Pussy Riot Invade Sochi, Get Whipped in Video for Putin Protest Song
Pussy Riot clash with Russian police in the video for their new song, “Putin Will Teach You How to Love.” In one scene, a cop restrains one of the women and tries to remove her balaclava. In another, a policeman lashes the women, onlookers and even the cameraperson with a whip. The violence is contrasted with more serene scenes, including the women emerging from the sea and dancing with a man dressed as a lion in front of the Olympic rings.
See Photos of Pussy Riot’s Trial
The lyrics, in English below, refer to Putin and his colleagues with the line, “Hail, duce,” as well as a “lynched” constitution. They claim that Putin “took gay pride down to the washroom” and that former Olympians Irina Rodnina and Alina Kabaeva would pass Putin the flames of a “gay-driven rainbow.” (Rodnina recently has attracted controversy over a racist tweet about Obama, according to Radio Free Europe, and Kabaeva is rumored to be Putin’s girlfriend.) “Sochi is blocked, Olympic surveillance,” the group sing, “Special forces, weapons, crowds of cops.”
The group also show support for those arrested in anti-Kremlin protests on May 6, 2012, as well as Evgeny Vitishko, an activist serving three years in prison for using spray paint to highlight Sochi’s environmental damage as a result of the Olympics.
In the “About” section of their YouTube post, the women highlighted their message with a call to action: “Freedom to all political prisoners on the May 6 case, to the environmentalist Evgeny Vitishko and all other political prisoners! See you at the Zamoskvoretsky court in Moscow on February 21 at 12.00 – when the judge will start to read the sentence for the May 6 case.”
The group introduced the video at a press conference earlier today. A press release claims that the hotel where a press conference was intended to take place canceled the group’s appearance after a “pipe burst,” so they premiered it outside the hotel.
Earlier this week, the two members of Pussy Riot who were recently released from prison were held for questioning in regard to a hotel theft. “At the moment of detention, we were not conducting any actions, we were walking in Sochi,” one of them, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, said. “We are in Sochi with the goal of staging a Pussy Riot protest.”
“Putin Will Teach You How to Love”
50 billion and a gay-driven rainbow,
Rodnina and Kabaeva will pass you those flames
In prison they will teach you how to obey
Salute to all bosses, hail, duce!
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
Sochi is blocked – Olympic surveillance
Special forces, weapons, crowds of cops
FSB is an argument, the police is an argument
State TV will run your applause.
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
Spring to Russia comes suddenly
Hello to the messiah as a shot from Avrora
The prosecutor will put you down
Give him some reaction and not those pretty eyes
A cage for the protests, vodka, matrioshka
Prison for May 6, more vodka and caviar
The Constitution is lynched, Vitishko’s in prison
Stability, the prison meal, the fence and the watchtower
For TV Rain they’ve shut down the airwaves
They took gay pride down the washroom
A two-ass toilet – a priority
Sentence to Russia, medium security, 6 years
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
The motherland
The motherland
The motherland