The masked punk rockers of Pussy Riot stormed onto the international stage in 2012 when two founding members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, were thrown in jail after a controversial performance at the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The all-female Russian artistic collective were ardent feminists and fierce advocates for LGBT rights, but what really got them in trouble was a militant attitude toward Vladimir Putin's increasingly despotic grip on Russia.
Since their release from prison in the run-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Tolokonnikova—also known as Nadya Tolokno—has continued to spearhead the group's musical mission, and is primarily responsible for the new EP, xxx, and three accompanying music videos released this week under the Pussy Riot banner. There's an internationalism to her feminism and her quest for democratic freedom, which is reflected in a project that concerns itself as much with the Donald Trump phenomenon in the United States as Putinism in Russia.
We caught up with Tolokno to discuss the rise of Trump, being hunted by the Russian political police, and the time her college hired fake students when Putin visited so that he wouldn't have to hear anyone criticize him.
I've got to ask—what did you make of the Trump tape?
It's crazy from a candidate for president of the United States. There's a big difference between punks using these kinds of words, and politicians. Their place is to serve us, and to serve all kinds of people. It's a terrible system if Donald Trump wasn't removed right away after this was leaked. It's terrible that anyone could take him seriously after it was exposed. And still, some people really want to vote for him. I cannot understand how some women could want to vote for him after he said these things—terrible, patriarchal, misogynistic things.
Donald Trump is a misogynist pig.
[youtube ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-bKFo30o2o[/youtube]
Feminism is a major dimension of Pussy Riot. How much of that was that a reaction to misogyny in Putin's Russia?
I wouldn't say Russian society is misogynistic. Our country was one of the first to give women the right to vote, in 1917. American women got it in 1919. So we have a good history of feminism and state-supported feminism. Putin is now trying to make Russia look much more conservative than it is in fact. I've been there, I saw women of all social classes, and they're strong. They're really running their lives. They are, in fact, feminists. And they are pretty free sexually, as well.
Putin, the conservatives, our Orthodox Church—they're trying to make it look like Russian society is so conservative. Putin has said to women he's met [in public life], he asked them what they were doing because their primary purpose in life is to give birth to kids and help our country's fertility rate. "You're not doing your job," he said. Unfortunately, it's acceptable right now in Russia. And I don't want this kind of rhetoric to be acceptable in the U.S., but for some reason, it looks like it's becoming acceptable through guys like Donald Trump.
Is there a connection between that kind of rhetoric that degrades women and the authoritarian streaks they both have?
There is definitely a historical connection. We are building a society where women will truly be included in our political system, but it's so fragile. We got our right to vote less than one hundred years ago. Through all Western history, it was men who decided how everyone lived. Women are still not fully represented. So it's really important, even if you don't agree with everything [Hillary Clinton] is for, for people to go and vote for her. She is the first step to building this society—a symbol. It's also a vote against Donald Trump and patriarchal crap.
Do you think Putin and Trump have sort of silly versions of masculinity? Putin with his shirtless pictures on the horse, for instance.
They definitely have silly interpretations of what being a man is. Even these days, Putin will be shirtless. It's not attractive, but they just don't get it. I think our mission is to show them it's not attractive anymore. It's silly, it's funny. So many people are just making fun of them. Even in Russia, normal people accept this.
Like when Putin went diving, and everybody claimed that he found some vase from an ancient Greek empire. Like, really? But that's what happens when you live in your own imaginary world. Putin doesn't really get what's going on around him because he doesn't even use the Internet. He literally doesn't know what people really think about him. He has his close circle of friends and allies and political consultants who tell him what the world is like. People in Russia make fun of Putin, but he doesn't know about it. That's what we were trying to do. That's why we went to that church, and I guess we were quite successful in that, with unfortunate results for us.
Do you think Putin's as eager as some say for Trump to become president?
For a long time, he's been supporting right-wing nationalist populists all around the world. It's not just America, it's happening in Europe. He supported Marine Le Pen in France—there are documents showing he supported her with money. His support of Trump is not a surprise for me because he wants to see an alternative world and he wants to be a world leader. And obviously, with Trump, it will be much easier for Putin to execute his internal and external policies—and quite brutal ones. When Mr. Trump says he wouldn't support NATO allies, such as the Baltic countries, this would give Putin much more freedom to annex those territories.
Trump talks about making America great again—taking it back to an earlier time when things were supposedly better. Does Putin have any of that?
Yeah, for sure. And a lot of people in Russia supported him for it. But it's just a psychological rule—you always believe something in the past was better than you have it right now. Putin rarely speaks about plans for the future, he talks about the past. Do we really want to re-start the Cold War? If Putin goes back to the Soviet Union and Trump makes America great again—as it was three or four decades years ago—are we going back to a Cold War? Are we going back to nuclear weapons and the prospect of atomic war? Really?
When you look at what happened in Crimea, a lot of Russians were excited by the possibility of going back to the USSR. But now they're disappointed. The reports out of Crimea now say the electricity has been cut. They bathed without heating for a month in the winter. They are suffering from what happened, and now they know there's no way to go back to the direct past. Politicians who are just talking about the past and not trying to build better lives for people now are dangerous.
Are you concerned with the reports that the Russian government was connected to recent hacks in the U.S., and appears to be trying to meddle in the election?
You have to remember Putin's main identity is still a KGB officer. People can change, but they can't change dramatically. His main aim is to find secrets and reveal information. In the '90s, he used this for his own purposes. He used a lot of private information to do business, and became really wealthy. Now that he's wealthy, he's using it for political purposes.
Did he use it against you before you were arrested?
They did. If I went to any rally, I'd be arrested immediately, ust because they know me. We had strange connections with the political police, because they knew us. They knew everything about our lives—about our sexual lives as well, because they were listening to our phones. It was a close relationship [by the time we were] arrested and had to spend time with those dudes.
They were excited to put us in jail. It was their personal win. They got us. We irritated them for years before that, but we were just doing artistic, symbolic actions, so they couldn't put us in jail for a long period of time. I think I've been arrested 50 times in my life. But as Putin went through his term, people started to not care about the law anymore, and we went to jail for the same actions.
You said in 2014 that they released you as a PR stunt before the Sochi Olympics. Do you still believe that?
They released us two months before the official end of our [prison] terms, and actually fucked everything up. When you're in jail and waiting for those last two months, you behave like a queen. It would've been two months of pure heaven in jail, and they stole it from us.
You were looking forward to it?
I mean, two months is not that bad. Two years is a little bit too much. We served 22 months before that, and it was not easy. Masha was fighting the prison officials; I was on a hunger strike. If they wanted to show some mercy, they could have done it before.
So I want to talk about your new music. You've got three new videos, a new EP—
We changed the name. Now it's called XXX. You know, like porn.
The first song, "Straight Out of Vagina," is a kind of feminist anthem. At one point in it, you say, "If your vagina lands in prison / then the world is gonna listen." Do you feel like that's what it took for your voice to be heard—being thrown in jail?
I think we're not too happy about that, but it happened. And he showed everyone that his policies are not as smart as he claimed it to be. He definitely didn't want to give us that much of a voice. We kind of thought it was a miracle.
Do you feel like people were paying attention before that, or they should have been?
I don't like to judge people or blame people for not doing something. But I think in general it's a good idea to pay attention to what's going on, not just in your country but all around the world. And when you're living in the West, appreciate for a second—I don't know the word for it in English, but you know this type of psychology, when you think that everything happens in the West means something, and what happens in other countries doesn't.
My friend has a television show called Voice Project, and he helps musicians who've been jailed all around the world for singing political songs. Many are from Africa. When somebody tells him, "Oh, music is not political anymore," he's mad about it. Because they're talking just about the West. And they don't really want to look at other countries.
It does seem like this record has a pretty western focus, though. The third track, "Make America Great Again 2"—that's a pretty explicit commentary on Trump's xenophobia and his hostility to immigrants. Do you feel like this is a pivotal time for America, and that's why you're turning your attention here?
We called our band Pussy Riot—English words. I always believed that Russia is a part of Europe. There are different views on that—some people think Russia is Asia, and some people believe it's something in between. I believe Russia is a European country, and obviously it has to find its own path. But Russian culture is primarily European culture. So that's why I never really made this division between Russia and Europe or France or the United States.
How does this differ from your previous projects?
I wouldn't say the perspective really changed. Our first song was called "Kill the Sexists," which is pretty universal. We want to get rid of the sexists everywhere, not just in Russia. And we've always had this feminist agenda, and LGBTQ rights agenda, because they're universal. So I wouldn't say that a lot has changed from that perspective.
We have three videos right now, and one is about Russian politics and is in Russian. I shot that video in Ukraine. Another video is about Trump and "Make America Great Again," but I wouldn't say it's just about America. Because I believe that whoever is the President of the United States impacts all countries in the world, including Russia, of course. And the third video is clearly universal, and it's about vaginas. We are strong.
You and one of your collaborators, Masha Alyokhina, made a cameo on House of Cards. You got to voice your grievances to a Putin-like character, and even disrespected him at a state dinner by throwing your drinks on the table. Was that kind of a dream come true?
You could hardly do it in real life, because he's hiding. He doesn't really meet normal people. Once he came to my university. They took out all the actual students and replaced them with fake ones. I saw an ad on the Internet before he came to my university, and they were looking for young girls with Slavic appearance. They had to be short in height so they weren't taller than Putin. And they had to have good smiles. They mentioned all of it in this casting. And then someone exposed it, so they deleted it. Their job was to follow him in the elevator. In the fucking elevator.
And I believe that Putin believed they were actual students. He lives in fake reality. There were riot police and all types of law enforcement agencies, and they got rid of us for three days.
So he needs people to feed his ego. Is that a symptom of the dictator types?
It's just old ideology that sees women as jewelry. That's all. It's not that they're dictators—I believe that there are a lot of people that aren't dictators, but they still believe that women are their jewelry. But that's definitely a common thing between Trump and Putin.
Another aspect of your activism is LGBT rights. That's obviously a big problem for Putin, who's terrible on it. Do you think Putin really believes in that stuff, or is it just politically useful?
It's their attempt to build an ideology when they don't really have one. They don't have principles, they don't have real plans for what they're going to do with the country. They just want to fucking rob it, and they just want to use oil and gas money. They don't really think about ideology. But when they start to think about it, because they have to show people something, they're like, "Oh, why don't we be against gays? Or why don't we support our church? Or why try to get the Olympics?"
That's their attempt, but it's not their belief, because they don't have beliefs. Their beliefs are their pockets. That's all.
Do you think there's a similar thing with Trump and immigration? How suddenly, when he's running for president, he's a hard-liner?
It definitely is. He's changed his mind from one debate to another. When he said that Putin is his best friend, and then he betrayed Putin and said he's not and made Putin cry because of that. [kidding] That's why I like Bernie. He's so consistent. He believed in the same set of things—he knew what he was trying to achieve, from the beginning of his political career. That's why I like him.
Putin wanted to be part of NATO. In the beginning of his first term, he clearly didn't know where we'd be right now. He wanted to be part of NATO, and when it didn't happen, he was like a kid. He was like Trump. Like, "Oh, they wouldn't let me in, so now I'm against them."
