Riot Days

Wow! This was so kick-ass, as expected, but it was also so smart, full of allusion to every Russian or Soviet political prisoner you can think of (Dostoyevsky, the Decembrists, Trotsky, Solzhenitsyn, etc). Alyokhina reveals herself as a thoughtful feminist activist, angry, kind, passionate. Just on the level of story, this book is wonderful. You worry about her and the women she's imprisoned with, are infuriated at their treatment, and looking at her life now, can only gaze in awe at her courage in returning to Russia. She's a superhero and a great writer.

Brilliant, accessible look at the experience of one of the Pussy Riot protestors who was jailed for two years following their performance in an Orthodox Church. Managing to find black humour in her experiences, from the weird comments of the prosecutors in her trial to the prison officials' inability to cope with her opposition to their unlawful actions to the rest of the prison population. I admired her bravery in mounting a protest in the first place, but her actions in the prison really go beyond this. She manages to acknowledge the cost of opposing more powerful forces: the state's use of isolation against her is particularly brutal. But the book leaves the reader with a strong sense of just how important it is to have your voice show more heard.
"In one of my enormous bags I’m carrying books . At night, in the car, I read poetry . When I read out loud, everyone around me quietens down. goes quiet ‘Parting is more terrible at dawn than at sunset,’ Boris Ryzhy wrote.
‘Who’s reading?’ a convict calls out.
‘Don’t you know?’ comes a voice from another compartment. ‘Pussy Riot’s here!’"

(Netgalley copy) show less

"Rise and shine, ladies!" shouts the warden in a voice that used to be a woman's, and bangs on the iron door with an iron key.

Maria Alyokhina was a member of the punk group Pussy Riot, and one of the women who performed their song Punk Prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. Along with a few others, she went into hiding, but was eventually arrested, tried and sent to prison in a part of Russia that was formerly used for the gulag. Riot Days is her account of that time and it's fantastically punk to its core. Alyokhina is fiercely devoted to resisting Putin's dictatorship and she is uncompromising in her unwillingness to comply or keep quiet. Even her time in various prison camps is marked by her determination to protest show more and to improve conditions for the people around her.

Her memoir is told in the form of short segments. From the beginning, as they plan various performances - performances that were necessarily short and unannounced - she is both scared and determined. And as the state takes action against them, she clearly describes what is happening and the dire conditions she and the other prisoners live in, but she never complains or fails to stand up for those around her. We should all have her clear convictions and sheer perseverance. show less

Riot Days is sharp, choppy and biting. Words fly off the page like the staccato of machine gun fire. Even the illustrations are crude and unpolished; but all are perfect for the message Alyokhina wants to relay. The facts are such - in February of 2012 members of an all-girl punk band smuggled an electric guitar into an Orthodox church in Moscow to perform a "Punk Prayer" in protest to Putin's regime. Alyokhina and another member of the band were finally arrested and sentenced to two years in a penal colony. Alyokhina's side of the story is interspersed with the court proceedings as if to say, "look how reality can get twisted; this is what happens when you have convictions; you get convicted." This is a quick but extremely worthwhile read.

Maria Alyokhina is a member of the punk protest group, Pussy Riot. She, and another member, were jailed for two years after performing a protest song, "Punk Prayer", as a protest in a Russian Orthodox church. To do this performance, they smuggled amps, and guitars into the church, jumped onto the altar, set up, and sang of 2 minutes tops before being thrown out and eventually arrested. Their protest was about the influence of the church on the state, and about Putin.

More than this though, the book is about the author's time in prison, where, as a political prisoner, she received 'special' treatment, including being kept in solitary 'for her own safety', having her own guard who monitored her alone, and video surveillance of her cell. show more She showed incredible fortitude, courage and outright fearlessness in dealing with the prison system. She fought them, only rarely questioning the impacts this had on other prisoners, who were collectively punished for Maria's actions to seek basic rights for all prisoners. I so admire her steadfastness in this regard. She was unwavering in her conviction that "to back down an inch is to give up a mile".

Prison time was tough, the hundreds of indignities and petty nastiness from the guards, and the 'system', were designed to create submissive prisoners. This type of systematic bullying and cruelty is so shockingly recent, 2012, and proves Putin's Russia to be nothing like the images it projects. show less

I requested and received this book in exchange for an honest review.

First, I'm going to ask you to ignore reviewers who cry foul about how the book is layers and printed up. It's readable, you can follow it, anyone who says otherwise is just... not getting it.

This book is written in short paragraphs, diary/letter style, following the life of a member of Pussy Riot from the church protest to her time incarcerated. While I am familiar with Pussy Riot, this is my first exposure to the personal names and stories of the group members.

Maria is an interesting writer, she reads like a Riot Grrrl memoir, almost like a mix of 90's activism and some sort of future warning told in a very conversational manner. That being said, it is important that show more her story is told, since we really hear the personal words of Russian dissidents. This voice in the US media is important.

More recently events have made this book seem like an evolving future for the US. A sort of "back to 1984" feel permeates this, the slippery slope where she talks about how the Russian state reintroduced the Orthodoxy only to have it prop up the corrupt Putin and his dictatorship, the re-criminalization of the feminine, the random hate of Satanists believing they are actual Satanists instead of a political demonstration, the use of gossipy idiots in court testimony, and of course, the state of the prison system. Having worked in the prison system, I've seen similar things in the US often justified in the same way as in these Russian "colonies." (gulags)

The feeling that I got while reading this was that I was looking in a mirror of the US. This is the US that some people want to come to pass, and are trying to make with these policies limiting free speech. Indeed, Maria's own conviction smacks of the foolish case against the woman here in the US who laughed at the republican congressman. Dissent called hooliganism, and then made into a crime. The incessant treating of women as children. The corrupt religious people in this book are disgusting, and the scary part is that all of the above, as she writes it, I feel I could go and find it in my own community. This mirror isn't too close to being a full reflection if we let it.

Part of what I took, overall, from this memoir, I'm not sure if Maria intended. I respect Pussy Riot for telling people to fight the power and protesting a fascist like Putin, but in the end... did they make an impact? Maybe it's too early to tell. I certainly know there are modern Russian activists with voices now, but it's the system, the random people justifying their actions with complaints about their salaries, that disturb me the most in her book. Are people like her enough? Or is the book a warning that we can protest and sing and go to jail, and everything will carry on as a large part of the population remains complicit and convinced that they are defending the constitution and their livelihoods?

Thanks for reminding me, Maria, that silence will not protect us.

Recommended. And for those who want to protest her point of view, survive what she did, then we'll care about your opinion of how she handled it. show less

Pussy Rioter Maria Alyokhina relates the harrowing story of her trial and imprisonment for "hooliganism" in Riot Days.

Maria and her fellow punk rockers were arrested for protesting Putin's cozy relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church by staging a performance of their anthem "Punk Prayer" at one of Russia's largest cathedrals. Arrested for this exercise of free speech, Maria and two other women were held in sweltering glass cages ("the aquarium") during their trial. Convicted, Maria was shipped to a women's prison camp in the inhospitable Ural Mountains. As a political prisoner (or "a political" for short) she was subject to a higher level of scrutiny than typical prisoners. She protested, often with hunger strikes, the poor show more living conditions and nonsensical rules of the prison camp.

Maria tells her story in short bursts of evocative prose. She assumes you already know the story of her arrest and imprisonment, so It helps to have background information on Pussy Riot available. Nonetheless, every Russia-watcher, and anyone concerned with human rights, should read this book. show less