This is the new Pussy Riot for “Putin Will Teach You How to Love the Motherland,” starting with delicate music and some waves, until the bright balaclavas emerge triumphantly out of the water and hell breaks loose all over the Olympic International Committee’s fantasy of non-involvement. Though the IOC’s Mark Adam said “what happened wasn’t in the context of any protest against the games,” the video — as promised — is an Olympics-centric protest song, featuring the art-band thrashing in front of the Olympic rings and dancing with mascots. The lyrics condemn the corruption, surveillance and censorship in Sochi, the jailing of anti-Olympics environmental activist Yevgeny Vitishko, the homophobia of Olympic torchbearer and the persecution of May 6 anti-Putin protestors.
It also features footage shot yesterday when Nadya Tolokonnikova, Masha Alyokhina and others were viciously horsewhipped and beaten by Sochi’s conservative, religious Cossack militia, including video filmed from right under their whips and their injured male art-bandmate wiping the blood from his face on a cop. It also shows footage from inside the police van that Nadya, Masha and other activists were shoved into after being grabbed off the Sochi streets two days ago for a frivolous arrest. There is also a breakdown. It’s a mastered track.
And the message is very clear, in the description of this soon-to-be viral music video art piece.
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.
Here are the lyrics, which reference the alleged $50 billion price tag of Putin’s Olympics, the threats of shutdown of Russia’s only independent TV channel (TV Rain). They even get straight to Russia’s gay rights crisis in the opening line. (Link annotations are borrowed directly from Julia Ioffe’s post at The New Republic.) This editorial by Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina for The New York Times contextualizes all the lyrics as well.
$50 billion and a rainbow ray
Rodnina and Kabayeva will pass you the torch
They’ll teach you to submit and cry in the camps
Fireworks for the bosses. Hail, Duce!Sochi is blocked, Olympus is under surveillance
Special forces, weapons, crowds of cops
FSB – argument, Interior Ministry – Argument
On [state-owned] Channel 1 – applause.Putin will teach you to love the Motherland.
In Russia, the spring can come suddenly
Greetings to the Messiah in the form of a volley from
Aurora, the prosecutor is determined to be rude
He needs resistance, not pretty eyesAn bird cage for protest, vodka, nesting doll
Jail for the Bolotnaya [activists], drinks, caviar
The Constitution is in a noose, [environmental activist] Vitishko is in jail
Stability, food packets, fence, watch towerPutin will teach you to love the Motherland
They will turn off Dozhd‘s broadcast
The gay parade has been sent to the outhouse
A two-point bathroom is the priority
The verdict for Russia is jail for six yearsPutin will teach you to love the Motherland
Motherland
Motherland
Motherland
