A new clip of Pussy Riot's song "Putin Will Teach Me to Love the Motherland" was published on Feb. 20, 2014, on the eve of sentencing of May 6 prisoners. It was filmed in Sochi for three days.
As usual, the clip filming took place in harsh conditions. Many international media sources published the beating scene of Russian women in Sochi by Cossacks on Feb. 19, 2014. My daughter Nadia Tolokonnikova with bruises on her chest ... And this is the same girl who in December 2013, while still in prison for Punk Prayer, took the 21st place among 100 most beautiful Russian women. And there were really gorgeous girls! Masha Aloykhina's thumb was dissected with a whip, and Peter, Nadya's husband, was almost blinded by the pepper liquid. The face of another activist, Alexei, was covered in blood and his eyebrow was cracked open. Welcome to the bloody nightmare! This is an Olympiad Russian-style! Nadia ended up in the hospital.
The day before beating them, the girls were arrested for allegedly stealing a pearl necklace out of the hotel. Naturally, it is not known whether the necklace-stealing actually happened or FSB agents had come up with it. When I called Maria Aloykhina, she said, "The FSB's task was to hold us in Sochi as long as possible."
In the video recording, you can see that when Cossacks used the pepper spray tear gas, the activists were a bit shocked. This shock lasted a few moments, and then the girls started to work. It was necessary to perform the song at least partially. It is necessary to mount the clip. Brave new heroines of Russia.
Then were the whips. Cossacks grabbed girls by their heads and began to pluck off their "hats." Cossacks started to break the arm of the girl in the purple dress; she screamed in pain. Nadia was thrown to the ground and hit with a whip on the back. She was confused for just two seconds, and then almost with a tearful voice, but firmly, began to repeat the words of the song "Putin will make us love the Motherland." Nadia was like this when she was a child, too. No wonder her favorite fairy tale was "How Calf and Oak Were Butting." Some of the Cossacks, or agents of the FSB said didactically, the same words: "Putin will teach you to love the Motherland" and then cursed out loud. In a report on the incident, the Sochi police simply said that they had "stopped a brawl."
According to Pussy Riot participants, police did not respond to events. But I watched the video clip several times, and there, it is quite obvious that the cops are not there to stop the beating. To the contrary: they participate in it. They grabbed the guitar and threw it in the trash. Journalists were beaten with a whip, as well. Radio Liberty journalist Anastasia Kirilenko was whipped and hit in the face. She can also be considered part of the Pussy Riot, because the Pussy Riot team is not static, it is a "movement." In order to become a Pussy Rioter, one needs only to put on a colored balaclava and do something in the style of Pussy Riot. Or even do as well-known Moscow civic activist Julia Kazakova did, who stood in the colored tights and tattered socks as "punk" on the day of sentencing on Aug. 17, 2012, and held a poster: "I am also Pussy Riot." Anyway, like all people in the world who wore balaclavas and carried out actions in support of women in the U.S. and Europe.
Madonna tweeted about the incident here. Madonna's tweet: "Are you kidding me? Are the police in Russia actually whipping Pussy Riot for making music on the streets? Is this the dark ages? GOD bless P. R. They are fearless!"
Pussy Riot were able to accomplish the "mission impossible." It was impossible to come up with the best scenery to the song "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland." It's just some genius in the girls. Putin spent billions, gathered thousands and thousands of police and secret service, thousands of columnists and correspondents to tell how everything was cool there, in Sochi. Tens of millions of dollars were paid to PR agencies. The girls just allowed Putin to do with themselves what he wanted to do with them. And Putin again sat in a puddle.
What do our American friends need to understand about all of the events of the Sochi Olympics? That behind the Iron Curtain, things are very bad. That behind the Iron Curtain, something very wrong is contained. And this something "bad" is now being brought to the boiling point. And when the boiler explodes, this something bad can splash around the world. The whole patient, tolerant and politically correct civilized world. It's time to stop flirting with the Putin regime. Here is the text of Pussy Riot's Olympic Song called "Putin Will Teach me to Love the Motherland!"
Text of the Pussy Riot song from the Sochi Olympics:
50 billion and a gay-driven rainbow,
Rodnina and Kabaeva will pass you those flames
In prison they will teach you how to obey
Salut 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
Andrey Tolokonnikova, M.D., father of recently released Pussy Riot prisoner, Nadia Tolokonnikova, shares with The Huffington Post excerpts from his journal following his daughter's release from a Siberian prison. Nadia was freed on Dec. 23, 2013 under an amnesty bill passed by the Russian parliament after serving 21 months. Translated by Natasha Fissiak, a producer of the documentary Free Pussy Riot!
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post in conjunction with the Sochi 2014 Olympics. The series is part of our Impact Sports initiative, which examines the intersection of sports and social good. Many of the posts in this series critique the Russian government's draconian anti-LGBT laws, though other topics include climate change and censorship. Read all the posts in the series here.