“Things are not that different, surprisingly, for our countries,” muses Nadya Tolokonnikova, leader of notorious Russian feminist punk/art collective Pussy Riot. “It’s not the easiest time right now, and sometimes I find myself in political depression. It’s not always easy, but I know it’s not easy for our people in other countries as well. You [Americans] got your own s***.”

This comment, of course, leads to a conversation about the reportedly chummy relationship between President Trump and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, of which Tolokonnikova says: “I think it’s harmful for the world politics, this trend of authoritarian leaders and so-called strong hands, but I think in fact just a really insecure bunch of men who are trying to hide their insecurities with their machismo. So, I don’t really feel like it’s good it became a trend.” However, she adds on a more positive note, “But I see that people are really ready to resist. I was in the United States when Women’s March happened. … I loved the spirit of it, and I loved that people of even different views sometimes, or different political views, decided to join each other to protest against Trump. That’s something that we have to relearn, I guess, how to make our governments accountable for what they’re doing.”

Tolokonnikova is visiting Yahoo’s Los Angeles headquarters to promote Pussy Riot’s first-ever live U.S. concerts at L.A.’s Lodge Room and Bootleg Theater, followed by an onstage conversation with Chelsea Manning and Laurie Anderson at Houston’s Day for Night festival. These momentous events take place five years after Pussy Riot became an international cause célèbre, when Tolokonnikova and four other Pussy Riot members were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to jail for two years for staging a “sacrilegious” protest performance at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Now, even after that horrific ordeal, Tolokonnikova’s spirit and sense of humor are very much intact, and she chucklingly admits that during her incident-free stateside concerts this month, she hasn’t felt the same rush of adrenaline that she gets when playing guerrilla events in her native land. “Because if you are an artist who has strong political beliefs in Russia, you cannot really expect that you will go to venue and you will play the whole show without being shut down!”

Pussy Riot perform their first U.S show in Los Angeles. (Photo: Consequence of Sound) More

Surprisingly, Tolokonnikova still resides in Moscow. (“I feel like home is a big thing for me, and Russian culture and Russian language. Our art is tied with Russian politics. The reason why we started to do what we had started because we want to get rid of Putin, because we want to change our country, because we want to live our lives in a crazy, colorful, punk way and not being persecuted because of that. We still think it’s achievable. We still have hopes.”) However, she has spent a good deal of time recording music in America and therefore has a unique vantage point when it comes to U.S. politics and art. In May 2016, she even donned Trump drag for Pussy Riot’s prescient, Jonas Akerlund-directed “Make America Great Again” music video, a darkly humorous depiction of a Trump dictatorship; however, when the video came out before the presidential election, it suddenly seemed less amusing.

“I didn’t want to predict it [the election], I didn’t,” Tolokonnikova says of the controversial video, “but I felt like people are not treating elections here seriously enough. I’m not American, and I don’t live in America, so I may be wrong about it. But I just felt like Hillary Clinton supporters, people who are standing for progressive values, they weren’t concerned enough with this threat that were coming from far-right Republicans and from Donald Trump himself. I think a lot more things could be done and a lot more bridges could be built.”

Story continues