Don't know if you Russians are aware of what types of news stories from Russia get reported in other countries, in mainstream media? Perhaps you'd be surprised, or perhaps not.

After a couple of months of endless stories about supposed discrimination of gay people in St Petersburg (sigh - boring!) and the rest of Russia, the latest story that actually gets a lot of space in the papers is "Pussy Riot":

(Quicky summary: The Russian girl punk band "Pussy Riot" broke into a major cathedral in central Moscow and started singing a rather blasphemous song about killing Putin..... The big outrage - I think - is that the girls are risking up to 7 years of prison for this. )

I have a view on this actually, but instead of boring everyone with my opinion (after all, I am not Russian..) - let's hear what people who are Russian think! And anyone else who wants to comment.


  • Do you have sympathy for the girls' anti-Putin protest in general?



  • Was it ok to break into this cathedral and stake a protest there?



  • Should the band members get punished by the law and if so, what type of punishment would you support? Or if they should not be punished, why not?



  • What would have happened if somebody tried something equivalent in Brezhnev's time? Was this good or bad?



  • What would happen if somebody did this in London, Washington, Paris...? (I think they'd try to find a terrorist angle on them and do some serious poking around in their life and they'd find themselves in all sorts of registers shortly. The punishment, at least in the UK - would be a very hefty fine and suspended prison.)