In a way, my career in big-league journalism began with Pussy Riot — those bold, eccentric, reckless girls who, back in 2012, staged a provocative “punk prayer” at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior and ended up behind bars for it.

I spent that July and August attending court hearings or standing outside the Khamovnichesky courthouse. It was a scorching, exhausting summer that demanded discipline and focus. At the time, I barely realized I was witnessing a turning point — not just in my own life, but in the history of my country.

Thirteen years have passed.

Pussy Riot are performing their “prayer” again.

This time — in Barcelona. In the city that has become my new home. At La Mercè, the city’s major annual festival, they took the stage as special guests of the BAM music program — and unleashed a blistering show.

Plaça de Catalunya shook with pounding drums, chanting and half-screamed rap, the noise of thrash metal spiraling into chaotic energy that gripped you and refused to let go.

This wasn’t a concert — it was an exorcism of an era.

And right here, in the heart of the Catalan capital — where, over the centuries, alchemists, philosophers, architects, painters, and poets once walked these same streets — everything takes on new meaning.

A city where mysticism has always walked hand in hand with reality. Where protest isn’t an exception — it’s tradition. Where history performs its own mass every single day.

What Pussy Riot did on stage was more than a show. It was a magical act. A ripple, spreading outward like water.

An echo of that original “punk prayer” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior — now awakened on different soil, under a different sky.

The “Mass” of Pussy Riot

Was it punk? Political theater? A post-documentary tragedy wrapped in thrash-metal noise?

Doesn't matter. What matters is — this was art.

Thousands of people in the square screamed with them, caught every movement, every word.

Even those who didn’t understand the language understood the pain.

On stage: Maria Alyokhina, Taso Pletner, Alina Petrova — and unexpectedly, Olga Borisova, whose appearance hadn’t been announced. They were joined by Canadian guitarist Eric Breitenbach.

Russian words pierced the Spanish night. Those who didn’t speak the language read it on screens, in subtitles. Those who did — left transformed.

I didn’t go to the concert. I planned to watch the livestream — I don’t like crowds, and the show started close to midnight. But even through a screen it was clear: this wasn’t a concert. It was a chronicle of hell.

Pussy Riot presented a new version of their program Riot Days — a performance based on the darkest chapters of the last 15 years, turned into a massive canvas of resistance.

From the Bolotnaya Square protests in 2011 and their own trial in 2012 — to poisonings, torture, death.

To war.

To the murder of Navalny in 2024.

From Maidan to Bucha and Mariupol.

From Chechnya, where gay men were executed in secret prisons, to the Sochi Olympics, where corruption threw itself a victory parade.

From the self-immolation of journalist Irina Slavina, to police raids, arrests, charges, and the toxic label of “foreign agent.”

They didn’t show this as journalists — they showed it as survivors. Not as history — but as personal hell. What radiated from the stage was fear. And grief. And despair. But in every scream, a protest was born. A riot. A raw, human “no.”

And you watch — and you wonder:

Could I do that?

Could I find the strength to say “no” when darkness isn’t a metaphor but a lived reality? When an attack isn’t symbolic, but a bite to the throat of your rights, your identity, your freedom?

The Trial and the Divide

“Virgin Mary, become a feminist, drive Putin away” — that iconic line from the 2012 punk prayer is heard early in the show.

That’s where it all began.

For 40 seconds of performance inside the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the girls were sentenced to two years in prison.

I still remember the day the verdict came down. The realization was sharp and terrifying: the country had crossed a line. From that point on, the word “divide” was no longer a metaphor — it was a diagnosis.

The trial echoed around the world. Everyone weighed in — church leaders and pop stars, theologians and human rights defenders.

Some saw blasphemy. Others, free expression.

Isn’t Christianity supposed to teach forgiveness? Turn the other cheek? Not this time.

Because what rang through that cathedral wasn’t prayer — it was curses hurled at Putin and Patriarch Kirill. And the Church didn’t forgive.

The world did, though — or at least tried.

Everyone you could think of spoke out for this unknown punk band:

Madonna. Red Hot Chili Peppers. Paul McCartney. Peter Gabriel. Björk. Stephen Fry. Danny DeVito. Marc Almond. Symphony orchestras. Cultural ministers. Politicians.

The message was clear: this is madness.

And the Kremlin replied: we don’t care. Loud and clear. They had no intention of listening to anyone who dared say “no” — not from within, not from abroad.

And those who stayed silent — spoke, too. That summer, silence became a kind of litmus test. It showed who still had a voice, and who had already surrendered. Who was a citizen — and who had become a function.

Now, that story is being told again — this time on a stage in Barcelona. With documentary precision: excerpts from court transcripts, the operation plan, real names.

Of the original trio who stood in that cathedral in 2012, only Maria Alyokhina is on stage now. Tolokonnikova and Samutsevich are no longer part of the performance.

Maria looks almost the same. Back in 2012, she always seemed to me the least “punk” of them all. Long wavy hair, narrow lips, a sharp nose, deeply set eyes, and a delicate, Slavic face — more like a character from a Russian novel than a rebel.

Not rage — but resolve. Not aggression — but a quiet, unshakable strength.

And now here she is again.

On stage. Still the same.

Only the country has changed.

And so has the world.