NADYA MOVED TO ANOTHER GULAG

Nadya will be moved to another jail after she went on hunger strike to protest against conditions in her prison, authorities said on Friday. In a show of support for Nadya, Masha on Friday dropped a plea for early release from jail.

Nadya was taken to hospital last month on the ninth day of a hunger strike to protest against slave labor at gulag No. 14 in the Mordovia region, southeast of Moscow.

Nadya renewed her hunger strike, demanding to be transferred to another jail, after she was sent back to the gulag late on Thursday evening. Nadya received a death threat from a senior prison official at the facility.

On Friday, the Federal Prison Service responded to her plea, moving her to a different, undisclosed gulag for her personal security. Under Russian law, officials must inform TNadya's relatives of her new location within ten days of the transfer.

Nadya said that she feared for her life and that inmates were forced to work up to 17 hours a day under a system of collective punishment reminiscent of Soviet-era.

Gulagers Nadya and Masha thank you for your support, and they ask you to pray for Russia, to ask God to end Putin’s theocracy.  Most Russians think gulags should be abolished. 

Heroin sniffers sniff heroines!  Cock Riot and Pussy Riot lock horns! Putin, Kirill, and misogynist gay bishops, Cock Riot, managed to send to gulags for two years the heroic female punk rock group Pussy Riot who held an impromptu concert inside Moscow's golden cathedral as part of a protest against the church's political ties.  In the song, the Russian heroines prayed to Madonna to chase Putin out of Russia! 

The heroines of Pussy Riot have received a two-year sentence in a gulag.  It is carried out in the name of Christianity, but the girls did not desecrate any icons and they did not destroy anything. It reminds Alexei Navalny of the Inquisition during the Middle Ages.  Navalny is standing up for Pussy Riot. He cannot do otherwise. He is concerned with protecting the legal system. The girls have merely committed a minor offense, not a crime. They present no danger to society.

The Pussy Riot imprisonment for two years has brought a huge backlash with myriad attacks on churches, crucifixes, icons, and other idols of Christianity all over the world.  Anna Gutsol, leader of legendary Femen chainsawed a famous crucifix in Kiev. Many crosses have been chopped down all over the world.  There is an Armageddon between women and evil bishops. 

Alexei Navalny points out Putin sees the women as a threat, but he has miscalculated. Pussy Riot only became a threat thanks to him. It was initially only a moderately successful performance that received far less of a response than the brilliant action on Red Square. At the time, Pussy Riot called Putin a coward. Then, two of the three activists were arrested shortly before the presidential election.

Navalny muses that when men are arrested without any legal basis and for political reasons, it's merely a routine, everyday occurrence in Russia, and hardly anyone has any sympathy. But until recently, everyone deluded themselves into thinking that the Kremlin wouldn't dare put women behind bars. The women from Pussy Riot have become symbols partly because this cliche has been shattered.

 

Navalny states Putin used the performance in the church to take revenge for the appearance on Red Square. Furthermore, it succeeded in taking the conflict between the government and the opposition movement and obscuring it behind the confrontation between the Church and the opposition. The idea was for the patriarch to stand in the crossfire, not Putin. That's why photos also appeared in the press of the patriarch wearing an expensive watch, instead of pictures of Putin's palaces.

 

Navalny points out Medvedev, who supports Pussy Riot, will remain in office. Navalny doesn't know why, but Putin has made a ritual out of humiliating Medvedev. Sometimes Navalny even feel sorry for the prime minister. Putin has reversed all the liberalizing reforms carried out by his predecessor. The fact that the political climate has grown harsher is something Navalny even notices in his daily work as a legal representative of minority shareholders in large, state-owned companies.  You can't fight Putin with elections because he controls them. That's why demonstrations are the most effective approach. Unfortunately Russia has sunk to this primitive level.

 

Priest Andrey Kurayev says: If I were a sacristan in this cathedral, I’d feed the girls with pancakes and give each a chalice with mead. And if I were a head layman, I’d also pinch them a bit in a fatherly way to bring them to reason. What they did was certainly a disgrace, but an acceptable one, since it was performed during Pancake Week, also known as Maslenitsa, a traditional time for buffoonery. The Eastern Slavic holiday is celebrated in the last week before Lent and marks the coming end of winter. Witty or not, it was intended as a joke. However, sometimes Church officials make rather serious statements reflecting their personal political stance.

 

Mother-hens are female prisoners who spy on their fellow inmates. They continually badger their victims until they confess, give away secrets or betray their accomplices. In return, mother-hens hope for an early release or improved detention conditions.

Mother-hen Irina Orlova was housed in a cell with Cat Samutsevich. Investigators had identified Cat as the weakest of the three women, partly because she is a lesbian and is therefore likely to be more fearful than the others of being housed in a gulag, where other inmates often torment homosexuals.  Mother-hen Irina charmed Cat. She cleaned up the 12-square-meter cell, combed the activist's hair, prepared food for her in the kitchenette, and made love to her.

In 2009, Irina was sentenced to five years in gulag and sent to one of Russia's most notorious gulags for women. Convicted of fraud after cheating homeowners out of their property, she was someone who knew how to gain the confidence of her victims. This made her the ideal candidate for Zentr E, an infamous special department at the Russian Interior Ministry that takes action against opponents of Putin. Zentr E is a political police emulating the secret police of the czars.  It wouldn't be the first time that Zentr E had turned its attention to Pussy Riot. The agents have been shadowing the band for years. In fact, Putin cleverly orchestrated the drama surrounding Pussy Riot!

In March 2012, Irina was transferred from a Volga River province to Detention Center No. 6 in Moscow’s Bastille. She was placed into cell 110, with Cat. At first, the two were at loggerheads. Then the intelligence agents got to Irina. After that, Cat even accepted the fact that Irina was practically spoon-feeding her!  Nadya wrote that she was worried about the relationship between Irina and Cat.

It was with Irina's help that a team of agents were able to create suspicions among the heroines and influence the trial. From the very beginning, the agents kept the band and those associated with it under observation, in an attempt to dismantle the Pussy Riot legend and play off the imprisoned heroines against each other.

The methods the authorities used are described in letters the women sent to each other while in pretrial detention last fall. Their attorneys secretly carried the letters from one visitors' room to the next. The documents offer insights into the Pussy Riot case, which exemplifies the means by which Putin achieves his goals, revealing how Putin manipulates trials and spins hoi polloi. Nadya wrote to Masha: Watch out for Irina.  I do not want Irina to have any chance to influence us. The warning came too late. The agents had already successfully brainwashed Cat.

While in prison, Nadya wrote seven diaries full of personal and philosophical musings. The world's image of her is of a very attractive, petite girl with big eyes, wearing a blue T-shirt featuring a combative-looking fist, locked, like a hardened criminal, into a glass cage in the courtroom.

Nadya’s letters show she was concerned about the unity of Pussy Riot, but also about losing the battle for public opinion.  Nadya wrote: I think in the prism of history. For that, I am willing to go through shit. It has to do with my idealism, the good in me, but at the same time there is also something bad there.

On the first day of the appeal hearing, Cat informed her two co-defendants, on the drive to the court, that she wanted to part ways with their shared attorneys. Cat presented it as a minor issue, a mere formality. At first the court turned a deaf ear to Cat's request for a new attorney. But then a clerk whispered Putin’s order to the judges, and after a brief pause they relented. The new attorney argued that Cat had not taken part in the cathedral performance, because guards had overpowered her beforehand.  This resulted in Cat being released on probation.

Masha wrote: I very much believe that the whole thing isn't just a present for Cat, but a political trap. I can't get the idea out of my head that Cat made a deal. The lies and the drama with the cops, that's what gets to me.

Cat launched into a bout of mud-slinging on the outside that was very useful to Putin. In remarks directed at the attorney, Cat said: You said the whole time that we had done everything because of and against Putin. That's not true. We are feminists above all. Cat even filed a complaint with the bar association, sought to have the defense attorneys disbarred and accused them of trying to secure the trademarks for Pussy Riot behind the women's backs.

Masha wrote to Nadya: We spent a lot of time discussing business with the lawyers. I think we have to do this. I don't think we'll be portrayed as political scum. Why do you think that this is junk? We will decide for ourselves who we want to sue. And the most important thing is that we can do good things with the money.

Nadya wrote: The whole thing is worthwhile if we manage to get everything done in secret, without media attention, and that Pussy Riot will make some dollars. If not, to hell with it. I don't want to ruin my reputation and that of Pussy Riot for a few dollars. I'd rather be so dirt-poor that I just sit around on my naked ass than not be able to look at myself in the mirror anymore.

Several months earlier, the imprisoned women had hired a firm to register Pussy Riot as a trademark. Ironically, the owner of the company is the wife of attorney Mark Feigin. The contract is dated April 5, 2012 and is signed by the three women.  Cat says: My signature seems to be genuine, but I've never seen the contract before.

Attorney Feigin, since fired by his clients, insists that the contract is genuine.  Feigin says that everything that's happening helps the government, including the dispute over money and contracts, the firing of the attorneys, the suspicions and the rumors of betrayal. Media organizations parroting Putin are using the accusations leveled by Cat to discredit Pussy Riot.

Putin thinks the Pussy Riot tragicomedy has been worthwhile in four respects. First, on the eve of the presidential election, the band's performance in the cathedral mobilized his supporters. Second, it divided the opposition, partly because many of Putin's opponents saw the performance as the desecration of a church.  Third, Putin can successfully portray Occident, which stylizes the women as icons of freedom, as decadent and anti-Russian.  Fourth, the gulags of Nadya and Masha discourage copycats.

Nadya’s gulag is infamous for its harsh conditions.  It has no hot water and the only way to wash is once a week in a Turkish bath. Nadya opens radiator valves to get warm water. There are only special prison clothes given out which are very cold for the weather. Nadya is incarcerated in gulag 14, in Mordovia, 400 kilometers southeast of Moscow. In a letter from the camp dated November 7, she writes: Today is my birthday and my first day in the brigade. I am trying to cheer up the prisoners. They are all so sad. I hope that I will succeed and that I won't become sad myself. Everyone accuses me of being naive. I think naivete is a powerful weapon.

Nadya is looking haggard from life in the prison camp, trudging through the cold with a wool scarf wrapped around her head. She was transferred to the sick ward in early February, and she has complained about headaches for weeks. She is only allowed one hot shower a week.

Nadya bakes cookies for sale and sews uniforms. She is frequently harassed by horny guards, especially lesbians. There is no medicine. Putin thinks that if a prisoner fell ill, that is his own problem. But if someone gets sick and nobody helps him, he can die.  In gulag 14,unfortunately there have been such cases, and they continue to happen periodically. Nadya misses her daughter very much.

Nadya regrets nothing. She thinks the trial against Pussy Riot was important, because it showed the true face of czar Putin's system. This system delivered a verdict on itself, by sentencing Pussy Riot to two years in prison although Pussy Riot committed no crime. The criminal trial is Putin's personal revenge, and no one can predict how and when an authoritarian system will apply revenge.

 

Nadya points out Putin's omnipotence is an illusion. That it's not a limitless thing is just as obvious as the fact that his propaganda machine exaggerates the president's power. Putin is dependent on the West roughly to the same degree that the West has an interest in exaggerating his power. In reality, Putin is small and pitiful. You can see that in his actions both as a person and as a politician.

 

Nadya notes the trial against Pussy Riot revealed the regime's repressive character. Putin's system is collapsing. It's not suited for the 21st century; it's more like something out of tribal societies and dictatorial regimes of the past. It's incapable of explaining why three political activists have to be thrown into prison just because they used the Cathedral of Christ the Savior as the location for a video performance and uttered a few powerful words against the system.

Nadya muses the overwhelming reaction to what Pussy Riot did was a pleasant surprise. The government's reaction to the Pussy Riot performance was to be expected, since after all we're dealing with an authoritarian system. But Nadya has been pleased with the support from friends and other like-minded supporters, despite the threat of years in prison that she is facing. Nadya declares the Pussy Riot fight for its ideas and values will continue.

Masha is even worse off. She is imprisoned at the Beresniki gulag, a prison for 1,200 women in the foothills of the Ural Mountains. At outside temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius, it's no more than 15 degrees Celsius inside. The women are ordered to get up at 5:30 a.m., and they spend their days sewing fur jackets. When human rights activists visited the gulag in January, they noted that there were only two toilets for 200 prisoners.

Masha works like slave, cries, prays, dreams of escape, and she is very sick. Brutal guards call her names and make fun of her. She is tortured and afraid she might be raped. Masha misses her son very much. 

Masha is serving her prison sentence in a division with dangerous felons. After being harassed by her fellow inmates, Masha denounced two of them, a drug dealer and a murderer, with the prison warden. After that, one of the women said to her: We will make your life a living hell.

 

PUSSY RIOT’S PUNK PRAYER

 

Virgin birth-giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!

Black frock, golden epaulettes
Parishioners crawl bowing
Freedom's ghost has gone to heaven
A gay-pride parade  sent to Siberia in shackles

Their chief saint is the head of the KGB
He leads a convoy of protestors to jail
So as not to insult the Holiest One
Woman should bear children and love
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!
Shit, shit, the Lord's shit!

 

The Church praises rotten leaders
The march of the cross consists of black limousines
A preacher is on his way to your school
Go to class and give him money!

 

Patriarch Gundyay believes in Putin
Would be better, the bastard, if he believed in God!
The Virgin's belt won't replace political gatherings
The eternal Virgin Mary is with us in our protests!

Virgin birth-Giver of God, drive away Putin!
Drive away Putin, drive away Putin!

Czar Putin promotes theocracy to perpetuate his power.  Across Putinland, fear of Putin turns to religious worship! In Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg, a proliferation of posters show Putin as an angel, with one hand extended, blessing the city's inhabitants. Putin's face is mounted on a photo of the cherubim crowning the city's Peter and Paul Cathedral. 

There are churches of Saint Putin in Putinland! Mother Fotina declares Putin is the reincarnation of Saint Paul and he has the spirit of a czar in him!  Golden butterflies and cherubs adorn her altar. Fotina swings a smoking censer before an icon of Saint Putin! Mother Fotina believes God has sent Putin to Putinland to prepare the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ!

Over the last decade, the Russian Orthodox Church has grown immensely powerful, allied to Kremlin, becoming a de facto branch of government, presenting Putin as the reincarnation of Saint Paul!  The corrupt Church has extended its influence into a broad spectrum of public life, such as schools, courts, army, politics, mafias, companies, and brothels. Kirill publicly backed Putin in the presidential election. The cruel couple of Kirill and Putin, both former KGB agents, terrorizes all Russia now.

Golden Patriarch Kirill won the Galosh award for his miracle-stained arms which vanish golden gadgets and ornaments.  In photos, while no golden watch is visible on Kirill, there is a reflection of it on the shiny polished table at which he is sitting!   While many Russians cannot feed their families, all Russian bishops are dressed in gold like Byzantine emperors. Galosh laureate Kirill swims in gold.

Putin, the man who portrays himself as a macho leader, decided to use the weakest of the weak as pawns, the little cripples! Putin's theocracy discriminates against children who are cripples, those who are not perfect to belong to his Orthodox God, but to a lesser God!  Many crippled Russian orphans used to be adopted by loving American families. Rejected by Russians, because of their illness and in desperate need of medical care, they found happiness in USA. Children like these will suffer most of Putin's tit-for-tat diplomacy.

 

Russian orphanages are woefully overcrowded and the fate of vulnerable children should not be used as a bargaining chip in a bilateral feud. These children are not even offered to foreigners until they get a certain number of adoption refusals from Russians. These are children with complicated diagnoses, really complicated. They are very ill children.

 

Russia's orphanage system is overwhelmed, riddled with corruption and mostly failing to place children in families. There are one million orphans in Russia. Some were rejected by their parents or taken from dysfunctional homes. Adoptions by Russian families remain modest, seven thousand per year.

 

Foreign adoption is a result of the state and society's lack of attention to orphans. It is a result of Russian indifference. Sergei Lavrov points out stupid politicking should not deprive orphans of the chance at a better life in USA. Russia is not able to provide for all its orphans. The ban violates international treaties on child rights, and it's unconstitutional.

Two hundred thousand Russians have signed a petition against the law. Many Russians liken Putin to King Herod. Thirty children died of malnutrition in an orphanage in Kemerovo. The worst thing of all is the complete isolation of orphanage children from the outside world.  Half of the children discharged from orphanages become mafiosi, and one third become homeless. Eighty percent of Russian orphans are social orphans, which means that they still have at least one biological parent, but are cast out because of poverty or convenience.

Russian hospitals are overwhelmed with crippled orphans. There is no room in orphanages or hospitals for children whom their parents have rejected. No concrete measures are being suggested. Nothing exists but a lot of children's pain, which will only increase now. They are being left parentless in addition to being ill. Shame on you Putin. How low you could go!

Government is the #1 enemy of the people and the source of all major problems of humanity.  Anarchy is the best political system.  Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com