Riot Days

by Maria Alyokhina

A Pussy Rioter's riveting, hallucinatory account of her years in Russia's criminal system and of finding power in the most powerless of situations

In February 2012, after smuggling an electric guitar into Moscow's iconic central cathedral, Maria Alyokhina and other members of the radical collective Pussy Riot performed a provocative "Punk Prayer," taking on the Orthodox church and its support for Vladimir Putin's authoritarian regime.

For this, they were charged with "organized hooliganism" and were tried while confined in a cage and guarded by Rottweilers. That trial and Alyokhina's subsequent imprisonment became an international cause. For Alyokhina, her two-year sentence launched a bitter struggle against the Russian prison system and an iron-willed refusal to be deprived of her humanity. Teeming with protests and police, witnesses and cellmates, informers and interrogators, Riot Days gives voice to Alyokhina's insistence on the right to say no, whether to a prison guard or to the president. Ultimately, this insistence delivers unprecedented victories for prisoners' rights.

Evocative, wry, laser-sharp, and laconically funny, Alyokhina's account is studded with song lyrics, legal transcripts, and excerpts from her jail diary--dispatches from a young woman who has faced tyranny and returned with the proof that against all odds even one person can force its retreat.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Feminism, Politics, Russia, Music, Biography

195 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2017

Reviews

[Louise Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Activist Maria Alyokhina is not a name that most people will recognize. She was in a an all girl band called Pussy Riot. In 2012 they gained global notoriety when Maria was arrested. Her crime was opposing Putin. She was convicted of "organised hooliganism motivated by religious hatred". She served two years in prison.

Maria's memories take us through her absurd trial and her two years in imprisonment in a northern penal colony where she endured harsh conditions. She was finally liberated in an amnesty agreement Putin arranged in time for the winter Olympics in Sochi. An interesting memoir.

I would like to thank Netgalley, Penguin Books (UK) and the author Maria Alyokhina for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutally honest and stark. This isn't pretty prose. It's fierce and blunt. Alyokhina gives a firsthand account of her view of protest from Pussy Riot performances to her imprisonment.

I think about fate. About how many prisoners who protested have died and now lie in the ground. It is just an illusion that you go on hunger strike to achieve results. Yes. that's how it begins but, later, you realize that it's not for the imagined outcome, but for the very right to protest. A narrow sliver of a right, in a huge field of injustice and mistreatment. You also realize that your right will always be just a narrow sliver in the field. Not there, with the majority. But I love this sliver of freedom, however little it's noticed by those on the other side of the wall. [172]

For those who are unfamiliar with the strategies of totalitarian regimes it will seem like fiction written for movies.

Defense lawyer: 'I summon the witnesses for the defense.'
Prosecutor: 'Objection. I request that the summons be denied.'
Judge: 'Every one of them?'
Prosecutor: 'Every on of them.'

The judge bars the witnesses for the defense from entering the courtroom and orders that those who are already present be removed by the Spetsnaz team. [100]

The most important takeaway for me was the importance of protest and how a society is judged and should be judged by its handling of them.

==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>==<<>>

News Update 2018.09.12
Pussy Riot activist 'in hospital', BBC reporting
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe...

[lilias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pussy Riot is still very much active and as relevant as ever. I decided to get to this book now because I wanted to read a group member’s words about Putin. Maria “Masha” Alyokhina’s writing and organization of her book is unusual and clear the way you would expect. Through her writing, we see the inside of the trial and Siberian penal colonies, and prisons, which is a lot for such a short book. Certain details are never mentioned, but it’s with the intention of keeping the focus on, more than anything, prisoner’s rights in Russia, which Alyokhina and fellow group member, Nadezhda “Nadya” Tolokonnikova, now address with their group MediaZona. I appreciated this book even more when I read that Alyokhina’s son had done the illustrations for Riot Days .

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I know that 5 stars disguises the difficulties in the writing style and at times the lack of structure but it reflects more the person, that is Maria Alyokhina and her struggle inside the Russian penal system.
She came to my attention on Radio 2, when I caught the end of her interview with Jeremy Vine. I had already requested this book as I had previously been a great reader of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his famous account "The Gulag Archipelago" about the Soviet forced labor camp system. I wanted to compare a modern day account of a political prisoner.
What I didn't appreciate was that the author's notority and custodial sentence surrounded her involvement with the punk group 'Pussy Riot' and their infamous playing in a Moscow cathedral.
Before I began to read this personal account, I listened again to the radio download of her interview in full which is part of a series I think about what it is to be human.
Her declaration and subsequent answers to the questions about her interment greatly impressed me and made any difficulties associated with the advanced reading copy of little concern.
No doubt the finished published book will appear more coherent and hopefully sell in its millions. I can not comprehend her self determination to see that protest is what makes us human and if we just comply we lose our identity and appear as machines.
I loved the honesty of this book, the lack of ego and self promotion. I loved her concern and inclusion of others from the prisoners to the guards and jailers. Her spirit is a crative force and could not be broken, yet the book reads not as a tribute to her resilience but that of those prisoners who do not face the prospect of an early release.
I guess the establishment sees such individuals as radical elements in a society, undermining the status quo. I guess through punk and music she has grown into the woman she is, a political activist and seeker of justice for others.
I am not sure how she is universally received from Human Rights organisations to Amnesty International. She clearly has no time for Putin's regime but as a person I can not judge her on her politics but on her humanity. Which I commend to you as you read this book for yourself.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

'We wrote and, letter by letter, we became a revolutionary statement'

Arrested for 'hooliganism' in a Moscow cathedral, this is Alyokhina's account of her arrest, trial and 2-year imprisonment in penal camps in the Urals. Young, intellectual, self-aware, her writing is fragmented yet vivid, locating itself alongside other texts of repression and institutional absurdity (1984, The Trial): 'officially there are no political prisoners in the Russian criminal justice system. But, in official quarters, they called me a 'political' - a political prisoner, that it.'

Impressionistic, angry, absolutely committed and unrepentant, not without a black sense of humour, Alyokhina confronts modern Russia head-on and refuses to step down: 'Freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day.'

An important proponent of where art, feminism and activism coalesce.

Thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maria Alyokhina briefly achieved worldwide fame as as the leader of the Russian punk performance art group, Pussy Riot, after performing for mere moments in a Russian church a song disrespecting Vladimir Putin. She was arrested as a political prisoner and disappeared not just from public consciousness, but literally to the Russian gulag as a dissident. Told unconventionally often in a stream of consciousness, this is her story. The beginning is a little confusing as it is filled with prose, lyrics, and disparate thoughts, but this chronicle is very much worth reading and a sharp lesson to those who claim the American government is fascist. This is what real political oppression looks like and not much has changed since the Soviet era. It's a very personal story as Maria gains her confidence and becomes a spokesperson fighting for the rights of political prisoners hidden away in Russian prisons in the Urals.

Thanks to Penguin Books for providing a copy for review.

[Greyson | Use Your Words · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

‘We were inspired by the Riot Grrrl Movement. We called ourselves Pussy Riot, because the first word invokes a sexist attitude towards women: soft, passive creatures.
And our “riot” is a response to that attitude. We rose up against gender inequality. We wanted to create the image of an anti-fascist superhero, so we needed to wear masks.’
-Katya Samutsevich
In my hand, I hold a clear plastic bag with my belongings in it. This is all I have. After a few weeks in prison, I have come to understand how easy it is to fit life into a plastic bag.
In Riot Days Alyokhina leads readers down a a dark path, into the heart of Russia's corrupt prison system but somehow manages to leave them with a sense of hope.
Alyokhina informs us what she did that lead to her incarceration and how she took her 'political' prisoner label and put it to use, fighting for prisoners basic human rights. Alyokhina may have been found guilty, but she sure as shit was not going to take her sentence and waste it. Instead she kicked up the biggest fuss she could.
Her story shines a light on how inhumane the treatment of prisoners is in Russia and highlights how important it is to stand up and use your voice to help those around you get the basic level of human respect that should automatically be paid to them in the first place.

‘Don’t you understand that you're behaving like a revolutionary?
Like a 1968 dissident?’
‘I’m proud of that.’

I really struggled with Riot Days at first, it's written in a stream of consciousness style that I am not quite used as it felt abrupt and choppy. However, once I got used to it I was sucked into Alyokhina's story, despite knowing nothing about Russia or it's political climate.
I know that Putin is president and I must admit that I have not done any research at all, I've steered quite clear of anything to do with him if I'm quite honest and the only reason I have is that when I look at him I get this visceral reaction that screams at me to run and stay as far away from this man as possible. I don't get that feeling often, especially not as strong as I have with Putin. After reading Riot Days though I think I may have to tune in to his name while looking into what is happening in the world.

‘How’s your cell? Spacious?’ the plaintiff, a Christian, asks me.
‘It’s big enough,’ I say, looking to the side at the window, from which the view is completely obscured by paint.
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Four, but we don’t all spend all our time there, of course.’
‘You mean they take you out for walks? How foten?’
‘Every day.”
‘My, it sounds just like a health spa!’
‘Want to trade places with me?’

Alyokhina has a way of pulling at your heart-strings in a way that has the reader not just feeling heartbroken at the treatment she received while incarcerated but also angry and ready for action.
Her sass and frank dialogue helped lift the mood just enough as to not feel depressed the whole way through but also showed just who Russia is dealing with here.
In the beginning of Alyokhina's story you get the feeling she really has no idea what she's getting herself into, that she in unprepared and that it is hard to believe she will make it out of the experience alive, and yet she proves time and time again that she may have been one of the best people they could have arrested because she refused to lay down and give up. She fought with everything in her, while malnourished and sick. She faced people who made her life excruciating, knowing that she is making things harder for herself. That it is best for her to be quiet. But Alyokhina will not be silenced. She is here to riot.

If you hear someone talking about ‘humane’ treatment in Russian prisons, block your ears and turn away. Even better, challenge it as the lie that it is. Because there are no words to describe the eyes of a person pumped full of Aminazine. It’s as if their tears are frozen in place.

___
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[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don't understand. I thought the Church loved all its children, but it seems to only love the children that believe in Putin." (pg 93)

• RIOT DAYS by Maria Alyokhina, tr. by the author and "a friend", 2017.

RIOT DAYS is Alyokhina's play-by-play of the events of February 2012: with her Pussy Riot bandmates, she performed about 40 seconds of "Punk Prayer" inside the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Christ the Savior in downtown Moscow as a statement against Putin and against the Orthodox Patriarchy who work in tandem (and who, she states, worked together in the KGB during Soviet times).

Told in fragmentary verse, this is a memoir in pieces. It relives the lead-up to the performance, and the overwhelming impact that this 40 seconds made at this time, and Alyokhina's continued activism in prison where she was charged with "organized hooliganism against religion".

Alyokhina describes her prison experience, and spends time discussing the prison reading and writing that kept her going. She was sent to Perm in the Ural Mountains, far from Moscow and far from her family to fulfill her sentence - and her (albeit brief) discussion of hope found in reading Osip Mandelstam, Varlam Shalamov, and Soviet dissident poetry.

💣 10 years have passed since Pussy Riot's performance, and the atrocities of an authoritarian regime continue, now in other soveriegn countries. Pussy Riot continues their work and opposition to Putin. So many familiar names mentioned in the text - people who are still major players and names heard on the news now nearly every day - the opposition leaders, governmental officials and oligarchs.

[jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Punchy, frank, and unapologetically angry. This is a big ol' feminist middle finger and I loved every word. Riot Days is structured fairly chaotically for a piece of non fiction, but rather than feeling disorienting, this works in its favour. Not neat, nor necessarily 'eloquent', it's arresting and compulsively readable. Urgent, illuminating, and strangely poetic. Go read it!

Thanks to Netgalley and Allen Lane for providing this ebook for review.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Det finns ingen visshet eller förutsägbarhet.
Det finns inget öde. Det finns ett val.
Mitt val och ditt, i varje ögonblick som kräver det."

[Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riot Days by Maria (Masha) Alyokhina of Pussy Riot is a fast, grim read about Alyokhina's two-years behind bars as punishment for their two-minute performance of "Punk Prayer" in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. In Riot Days, she chronicles the days that lead up to the protest-performance, the days after, during which the band goes into hiding, her arrest, the trial, and her stay at two different facilities, one in Perm and one in Nizhny Novgorod.

In a way, her incarceration is a sort of education in prisoner rights and human rights, as Alyokhina goes from fearful submission to every search to resistance and demands of better treatment and better conditions for herself and the other prisoners. The results are mixed: prisoners are given shawls, better mattresses, etc., but some are held back from release due to their association with Alyokhina or punished for befriending her.

The prison days are grim. In contrast, the trial is (unfortunately) comical and absurd. It is a testament to the weakness of human nature for self-righteousness and moral superiority. It is a testament to the rise of religious extremism (for ordinary people to feel superior over others and for powerful people to manipulate the ordinary people to gain yet more power) once again.

Alyokhina's writing is crisp and urgent, though she never really loses her sense of humor, which provides some relief in the most desperate moments. The book is organized in short blurbs, each blurb providing the headline for the next one. Having not really followed the details of the Pussy Riot saga when it happened, I learned some new things, especially about the motivation for the protest. What she does not discuss in the book is how apt the choice of location was for the protest, because the cathedral in question has a long history that follows the rise and fall of various ideologies in Russia (it goes something like: first built as a cathedral in the late 1800s, then demolished by Stalin, then was going to be some giant Soviet structure, was interrupted by WWII, so sat there as a giant hole for a while, then was made into a pool during the Cold War, which was then closed and sat there empty for a while, and then the new cathedral was built as a replica of the old cathedral, using reinforced concrete [like a garage would be] complete with a VIP elevator to the high altar for the new powers of Russia [this, my partner tells me she learned from her research about the pool...])

Riot Days is an invaluable look into the notorious penal structure of Russia and a testament to the value of resistance.

Recommended for those who like dough, sanitary napkins, cigarettes, borscht, shawls, button holes, and, of course, cathedrals.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

„»Das wär's dann. Maria Wladimirowna, Sie sind frei«, sagte die Gruppenleiterin.
»Und Sie?«
Es gibt keine Freiheit, wenn man nicht täglich für sie kämpft.
Ich sitze in einem Auto, das immer schneller wird.“

Das war wirklich sehr hart zu lesen, aber auch so wichtig! Hat mir sehr eindrücklich aufgezeigt, wie wenig ich eigentlich über die Realität von als politische Gegner Markierten in Russland weiß. Und wie fucking stark Frauen einfach sind, so so beeindruckend.

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The definitive concise, sequential narrative on Pussy Riot's role in the Russian opposition has yet to be written - the author's joint work with Nadya Tolokno, How to Start a Revolution, takes us part-way there, but is as much a guide for opposing Putin as it is a chronicle. But should such a history emerge, it is unlikely to carry the wallop that this brief and fragmentary prison diary does. Alyokhina's mashup style of melding quotes, government regulations, and observations of life in the Bereznikhi and Nizhny Novgorod prisons has the feel of a postmodern One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Some who studied the history of major gulags in the former Soviet Union may whine that making such comparisons only shows what "special snowflakes" millenials are. But Alyokhina never claims she has things as hard as those who challenged the Soviet state 50 or 80 years ago. The modern Russian kleptocratic state under Putin wants to preserve more of the trappings of a state bound by law, and responds in some fashion to complaints from within the prison. But Alyokhina shows that the prisons often use the same buildings as the former gulags, and are designed to crush the spirit of all prisoners, political as well as common criminals.

The book begins in a dadaist whirlwind that does not really explain why Pussy Riot elected to perform inside a church in February 2012. Nevertheless, Alyokhina said that mere atheism or blasphemy was never the goal. The members of the band wanted to show how intimately Putin was tying his future to the Russian Orthodox Church. Here, I must fully disclose my own bias: I think the Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Kirill is a vile and creepy apostasy, worse than some of the most conservative evangelical churches in the West. Kirill has wooed Putin into enacting new bans on LGBT individuals, banning the celebration of Halloween, and has set the tone for the Russian state to denounce Western artists and intellectuals as "heathens." Thus, I had no problem with Pussy Riot making the institution of the church the main target of their protest, and if they had declared blasphemy was their overt intention, I likely would have cheered them just as lustily.

But this book is not as much an anti-Putin diatribe, as an examination of how the conservatism of everyday Russians helps justify and bring power to the authoritarian kleptocratic state. Alyokhina is not an elitist railing against "the people," but neither is she willing to give the people a free pass. She wants to expect more from the wisdom and love of everyday people, but is jaded enough to realize that often she will not get it. And, as numerous authors and filmmakers from post-Soviet Russia have shown in recent decades, it takes millions of apparatchiks operating at every level to make a thoroughly corrupt system operate efficiently. Some may argue that we experience the same thing in the West, which is true to a certain extent, but there is a certain sad jadedness in many Russian people that is like the form you find in some Italians and citizens of South American countries: the cheater who cuts in line and jacks the system is seen as a hero, while someone who tries to act ethically and with decency is looked upon as a patsy and a fool. More than the existence or non-existence of Putin, this socio-psychological factor is a main hindrance to reform in Russia.

Nevertheless, Alyokhina's two years in prison are never filled with self-pity or anger. She works hard to talk with other inmates and press for prison reforms that mean something to those serving time inside. In fact, she becomes such a thorn in the side of the state, it was no doubt a factor in the government granting Pussy Riot members an amnesty in December 2014. The final line of this hard-hitting diary is "Freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day. And I'm riding in a car that's picking up speed." Go then and do likewise.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was hard for me to rate, but I eventually had to go with four stars just because Masha Alyokhina and Pussy Riot are kickass. The author jumps right into the events that led to her arrest and imprisonment; although we do learn a bit about her life before Pussy Riot here and there, she mostly focuses on the protest in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior and what came afterwards.

The writing style is a bit rough and choppy, and I think it suffers a bit in the translation at some points. But it's also urgent, and once I got used to it, I found that it flowed very well and drew me into the book very easily.

It's even more amazing, looking back, that these women had the courage to stand up to Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, especially in such a totalitarian-leaning country such as Russia. By protesting, Alyokhina was sentenced to two years in prison - two very difficult years, undertaking a couple of different hunger strikes to draw attention to the abhorrent conditions in which prisoners were kept. Prisoners in Russia are routinely taken advantage of by the state, being forced to work in poor conditions far below the pay they are promised. Alyokhina's courage is impressive.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modern Russia does not seem to like dissidents. I didn't really understand what the group Pussy Riot tried to do or the aftermath of their short lived performance. Their protest against the Orthodox Church's support of Putin gets Maria two years in the Russian penal system. The prisons are dank, cold, isolated and poorly resourced. As a "political" she is isolated.
She is a protester so she protests. No matter what is thrown her way she stands committed to her principles seeking fair humane treatment. And she has many wins.
Her story is fascinating but the way she details her thoughts and actions are very original. Her writing seems very natural, entertaining but serious. You don't need to support her views or methods but her focus on the "big picture", resolution to succeed and to keep true to herself is seen in very few people.

[jess]

Masha was imprisoned for an anti-Putin performance with a group called Pussy Riot. This is a sort of hallucinatory stream-of-conscious memoir through the beginning of pussy riot and then her years in prison. I be read it now because Masha is being charged again for a political crime, she's on house arrest waiting for court, and there's almost nothing in the news about it.

Anyway, I am glad I am read this book. The writing is accessible and enjoyable. I love Masha's relentless effort to protest, resist, and rise up.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book free from Netgalley for an honest review and is out on the 14th of September this year. I'm not sure if this was translated badly or just not edited well but this book is erratic to say the least. Beyond this, the story of Pussy Riot is still one that shocks me. I think this is a fascinating look not only at trial and circumstances but the moral and political sphere of modern day Russia.

[Johanna Hammarström · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If the world is turned upside down, the truth will become a lie."
Powerful and interesting.

[Katie Mercer · Rating 3 out of 5]

really interesting because i didn’t know much about the history of Pussy Riot and the political power of the resistance. the writing style was just a bit difficult for my brain to follow

[Marije Baijens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tough, honest and bitter. Now in 2024 this book is as relevant as it was when written, maybe even more. Freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day.

[Jeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Het blijft oneerlijk voelen om een aantal sterren te geven aan boeken, verhalen als deze. Voelt een beetje alsof je beoordeelt hoeveel iemand geleden heeft of zo, geen idee. Toch maar wel een sterrenbeoordeling voor Riot Days. De schrijfstijl verdient geen schoonheidsprijs- maar dat is bij het verhaal van Alyokhina wel het minst belangrijke. Masha heeft haar verhaal gewoon heel eerlijk, rauw en direct opgeschreven en dat had ze haast niet beter kunnen doen.
Ik ben dit boek gaan lezen na het zien van de 'show' Riot Days. Show tussen aanhalingstekens omdat de opvoering van Pussy Riot niet als puur entertainment is bedoeld. Het was een enorm indrukwekkende, krachtige, inspirerende en soms ook emotionele protestshow onder begeleiding van muziek. Dit boek was het uitgangspunt voot die show en dat is te merken, maar dat is niet erg. Ik ben na het lezen nog steeds erg onder de indruk. Wat wil ik hier eigenlijk neerzetten? Geen idee, behalve dat ik echt erg onder de indruk ben, sprakeloos, kippenvel.

[Melkorka Gunborg]

Frábær.

[Nancy Wilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true story of heroines, martyrs and more importantly, feminist revolutionaries. Soviet punk melodies giving birth to a raw, bittersweetly inspiring and unforgettable molotov cocktail evoking the likes of Run Lola Run and Orange is the New Black in a politically incorrect and insightful fable, shockingly revolting at times, and beyond inspiring. The gutwrenching prison chronicles will forever stay with me. A hand grenade straight to the heart, in a Russia I thought it wouldn't exist anymore. This is quite the Riot Grrl Bible. Hail Masha.

[Frankie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread in honour of Ukraine and the Russian people

[Karenina (Nina Ruthström) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grymmaste jävla aktivisten ever! Blev så peppad.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a story! She's a modern day Solzenhitsyn.

[Jeanette · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read! I recently watched a documentary about what goes on in Russia when one protests against whatever. It was quite an eye opener. Until i read this book, i had never heard of Maria Alyokhina or her Punk Rock Group, Pussy Riot. This book will stay in my mind for sometime to come. I do recommend giving this book a try.

[Inken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Until the court case of 2012 I had never heard of the feminist group Pussy Riot (which, incidentally, does not mean what many in the West assumed it meant: a more literal translation is apparently Kitten Riot) but their trial for "organized hooliganism based on religious hatred" became a cause celèbre 5 years ago.

In protest to what they saw as Putin's hijacking of the Russian constitution and election laws, as well as the Russian church's sycophantic support of him (in direct violation of Russia’s strict separation-of-church-and-state laws), the group staged a protest performance in Moscow's central cathedral. Knowing she could be arrested and tried in Russia’s appallingly corrupt legal system, Alyokhina refused to flee the country. Russia was her home and she wasn’t going to stop fighting the corruption that has become rampant there.

The group’s subsequent trial was a farce of breathtaking proportions: the prosecution paraded witnesses who hadn't even been in the church, the defense was forbidden to present any of their witnesses and the judge spent half her time doodling instead of taking notes. The three women were sentenced to 2 years each, which doesn't sound too bad until you realise Russia's prisons (especially for women) haven't changed much since the gulag era.

Sent to a prison in the city of Perm (24 hours' drive from Moscow) Alyokhina endured strip-searches, solitary confinement, temperatures that dropped to -20ºC (-4ºF) in Winter without any heating in her cell, constant questioning by the guards and was forbidden any visitors (especially her son Filipp). Despite all this, Maria refused to be cowed by a patriarchal regime she sees as little more than a corrupt dictatorship. She constantly rebelled, refused to give into the continuous violation of her rights and even took the prison system to court (where she won – the first woman to do so, ever).

After 21 months, Putin (under considerable international pressure) awarded the women an amnesty. Without advance notice, Maria was taken back to Moscow and released. She continues to protest and fight the regime because, as she so eloquently puts it, “Freedom doesn’t exist unless you fight for it every day.”

This memoir of her time in Perm is sparse in its language but overwhelming in its description of her experiences there. The sexism portrayed by the male and female guards is almost laughable, the ridiculous rules she has to abide by (facing a tribunal for failing to get up at 5:20 instead of 5:50am), the dreadful conditions she and her fellow inmates endure – her prison is no minimum-security setting with access to a library, TV and free healthcare – the women are lucky if the water they bathe is isn’t freezing. Which makes the fact that she manages to remain unbowed and undefeated really astonishing.

[A Reader's Heaven · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.)

From activist, Pussy Riot member and freedom fighter Maria Alyokhina, a raw, hallucinatory, passionate account of her arrest, trial and imprisonment in a penal colony in the Urals for standing up for what she believed in. Freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day. Revolution is history. If we decided to fall out of it, to disappear, that would mean it would not be our history, but theirs. Not our country, but theirs. In this sense, we didn't take off our masks. We never left the church. On a T-shirt, I had written 'To Back Down an Inch is to Give Up a Mile'. I felt there was no sense in wearing a T-shirt with those words if you didn't hold yourself to them. We have the right to refuse. This is our right, yours and mine. You can't know all the laws by heart; you don't know what will happen if you refuse. But you have to try.

This was one surreal book to read. I am going to start by discounting the writing style - that is hardly relevant to me in this case. It isn't a novel that needs to follow style and structure rules. It is a memoir of a time Maria was a political prisoner in Russia for protesting - or hooliganism as I think it was called at the time - and her raw, uncensored telling of that time is shocking and confronting.

Also, this is a fascinating look at Russia - its politics, its legal system, its view of "undesirables" and their treatment of individuals whom they think are a risk. Certainly an eye-opening read!


Paul
ARH

[Maya Jagger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only have 25 pages left and I am on 175. I want this all to end for Masha, but not for me. Reading this comes at a funny but influential time. Three weeks before I start university. Two weeks ago Masha was banned from flying out of Russia to attend the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. You know what she did? She drove 600 miles to Lithuania via Belarus so she could catch a flight that way. Lithuania is in the European Union, and Belarus doesn't have too tight security. She was determined not to let her fans down. Determined not to let Putin win. The Russian Revolution is happening, right now. She cannot be contained, will always be free. But now she is afraid about what will happen next when she goes home. After learning all this, I am filled with enamour for Masha. And I know I am ridiculously lucky to have spoken to her after the gig in Leeds, even in a brief few moments.

As I read Riot Days, I fear for Masha's safety. I only wish she would stay in the UK. But something about her never left the Russian prisons. She is strong but vulnerable, filled with compassion for others and the spirit of a protester. No matter what happens, she keeps on fighting for human rights and her humanity only grows deeper. She speaks for those who do not have a voice, who have had it taken away or stay silent, living a life in fear. She knows Russia needs her. She made her choice a long time ago. So she will be back. Her bravery is to be reckoned with. In Berezniki she was 1 in 1000, not including all those women who came to the prison before her and were released or fallen, living lives of deprivation and suffering. Always prisoners. Masha is a synonym of activist in my book. To Back Down an Inch is to Give Up a Mile.

If I could buy 100 copies of a book to distribute to friends, family, libraries... Leave around train stations... On buses... Hide them in the city to be found by strangers... This is book would be it. In future I could be in that position. If the copy of Riot Days in your hand was found by you in the second-class compartment when boarding the train from Manchester to Liverpool, and you are reading this review now... That was probably me. And I boarded at Leeds. I could even be sat opposite you right now. Hi 👋

Don't be tempted to return this book, the gift must move.

Some complain about the format of Riot Days and how it is fragmented. I wonder how you would feel, having only your mother's watch to separate one hour from another. This book is a work of art. It is poetic, funny and heart-wrenching. I will never be able to look at pasta the same way again. This book is like a play or screenplay, so if you aren't fortunate enough to have seen it, as reenacted by balaclava clad Pussy Riot in Russian, live, with music for dramatic effect and film as a visual backdrop, it may not come to life for you. Just as a magnificent work of Shakespeare wouldn't. This book is essentially the English subtitles to a story that everyone needs to know, because "what happened in Russia - to me - could happen to anyone anywhere". Reading this book, I smile, remembering one of the most inspiring nights of my life. Anyone can be Pussy Riot.

No more pages. The book is finished now, but the story keeps going on.

Pussy Riot are still touring the UK as we speak. If you only catch one show this, or any year, may it be a Pussy Riot gig.

If you only read one book this, or any year, may it be Riot Days.

We are Pussy Riot.