The police in Vorkuta detained activist and SOTA’s journalist Ekaterina Parfyonova and her boyfriend Dmitry Makhov for creating the art object “No More Movies.” The inscription was supposed to appear next to a closing cinema theater. The police released the couple after four hours in the department and taking their tests at the dispensary. Ekaterina Parfyonova reported this to 7x7.
The detention took place on the afternoon of October 28. Activist Ekaterina Parfyonova and artist Dmitry Makhov were creating the art object “No More Movies.” The young woman believes that they were reported to the police by passers-by.
In the department, the police asked the young people about their Western curators and threatened them with articles about extremism, hooliganism, and property damage. The police decided that the inscription was about the sanctions, and the red paint was blood.
“Then they called the administration and were told, ‘Are you insane? These are artists, they have an exhibition at the exhibition center,’” Parfenova said.
According to the young woman, the police threatened to take their fingerprints and DNA. The medical examination at the narcological dispensary, where the young people were brought, showed clean test results. The artists spent four hours in the police department and dispensary, after which they were released.
After the outbreak of the war with Ukraine, Russia intensified repression against street artists. Anton Ganyushkin from Vladimir was sentenced to eight months of restriction of freedom for graffiti "No [special operation]". Two more artists from Vladimir, Denis Savenko and Ivan Sinyukhin, were detained together with him. Learn who else was persecuted by the security forces for such actions from the blog of lawyer Pavel Chikov.
