Russian
police arrested two protesters who staged a performance dubbed “The Exorcist.
Desecration of the mausoleum.” on Moscow’s Red Square. They poured holy water
onto Lenin’s Tomb and shouted “rise and be gone.”
RT.com reports the
stunt lasted for about 15 seconds, after which police intervened and removed
the “activists” from the tomb’s grounds and led them to a police vehicle.
The protesters were from the local movement called “Siniy Vsadnik,” which
translates from Russian as “Blue Horse Rider.”
The
two individuals identified as Oleg Basov and Evgeny Avilov used 5 liter bottles
filled up with holy water.
The
water was considered holy because the video shows that Basov got the bottle at
a Church after the Orthodox Epiphany celebration on Sunday, when the water is
blessed and is then believed to have holy powers of healing.
The
two protesters were taken to a local police station and are likely to remain
there until Tuesday morning, according to local media reports. Both of them
could face up to 15 days in jail for disorderly conduct.
Basov
and Avilov told Grani.ru that their protest action was an attempt to get rid of
the Soviet past, which they think is beginning to peer through in the present.
Siniy
Vsadnik refers to itself as an art group, which performs various social stunts.
It was formed in September 2013 in St. Petersburg.
One
of its biggest stunts took place in May 2014, when a man dressed in a military
uniform, kneeling on a Ukrainian flag, washed his face with blood in front of
people walking down the street in St. Petersburg.
Another staged performance called ‘Eating of the Ruble,’ was staged in November
in front of Russia’s central bank. The video shows Basov eating 100 ruble
banknotes and washing them down with a soda – in reference to the depreciating
Russian ruble.
No comments:
Post a Comment