BALACLAVAS + Bright Dresses

Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokno talks what she learned in prison, a free press, and Putin v. Trump.

by Shaina Joy Machlus Photos by Sasha Sofeev

The balaclavas and bright dresses, the confident smirks while waiting to be sentenced to prison, the refusal to be afraid, to be quieted. This is Pussy Riot. It is a movement, a powerful and political force, and not just in the musical act’s homeland of Russia. It has inspired others to act out against oppressive governments worldwide.

Pussy Riot’s founding member, Nadezhda Andreyevna Tolokonnikova, aka Nadya Tolokno, was an activist prior to starting the band. Even after spending two years in a Russian prison for her outspokenness, she shows no signs of slowing down.

Tolokno is also a founding member of the provocative and highly political performance art group Viona. As art and protest, she has had public sex in museums, interrupted trials, stormed the streets. And her actions have been rewarded. In 2014, along with her Pussy Riot bandmate Maria Alyokhina, she was the co-winner of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought for those who work to uphold human rights.

In 2016, Tolokno published her autobiographical book How to Start a Revolution and more recently founded the independent media agency MediaZona, which refuses to be silenced by the repressive Russian government.

In conversation with Tom Tom, Tolokno shares what she learned about Russia from her time in prison, reveals similarities between presidents Donald Trump’s and Vladimir Putin’s methodology, and explains the purpose of her new media venture, MediaZona.

Tom Tom: When did you start being interested in politics? Do you have one concrete memory or was it several things?

Nadya Tolokno: I'm privileged in a way that I was born into a politically conscious family. I would say it has became mainstream to talk about politics, and it wasn't like that when I was growing up. So I was just lucky, because of my dad and my mom.

What drove you to transition into more concrete action and descent?

I'm from one of the most polluted places on earth called Norilsk, and it's very cold. It’s in the very north of Russia. It is surrounded by three factories that are producing all sorts of metals. In a matter of 30 minutes, snow became gray, and, in a matter of couple of hours, snow in my hometown would become black. Environmental issues were my first concern, and I tried to write about this topic in the local newspaper. Basically, they told me that because of economical reasons, they cannot publish my text, because everybody in this town, they depend on the factory, including this newspaper. So that was the first issue, the environmental thing.

Then obviously, when you're a girl, and you're growing up, and you're reading about history and all those people in history, they are men, and you're asking yourself, why? Because I've seen so many strong role models, and, in a lot of situations, they are women. Starting from these questions, I started to read about feminism and feminist critiques of history.

Your first political action was writing, and it was ultimately rejected. How did that affect your next move?

At the time, I was arguing a lot with my mom about my future, professionally. I was 13 or 14 years old. I think 14. My mom's point was that I have to obtain a profession that can bring me money. I didn't care about it at the time ,and I wanted to be a journalist. My mom told me that journalism will not bring in money. Additionally, it's not possible really to be a journalist in Russia and tell the truth, and I didn't believe her. So, I was obviously very idealistic. At least sometimes my mom can be right. I decided not to be a journalist but a philosopher and an artist after that day. It gave me the chance to go deeper, and ask the reasons of injustice itself.

Then I moved to Moscow. I wanted to study philosophy. In Moscow, the real action started. After half a year of being in Moscow, we started an art actions collective. We made process indictment actions on the streets—all of them were illegal—and we joined in on most of the illegal rallies and marches. By 2007, I was fully into politics.

When you first started your art actions collective, did you ever expect to go to prison for your art?

I wasn't blind. I was reading what's going on around me, and I was studying real people who spent some time in prison, because of their political activism. So, it was a logical construct, Russian prison. But you know, as an activist, you never believe you’ll end up in jail. So, I preferred to be blind to a certain extent. I said to myself that I am lucky, and I don't have to go to jail to be able to do activism, and I choose to evoke nonviolent artistic action as a way to protest. I thought that it would lower my chances to end up in prison.

And then of course you did find yourself imprisoned for your actions with Pussy Riot.

Yes. But it was different times. In 2012, on the day when we were arrested, Putin was elected for the third time, and it was the beginning of a lot of first pressures on political dissent in Russia. We were the first ones, but unfortunately not the only ones. Now, it's just getting worse. Each year, each month, since that time. We have grave news every day, and right now it’s just a disaster. He’s cracked down on political freedom and freedom of expression. It is terrible now.

Do you think it's possible that if the same thing were to happen now, you would have an even harsher sentence?

Oh, I didn't know, because some lawyers argue that because of our case actually it became easier for other people to make actions. Right now our government is more cautious with people who are making protest artistic actions, because they saw the incredible amount of support that we got from all over the world. And definitely when our government put us in prison, they didn't expect that we'd be this huge pain in the ass.

Pussy Riot’s time in prison had a ripple effect for future political actions. What effect did being in prison have on your personal activism?

It helped me to learn more about the Russian bureaucratic system. Because prison works, on many levels, similarly to politics.

I also learned about my country deeply. I learned about Russian people, because living in a big city like Moscow, you're quite separated from the other Russia. But in prison, I got to see people from all over my country, and I learned important things about them. First of all, that support of Putin, in our official home states, is fake. It’s not real. Around 60 percent or even more people who I met when I was in prison, they didn't support Putin as president, and only like maybe 15 percent of them actively support Putin. The rest of them just didn’t care.

Another thing that I learned about is the incredible level of domestic violence that is happening in Russia, unfortunately. A lot of women, they end up in prison, because they want to save their lives, and they ended up being in prison as murderers. Though it was clearly for selfprotection. But Russian courts don't rule in favor of women.

That happens here, as well. Well, everywhere.

Finally, I learned about disaster in Russian prisons, because of the situation with prisoners’ rights. When we got out of jail, me and Maria Alyokhina and our friends, we started MediaZona, which is a media outlet, which talks about jails, about court, about police, and the violation of human rights in those spaces. And now, since 2014, we have became pretty popular. More and more people want to learn what's really going on. So my prison time made me start this alternative media resource, because I understood clearly how important it is to get real sources of information.

I wanted to ask you about MediaZona. When you were younger, you wanted to be a journalist. It makes sense that after all this, you've circled back around to the importance of a free press.

Right now, two dozen people work in MediaZona. Ideologically, we’re different from other news outlets in Russia. People can trust information that appears on MediaZona’s website. In other words, people know that we never publish fake news. Why is this important? Well, how can you make political decisions without knowing the real information?

The US has always had a history of repressing journalists and producing fake news. But especially with Donald Trump so aggressively going after media sources, I was wondering if you see parallels between Russia and the US?

There are some parallels, but it is really different. You still have have checks and balances, and we don't have any. We are in the hands of blind men, literally. So, saying that they are similar would be really far from the truth. I do see some similarities in Trump in his attitude to media. Unfortunately, in our country, Putin has made all of Russian media into his propaganda tool. I would say that I think Donald Trump, with his narcissism and with his zero tolerance for critics, that he would do the same thing as Putin.

WHEN OUR GOVERNMENT PUT US IN PRISON, THEY DIDN'T EXPECT THAT WE'D BE THIS HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS.

One last thing. In my mind, they both don't really have any clear ideological goals. Putin has changed his views many times. At the beginning of his career as the president, he actually wanted Russia to be ahead of the Western world. But after a while, like, right now, his main point is to confront the “Evil West.” They both create confusing ideology in order to stay in power and steal huge amounts of money, because Putin is one of the richest men in the world. When you think about Trump, what kind of ideology does he have, he says that he wants to make America great again, but he never referred to the time in American history where he wants to go back to. He doesn't really have have any big strategy apart from small protection mechanisms to protect his money and his power.

It feels like there is a growing international humanitarian crisis. One of the things that I think happens to people in activist communities is you don't know where to start or where to concentrate. There are so many things to be done every single minute of every day. How do you know where to start or where to focus your energy?

I'm just trying to understand where I have the most amount of expertise. When I started as an environmental activist, I had this experience of living in one of the most polluted towns on earth. I didn't want to just waste these experiences, and keep it as my own personal drama. I wanted to make it bigger than that. I follow the same logic today. I had experience of being in jail, I didn't want it to be just my own personal story. I suffered, definitely, but I wanted to share my story. People need to share their stories.

It’s not just about having a story, it is about finding ways to share it.

Yes. What's important is passion. If you have experience without passion nothing will happen. Expertise, passion, and, of course, intuition. If you ask me, and I'm an artist, I'm following my own intuitions and just trying to listen to myself carefully.

Based on this intuition, do you have hope for the future of the planet, hope for freedom?

I want to make sure that the planet will actually still exist. I'm talking about climate change. I'm talking about levels of emission. We need to do something today. In order to make any difference, we need real dialogue between countries. We need to start thinking globally. I’m an alter-globalist. I do think that global cooperation and conversations between countries can be good but the cooperation needs to be centered around global issues like inequality, like climate change.

A global people's movement?

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I think it's happening, but it's just the beginning. Everything is in our hands. The issues we are facing cannot be solved on a national level. We need a global connection. But these structures haven’t been created yet; we need to build these structures. But really, what do I know? I’m just an artist. Just make up your own mind. Create your own life.