On June 9, members of the Verkhotura Dance Theater, the Street University, and their friends recorded this “Song of Solidarity” for Artem Loskutov, who was released on his own recognizance from a Novosibirsk jail on June 10.

As the Institute for Collective Action reports, yesterday, June 10, the Novosibirsk Regional Court ordered Novosibirsk artist Artem Loskutov released on his own recognizance. A panel of judges ruled that there was no basis for the Dzerzhinsky District Court’s conclusion that Loskutov would continue to engage in criminal activity were he released pending trial. The lower court had also failed to take into account other mitigating circumstances—Loskutov’s lack of a criminal record, his student status, and the fact that his thesis defense had been scheduled for June.

Upon his release from a temporary detention facility, Artem headed straight to the Novosibirsk State Technical University for his thesis defense, where he was awarded a “B.” He talked about this, his time in custody, and his plans for the near future in an interview with Radio Svoboda:

—My major is cinematography, and my area of concentration is TV camera work. My diploma defense went off without a hitch. When I was released from the detention facility, I managed only to say hello to everyone before getting into a car and heading to my defense. My teachers were aware of my situation. They had already seen my work—that is, my thesis film. I submitted the documentation and got a “B.”

—What were conditions like in the detention facility?

—They were fine: I got fed three times a day and they didn’t beat me once. I was constantly getting news from the outside. It really cheered me up.

—How do you respond to the drugs possession charges?

—The charges are fabricated. The drugs were planted. The inquest showed that I’m not an addict and that my fingerprints weren’t on the drugs. A swab of my hands showed no traces of drugs. Aside from the testimony of the arresting officers, there is no evidence.

—What are your plans for the immediate future? Will you be organizing actions on the order of the Monstrations?

—My problems with school were unexpectedly solved today: they passed my thesis. I have to find out what’s going on at work, whether they still want me there. As for public activism, it’s clear that this is dangerous for me while the investigation is ongoing. On the other hand, all my recent art actions were totally legal. All the actions were legal in fact! At the max, they violated the administrative code, but not the criminal code. I’m prepared to take responsibility for my art actions, but I’m not prepared to take responsibility for the drugs they planted on me.

I don’t know what my plans are. I want to see how this case ends. If it ends with my acquittal, that means these actions, civil society, still function in some form. If the case ends with my return to jail, then it will be obvious that these methods don’t work in our country. And that will mean that either that it’s time to move or that we have to change the law enforcement authorities.

Tokyo

Barnaul

Brooklyn

Novosibirsk

São Paulo

Protests, Hunger Strike Over Artist’s Arrest Are Stepped Up

Human rights activists and opposition politicians have published an open letter in defense of Artyom Loskutov, the 23-year-old artist and activist arrested in Novosibirsk last month, while the hunger strike led by local artists at City Hall entered its 12th day on Monday. Loskutov, who has been in custody since his arrest on May 15, is due in court again on Wednesday, when it will be decided whether or not he will be released pending trial.

Meanwhile, Loskutov’s art group, Babushka Posle Pokhoron (Granny After the Funeral), declared Tuesday a day of solidarity for the imprisoned artist, whom they claim did not commit any crime and was arrested to punish him for “Monstrations,” colorful, non-political May Day processions in which he took part in Novosibirsk. The 11 grams of marijuana were planted on him by the police, Loskutov’s supporters say.

Various events in defense of Loskutov, from leafleting to demonstrations and concerts, will be held in several cities in Russia and abroad on Tuesday, his supporters say.

When visited on Monday, there were three artists on hunger strike and two supporters sitting in a public park in front of Smolny, the home of City Hall, next to the Soviet-era Karl Marx monument. The paintings that they have painted during the period were covered with plastic sheeting to stop them getting damp in the light rain, although they said they had painted a couple more when the sun briefly appeared during the past weekend.

According to Anastasia Nekoza, who has been on hunger strike since the protest began on May 28, six participants remain on strike, three of whom were at work or taking exams when visited on Monday afternoon, while another three had to withdraw for health reasons last week. Despite threats from a high-ranking police officer and OMON special-task policemen who visited the site late last week, no physical action has been taken by the authorities, Nekoza said.

Along with the immediate release of Loskutov, the artists are demanding the investigation and punishment of those responsible for May Day mass arrests, when an authorized 300-strong Pirate Street Party that they were organizing was thwarted by the OMON before it started. They also demand that a federal commission be launched to investigate the activities of the “E” (anti-extremism) Center, which they claim has turned into the political police and was behind Loskutov’s arrest.

On Friday, a group of human rights activists and opposition politicians including Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Lev Ponomaryov and Gleb Yakunin published a letter in defense of Loskutov, describing the case as an “act of intimidation against all contemporary Russian artists” and “another step toward the suppression of freedom of assembly and expression guaranteed by the constitution.”

The letter has since been signed by other prominent Russians, including the poet Lev Rubinshtein, the author Viktor Yerofeyev and the artists Alexander Brener, Andrei Monastyrsky and Vyacheslav Misin.

*****

More photos by Sergey Chernov from day 12 of the hunger strike:

Anastasia Nekoza (on the left)

“Police!” (“A six-year-old girl drew it yesterday.”)

“Newlyweds are constantly being brought [...], for some reason,

to the [Friedrich] Engels monument [opposite the camp of the hunger strikers].”

Tomorrow, June 9, 2009, is a international day of solidarity actions in defense of Artem Loskutov, the young Novosibirsk artist arrested on May 15 by officers of the Center for Extremism Prevention. Read our appeal, below, to find out what you can do to join our campaign.

Free Artem Loskutov!

An Appeal from Chto Delat Platform

On May 15, 2009, the contemporary artist and university student Artem Loskutov (pronounced ahr-TYOHM LOHS-koo-tuhf) was arrested in Novisibirsk and charged with possession of a narcotic substance (marijuana) by the local branch of the Interior Ministry’s notorious Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E”). Loskutov and his supporters claim that the police planted the marijuana in his bag in order to incriminate him. As one of the inspirations behind the annual “Monstration”—a flash-mob street party in which young people march with absurdist, Situationist slogans—Loskutov had long been an object of the Center’s attentions. At a pre-trial custody hearing on May 20, it was revealed that the Center had been tapping the phones of Loskutov and his friends for the past six months. In the weeks before this year’s Monstration and on May Day itself, Loskutov was summoned to the Center for “discussions”; his parents were also called and told that their son was a member of a dangerous sect. The circumstances of the case and the manner in which he was arrested thus point to a campaign of intimidation directed both at Loskutov and his fellow free-thinking “monstrators” in Novosibirsk.

The Loskutov case has sparked a massive outcry in Russia’s activist and art communities. In the past three weeks, artists, activists, and ordinary concerned citizens all over Russia have carried out a series of pickets, protests, and art actions in Loskutov’s defense. The most inspiring of these actions is a “plein air” hunger strike organized by several young artists in Petersburg, now in its second week. The artists have encamped themselves in a park next to city hall, where they are producing paintings and drawings whose central motif is the increasingly brutal police repression of social activists and dissenting artists in Russia. The hunger strikers have issued three demands. First, they want a criminal investigation of the mass arrests by riot police of marchers in a “Pirate Street Party” on May Day in Petersburg; these arrests took place despite the fact that the action’s organizers had obtained official written permission to march with the other columns of demonstrators. Second, they call for the convening of a public commission to monitor the work of Center “E.” Finally, they demand that the charges against Artem Loskutov be dropped and that he be released from police custody.

Although the Loskutov case and the Petersburg hunger strike have become two of the hottest topics in the Russian blogosphere, there has been a near-total blackout in the mainstream Russian press, especially television. That is why we ask you to join our campaign of solidarity with Artem and his hunger-striking artist comrades in Petersburg. We have called an international day of actions for June 9, a day before Artem’s appeal to be released on recognizance will be heard in the Novosibirsk Regional Court. If we put enough pressure on local and federal authorities now and make enough noise outside of Russia, it is possible that Center “E” will even drop their case altogether.

What Can You Do to Help Artem and the Petersburg Hunger Strikers?

1. You can contribute to Artem’s legal defense fund.

Contributions in US Dollars

Correspondent bank of beneficiary’s bank: Bank of New York, New York, One Wall Street, New York, NY 10286, USA

SWIFT code: IRVTUS3N

Account number with correspondent bank: 890-0570-822

Beneficiary’s bank: Alfa-Bank Moscow

SWIFT code: ALFARUMM

Beneficiary’s bank account number: 40817840708110001957

Beneficiary: Chesnokov Ulyan Mihaylovich

Contributions in Euros

As above, except for the beneficiary’s account number: 40817978808110002061

2. You can mail, call in, fax or e-mail your protest to the Novosibirsk Regional Court, which will next hear Artem’s case on June 10.

Novosibirsk Regional Court (Novosibirskii oblastnoi sud)

ul. Pisareva, 35

Russian Federation 630091 Novosibirsk 

Telephone: +7 (383) 221-17-72

Fax: +7 (383) 221-95-30

E-mail: oblsudnso@nsk.raid.ru 

Send copies of your protest letters to:

Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministerstvo inostrannykh del RF)

Smolenskaya-Sennaya pl., 32/34

Russian Federation 119200 Moscow

Fax: +7 (499) 244-34-48

E-mail: ministry@mid.ru

Let’s bombard their fax machines and e-mail in-boxes on June 9!

3. You can publicize Artem’s case and the heroic Petersburg hunger strike in blogs, e-mail lists, and the non-Russian language press.

There are three main, constantly updated sources of information on Artem’s case:

• The Russian-language only website of Artem’s art group Babuskha Posle Pokhoron: kissmybabushka.com
• The website Free Artem Loskutov! (free.kissmybabushka.com) contains articles in English, German, and French.
• Our platform’s English-language blog: chtodelat.wordpress.com

Feel free to copy/paste, quote, and otherwise use any and all textual and visual material you find on these sites.

If you need more information or would like us to translate or interpret any articles from the Russian media or blogosphere, please contact us at dmvilen@gmail.com.

4. You can organize your own performances and protest actions.

Take your inspiration from the tremendously creative and brave public actions of your Russian comrades. Poetry, music, art, and performance are powerful instruments of knowledge and political action. Use them!

If you decide to organize a public protest, make sure it happens outside a Russian consulate or embassy, or the venue of a Russian concert, ballet, art exhibition, theater performance, literary reading or other public event. While Artem sits in jail and artists are on hunger strike in Petersburg, there should be no peace for Russia’s ruling, creative, and thinking classes. Their actions and inactions are responsible for the present dismal state of affairs in Russia, whose most recent victims are Artem and the May Day street partiers in Petersburg.

Artem is our comrade. To know him is to love him, but even if you don’t know him, or even if the dubious lads at Center “E” don’t love him, that it is no reason why Artem should waste the best years of his life facing down criminal charges or serving a prison sentence. Artem should be out in the world making art.

The actions you take now to publicize his case, support his defense, and inform the Russian authorities that the world is watching, will make a difference.

An injury to one is an injury to all! Free Artem Loskutov now!

MOSCOW — On a wintry day in mid-March Artyom Loskutov gathered with three fellow artists in the quiet halls of a Moscow movie theater to discuss an upcoming art event in his hometown of Novosibirsk.

The artists always make sure to meet in public places. They shut off their cell phones and refused to give a reporter their phone numbers for fear of being tracked.

“It’s easier to get lost in Moscow than in Novosibirsk. The authorities are closer, so they’re actually farther away,” Loskutov said.

Today, Loskutov, a soft-spoken 20-something with long black dreadlocks, is sitting in a Novosibirsk holding cell, awaiting a trial that his colleagues insist is politically motivated.

For the past few years, Loskutov has organized art events in Novosibirsk that he calls “Monstratsiya” — gatherings that draw hundreds of people every May 1. Some people come with posters of absurdist statements; some veer toward the political.

These “happenings” are emblematic of a new trend in Russian post-Soviet art: combining political statements with artistic sensibilities, and often blurring the line between the two.

To a government that suffers no dissent, in a country that gave birth to modern anarchism over a century ago, they are seen, quite widely, as a threat.

“Relevant art is political art,” said Oleg Vorotnikov, one of the founders of Voina, or War, a politically conscious art collective that is leading the trend. Loskutov had traveled to Moscow in March to meet with him, discussing tactics and strategy, as well as the meaning of art in modern Russia.

“The time of individualistic art is over, now it’s about group art,” Vorotnikov said. “Post-modernists comment on a discourse that already exists — we’re starting a new discussion.

“A gallery is just a business, while political art always sees the problems. It’s inherently uncomfortable,” he said.

Uncomfortable most, perhaps, for the authorities, whom Vorotnikov and others accuse of plotting Loskutov’s arrest.

On the morning of May 15, the anti-extremism department of the local police called Loskutov to appear for an interview. He declined, urging an official request. Hours later, he was detained by three plainclothes police officers on an unspecified charge, his friends said. At the station, police found 11 grams of marijuana among his belongings. Loskutov and his friends insist it was planted there by the police, a common practice in Russia. In addition to charges of drug possession, he could also face charges of extremism.

“He is currently being charged in relation with the illegal acquisition of drugs on a large scale with intent to sell,” said Tatyana Antonova, an official in the Novosibirsk Region Court. The charge carries a maximum of three years in prison.

“There has also been some talk of charging him with extremism,” Antonova added.

First passed in 2002, Russia’s harsh anti-extremism law was ostensibly designed to battle far-right nationalism. As the far-right movement grows and becomes ever more violent, however, observers believe fears that the law would be used to target dissent have been realized.

“Of course it’s scary,” Vorotnikov said this weekend, after Loskutov’s arrest. “What he was doing was art, it was not political,” contrasting with the happenings of his own collective, which often blur that line.

Voina has staged outrageous acts — the most famous being an orgy in Moscow’s Natural History Museum to protest Medvedev’s election — straddling the line between political protest and art.

“Many said it was pornography that we got undressed and had an orgy — but we say the pornography is the fact that we had no elections and that people are scared of telling the truth,” he said.

What is art, then, to Vorotnikov and his like-minded colleagues? “If one person involved is an artist, that means it’s art. It’s art because he says it is.”

Loskutov himself said he kept his Monstratisya happenings apolitical for a reason. “If we were to name some ideology, 80 percent of the people wouldn’t show up,” he said. Recent events have drawn up to 1,000 people.

While Loskutov sits in a Siberian holding cell, a comparable case has been unfolding in Moscow.

On Friday the trial of Andrei Erofeyev began. He stands accused of inciting hatred and extremism after curating a 2007 exhibit called “Forbidden Art 2006,” which featured art works deemed insulting to the Russian Orthodox Church.

One year after that exhibit premiered, he was fired from his position as head of contemporary art at Russia’s esteemed State Tretyakov Gallery, following the staging of an exhibit that then-Culture Minister Alexander Sokolov banned from traveling to Paris on the grounds that a photograph by art group Sinie Nosi (Blue Noses) of two policemen kissing was unacceptable to show abroad.

“There’s a Russian tradition of a state role in art,” said Alexander Shaburov, part of the two-man art group.

While Amnesty International cited the case as an example of Russia’s clampdown on freedoms in its annual report released this week, Shaburov — like many mainstream Russian artists — said he understands why the exhibit caused such an uproar.

“A government exhibit should be overseen, so there are no scandals,” Shaburov said. “People can see what they want to in a private gallery, in a government gallery it’s different.”

Shaburov’s work is overwhelmingly political — images of Jesus on the cross with Putin’s face; Putin rolling around in bed with Osama bin Laden — and he said the pressure he feels in his day-to-day life comes not from the state, but from the pressures of an art market that is still relatively new.

Tell that to Loskutov or to Vorotnikov, who was detained with several other members of Voina on Friday as they staged a protest at Erofeyev’s trial, blasting loud punk music into the court from a room nearby.

Was it art or a political action? The answer, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder.

“The role of the artist is that of a mirror. So fascists see fascists, anarchists see anarchists and artists see artists,” Vorotnikov said.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009, is a day of united actions in defense of Artem Loskutov, the young Novosibirsk artist arrested on May 15 by officers of the Center for Extremism Prevention. To learn the details of the case, please read our earlier post. There you’ll also find out what you can do to help. 

The following video was shot by Dmitry Vilensky on day 10 of the artists’ hunger strike in the Parterre Garden of the Smolny Institute, Petersburg’s city hall. The hunger strikers—Yulia, Nastya, Flor, and Leonid—need your support as much as Artem does. If you write us with letters of support, we’ll deliver them to the strikers.

A Video Letter from the Hunger Striking Artists: Day 10

After Three Days of Rain, the Sun Came Out

Leonid: Freedom for Loskutov!

Dima: How do you feel?

Leonid: I feel fairly good. I feel that I’ll hang on longer than everyone else. But that remains to be seen. 

This morning there was a big fight going on my soul. I thought, “Fuck! I’ll go to the death, but I’ll do what I set out to do!” It’s a new feeling.

Flor: The tenth day . . .  In fact there’s no big difference—day seven, day ten. It’s approximately one and the same condition. It’s evened out. Yeah, I’m a little weaker. But on the other hand, the sun has come out, and so we can work, rather than sit around like stupid cows. So there’s a feeling of optimism: we’ll be working and everything will be a lot more fun.

The girls have gone a little sour. Yulia almost fainted today, and Nastya’s also a bit on the weak side. Maybe the sun will come out now. . .  After all, vitamin D is our only food.

The solidarity is great: people come and chat with us, and that helps. That also keeps you going.

Come on down! If the sun is out, bring a guitar and we’ll play some music and have some fun. We’ve got lawn chairs here. We won’t dance—we’re too weak for that—but we’ll hang out. Everyone is welcome.

Leonid: June 9 is a day of united actions in defense of Artem Loskutov! Please organize something or other: draw pictures, hold a demo, hold a picket, anything you like. We’ve got to free Loskutov. Because if we free Loskutov, that means there’s still a chance. If we’re not unable to defend an ordinary person, an artist that the KGB has got its paws on, then that means we’ve fucked up our last chance. We need to use whatever means we’ve got.

Flor: I started drawing on this complaint letter to the prosecutor’s office. I came up with a new incarnation of Lenin. 

The rain was falling and it was impossible to paint, so I made these little doodle sketches.

Leonid: Today this OMON officer showed up and said that everything here should be burned. Not as if we had any doubts on that score. Then he left. Now he’s standing over there.

Dima: What’s he doing?

Flor: Who the hell knows?

Leonid:  He’s waiting for someone to give him permission to burn or break something. That’s his job: to guard the Motherland!

Camera and editing: Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat)

* The middle-aged man in glasses who appears in the middle of the video, “inspecting” the paintings before walking towards the Smolny with his companion in the leather jacket, is Nikolai Strumentov.  “Every morning the plein air [hunger strike] is also visited by [Nikolai] Strumentov,  deputy head of the [city] Committee on Law, Order, and Security—the bureaucrat responsible for the illegal arrests of demonstrators at the May Day street party.”

Leonid Gegen (Novosibirsk) is a participant in the artists’ hunger strike now in its eleventh day in the Parterre Garden of the Smolny Institute, the home of the Saint Petersburg city administration. He is also a friend of Artem Loskutov, a Novosibirsk artist arrested on May 15 by officers of the Interior Ministry’s Center for Extremism Prevention. Although Loskutov has formally been charged with narcotics possession, he and his defenders claim that the drugs were planted by the arresting officers, who thus took revenge on him for his unwillingness, earlier the same day, to report to their offices for a “discussion.” 

Petersburg journalist Sergey Chernov conducted the following interview with Leonid on June 1. The original (Russian) text can be viewed at Sergey’s LiveJournal.

Leonid: Artem is my best friend. I’ve known him for a long time.

Sergey: What happened in Novosibirsk? How was he arrested? Do you really think they planted the marijuana on him?

Leonid: Of course they planted it. The fact is that, although now people say he is the organizer of the Monstrations, in reality he isn’t the organizer, just one of a bunch of amazing people involved with them. The Monstrations are these brilliant May Day youth demos that have taken place since 2004.

Leonid Gegen in the Parterre Garden of the Smolny (Saint Petersburg), 1 June 2009

The idea was that everyone would come out in whatever clothes they wanted to and bearing any slogan they liked, preferrably absurdist. The only goal was self-expression. There was nothing political about it.

But the regime is now trying to control everything whatsoever, everything that happens in the country. Any phenomena not sanctioned by the authorities are mercilessly suppressed. The Monstrations are precisely this kind of self-organization. They come about completely spontaneously: people just show up on their own or with small groups of friends after talking over the phone or communicating through the Internet.

In essence, the Monstrations aren’t organized by anyone in particular and never have been. So naturally they can’t be controlled by the authorities. But the authorities feel they have to combat them somehow anyway, and so they decided to “appoint” Artem Loskutov the “organizer.”

The Center for Extremism Prevention has been harassing Artem for the past year. At last year’s Monstration they tried to kidnap him—to push him into a car and haul him away for a “discussion.” This year, they had been telephoning him constantly. On the day he was arrested, they had called him and invited him to come in for a discussion. He told them he wouldn’t come in because, according to the law, everything happens only after a written summons is sent, that they didn’t have the right [to call him in just like that].

In the evening, after he’d left work, he was approached by several men in plain clothes. Without identifying themselves, they pushed him into a car, drove him into a nearby courtyard, and searched his bag. Official civilian witnesses [as required by law] were on hand for the search, but they were completely strange witnesses—they had criminal records, which is curious.

They found eleven grams of marijuana.

Sergey: How much do you need to open a criminal case?

Leonid: For a criminal prosecution you need ten grams. That is the most strikingly cynical thing: they found exactly eleven grams, no more, no less.

So [Artem] is faced with three years in prison, but for some reason it’s the Center for Extremism Prevention that is handling the case, not the State Narcotics Control Commission [Gosnarkokontrol]. And originally they also tried to charge him with “organization of a criminal band for the purpose of carrying out mass disturbances, [and] pogroms of shops and offices”—some kind of total nonsense. This came out at the preliminary custody hearing: that [Artem] is the organizer of some kind of riots.

Then the state investigator began [to change tack]—he said that Artem is being charged only for narcotics [possession], that there is nothing in the case [about organizing riots].  But now the prosecution’s case is falling apart before our very eyes because they have no evidence. They don’t even have [Artem’s] fingerprints on the packet of marijuana. 

Now they are trying to put the brakes on the fingerprint analysis: they don’t want to take [Artem’s] fingerprints and so on. They’re trying to pressure the witnesses. They’ve been summoning the parents of his friends and his girlfriend. They show them the videos that Artem and I shot together or that Artem shot himself, and they say to them, “Do you see what a horrible person he is? How is it possible [to make such films]?

They’re putting pressure on [Artem’s lawyer]: he has been getting strange calls from unknown phone numbers, provocative phone calls. The police aren’t letting Artem’s mother or his girlfriend, Lyuba, see him. And they’re offering him a deal: he confesses his guilt and they give him a suspended sentence. That is the kind of pressure they’re exerting.

A big international [solidarity] campaign is under way—both in Russia and in other countries. In Germany, for instance, artists have organized a defense fund for Loskutov.

Sergey: In Germany?

Leonid: Yes, in Leipzig.

*****

The photo below was taken by Sergey Chernov on the ninth day of the hunger strike (5 June 2009). The caption on his LiveJournal reads: “Leonid (on the left) looked really bad. He sat with his head down and his eyes closed; he didn’t react to anything.”

[00:01] We, the artists of Saint Petersburg, are forced to declare a hunger strike.

[00:06] The time has come to make a life drawing of the horror!

[00:12] “Liberty. Equality. Piracy. Pirate Street Party. May 1, 10:00 a.m. Saint Petersburg, Oktyabrsky Concert Hall”

[00:25] “Six Billion Pirates”

[01:38] “Everyone Come Out to the Plein Air!”

[02:10] Dima:What’s going on here?

[02:14] Flor: We’re on a hunger strike.

[02:17] Dima: Why?

[02:20–04:07] Flor: We want our demands to be met. I can even tell you what our demands are. First, on May 1, our art project, the Pirate Street Party, was shut down. Initially we got [official] permission to hold the event, but then the OMON [riot police] detained everyone. Without due cause, [the police] began fingerprinting people and putting them into their database of “extremists.” And so we’re here to show them that we’re not extremists but artists.

Our second demand is also connected with this “post-May Day syndrome.” After a flash mob on May 1 in Novosibirsk, the police planted narcotics on our colleague and Leonid’s friend Artem Loskutov and put him in jail. We demand that he be released on recognizance instead of sitting in a temporary detention facility [while his case is being investigated].

Our third demand is for the authorities to get to the bottom of this strange [Interior Ministry Unit], the Center for Extremism Prevention. This is the eighth day of our hunger strike.

[04:10] Dima: You’ve chosen this site. It’s clear that the authorities don’t permit [you] to display any political demands or slogans [here]. This place isn’t even marked as a place where people are on a hunger strike. How did you decide to take such radical steps? We haven’t seen anything like this in recent times: it’s really a historic event.

[04:36–05:25] Flor: Even when you get a permit for an art action, the authorities simply hold this permit in contempt. We’ve taken this step because there is no need to get permission to hold a plein-air session. That we’re also on a hunger strike is something we publicize in the media because here we can’t advertise that fact—it is categorically forbidden to hold mass protests in this place [the Parterre Garden of the Smolny Institute]. We chose the most provocative option so that [the powers that be] will understand that art can’t be extinguished.

[05:27–06:16] Flor: We made serious preparations. On the one hand, this is a palette, an ordinary item. But we had to prepare it so that it [also functioned as] a shield. But it’s also totally smeared with paint. Thus we were ready to do battle with the cops and cover them with paint. We had planned to tie one hand to this chain. It was actually attached [to this bench], and when we arrived we immediately chained ourselves to it. We intended to fight off [the cops] with this shield while chained to the bench. It would have been impossible [for them] to drag [us] along with this canvas and the easel into an ordinary police van.

[06:17–07:15] Nastya: We’re in a situation where the political police are actively evolving in Russia. Acts of civil disobedience are the only solution. Such acts should be within the bounds of the law, as it were, but such a surprise for the authorities that they won’t know how to react. Because everything we’re doing is legal, so to speak, and there is no reason to remove us. Moreover, we’re the ones who are abiding by the law, unlike the authorities, who don’t obey their own laws, but could care less about them. That is why we don’t know what to expect from the authorities. We don’t know who will be the next person jailed on fabricated charges. Absolutely anyone could be [their next target].

[07:16–08:34] Leonid: Our action is part of a very big campaign of solidarity with the artist Artem Loskutov, who has been imprisoned precisely for his activities as an artist. They want to put him away for several years on the basis of a fabricated charge. [Solidarity] actions have been happening in dozens of cities throughout Russia. We’re on a hunger strike here, and our goal is to get Loskutov released.

Today we learned that an anarchist in Barnaul, a city not far from Novosibirsk, has joined our hunger strike: he announced that he will continue his hunger strike until Loskutov is released. We are forced to do this with such radical methods as a hunger strike—we’re practically prepared to die—in order to defend the law. And yet the cops show up here continually and demand that we show them a permit for the hunger strike. They try to convince us what we’re doing is illegal. So we have to defend the law by means of this step towards death, and at the same time the cops jerk us around all the time by trying to convince us that we’re violating that very same law.

Flor: Moreover, we’re anarchists. It’s a totally absurd situation.

[08:35–09:31] Leonid: We’re getting active support, mostly from people in the Petersburg anarchist community. People come and bring us warm things, mineral water, and tea. They also just help us hang on through their simple presence here.

The newspapers are writing about us, although during the first days the situation was complicated because the local police didn’t let the press in and detained journalists. They threatened everyone they shipped out of here that there would be consequences if their reports showed up on the Internet. One way or another, however, we’ve managed to break through the information blockade, mostly via blogs and journalists we know.

[09:32–09:56] Leonid: We plan to continue our hunger strike until June 10 because that’s when the [next] hearing of Artem Loskutov’s [case] will happen, and we hope that something changes then. Also, the Saint Petersburg Municipal Commission on Human Rights will be meeting, and perhaps they’ll decide to open a criminal investigation into the absolutely illegal arrest of our absolutely legal May Day Street Party.

[09:57–10:06] Flor: “Plein air” is drawing [or painting] from life. We’re depicting Smolny [i.e., the Petersburg authorities] and our attitude towards them.

[11:10] June 9 is a day of solidarity actions in support of Loskutov and to defend everyone from police terror.

[11:16] Protest! Otherwise, tomorrow this will affect you!!!

[11:21] The Hunger-Striking Artists: Nastya, Flor, Leonid, Yulia

[11:27] Music by Hands on the Blanket (Ruki na odeyalo)

[11:31] Photos of the dispersal of the Pirate Street Party courtesy of Indymedia

[11:35] Camera and editing: Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat)

Despite continued pressure from the authorities, an artists’ hunger strike against the police’s arbitrariness went into its fifth day on Monday. The protesters are demanding the investigation and punishment of those responsible for the May Day mass arrests, when some 300 anarchists, artists and musicians were seized or dispersed by the OMON, preventing them from taking part in an authorized demonstration in St. Petersburg.

Their other demands include launching a federal commission to investigate the activities of the “E” (anti-extremism) Center that is reportedly used to spy on and persecute dissidents and the release of Artyom Loskutov, an artist and activist arrested on drug charges in Novosibirsk last month (the protesters say the drugs were planted).

“We’ll be holding a hunger strike until at least one of these demands is met,” Anastasia Nekoza, one of the protesters, said.

“We appealed to the Prosecutor’s Office, the GUVD (the Interior Ministry Department) and the Human Rights Commission about the May 1 events a little over a week ago, and we’re expecting that some sort of enquiry will begin. We’re aiming at producing an intensifying effect.”

The group of artists, who have been holding the demo since Thursday, have been staying in a public garden in front of the former Smolny Institute, now City Hall’s residence and painting pictures dealing with the police’s unlawful behavior – a helmet-wearing OMON special-task policeman standing on a pedestal in front of City Hall, currently occupied by the Soviet-era Lenin monument; little children scared by the OMON police or a policeman’s boot ready to trample a colorful beetle.

“The paintings reflect the unlawfulness of both the police and the authorities, including the “E” Department, that society can’t control in any way,” Nekoza said.

On Thursday, the artists came to the site with chains, ready to chain themselves up and thereby complicate any possible arrests, but no attempts to detain them were made.

“We thought we’d get arrested at once, we didn’t really expect it to last this long,” Yevgeny Schyotov, one of the protesters, said, adding that they are considering holding an exhibition of the works painted during the hunger strike.

According to Schyotov, the hunger strike was launched by five artists, but a few more joined as time passed, increasing the number to nine. Schyotov was a co-organizer of the thwarted May Day demo and was one of the first arrested by the OMON.

However, some pressure is being applied, according to Nekoza.

“The FSO (the Federal Protection Service) is putting pressure on the policemen who are on guard here to clear out the park, but the policemen can’t find any lawful grounds to do it,” she said.

“But because they’ve been put under pressure by the FSO, they tell us about it and ask us [to leave.] But, they say, ‘If you obey our demands, it’s good, if not, we can’t do anything.”

Novosibirsk artist Loskutov, who has been one of most prominent participants of the “Monsterations” — colorful May Day events featuring artists and musicians, was arrested on May 14 after receiving calls and invitations for a “conversation” from the “E” Center, according to his artist friend Leonid Gegen, who came to St. Petersburg to join the protest.

“When he was returning home from work, several plain-clothed men came to him and pushed him into a car,” Gegen said.

“He was taken to a nearby courtyard where he was searched and the police said they found 11 grams of marijuana. The most strikingly cynical thing about it is that you need to have over 10 grams to be prosecuted.”

According to Gegen, artists in Leipzig, Germany, have launched a foundation in support of Loskutov.