St Petersburg police detained a viral 18-year-old street musician who led a public rendition of an anti-Putin protest song, local media reported on Wednesday.
Diana Loginova, who uses the artistic name Naoko and sings with the band Stoptime, reportedly orchestrated the performance, which drew hundreds of young Russians to sing along on the city’s Nevsky Prospect thoroughfare.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
Viral clips showed the street musicians performing ‘Swan Lake Cooperative,’ a proscribed track by pro-Ukraine rapper Noize MC, also known as Ivan Alexeyev, whom the Russian state has designated a “foreign agent.”
Alexeyev, 40, has lived in exile in Lithuania since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Although prohibited on Russian platforms, his music continues to circulate widely via VPNs and YouTube, garnering millions of views.
‘Swan Lake Cooperative’ was deemed “extremist” in May by the St Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office, which said that it constituted “propaganda for a violent government overthrow.”
Loginova may face two administrative charges of “discrediting” the Russian military and organizing an unauthorized public gathering, according to reports from local media.
The band Stoptime has performed material by other artists dubbed “foreign agents,” including Monetochka (Elizaveta Gyrdymova), who was blacklisted in January 2023.
Other Topics of Interest
Familiar Script: Experts Warn Putin Is Recycling Delay Tactic Ahead of Zelensky Talks
Former US envoy William Taylor sees Tomahawk push mirroring past sanctions, telling Kyiv Post that Trump’s leverage is now at its peak before a second Putin summit can derail action.
Band members from Stoptime were also reportedly questioned but later released by police. They posted on Telegram, pleading with subscribers to refrain from posting videos of their performances online.
“I want to watch the ballet”
‘Swan Lake Cooperative’ was released in 2022, with a message denouncing Putin’s rule and critiquing public apathy towards the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent full-scale invasion.
The song’s title carries historical weight, recalling the period late in the lifespan of the Soviet Union when Swan Lake was broadcast repeatedly on television to distract citizens from political upheaval.
After the deaths of Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko in 1982, 1984 and 1985 respectively, state TV played the ballet on a loop.
Audiences saw Swan Lake return to their screens for three days straight in August 1991, signaling seismic political shifts amid the failed August Coup which sought to forcibly seize power from Mikhail Gorbachev.
Now a symbol of resistance, the ballet was aired by the Russian dissident channel TV Rain when it was forced to shutter in 2022 due to its anti-war stance.
The song title also references Lake Cooperative, a dacha cooperative linked to Putin’s inner circle in north-west Russia which was formed in the 1990s.
“I want to watch the ballet, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake… let the swans dance,” some lyrics from ‘Swan Lake Cooperative’ read.
First Appeared on
Source link
