speak Truth to Power with Yothu Yindi and more, March 7.