The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E8: Nadya & Pussy Riot Punk the President

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I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Wi-Fi was like the smartest Wi-Fi?

Yeah, it's Wi-Fi that is so smart.

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Hey, girlfriends, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes conversations about state violence and incarceration.

But around those, you'll hear the twisty tale of how a group of artists protest against the Russian government.

Oh, and also, there's going to be some swearing, but you knew that already, didn't you?

Nadia is sitting in her Moscow flat playing the piano.

I'm a piano player.

It's a typical thing for Russian kids.

You either have to go to ballet

or do piano.

She stuck playing this little tune over and over.

It was beautiful and

really mystique.

I wrote a little draft and wrote it to my friends and we quickly made a track in a couple of hours and there's the punk prayer.

Punk Prayer, a song of hope, anger and dreams of a better Russia.

And the friend she wrote that song for, they're the ski mask wearing protest collective, Pussy Riot, created by Nadia.

The chorus goes, Virgin Mary, please become feminist.

And in the verses, we talk about reproductive justice, we talk about the corruption in the church.

And one of my favorite lines, gay pride is sent to Siberia in shackles.

Nadia doesn't know it yet, but punk prayer will be heard all around the world, with some pretty damning consequences.

Eventually it brought me to prison.

She'll spend almost two years in a prison labor camp, sewing police uniforms from dawn till dusk.

That's the price Nadia and her pussyright sisters will pay for challenging Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, one of the most powerful, wealthy and dangerous men on earth.

We're not professional criminals or anything like that.

We're just a bunch of artists who were doing our best.

But Punk Prayer will also launch Pussyright as the moral conscience of Putin's Russia.

The frontrunners of a global feminist movement rallying together against Russian authoritarian power.

And their weapon?

Art.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and from the teens at Novel and iHeart Podcasts, this is the Girlfriend Spotlight, where we tell stories of women winning.

Today, Nadia punks the president.

The first time I saw Nadia Tolaka Nikova and Pussy Riot was on my very 2012 Tumblr feed.

I thought it was a cool statement, art, funny hats, but it came and went like everything else on Tumblr.

And then there were the arrests, the courtroom dramas, political interference, and prison time.

Now, Pussy Riot were making headlines, and I was gripped.

But I never really learned how Nadia and the other women got there.

So let's start this story somewhere nice and picturesque.

Like Siberia in 1989, the year Nadia was born.

Siberia is a wonderful place.

And it has a shape of a huge penis.

So I'm from Herevid and my grandmother who I would visit every summer vacation lives between the balls and to get from one part of the dick to another you need to spend four hours in a plane.

Wow that is a big dick.

I know

no one can really impress me with the size of their thing after that.

It's not just Siberia's size that it's known for.

It's also defined by its weather.

It's a place where you have winter for nine months out a year.

It's minus 40 degrees Celsius plus really really heavy wind.

Polar winter brings its own heaviness on everyone's lives so people find all sorts of escapes.

It could be drugs and sometimes hard drugs or it could be computer games and for me it was mostly books and my house was filled with art books on Poticelli and early Greek art.

And I think it gave me radicalism that probably otherwise would not emerge.

Wow.

You had like a really kind of highbrow early education in art.

You weren't reading normal kids' books.

Art came with my family in a package.

My dad and my mom are both very artistic people.

My mom and dad split when I was five and she was was responsible for feeding me and paying the bills.

My dad, with whom I stayed connected and really close, he was a multimedia artist in the Soviet era, which also pushed him to the edge of society.

But he gave me this passion to art.

By the early 2000s, Nadia had basically learned everything she needed from the grand masters of art.

It was time to look to the future.

It was a magical coincidence that this festival of contemporary art came to my home city.

I was around 13 and I was lucky enough to witness a series of talks and exhibitions and performances of a few contemporary artists who became my guiding stars and I started to model my life after them.

At 16, hungry to learn more, Nadia moved to the big city, Moscow.

And there she started studying philosophy, but she was unimpressed by the art world.

What I saw around me was mostly commercial art.

It's just way too boring.

Commercial art is by definition something that is toothless.

But for me, my idea was to provide an alternative to the commercial art scene and hopefully start a movement.

And were you always interested in the sort of political sides of philosophy and art at that stage?

I think I arrived to my interest in politics through my interest in avant-garde art and their world-building ambitions, which was political in a way that they wanted to build new society.

And that sort of totality of art that wants to change life once and for all was really speaking to me.

And I wanted to see something like that around me among young, hungry artists.

I wanted them to change the world.

I wanted them to change, well, at least our government, which was at the time moving towards authoritarianism.

Nadia was only 10 when Putin first became president and started centralizing power.

Regional autonomy was reduced.

Media outlets were brought under state control.

And over the years, critics of the regime died under suspicious circumstances.

Slowly but surely, Russia became more authoritarian and more nationalist.

Two things that, understandably, have never sat comfortably with Nadia.

It's dangerous not just for Russian people, but also for people abroad, for neighboring countries.

Nadia believed in Russia, but not Putin's Russia.

She believed in culture and education, art, freedom.

She had to do something.

So in 2007, Nadia, together with the man who had become her husband and another couple, started a collective.

They planned to arrange protests all over Moscow.

So the choice of name was clear, Vina.

Vina means war in Russian.

It meant war against conservative art institutions and the political order.

Vina did things like storming the Russian White House, which is the heavily guarded government headquarters in central Moscow, by jumping over the six-meter fence and running for their lives through the grounds.

We were debating if we are going to be electrocuted once we reach the top

or shot.

That would not be fun, but it didn't happen, so all good.

And the idea was to show that resisting is indeed an option.

Imagine if a group of anarchists can freely do this very radical accident without ever getting caught, without going to jail, without getting arrested.

then imagine what would happen if a million of people tried to do the same.

And eventually, we'll have real democracy.

Okay, a small goal.

Life for women and queer people in Putin's Russia had arguably gotten worse.

Rights were rolled back, and patriarchal rhetoric seemed to dominate politics and culture.

And so, eventually, four years in Vienna brought me to the need of starting something that will be feminist oriented, that will focus

not just on achieving democracy, but also on protecting rights of queer people, on making sure that gender equality is achieved in my country.

And that's how Pussyright was born.

Wow.

And how did you come up with the name?

It's a great name.

This started from me and Kat sitting in her apartment.

Kat is Yekaterina Samutsevich, who had also been part of Vina and had a pretty messy flat.

Neither Kat nor her dad cared about cleaning stuff up.

If you open the fridge, you'd die from the smell.

It's September 2011, six months before Putin, then prime minister, is set to return for a third term as Russia's president.

Nadia, who's now in her early 20s, knows what this means.

More power for one, less democratic freedoms, agency, and rights for everyone else.

So she and Kat are into something they're calling punk feminism.

And we looked at this term broadly and not just

punk as music, but also like really bold and groundbreaking artistic moves.

So

we got really inspired by the Riot Girl movement.

The Riot Girl movement was actually a pretty big inspiration for me too when I was in my early 20s.

It was this this DIY feminist music scene that was started in the Pacific Northwest in the early 90s.

And I actually wrote one of my final music school essays about them after I was the only one who put my hand up when the lecturer asked if anyone would call themselves a feminist.

He said, watch out for this one, and everyone laughed at me.

I obviously had to go on a feminist rampage after that and the Riot Girl movement was the perfect outlet.

The people at the heart of it were angry, but also playful.

They made zines and sang punk songs about politics and sex and misogyny.

The genre's high priestess, Kathleen Hanna, from the Bambikini Kill, had this famous slogan, Girls to the Front, meaning the girls stood at the front of shows while the dudes had to move to the back.

In short, Riot Girl was the antithesis to my old lecturer and to Putin's Russia.

started to joke around what would happen if Russia had their own Riot Girl moment.

We thought that it'll be cool to record a song of a Russian version of Red Girls, but we were visual artists.

So me and Kat wanted to start a fake band and convince everyone that it's an actual band.

This fake band would put on guerrilla gigs to draw attention to the government's human rights violations and hypocrisy.

We decided to call it pussy rad to bring a derogatory term for a woman, for a girl, that we are going to reclaim in the same way that word bitch, queer, punk was reclaimed.

Name sorted, great.

And now,

everything else.

So, what do we need?

What do bands do?

And we just

watched some videos and we went on website where people sell used stuff in Russia.

We didn't have money at all, but we bought a guitar that didn't play, an electric electric guitar that we used as props to create an image of a band.

They recorded their first song in Cat's Bathroom.

We didn't have smartphones at the time, so it was just a very cheap Olympus recorder, and we

didn't have any knowledge on how to put songs together, so it was very ugly.

That's punk, that's DIY.

You're doing it exactly how you should be.

We weren't even able to put together a loop like in a continuous fashion.

So there was this little pause in between of the loops.

So it would be like,

and that's syncopation.

Sounds like you're in jazz now.

What's going on?

That's very cool.

But also, I mean, the sad fact is there's like nothing more punk band than being like a punk band who insists they're not a punk band, even if you weren't one.

Which is so cool.

you've gone through the looking glass.

Thank you.

On October 1st, 2011, Nadia and Kat play the song they recorded during a presentation on punk feminism.

They say it's by a new Russian punk band called Pussy Riot, and they call the song Kill the Sexist.

The sexist that they're referring to is not explicitly Putin, but it is a comment on his ideology.

And Pussy Riot want to start making a noise about the imminent return to presidency that he's planning.

But they are just two people.

This fake punk band needs more members and fast.

We didn't have a lot of time.

Just felt like we have to work every single day and try to at least fake that we have an actual movement.

Because we didn't have any money, so we were mostly stealing stuff from supermarkets here.

We lived by shoplifting.

Then we started to work actually with our friends, punk musicians, and we told them just write something shitty, like really quick in an hour, and we'll scream something on top.

It was mostly me and Kat as the core, but we were good at art propaganda.

We knew how to write press releases, how to context journalists, like work with professional photographers and videographers and put together videos.

So it's like unheard of.

speed of production.

Would you be able to tell me about your very first protests that you guys did together?

The first batch of protest actions was called Free the Cobblestones.

It was the end of October in Moscow and it was already freezing cold, raining.

Not fun to be outside, so we decided to invade Moscow subway and we found places with this scaffolding being in the middle of the station and it looked just like the stage.

So we would climb on that little platform, unpack our guitar that didn't play, and connect the microphone that did work and make the action.

Wearing brightly coloured mini dresses and ski masks to conceal their identities, pussy riots shout and dance on subway scaffolding and in crowded subway cars.

They warn that ballots will be used as toilet paper in the approaching elections.

And we did dozens of those in the subway and then compiled it all together in one video.

Pussy Riots' actions aren't designed to scare people.

They're tricksters, inspiring hope.

What they're doing is fun, but also dangerous, because almost every single time they perform, they get arrested.

Imagine cops run to the base of this scaffolding and there's unless you learn how to fly, there is no way to escape.

Some cops are nice, some cops are not, some cops are punching you and dragging you around by your hair.

And I was used to it.

I mean, did you not, after you realized that happened the first couple times, did you not decide to like perform on the floor where you could make a run for it?

That would not be beautiful.

I can't argue with art, but Putin did

after the break, a punk prayer.

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I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Not all group chats are the same, just like not all Adams are the same.

Adam Brody, for example, uses WhatsApp to plan his grandma's birthday using video calls, polls to choose a gift, and HD photos to document a family moment to remember, all in one group chat.

Makes grandma's birthday her best one yet.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp.

And so the photo invite came through so blurry, he never even knew about the party.

And grandma still won't talk to me.

It's time for WhatsApp.

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In December 2011, Putin's party, United Russia, won the parliamentary elections.

Amid allegations of electoral fraud and a pre-arranged role swap with the sitting president, tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets to protest.

They were the largest protests in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 90s.

Pussyriot was there too.

They shouted lyrics like, Riot in Russia, Putin chickened out.

You could find them screaming their protest songs in luxury boutiques and fashion shows, atop expensive cars.

And the idea behind it was Putin was throwing a lot of money to make people compliant to everything he does.

And we went to these places where rich people in Moscow were hanging out at the time to warn them that one day their lives are going to get complicated because of Putin.

Next on their target list was the Russian Orthodox Church.

Nadia and Pussywright believe that the church's support of Putin created an unhealthy, authoritarian relationship between church and state.

It lent a sort of moral and spiritual legitimacy to Putin as a divinely sanctioned leader.

So Pussyright came up with a way to draw attention to it.

It would be dangerous.

Lots of people would be appalled.

But no one would be able to ignore it.

On the day of the performance, it was really cold, not cozy, windy, grey.

A lot of participants said the day of the action that they aren't going to be able to join.

People felt unease.

It's February 21st, 2012.

And Pussy Rice are about to do a flash mob performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

Right in front of the altar, they're going to sing punk prayer, which is the song you heard Nadia describe at the start of the episode.

The song that calls on the Virgin Mary to become a feminist and banish Putin.

We knew that we were attaching a topic that is potentially radioactive, but we believed that because we do a symbolic artistic protest, we don't punch anyone, we don't destroy anything, we should be fine.

As a priest is literally offering sacraments to worshipers, five pussy riot members in their signature ski masks and colorful dresses sing, kick, and punch the air before the altar.

It happened all very quickly, 40 seconds of performance.

We got pushed away by the guards really quickly.

They didn't make any attempt to arrest us because I think it was like more like just a minor annoyance.

Who are these crazy girls jumping up and down?

Why did they do that?

They took our piece of equipment, like our little audio system that we were very proud of.

We were arguing with church security and the motherfuckers give us back our equipment.

Pussy Riot don't get their equipment back.

And despite no arrests in the cathedral, Nadia knows things are about to get serious.

She goes on the run, changing her location every day.

We didn't use our phones, didn't use the internet.

We were anxious.

And they're right to be.

The news of their protest was making its way to the president himself.

Putin personally gave an order to arrest us.

And Putin gives an order instead.

The entire police system of Russia is looking for you.

You don't know when the arrest is going to happen.

You almost wanted it to happen.

Because at least it's some sort of clarity.

Notice the use of when,

not if.

Because after a week of trying to outrun the authorities, the arrest does happen.

It was me and my husband at the time.

We went to buy presents for our daughter, who was about to turn four years old next day.

And we got surrounded by around 20 people

in plain clothes.

They yelled at us.

They said hands against the wall.

They were very verbally abusive to me.

And I think it came from the fact that they were not able to find us for a week.

So it was relief.

It was a relief for me and it was relief for them.

Nadia and fellow Pussy Riot members, Kat Samutsevich and Maria Alyokina are all sent to a detention facility to await trial.

Once you're transported there,

it's not a joke anymore.

That's how it started.

Protests ripple out from Moscow.

A YouTube video of punk prayer goes viral.

At her Moscow concert, Madonna even dons a ski mask and dedicates her song Like a Virgin to Pussy Riot.

And in late July, the trial starts.

When it started, it became obvious that

it's very accusatory, and the tone of the judge and the tone

of all the participants from the government side was just so rude and so discriminatory to us.

They told us that feminism is by definition hostile to the Orthodox religion, and Orthodox religion a key ideological system for Russia.

So hence we are hostile not just to the religion but to the entirety of Russia and Russian people.

We were told that we are paid by Hillary Clinton to destroy Russia.

They said that we accursed the entire country and

thus we need to be burned at the stake.

Some people say that we need to be whipped.

publicly on the Red Square.

Oh my god.

I realize that there is nothing really here to

lose.

I'm already going to jail, that's for sure.

And so

we just turned it into a circus.

They're in a glass case being infuriatingly positive and doing some devilish twitching, of course.

It was a lot of fun, seriously.

In Nadia's closing statement, she describes pussy riot as freer than the prosecution because, quote, we can say what what we want while they can only say what political censorship allows Nadia Kat and Maria are convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred and sentenced to two years in prison and despite her tough exterior nadia is scared two years in jail seemed like a lot

because by that time I was in jail only for six months and it felt like eternity and imagine that I have to stay locked up three times more and then i'm going to be moved from moscow to penal colony which basically gulag labor camp uh that was terrifying yeah what tell me about that tell me about your time in prison i went through 12 different facilities i was not an easy prisoner and just demoralized I didn't feel like myself.

I forgot what I was before.

I think it was just deep, deep trauma that really destroys your

image of yourself, your identity.

And I was forced to work all the time that I wasn't sleeping.

I was performing different tasks.

Like I was sewing police uniforms, then I was digging trenches, then I was moving heavy giant stones around penal colony.

That's how the Russian prison authorities are controlling the prisoner.

They make sure that they are exhausted physically and emotionally to the point of turning into walking corpses.

And that's who I became in a labor camp.

It took me a year or two to realize that I'm still the same person who I was before jail, that I still have a voice to protest against the prison system.

I've started a hunger strike, wrote an open letter protesting against the prison conditions.

A couple of weeks after I started my hunger strikes, I spent a month in different prison facilities and prison cars.

It was a long term, one month without any connection with my relatives or lawyers.

They thought by then that I'm probably dead.

And I thought,

who knows what's happening with me?

But I ended up in Siberia, which was awesome.

I ended up in Krasnoyarsk, which is the city that I visit every single summer.

This is the city where my grandmother lived, the city between the balls.

Just like the gay pride parade Nadia sang about in church, she too had been sent to Siberia in shackles.

I was delighted.

Well, that's the kind of the best thing that could ever happen to me.

I came back home.

Yeah, in a way I'm sure you never expected.

No, you only get to know where you are once you're there.

They transport you pretty much as a sack of potato.

But outside of the prison walls, Nadia is no sack of potatoes.

She's become a powerful symbol.

Amnesty International names her a prisoner of conscience.

Calls to free pussy riot echo around the world, along with a furious international debate about freedom of expression.

Then, finally, after 18 grueling months in prison, on December 23, 2013, Nadia and Maria are released early.

Two months before the end of my term,

Putin decided to sign an amnesty to release not all political prisoners, but just a few of them.

And I think he targeted specifically those who have been talked about the most.

Some people believe that Putin's amnesty is just some big propaganda stunt designed to bolster Russia's image before they host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

But Putin isn't the only one planning for the Games.

We got out and went right back into action.

We wrote a song, Putin Will Teach You How to Love the Motherland,

and it was dedicated to political prisoners, those who remained jailed, and to corruption, to

increasing authoritarianism in Russia.

Pussy Riot will be there at the games in Sochi with the newly released Nadia.

She's an international symbol of radical resistance now, and everyone's waiting to see what she'll do next.

After the break, all eyes on Nadia.

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I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Not all group chats are the same, just like not all atoms are the same.

Adam Brody, for example, uses WhatsApp to plan his grandma's birthday using video calls, polls to choose a gift, and HD photos to document a family moment to remember.

All in one group chat.

Makes grandma's birthday her best one yet.

But Adam Scott group messages with an app that isn't WhatsApp.

And so the photo invite came through so blurry, he never even knew about the party.

And grandma still won't talk to me.

It's time for WhatsApp.

Message privately with everyone.

I am sure if you've been listening to conservative radio and podcasts, you've heard a lot of talk about gold and silver.

Now, there are people that ask me all the time, who do I trust?

And that is Kirk Elliott Precious Metals.

You get more than gold and silver.

You get trusted guidance from a team that puts people first always.

The mission is clear.

They want to help you and your family protect what matters the most with real metals, real service, and real clarity.

Here's what sets Kirk Elliott apart number one.

A bullion only approach.

They focus on investment-grade metals, no overpriced collectibles or gimmicks.

That means more precious metals for your money and fair value when it's time to sell.

They also have transparent pricing.

This is why I recommend them and love using them.

Just 8% when you buy and zero commissions when you sell.

No hidden fees ever.

Many companies do that.

They also give you personalized guidance.

You're never just a number.

There's no pressure.

They give you honest answers and education that puts you in control.

I want you to go to kepm.com/slash ben.

That's kepm.com/slash ben to schedule your personal portfolio review.

Ask about today's unique market window and how the current silver to gold ratio might work in your favor.

Protect what matters.

Visit kepm.com/slash ben or call them 720-605-3900.

Kirk Elliott, Precious Metals.

Smarter Metal Investing starts with them.

I've got you.

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In February 2014, only two months after Nadia was released from prison, Pussy Riot traveled to Sochi to protest the Olympic Games there.

Even before we jumped on the plane to go to Sochi, starting from Moscow, we got followed by the cops constantly and we were there targets number one at a a time when we got released.

So, every move, every step is being watched.

Every word is being listened.

I mean, after spending all of that time in the penal colonies, like having a really tough ride of it, you know, it sounds like it was awful.

Were you not afraid to be back out protesting, doing more actions?

I was terrified.

I was shaking.

It was so scary for me to go back to jail, but it felt like we had to make this statement.

Under an Olympic banner, armed with a plastic guitar, Pussy Riots sing their newest protest song.

Putin will teach you how to love the motherland.

But mid-song, they're attacked, beaten, and dragged by militiamen, wielding whips and pepper spray.

Bloodied, yet defiant, they keep going.

We're getting arrested

five times a day, but we've realized it was almost impossible to do actions in the same style we've done before because we became so high-profile as activists.

Wow.

What was that like staying there when, I mean, it just seems like you're being completely haunted by the police?

Pretty surreal and

you feel yourself like a paranoid, but with one important note that you are actually being followed.

It's weird.

But Nadia is not going to admit defeat.

There was a lot of stuff to be done in Russia.

We started a media project that's called MediaZona and the idea behind it was to tell the people of Russia what's happening in prisons, in police departments, and tell about the most important political trials of that time.

Now it's the

number one independent media outlet in Russia, which is truly incredible given that it is started by a bunch of punks.

But eventually you left Russia.

Could you tell me why and how that happened?

I think I would never leave it if I had to make a conscious decision to leave.

It was just a series of circumstances, a series of arrests, of me and people who I cared about who got in the mix just because of me, just because they were working with me and I felt like I'm responsible for that.

I felt very guilty.

So I felt like I need to move away, just to take a step back to protect people I love and that pushed me to stay for some time out of Russia because I still wanted to create or just didn't want to put people in dangerous situation by associating with me.

Outside of Russia, Nadia could use her reputation to be even louder and without the police literally breathing down her neck.

In 2023, she put on her first solo gallery exhibition in LA, an immersive installation, which she called Putin's Ashes.

Putin's Ashes is a response to Putin's full-scale invasion to Ukraine.

For the first two months of the invasion, I could not think about making art.

I was doing everything I can

to help

with resources or to do actual help, and then after a few months, I felt like I need to make an artistic statement.

And it was a group of women from Belarus,

Ukraine, and Russia.

We all came together to curse Vladimir Putin.

The ultimate art piece is the performance that is documented in video that's called Putin's Ashes, accompanied with the song that I wrote.

In the piece, Nadia can be seen leading the women clad in fishnets and red ski masks in a ritualistic ceremony to burn a large portrait of Putin and collect its ashes.

Putin didn't like it one bit.

My parents got visited by police and asked some questions.

Then there were a couple of searches at my friend's apartment who still lived in Russia and to my ex-mother-in-law.

Nadia was declared a foreign agent by the Russian court.

She was put on a country's most wanted criminal list.

Now I'm arrested in absentia.

So I knew that if I go back to Russia, I'm going to be arrested immediately.

And even now, when I hear left Russia, I feel unease about it.

The only meaningful connection that I've ever had in terms of my art and geography was the connection between me, my art, and Russia.

I think I get it.

Your heart's still in Russia, right?

Your heart and your art.

I'm very attached to the place.

I'm I'm very attached to my language.

You know, I would much rather speak in Russian right now.

I never think that I'm the smartest or like, you know, the most talented or the most connected.

Definitely not the most powerful.

But

I have this dedication, and I always think, like, what if more talented musicians did what Pesera did?

But I stick to this DIY principle: follow your dreams and and damn the consequences.

After years of imprisonment, harassment, and attacks, Nadia's commitment to see a better Russia without Putin has never wavered.

And I just know she won't ever stop as long as he's in power.

It's nothing short of awe-inspiring.

I can't believe I'm already saying this, but this is the last episode of the first season of The Girlfriends Spotlight.

Thank you so much for listening.

And if you haven't heard the other seven amazing stories, then do go back and listen.

And if you like them, tell your friends.

We'll be back with more incredible stories of women winning soon.

But in the meantime, coming up next on The Girlfriends, a brand new original limited series with me, your girl, Annie Sin.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit.

I'm 100% innocent.

While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch.

He goes, oh, God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer.

And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her.

You're supposed to have your faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her.

So many of these women had lived the same stories.

I said, were you a victim of domestic violence?

And she was like, yeah.

But maybe Kelly could change the ending.

I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here?

I'm going to be the first one to do that.

This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too.

I think I have a mission from God to save souls by by getting people out of prison.

The Girlfriends, jailhouse lawyer.

Listen from July 14th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, it's Anna.

You've reached the girlfriend's hotline.

Leave your story after the tone.

Okay, gotta go.

Love ya.

So I have this friend who I've been friends with for almost

nine, ten years now.

And although we've only actually

lived in the same place for three of them, me and her have built this routine while living apart from each other.

And it'll be that we'll wake up and we'll call each other, we'll eat our meals together.

There was a time where I was over at this guy's house that I was seeing and I think he went to pee and in that 45 seconds I managed to fit in a call just to update her about my whereabouts.

I mean yesterday she gave me a tour of what was in her fridge.

I guess it sounds creepy in some sense but I think it's a really

just

nice and stable and beautiful connection that has grown and somehow deepened in the distance and not in spite of it.

If you have your own story like the one you just heard and you'd like the whole girlfriends gang to hear it, then please send it to us.

You can record it as a voice memo under 90 seconds, please, and email it straight to thegirlfriends at novel.audio.

Please don't include your name, we're keeping things a little anon.

We want stories like the time your friend still showed up to your kid's birthday party even though she was really seriously hungover or the time she didn't get mad when you spilled a mug of coffee all over her white sofa not the white sofa i want stories that are meaningful or silly i want big i want small i'm desperate to hear them so send them over

This season, the Girlfriend Spotlight is supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide.

They do amazing work to help women's rights organisations and movements to strengthen and grow.

If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womankind.org.uk.

The Girlfriend's Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts.

For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield.

This episode was written and produced by Amalia Sortland.

Our assistant producer is Lucy Carr.

Our researcher is Zayana Yousaf.

The editor is Hannah Marshall.

Max O'Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers.

Production management from Joe Savage, Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolfe.

Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson.

Music supervision by Jake Otayevich, Nicholas Alexander, and Anna Sinfield.

Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein and Gemma Freeman.

The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemkuhl.

Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development and special thanks to Katrina Norvell, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iHeart Podcasts, as well as Carly Frankel and the whole team at WME.

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I couldn't even believe it was real.

Join me, Tatiana Siegel, executive editor of film and media at Variety, for a four-part tale of youthful ambition, artistic integrity, and the dark side of fame.

Just like my parents talk about they knew where they were when John F.

Kennedy was killed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows exactly where they were when River died.

Featuring new interviews with Samantha Mathis, Dr.

Drew Pinski, Corey Feldman, and more.

Listen to Variety Confidential on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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