Maria Alyokhina, Russian punk activist: The price of political art was prison

Summary

The Interview – Maria Alyokhina: The Price of Political Art was Prison

Podcast: The Interview
Host: BBC World Service (interviewer: Vitaly Shevchenko)
Date: November 12, 2025
Guest: Maria Alyokhina, Russian punk activist, Pussy Riot member

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Overview

This episode features a compelling conversation with Maria Alyokhina, a prominent member of the Russian feminist punk protest group Pussy Riot. Alyokhina shares her experiences of art as resistance, from her arrest in 2012 following Pussy Riot’s anti-Putin protest in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, through her sentencing and harsh detention in Russia’s penal colonies, to her continued activism and dramatic escape from Russia in 2022. She discusses the costs of political art, the slow descent of Russia into authoritarianism, and her unyielding commitment to speaking out against dictatorship, even under threat of imprisonment and exile.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Origins and Intent of Pussy Riot's Protest (03:31–04:52)

• Pussy Riot as Anti-Dictatorship Art: Formed in late 2011 as a reaction to Putin’s announcement of a third presidential term—a “point of no return” for Russia and Ukraine.
• Performance and Arrest: Their protest—performing “Mother Mary, Banish Putin” in Russia’s main cathedral—targeted the church's support of state power.
  • Maria: "We wrote a sarcastic song, Mother Mary, Banish Putin ... on the collaboration of church and state. And we managed to perform 40 seconds of the song..." (03:31)

2. Unexpected Repercussions and Arrest (04:52–06:11)

• Criminal Charges: Pussy Riot were the first artists jailed for anti-Putin protest, charged with “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”
  • Maria: "We didn’t expect criminal case, real prison term. ... A guy in plain clothes was waiting for me on the stairs ... I declared hunger strike ... in Petrovka, which is like a brutal compilation." (05:03–06:05)

3. Inside Russia’s Penal Colonies (06:15–11:07)

• Gulag Legacy: Maria details the Soviet-style penal colony system and its brutal conditions, including:
  • Cold (down to -35°C) and lack of basic needs (e.g., warm clothes).
  • Solitary confinement as punishment for raising human rights issues.
  • "Russian prison system is different from Western one. We have a legacy of gulag ... the transportation takes around a month ..." (06:15)
  • State-sanctioned abuses and humiliation (including invasive searches for intimidation).
  • Social isolation (“prohibited to talk with me”), constant surveillance, forced labor sewing uniforms.

4. Release, Continued Activism, and Putin’s ‘Amnesty’ (11:07–13:06)

• Released ahead of the 2014 Sochi Olympics via what Maria calls a “VIP amnesty”—a PR move for the regime.
  • "Putin wrote a special VIP amnesty because Olympic Games being held in Russia ... I didn’t want to go out ... because Putin wrote some amnesty." (10:08)
• Maria immediately resumed activism, advocating for prisoners’ rights and supporting Navalny.

5. Increasing Repression and the Escape from Russia (13:06–13:49)

• Heightened State Control:
  • Criminal case in 2021 after online post supporting protests for Navalny.
  • House arrest, electronic monitoring, repeated short-term detainments.
  • Witnessed the onset of full-scale war in Ukraine from a prison cell.
  • "They caught me, took my documents ... locked to house arrest ... in a year I was like locked six times for 15 days ..." (11:15)
• Escape: Disguised as a food courier, left under constant surveillance to avoid the forest route in hopes of returning someday.
  • "I had to change clothes to the delivery service uniform. ... had to like make some stuff like leaving the phone, using the back door, change clothes, go to the secret place where the car was waiting ..." (13:11)

6. Reflection: The Power and Limits of Political Art (15:12–18:12)

• Was It Futile?: Maria robustly rejects the notion that artistic resistance is pointless, highlighting its role in exposing dictatorship to the world.
  • "One of the goals of political art is to ask uncomfortable questions and raise an attention, to make the situation ... more clear and more visible ... yes, the price is the real prison term. But the situation became more visible, more clear and more loud." (15:39)
• Limits as Protesters: Lacking institutional power, their only weapons are their voices and testimonies.
  • "I’m not the government. I don’t have tanks ... I have my body. I have my voice. ... And by doing that, I can share what was and is happening." (16:35)
• The Slow Slide to Totalitarianism: Not a single event, but a gradual process.
  • "It’s not one day when the country can be turned into the fascist state ... it’s a slow, patient, painful way to get people used to live like that." (17:27)

7. ‘Political Girl’ and the Loss of Freedom (18:12–22:52)

• Her Book: ‘Political Girl’ tracks life after release, growing repression, and Russia’s road to authoritarianism.
  • "It’s kind of the way to like the road to hell, basically, which Putin forced people to go through." (18:18)
• Vanishing Space for Protest: Now even a social media ‘like’ is criminal.
• Lack of Western Response: Describes being flogged at Sochi Olympics protest, Crimea’s annexation—little international consequence.
  • "We’ve been beaten there. No reaction from the West. Everyone, like, just cover the story and continue to shake hands with these people. Then they annex Crimea. No reaction." (20:02)
• On Identity and Political Commitment:
  • "I’m a punk in my heart. It’s not like a musical genre for me, I live like this ... Even if you make a decision to keep silent, you make a political decision of indifference." (21:03)

8. Personal Cost: Family, Grief, and Exile (22:09–24:11)

• Retaliation against Family: After anti-war art and public actions, her mother’s and late father’s apartments were searched by security forces.
  • "My mom's apartment and my father's apartment. And my father died months later after that." (22:22)
• Remote Grieving: Attended her father’s funeral online due to inability to return to Russia.
  • "Funeral on Telegram and after funeral on Zoom. Interesting dystopian experience." (22:32)
• What Is Home Now?: Russia remains an emotional anchor, but the pain of exile, and witnessed change, is profound.
  • "It always will be a life without like part of the heart. Many people, like many Ukrainians, don’t physically have home because they were bombed..." (22:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Political Art’s Purpose:
  “One of the goals of political art is to ask uncomfortable questions and raise attention ... at this point, I'm sure that many people understood that Vladimir Putin is dictator. Yes, the price is the real prison term. But the situation became more visible, more clear.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (02:56, 15:39)

• On Her Prison Experience:
  “Russian prison system is different from Western one. We have a legacy of gulag, actual post gulag system.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (06:15)

  “It was prohibited to speak to me. The guy with video camera was always nearby, filming my every step.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (08:10)

• On Hoping for Change & Speaking Out:
  “I have my body. I have my voice. I have things which I lived and living through. And by doing that, I can share what was and is happening. This is what I can do. And I can not be indifferent, not stay aside.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (16:35)

• On the West’s Response:
  “We’ve been beaten there. No reaction from the West. Everyone like, you know, just cover the story and continue to shake hands with these people. Then they annex Crimea. No reaction.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (20:02)

• On Identity:
  “I’m a punk in my heart. ... Even if you make a decision to keep silent, you make a political decision of indifference.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (21:03)

• On Exile and Loss:
  “Funeral on Telegram and after funeral on Zoom. Interesting dystopian experience.”
  — Maria Alyokhina (22:32)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [02:56] — Maria discusses the purpose and impact of political art.
• [03:31–04:52] — Origins of Pussy Riot and anti-Putin protest.
• [06:15–11:07] — Prison conditions: gulag legacy, punishment, and abuse.
• [13:06–13:49] — The escape from house arrest: clever disguise and navigation of police surveillance.
• [15:39] — Reflection on the point of protest and legacy of resistance.
• [18:18] — Her book ‘Political Girl’: chronicling repression and resistance.
• [20:02] — On the lack of international reaction to Russia’s repression.
• [21:03] — On identity and the inescapability of political engagement.
• [22:22] — Retaliation against her family and the personal price of activism.
• [22:32] — The experience of exile and grieving from afar.

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Summary

Maria Alyokhina’s interview offers an intimate, unsparing look into the life of a political artist at war with autocracy. Through harrowing details of prison life, relentless surveillance, and forced exile, she articulates both the personal costs and the enduring necessity of resistance. Her testimony underscores the power of individual voices—no matter how vulnerable—in exposing repression, and the slow, often invisible erosion of freedoms under authoritarian regimes.

Alyokhina’s journey, from the cacophony of a 40-second punk prayer to the isolation of a foreign land, is a sobering portrait of courage, grief, and defiance in the face of a state determined to silence dissent. Her Punk ethos, as she insists, is a way of living and an unyielding refusal to be indifferent.

Transcript

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

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[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, dc.

[Tristan Redman]

I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

Hello, I'm Vitaly Shevchenko, BBC presenter, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC people shaping our world from all over the world.

[Maria Alyochena (Younger Voice)]

I'm disappointed in him. I deal done four times and then you go home and you see just attack a nursing home in Kiev. What the hell was that all about?

I was still in an induced coma in hospital when the world was defining me. But I was still 15 years old and I did not know who I was.

I love singing and so my goal was always to do better and better at it.

Today we are spending trillions on war and peanuts on peace.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

For this interview, I met Maria Alyochena, the Russian activist and band member of the punk feminist protest group Pussy Riot. You're going to hear about her arrest after the band's anti Putin protest in a Moscow Church in 2012, a punk prayer and her two years incarcerated in a penal colony. Conditions were unrelentingly harsh, with temperatures dropping to minus 35 degrees Celsius in winter. Other prisoners were banned from speaking to her. Some listeners may be distressed by some of the graphic details of her treatment. She was freed in 2013 under an amnesty ahead of the Sochi Winter Olympics and immediately continued her activism, including advocating for prisoners rights in Russia. Her support for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny led to another criminal case against her in 2021, and she was placed under house arrest and under surveillance. Maria tells me about her dramatic escape from Russia the following year. Despite everything that followed Their punk prayer. Maria stands by her decision to protest in the way she did.

[Maria Alyochena]

One of the goals of political art is to ask uncomfortable questions and raise attention to make the situation, which already exists, more clear and more visible. So at this point, I'm sure that many people understood that Vladimir Putin is dictator. Yes, the price is the real prison term. But the situation became more visible, more clear.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Maria Alukhina.

[Maria Alyochena]

Bushy rite is anti dictatorship art. And it started in the end of 2011 when Putin announced that he is going to run for the third term, which actually became point of no return for Russia and for Ukraine also. There was a large protest movement of people across the country who were protesting on the streets. Completely different people. My first action with Pussy Riot was on the Red Square. And then we were reacting to the situation when Putin started to use the church for a proof for his endless presidency. So we wrote a sarcastic song, Mother Mary, Banish Putin, reflecting on the events which were happening that time, on the collaboration of church and state. And we managed to perform 40 seconds of the song in the Cathedral of.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

Christ the Savior, Moscow's most important cathedral.

[Maria Alyochena]

Yeah, Moscow, main place for Putin's promotion. And then they opened the criminal case, which was surprising. We've been first artists, activists who've been imprisoned for real prison term because of our protest against Putin.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So you were charged with hooliganism motivated.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

By religious hatred, and you were sentenced.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

To a two year jail sentence. You didn't expect that.

[Maria Alyochena]

No, we didn't. We didn't expect criminal case, real prison term. So they came to my real address next day after the band prayer. A guy in plain clothes was waiting for me on the stairs when. When I was like coming home with my small son. So tomorrow a lawyer came to the police office and said to run because the criminal case was opened and a week of adventures in conspiracy apartments. And then they caught us from the, I think the second day of imprisonment. I knew that it would be a real prison term if I would not sign the papers that I'm kind of guilty and apologize, which I didn't want to do. I declared hunger strike, like first hunger strike in my life in Petrovka, which is like a brutal compilation.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

One of the main police buildings in Moscow.

[Maria Alyochena]

Yeah, and oldest almost two years in.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

That remote colony near the Ural Mountains.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

What was it like?

[Maria Alyochena]

So Russian prison system is different from Western one. We have a legacy of gulag, actual post gulag system. It's a network of penal colonies which are labor camps. During the pre trial and trial investigation, you're held in jail, like building with cells. But after you receive the sentence, they send you to penal colony. The transportation takes around a month. But because of the system, you go to police van, Stalypenwagon police van, like jail, then again car, wagon, car jail. So the whole trip takes a month because they held you in transportation jails in the road. And you don't know where you're going. You don't know when it will finish and what is the final destination. It's Soviet Union system. And during transportation, this is the most kind of fragile for the person, period, because they can kill you. There are no cameras, there is nothing. Anyway, I was sent to pinnacle Colony number 28. It's located near Berezniki town. It's quite cold there. It's like minus 35 Celsius in winter. And on the second week I went to Human Rights Commission and said that state do not provide to women warm clothes. So they locked me to solitary confinement, like for four and a half months. So my first colony received a lot of problems from Moscow because of my existence there. And they sent me to another penal colony, to Nizhnovgorod, from where I've been released.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

Did you get special treatment? I mean, better or worse, given that you were a special prisoner?

[Maria Alyochena]

Yes, we can say like that that was prohibited to talk with me. The guy with video camera was always like nearby, filming my every step. So penal colony is different from the prison. So it looks like a strange village divided into two parts. In the living part living zone, there are barracks. So 100 women live together, sleep in one room, two toilets or three toilets without borders, no hot water, kitchen with one fridge. The working zone is a fabric where prisoners sewing police uniform and uniform for Russian army. Having two pounds per month.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

And no one speaks to you?

[Maria Alyochena]

Yeah, like it was prohibited to speak to me. But after this fight for warm clothes and basically fight for the disgrace of working day, like put it to normal eight hours. I think people managed to give me like small pieces of paper with thank you, which was very nice, fellow inmates. Yeah, but this is like. I mean, there are a number of things which they can do to press you. Like, I don't know. When they found out that we are going to the court, with my lawyer against them, they started to search me before every visit to the lawyer. And full search, like requires genecological chair and they don't use gloves.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So you spent almost all of your term in what remains of the gulag system. And after your release you carried out more protest actions until you left Russia.

[Maria Alyochena]

Yeah. So basically Putin wrote a special VIP amnesty because Olympic Games being held in Russia in 2014 and there were questions from western politicians about political prisoners, about us, about Khodorkovsky, about activists, ecology activists, from Arctic Sunrise and he wrote an act of amnesty for us. Quite Hippocratic paper being named for like mothers of children who like committed heavy crimes. And holy communism motivated by religious hatred is so called heavy crime. So five people from the whole country been released on this so called amnesty. And I didn't want to go out, I don't want to go out from the penal colony because Putin wrote some amnesty.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

Can you tell us about why you left Russia and how.

[Maria Alyochena]

Lets start with how I had second criminal case opened 2021 because I wrote an Instagram post with the call to go to the protest when Navalny came back and went to protest. So they caught me, took my documents, my international passport, put an electronic anki to my leg and locked to house arrest. Then several months later they started to lock me to detention center for 15 days. So in a year I was like locked six times for 15 days with electronic anki. During the one of these 15 days I've heard the announce of the full scale invasion one hour Putin's speech from the radio in a cell where I was alone, somehow I realized that it would be a war. Then I was released from this detention center and then like locked again. So first months of the war I spent in detention center in the cell full of cool people, actually best people, random girls who went to the protest against the war. And I was the only one who just went out because my last year they were just imprison me for just existence in the country. I wanted to help Ukraine, I mean as much as I can. At the same time I desperately didn't want to go out from my country for forever. And I understood that if you run from the criminal case, you run not forever but like for a long time you would not like come back legally.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So you escaped from house arrest disguised?

[Maria Alyochena]

Yeah, I had to change clothes to the delivery service uniform. And we have thousands of couriers, you know, delivering food because apartment was surrounded by political police. I had to like make some stuff like leaving the phone, using the back door, change clothes, go to the secret place where the car was waiting, go to the Belarus and make this attempt by attempt to cross the border legally because I didn't want to go through the forest because I had the hope to come back.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

You're Listening to the interview from the BBC World Service people shaping our world from all over the world.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing, and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just the cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

For this episode of the interview, I'm speaking to Maria Alyochena. Maria turned up for the interview wearing a patch that said freedom or death in Ukrainian. A Russian who very publicly supports Ukraine and opposes Vladimir Putin. That's a rare combination, and she has paid the price for her opposition to the Kremlin, spending almost two years in jail and having to leave her country. During the interview, she took long pauses before answering some of my questions, lost in thought. Maria is 0% hot air, 100% sincerity. A true punk rocker. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Maria Aleochina.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

Looking back at what you were doing back in Russia, you and other opponents of Vladimir Putin, do you ever get a feeling of, you know, the punk prayer? What preceded it and what followed was kind of futile, wasn't it? Given how much in control Vladimir Putin is of Russia at the moment, it.

[Maria Alyochena]

Depends on what we call work. So basically, the goal, like, not the goal, but, like, for my opinion, one of the goals of political art is to ask uncomfortable questions and raise an attention, to make the situation which already exists more clear and more visible. So at this point, I'm sure that many people in the country and here in the west understood that Vladimir Putin as dictator, yes, the price is the real prison term. But the situation became more visible, more clear and more loud. I would say we are not. I'm not the government. I don't have tanks. I don't have army. I don't have missile rockets. I cannot, like, put the personal missile attack to the body of Vladimir Putin. I have my body. I have my voice. I have things which I lived and living through. And by doing that, I can share what was and is happening. This is what I can do. And I can not be indifferent, not stay aside. So as a person and as, like, I don't know, artist, this is something. I mean, this is not zero. So at this point, I think we. We managed to show what is this regime about? And not only bipart prayer. I mean, I wanted to collect all the adventures which happened after to show that it's not one day when the country can be turned into the fascist state. It's not one moment. It's not just immediately you like, wake up and hello, this is totalitarian state. It's a way, it's a slow, patient, painful way to get people used to live like that.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So tell us more about your, your book Political Girl. What's in it?

[Maria Alyochena]

My life and life of the country since the moment I've been released from the two year sentence until the moment I crossed the border. I made it in a collaboration with another pussyright member, Olga Borisova. It's mosaic of our actions mixed with the context of growing repressions. It's kind of the way to like the road to hell, basically, which Putin forced people to go through. And what was happening on this road.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

My view is that Russia went from a time when it was possible to protest, even at, you know, very, very grave danger to the protesters, to a time when protest is, well, impossible. You are going down, you're going to jail just by liking the wrong sort of post on social media. How did that happen?

[Maria Alyochena]

That's why I wanted to collect all of that together. There were different moments and there is no one answer to how it happened. There are methods of silencing people and taking freedoms and hope out of them. For example, 2014. So we've been released. We went to Sochi Olympic using opportunity that. We've been released two months before the end of the term because of Olympic Games. We decided to go to Olympic Games and make an action.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

And you were flogged by ox.

[Maria Alyochena]

We've been beaten for the first time. We've been beaten there. No reaction from the West. Everyone like, you know, just cover the story and continue to shake hands with these people. Then they annex Crimea. No reaction. Then it was happening like events were happening one by one, like very fast. Starting the war in Ukraine.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

Do you feel let down by the West?

[Maria Alyochena]

It's not letting down. It's basically like there are a lot of jokes about how deeply concerned European Union is and that's. Yeah, like these are the conditions in Russia. There is a fear in the west. There is an indifference.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So your book is called Political Girl. Who are you now? Are you a political girl? Are you a punk rocker still? Are you a journalist? Who are you? I never.

[Maria Alyochena]

Well, I was studying journalists and creative writing. But yeah, I'm a punk in my heart. I would like never. It's not like a musical genre for Me, I live like this and I don't think that I would live differently ever. Speaking about being political or not being political. We are all political. Even if you make a decision to keep silent, you make a political decision of indifference. Recently, a month ago, I received 13 years and 15 days, 15 days of prison term on the article of fakes about Russian army because of the anti war song Mama, don't watch tv and performance in German museum Binakatiek where we were shouting the names of the companies, German companies who have contracts with FSB and with Russian army in Pravad providing microchips.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

So after that performance and after that clip was published. Mom, don't watch tv. Your mom who is still in Moscow, her flat was searched by the security services.

[Maria Alyochena]

Yes, my mom's apartment and my father's apartment. And my father died months later after that.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

And you couldn't go to attend his funeral?

[Maria Alyochena]

Funeral on Telegram and after funeral on Zoom. Interesting dystopian experience.

[Interviewer (Possibly Vitaly Shevchenko or another BBC interviewer)]

I wanted to come back to the question of home. What is your home? Do you still think, you still feel Russia is your home and will be forever?

[Maria Alyochena]

Well, I don't know about forever, but I think I. Yes, I feel. But it's three years since I crossed the border, even a little bit more than three years and I know what was happening and like I'm in permanent contact with families of political prisoners with my mom, so I'm highly likely know what is now there. It changed. So I was like leaving another. Even like during these three years country changed. So it's difficult question. It always will be a life without like part of the heart. Many people, like many Ukrainians, don't physically have home because they were bombed or people from occupied territories who ran away.

[Vitaly Shevchenko]

Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in depth conversations on the interview wherever you get your BBC podcast, including episodes with author Sir Salman Rushdie, former US Vice President Kamala Harris and education activist Malala Yousafzai. Until next time. Bye for now.

[Asma Khalid]

America is changing and so is the world.

[Tristan Redman]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Asma Khalid]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Tristan Redman]

Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.

[Asma Khalid]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[Tristan Redman]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.