Riot Days

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