“Meanwhile in Russia…” has become a phrase well-known in internet memes. Typically, an image bearing the phrase will depict something extraordinarily hardcore, a feat of strength, shrugging off of extreme temperatures or the like. But this past Sunday, a Russian performance artist gave new meaning to the phrase after an act of extreme protest. His gripe was against the State’s cracking down on political dissent, something which the world has watched in disbelief as members of the punk band “Pussy Riot” have been shipped off to Siberia. The activist in this case, was a performing artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, who stripped naked and naied his testicles to a Red Square cobblestone, outside of Lenin’s Mausoleum. The state news agency, RIA Novosti said Pavlensky was taken to a police station after officers covered him with a blanket and called an ambulance. Pavlensky told said in a statement posted on the Grani.ru website that he intended to call attention to Russia’s recent decline into a “police state”. Sunday was a fitting day, as it marked Russia’s annual Police Day holiday. Pavlensky has previously sown his lips together as an act of protest and solidarity with members of “Pussy Riot”, and was arrested last May for wrapping himself naked in barbed wire outside of a Saint Petersburg government building.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:55:19 +0000