Pussy Riot member speaks out on Alexey Navalny’s sacrifice and a warning for the West

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Russian art protest collective Pussy Riot, currently performing in Western Canada, has altered its multimedia concert Riot Days for the worst of reasons. The group’s first show on this tour, in Kelowna earlier this week, was also its first since the death of Alexey Navalny.

“That was shocking,” group member Maria (Masha) Alyokhina said of her friend’s death. “The main thing is not to give up and to continue. Because we should make everything that we can to show what this regime is about.”

Riot Days, based on Alyokhina’s memoir of the same name, includes a segment in which photos of political prisoners are shown on a screen. Navalny’s photo used to appear in that section, but on Monday, for the first time, his image ended the show instead, as Alyokhina spoke about him.

“I told people that this was a man who gave his life to show that it’s not all people who support Putin. There are people who have voices and they are dead,” Alyokhina said.

Navalny, 47, was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent political opponent. He died unexpectedly in an Arctic penal colony in February, where he was serving a 19-year sentence. It is a widely held belief that Putin was involved in Navalny’s death, although the Kremlin has rejected such allegations. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has accused Russia of “executing” the opposition leader.

Alyokhina calls Navalny’s death a murder, unequivocally. And she worries about other political prisoners.

“We’re trying to remind people that there are thousands of people in prison in Russia for protesting against Putin and against war in Ukraine,” she says. “But it’s not just faces. It’s people who sacrifice their life.”

Alyokhina has made her own sacrifices. After she and other members of Pussy Riot famously performed a protest song in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in 2012, she was convicted of “hooliganism” and spent nearly two years in a penal colony. More jail sentences followed. In 2022, facing a return to a penal colony for her protest work, she fled Russia clandestinely.

In a piece she wrote for The Guardian after Navalny’s death, Alyokhina called his killing a “signal” and wrote that “deep concern is not enough. … We need action.”

She is advocating for prisoner exchanges, concerned about the fate of others currently held by Russia. She is also urging the West to stop using Russian resources, and to help Ukraine in its war effort. She warns that if Ukraine loses the war, Putin will set his sights on other countries.

She says Putin “and his gang” are not just dangerous for Russia and Ukraine, but that the consequences of his authoritarian rule could have a disastrous global impact. “We should do everything that we can to actually shut them down.”

She is also concerned about the possibility of Donald Trump winning the next U.S. election, pointing to his recent comments about pulling out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “Now it’s time for all people to start to be aware and to understand that democracy is not a gift from God. It will not exist for forever. So we should fight.”

The group is touring Western Canada ahead of an exhibition at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia documents the collective’s actions over the years through videos, photos, song lyrics and other reflections.

En route Tuesday to Edmonton, where the group was to perform its second show, Alyokhina talked about the connection she felt with the Canadian audience on opening night.

“People were amazing. They were so warm and felt what we were telling to them,” she said. “And it’s kind of a miracle because Canada is so far from Russia.”

She added: “Sometimes we worry that people will not feel it as their own, but yesterday they felt it personally.”

The group performs in Russian, with English subtitles. “We were super surprised about the reaction of the audience because they understood everything – not just understood, they felt. I’ve seen it in their eyes. They were crying.”

When asked whether she worries about her own safety, Alyokhina laughed it off. “It’s not the moment. And if we all will just sit afraid, our opponents will continue to do these nightmares and no one will oppose them. And it’s not what we want. It’s not what I want.”