Words Will Break Cement

by Masha Gessen

  Almost six months later, during the trial, Stanislav Samutsevich renounced his earlier testimony, claiming he had changed his opinion of the action and did not want to testify for the prosecution. But, to the extent anyone’s testimony in the trial mattered, his mattered a lot: he had essentially said that the defendants had engaged in a conspiracy—one that he had perceived as a criminal one.

  ———

  NADYA AND MARIA ATE NOTHING for nineteen days. Maria grew so weak she could no longer walk; Nadya developed debilitating headaches. They gave up the strike on June 10. Kat held out for three more days. She felt great; she had gotten the second wind she had heard about from other inmates—when the weakness gives way to a new, light sort of energy. She was not even bothered by her cellmates—she was not moved to solitary this time—or by the smell of the food she had liked so much. But there seemed to be no point in holding out if Nadya and Maria were done. After that, perhaps to speed up the process, the three of them were taken to the courthouse to read the case together. They spent entire days in one another’s company. They read all about themselves. Mostly, they read their own blog, which the investigators had diligently printed out. They laughed their heads off. They had written very funny stuff.

  NINE

  The Trial

  TWO DAYS BEFORE THE TRIAL BEGAN, the British newspaper the Guardian came out with a huge story. “Pussy Riot aren’t just the coolest revolutionaries you’re ever likely to meet. They’re also the nicest,” gushed the writer, Carole Cadwalladr, who had reported the story during two packed days in Moscow. Her editor had dispatched her in a fit of sudden inspiration, after realizing something very big and very bizarre was about to unfold in Moscow. “They’re the daughters that any parent would be proud to have. Smart, funny, sensitive, not afraid to stand up for their beliefs. One of them makes a point of telling me how ‘kindness’ is an important part of their ideology. They have also done more to expose the moral bankruptcy of the Putin regime than probably anybody else. No politician, nor journalist, nor opposition figure, nor public personality has created quite this much fuss. Nor sparked such potentially significant debate. The most amazing thing of all, perhaps—more amazing even than calling themselves feminists in the land women’s rights forgot—is that they’ve done it with art.” Petya called everyone. He ran around clutching the paper, with a very large and very beautiful picture from the Red Square action. He sensed, correctly, that this was a first taste of true fame.

  ———

  MOSCOW WAS HOT, sunny, and empty as it gets when vacation season sucks the crowds and traffic jams out of it. Political trials were best conducted with no one around, and political verdicts were best rendered in August or just before the New Year—as Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s second guilty verdict had been. Everything felt slowed down and unreal this time of year. The Muscovites called it “dead season.” To get to a verdict before “dead season” was over, though, this trial would have to be speeded up.

  ———

  THE POLICE CORDONED OFF the Khamovnichesky Courthouse. It had seen its share of vigils—Khodorkovsky’s second trial had been held here—so the police knew how to keep the crowds dispersed, squeezed, and uncomfortable all at the same time. Only journalists were allowed to approach the courthouse, though few of them fit into the overcrowded courtroom. The prisoner transport pulled up to the back of the building, and the crowd behind the police cordon shouted as loud as they could to be heard half a block away: “Svobodu!” “Freedom!” Pussy Riot heard them; it sounded like a big crowd.

  They had their own architecture within the sprawling four-story building. Before and after the hearing and during breaks, they were held in isolation rooms in the basement; to get to the courtroom on the second floor, they had to be taken up the back stairway to the top floor, which was entirely closed off for the occasion, cross over using the empty hallway, and descend two floors. There, they were placed inside what everyone called an aquarium—a Plexiglas enclosure equipped with microphones for addressing the court and a small horizontal window for passing papers back and forth to the defense attorneys. The defense sat at two desks in front of the enclosure, with their backs to it. The prosecution, and the lawyers for the victims of Pussy Riot’s alleged crime, sat facing the defense. The setup left room for benches to accommodate only about two dozen members of the public, including all the relatives and journalists. Petya sat in the front row closest to the enclosure. He wore a red-and-white-checked Ralph Lauren shirt; Nadya wore a purple-and-white-checked Ralph Lauren shirt, which looked like it was probably Petya’s. Several friends sat in the front row as well, as did Natalya Alyokhina, Maria’s mother; Stanislav Samutsevich sat just behind her.

  A few minutes in, Violetta Volkova objected to the presence of witnesses in the courtroom. The judge, a woman in her midfifties with dyed brown hair, thin lips, and reading glasses, demanded to know whether there were any witnesses present, and none identified themselves. She then read out a roll call, and when she got to Stanislav Samutsevich, he stood up and said he was not aware of being a witness. “You are a witness for the prosecution,” said the judge. “Leave the room. You will be called.” He said something softly. “Leave,” she repeated. She sounded testy.

  Nine people identified themselves as victims of Pussy Riot’s alleged act of hooliganism. Nadya, Maria, and Kat had seen them all at the probable-cause hearing, and they had recognized some of them from the cathedral. Among them were the security guards and the candle lady who had looked so shocked by the performance. Nadya, Maria, and Kat remembered their faces and their hands as well, as they had dragged and thrown the three of them out of the cathedral. Thinking of these people as victims was funny. The three defendants studied their ostensible victims from behind the Plexiglas that was apparently meant to safeguard the public from them, and them from the public, and laughed.

  The prosecutor, a plump, prematurely balding red-haired man wearing a summer uniform—a light blue shirt with dark blue captain’s epaulets—cringed, demonstrating that the public really was afraid of them, he insisted. “In light of the heightened public attention to the case, we believe the lives of witnesses, members of the court, and the accused may be in danger,” he said. He moved to direct video operators to stop filming when victims and witnesses were testifying—apparently to protect them from attack by Pussy Riot’s crazed supporters. The judge agreed.

  The judge went around the room collecting other pretrial motions. Maria asked to be provided with audio and video recordings that were described in the indictment but not actually included in the case. She also moved for a continuance because the defendants had not had time to consult with their attorneys. They had been promised a confidential meeting with them the previous Friday but it never happened—instead, they had been driven to the courthouse and around town and back to jail, returning after visiting hours. Maria spoke confidently, with clear references to relevant laws and rules; she had spent much of the last few months studying law books and was well on her way to becoming a classic jailhouse lawyer. Nadya and Kat seconded whatever she said.

  And then things got weird.

  Volkova motioned to have an expansive list of witnesses called, including the patriarch himself, “to shed light on economical issues of Russian Orthodoxy.” She said the word ekonomishesky (economical) several more times as she read out her motions; presumably, she was mispronouncing ekumenichesky (ecumenical). She said she also wanted to read out loud—and into the record—the defendants’ comments on the charges. For a second, the judge sounded more surprised than annoyed; the charges had not yet been read by the prosecution. Volkova pounced: “Do you have any basis for denying my motion?” And as the judge fumbled, she continued, “In that case I shall begin reading them into the record.”

  She began with Nadya’s statement: “We believe that art should be accessible to the public, and for this reason we perform in a variety of venues. We never mean any disrespect to the audience at our concerts… The song ‘Mother of G
od, Chase Putin Out’ reflected the reaction of many of our fellow citizens to the patriarch’s call for believers to vote for Putin in the March 4 election. We share out compatriots’ dislike for the perfidy, treachery, hypocrisy, and bribery of which the current authorities are guilty… Our action was not motivated by hatred for Russian Orthodoxy, which prizes the same qualities we do: charity, mercy, forgiveness. We value the opinion of believers, and we want them on our side, in opposition to authoritarian rule… If our performance appeared offensive to anyone, we regret that very much… We believe we have fallen victim to a misunderstanding.”

  Volkova had rushed to read the statements because she feared the judge might curtail videotaping at any point. Now the tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people who were watching the live feed would at least hear Pussy Riot’s position. But they would hear it out of order—the words to which Nadya was responding in her statement had not been said in the courtroom yet. And Volkova looked and sounded as different from Nadya as a woman could. Obese and wearing a clingy brown floral-patterned dress and a large gold cross, she read monotonously and stumbled over so many words, sometimes asking her colleagues to help her decipher the defendants’ handwriting, that it seemed she might not fully comprehend what she was reading.

  “I insist that the ethical and legal aspects of our case must be separated from each other,” she continued. “My own ethical appraisal of our action is as follows: we made a mistake by taking the genre we have been developing, that of a sudden political punk performance, into the cathedral. But we did not think at the time that our action could be offensive to anyone. We have performed in many venues in Moscow since September 2011: on the roof of a bus, in the Metro, in front of Special Detention Center Number One, in clothing stores—and we were received with humor everywhere. If anyone was offended by our performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, I am prepared to admit that we made an ethical mistake. But a mistake it was; we had no intent to offend… And I apologize for this mistake. But there is no criminal penalty for ethical mistakes of the sort we have committed… I shudder every time I read in the charges words to the effect that we came to the cathedral out of hatred and disdain for Orthodox believers. These are terribly strong words and terribly serious charges… Think about what hatred and enmity are. We did not have them in our heart. Claiming we did is bearing false witness. We are being libeled, and I cannot say it’s been easy to bear being tarred like this, having attributed to me feelings of hatred that I have never experienced toward any living thing on the planet. The prosecution claims we have concealed our true motives. But we do not lie; this is one of the principles of Pussy Riot… We have repeatedly been told by investigators that if we admitted our guilt, we would be released, and yet we have refused to tell that lie about ourselves. Truth is even more important to us than freedom.”

  After barely a pause, Volkova began reading Maria’s statement, in the same monotonous manner: “I am Russian Orthodox… I always thought the Church loved its children, but it seems to love only the children who believe in Putin… I see the charges as nonsensical, as I am a citizen of a secular state, which is where I thought I lived… I ask the independent court to conduct an impartial investigation and draw conclusions. I have never had any hatred for Orthodox believers, nor do I feel any now.”

  Kat’s statement tried to deconstruct the logic of the charges. The charges indicated that Pussy Riot’s guilt was proven by the fact that they rehearsed their performances. But did that fact prove the existence of hateful intent? It proved only the intent to perform, not the intent to perform a criminal act. “The prosecution knows that the main topic of our group’s work is not the Orthodox religion but the illegitimately elected parliament and the authoritarian rule of President Putin.”

  It took Volkova nearly an hour to read all three statements. When she was finished, the judge read out a written motion Maria had submitted, asking that the case be returned to investigators because of numerous inaccuracies and omissions in the documents. The defense attorneys looked surprised; it seemed they did not know the motion was coming or indeed the extent to which Maria had been teaching herself law. Maria was doing the lawyerly thing in court while the lawyers made political speeches. None of this looked intentional; rather, it looked like an amateur production in which the actors had mixed up their lines, or been badly misdirected.

  The prosecutor was quick to ridicule Volkova’s procedural irregularities as ignorance and a violation of both the defendant’s rights and the victims’ rights to due process. “Maybe they are just saying all these things to have them published on the Internet right now,” he said, suggesting the obvious. And then he pointed out what might be considered a major failing if the defense had actually been planning to mount a defense: “Anyway, it is now clear that the women sitting on the defendants’ bench do consider themselves members of this group.”

  The judge denied all of the motions filed by the defense.

  The prosecutor read out the charges in rapid fire. Sometime before February 17, 2012, Nadya had entered into a conspiracy with Maria, Kat, “and other persons unknown to the investigators for the purpose of rudely disrupting the social order in a manner that would express a clear lack of regard for societal norms, motivated by hatred and enmity, motivated by hatred for a particular social group, in the form of carrying out offensive actions inside a religious institution aimed at attracting the attention of a broad spectrum of citizen believers.” The conspirators had “distributed roles among themselves and purposefully acquired clothing to be worn, clothes that clearly contradicted church norms, discipline, rules, and regulations inside the church.” Being aware of the offensiveness of their attire “to the entire Russian Orthodox world” and “the criminality of their intent and the scale of the insult they planned to inflict,” they used balaclavas to disguise their identities and thus make it more difficult for them to be charged. “This increases the gravity of their deed and makes it look like a well-planned act of malicious intent, meant to denigrate the feelings and beliefs of the numerous disciples of the Orthodox faith and diminish the spiritual foundation of the state.”

  “Do you understand the charges?” the judge asked, addressing Nadya.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you understand the charges?” she asked Maria.

  “No.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “I would like to make it clear that—”

  “What don’t you understand in the charges?” The judge was beginning to sound belligerent.

  “I don’t understand the ideological aspect.” Now Maria sounded strident.

  The judge was silent for a moment.

  “I don’t understand on what basis the prosecution is making statements regarding my motives. And I don’t understand why I’m not allowed to explain this.”

  “Don’t rush things.”

  “I’m not rushing things.”

  “You’ll have your say. Right now I’m asking you if you understand the charges.”

  “I don’t.”

  “The prosecutor just read out the charges. What you are being charged with.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand? Please clarify.”

  “I just did.”

  “Do it again.”

  “I don’t understand the ideological aspect of the charges. Pertaining to my and—pertaining to our motives.”

  “All right. Sit down. Samutsevich, do you understand the charges?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “I don’t really understand any of the charges. They strike me as unconvincing and unsubstantiated. It is not explained on what basis these assertions are made.”

  “Prosecutor, can you explain it to them?”

  “Your honor, the charges are clear.” He promised the basis for them would be laid out clear in the course of the court hearing. He then repeated the part about a rude disr
uption of the social order and hatred and enmity for a particular social group.

  “Now do you understand?” the judge asked Maria.

  “No, I do not understand, because the prosecutor has just read out a small excerpt out of more than a hundred and forty pages.”

  “The prosecutor has just outlined the charges. All the evidence will be reviewed in the course of the court hearing.”

  “I still don’t understand. I insist the entire indictment be read out.”

  “The prosecutor has outlined the charges. He is not supposed to present evidence at this stage.”

  “But I don’t understand what the charges are based on.”

  “He’ll explain what they are based on in the course of the hearing.”

  “That doesn’t help me understand.”

  The lawyers laughed. They looked very pleased with themselves and their defendants. Feigin tightened his tie.

  “The prosecutor has outlined the charges,” the judge repeated.