Pussy Riot member runs away pretending to be a food delivery girl

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In 1846, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte dressed as a mason. In 2019, Carlos Goshn hid in a trunk. In 2022, Maria Aliokhina sticks to her time: to escape her house arrest, she pretends to be a home delivery person. The 33-year-old is the singer of Pussy Riot, a feminist punk collective for ten years in the crosshairs of the Russian authorities. His stand against the government regularly earned him arrests and stays in prison. Maria Aliokhina has already served a two-year sentence for playing a punk prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 2012.

According to the New York Times, which collected his story, the hardest part was not leaving his apartment, which was nevertheless watched night and day by the police. The day she runs away, she leaves her cell phone so as not to be detected, and she simply walks out wearing the apple green Delivery Club outfit (an equivalent of Uber Eats in Russia), which a friend has managed to get him through. Hooded jacket that conceals his face, large square refrigerated bag in the back. No one obviously asks him anything.

An accomplice then drove her to the border with Belarus, a six-hour drive. There, miraculously, she passes even though she only has her identity card (the Russian authorities have confiscated her passport) and she appears on the list of wanted persons.

Then things get complicated. His goal: to move from Belarus to Lithuania to set foot in the European Union. Twice she tries, without success. The third is good thanks to a travel document issued by a European country, which gives him the same status as a citizen of the Union. It was a friend, an Icelandic artist, who smuggled him. The country in question asked not to be named. Today Maria Aliokhina lives in Vilnius, she found members of her group there, including her girlfriend, Lucy Shtein, who also fled. “I’m happy to have succeeded“, she says today. It was “a middle fingerto the Russian authorities.

The case of Maria in any case is emblematic: since the invasion of Ukraine, repression has intensified in Russia, tens of thousands of people have fled the country. Maria Alekhina is a perfect example. In April the authorities tell him that his house arrest will change – this is what triggered his escape – it will be 21 days in a penal colony (his crime was to have called for a demonstration for the release political prisoners).

Pussy Riot have planned a series of concerts that will begin in Berlin to continue to denounce the authoritarianism of the Kremlin and raise funds for Ukraine.


source site-29