Culture
11 May 22

Dressing as a food delivery courier helped Pussy Riot member escape Russia

Other members of Pussy Riot have also left Russia to join Alyokhina and the thousands of people who have left Russia since the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th of February.

Maria Alyokhina, a member of punk band and performance artist group Pussy Riot, has fled Russia.

A report from The New York Times details the steps it took for Alyokhina to leave the country.

Dressed as a food delivery courier, she sneaked past Moscow police who were monitoring the apartment she had been staying in.

“I still don’t understand completely what I’ve done,” she said in the interview.

A friend drove her to the Belarusian border where she attempted to cross into neighbouring Lithuania three times.

She eventually made her way into Lithuania with an official document from an unnamed European country.

This document rendered her with essentially the same status as an EU citizen, which she had obtained with the help of her friend and Icelandic performer, Ragnar Kjartansson.

While in Belarus, Alyokhina avoided staying in hotels that required identification which could lead to her being captured.

The musician and activist has been on the radar of Russian authorities since being sentenced to two years in prison “for hooliganism” after she and her punk band Pussy Riot staged a protest against Putin in Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral in 2012.

Since last summer, she has been jailed on six further occasions, remaining in prison for fifteen days each time.

After it was announced that her house arrest had been changed to 21 days in a penal colony, Alyokhina decided it was time to leave Russia.

“I don’t think Russia has a right to exist anymore,” she said. “Even before, there were questions about how it is united, by what values it is united, and where it is going. But now I don’t think that is a question anymore,” Alyokhina said.

Yesterday, Lucy Shtein, Alyokhina’s girlfriend, posted an image of her wearing a ‘Delivery Club’ food courier uniform on Instagram with the caption, ‘easy way to get past cops at your driveway.’

The couple had previously been arrested in 2015 for posts calling for the release of political prisoners in Russia.

The group are rehearsing for their European Tour and will perform in events organised by pro-Ukranian activists in the Icelandic leg of their tour.