The Angry Russian on his artistic Angry compatriots

When the penis is mightier than the sword. Photo credit: Alexey Plutser

Life in Russia, as you might have already guessed from my rants, is no walk in the park, at least for the common man. Even when we’re not fighting the bloodiest war in history or staging a revolution against whatever corrupt, unelected government that is lining its pockets with our taxes, the people of Russia have never really known the quiet life of prosperous Western countries. Save for the tiny elite, of course, who keep their money in Switzerland and kids in private schools in London.

But there’s one thing that we do really well: that’s sticking it to The Man in various creative ways. Radical political art in Russia has been flourishing since the early 90s. Here’s just a few examples that are internationally known:

A Brief Russian Art Protest History

In 1991 a group of young people who called themselves ETI (“THOSE”) lay on the Red Square, arranging their bodies in a big FUCK YOU (it’s three-letter word in Russia) in front of the Mausoleum before being arrested.

Nine years later, before the elections to the third State Duma (Russian parliament), another group ascended the Mausoleum itself with a white banner saying AGAINST ALL.

The 'Against All' action itself lasted about 20 seconds, but its glory prevails. Photo credit: Andrey Stvolinsky

To put it in proper political context, it was the third ever instance that the people of Russia were allowed to vote after literally hundreds of years of being told to just shut up and work – and they technically had the option to just say “You know what – screw the lot of you”. They could vote against all the parties and if the number was bigger than that of the candidates, the whole election would be recalled, with none of the participating parties allowed to take part in the new one. Yours truly was in the 1999 “Against All Parties” campaign, where in the next election 600,000 more people voted thusly, and in 2006 the ‘Against All’ option was abolished from the bulletins.

This obvious lack of political choice was exchanged for a brief period of relative stability, with even some hints of ‘normal European’ life with mortgages, Toyota Lancers, trendy cafes and other things that only begin to matter once you don’t have to stand in a queue for food for three hours or live in permanent fear of becoming collateral in a gang war. Coincidentally, most radical art degenerated into piles of pretentious shit that you had to pretend to ‘understand’ because you’ve got an office job and you want to impress colleagues and your girlfriend with your cultural prowess.

The Angry Russian Phallus

But then it became apparent that nothing had really changed, and the content and satisfied life was still an illusion. Scratch the surface – and you still saw a country on the verge of hunger riots, with an incredibly corrupt and ineffective government on all levels and, as of recently, rising religious fundamentalism . The correct artistic response? To draw a gigantic penis.

Russian radical artist: if you see him, cross the street. Photo credit: Maja Kucova

The collective behind the most hilarious and ballsy artistic stunt is called Voina, or War, and they’re also behind the recent rise of radical political action that seems to draw much more attention than conventional protests which inevitably end in everybody being batoned down and arrested. Well, of course, you also can’t expect courteous treatment from the police when you paint a massive penis on a drawbridge that faces the windows of the most powerful law enforcement agency, but still the latter definitely gets your point across much better than standing on a square with placards. Alexey Plutser, the group’s ideologist and spokesperson, says: “What we are doing is not trying to communicate with the power. We are just shoving a dick in its face. A dick that is 65 meters tall, 23 meters wide and weighs about 400,000 tonnes.”

You can’t talk to the power rationally, Plutser adds, because it will just drown anything you say in lies and propaganda. But how can you deface a 65m tall penis? Or run a smear campaign against people who participated in a political orgy called “Fuck for the Little Bear, the heir!” (a pun on the name of Russia’s president; “medved” means “bear)?

An overview of Voina’s coolest performances with YouTube videos can be found here. Naturally, they keep being arrested and every member of the group faces several charges of public indecency, disturbance etc. ‘Human rights’ is a very rarely used phrase in Russia. You mess with a cop, even a mall one – you get beaten up, that’s it.

Europe meets Voina

But when Voina extended their artistic and social experiment to Europe, that’s where it got really interesting. One of their latest performances is titled ‘Revolution in a supermarket’. They wander into a large supermarket and just start eating stuff off the shelves. When the security people approach, Voina tells them that they are poor and homeless and they need to eat something otherwise they die of hunger. Thus they test the level of social cohesion and empathy in each country and simultaneously protest against the community-destroying advance of soulless superstores. This happened all over Europe to vastly different results. The most violent and abusive reactions were, naturally, in Russia and Ukraine, while in a Sainsburys here in London nobody even raised an eyebrow. Probably they are reasonable enough to understand that even if a whole regiment of crazy Russian performance artists descends on their store and starts stuffing themselves with discounted chicken tikkas, it still won’t even put a dent on the amount of food the store just throws away every day. Or they just don’t care.

Would you like to see Voina in your local supermarket? Photo credit: Voina

But there was one episode that really, really fucked up everybody’s perception of Western Europe as a calm, safe and human rights-conscious place. There is a town in Dutch-speaking Belgium called Leuven. There, Plutser and his wife Yana were not only violently interrupted duruing their ‘homeless and hungry Russian immigrant’ act – they were detained and, wait for it, escorted to a judge at gunpoint while handcuffed. They are now charged with robbery and facing eight months in jail and being subjected to the worst Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare imaginable. All of this for eating a couple of sandwiches.

So this is basically a letter of support to them. Come on Belgium, seriously! Don’t mess with Angry Russians who are also radical performance artists. Something tells me you have worse problems with real immigrants to worry about.