If Maria Alyokhina hadn’t escaped from Russia disguised as a food courier, she would be in jail right now.

The Pussy Riot activist knows from experience how tough life can be for political prisoners inside Vladimir Putin’s penal colonies . At a remote facility where she was once held in the Ural mountains, temperatures dropped to -35°C in winter, and inmates were forced to work “without hot water, without medicine”.

The goal of these bleak places, she says, is to “erase the personality and teach you only to obey.” New Feature

In Short

Quick Stories. Same trusted journalism.

Alyokhina is not really one for obeying. Pussy Riot, her punk band and feminist protest group, shot to worldwide fame in 2012 when she and two bandmates were jailed for performing a song – “Mother of God, dr

See Full Page