Since February 6 we’ve been fighting with RIA Novosti, the state
news agency, to publish my interview. The agency asked us for it back
in late December, on the 22nd. Only on the 19th of January did they
send me questions, which the culture section took a whole month to
draft and approve. On February 6, a journalist named Svetlana Yankina
got the interview on the condition that it would be published without
cuts or censorship. The condition was accepted. But after their
newsroom got our answers, they started an endless “approval” process,
which involved the editors sending requests to throw out the brighter
remarks and totally remove all of the substantive parts of the
interview. The editors started sending cowardly missives. “…since I am
the interviewer, it turns out that I knew ahead of time about the
actions you were preparing and did not inform the relevant
authorities. Therefore, I am a co-conspirator. This creates risks not
only for me, but for the agency where I work. That is why I suggest
removing these fragments… Please understand, we are not talking about
censorship.”
And all kinds of crap like that.

A month later, we were forced to published the interview without the foul censorship the RIA Novosti news agency had attempted.

the Berlin biennale Artur Zhmievsky before he invited you to take part in the group of curators.

Vor: Yes, we met in the spring of 2011 in Petersburg. And his offer to become a co-curator of the BB came that summer. Zmiy (Artur Zmievsky) came to Petersburg once more after that. We swam in the Neva river and kept working together after that.

Vor and Zmiy in the Neva

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Anna Nemtsova Jan 6, 2012 4:45 AM EST

An art collective put a phallus on a bridge and burnt a police truck on New Year’s Eve. Can they truly call their protests art?

For a group of artists, academics, and philosophers from Moscow and St. Petersburg, the war against the Russian government started six years ago, when the group formed an underground art club called Voina (which means “the war”). Their aim: declare war against police abuse and the government’s highly publicized authoritarian methods.

On May 29, 2009, Voina’s members carried guitars, amplifiers, and microphones to a federal courtroom during the hearing of Andrei Yerofeyev, a Russian curator being prosecuted for his Forbidden Art exhibition. They then performed a song called “All Cops Are Bastards” in front of the judge. Later, they projected a 120-foot-high skull-and-crossbones symbol onto the Russian White House, in what they called a warning message for corrupt authorities. In the summer of 2010, Voina artists painted an enormous phallus on the 200-foot-tall Leteyny drawbridge in St. Petersburg a few minutes before it elevated—in full view of the headquarters of the FSB, the successor of the KGB Voina proclaimed that the phallus was aroused by the hierarchy of Putin’s power.

Voina sees its role as a bellwether for Russia’s mass conscience, and by all accounts, Russian hipsters have enjoyed the group’s radical freedom of expression, with other guerilla performance artists joining in the subversive protest mission. In fact, for the past six years, many members of Russia’s more mainstream political opposition groups have sympathized with Voina’s unconventional methods.

That changed on New Year’s Eve, when Voina’s activists dedicated what they called “a street performance” to the group’s imprisoned members and all Russian political prisoners. They burned a police truck in the courtyard of a St. Petersburg police station, devoting their “fire gift” to Russian political prisoners.

A video claims to show members of Voina setting vehicles on fire in the courtyard of a St. Petersburg police station

As with all the previous projects by the art guerillas, a detailed description, photos, and a video of the act (arson, in this case)—was uploaded to a Web page by one of Voina’s ideologues, Alex Plucer–Sarno. In an email interview with The Daily Beast, the underground artists confirmed that on New Year’s Eve, Voina’s leader, Oleg Vorotnikov, took his 9-months-pregnant wife, Natalya Sokol; their 2-year-old son, Kasper; and Voina activist Leonid Nikolayev, dressed in a Russian Santa Claus costume, to burn the police truck. These are the same types of trucks that have transported each of the protesters to jail at least once.

“What do people normally get for a New Year’s gift? Shampoo? Or a bottle of whisky? Imagine, you are powerless, locked up in jail, and somebody gives you a gorgeous, fiery present,” Vorotnikov explained. As many as 20 legal cases have been filed against Voina group activists, and yet, says Vorotnikov, “We are up for the war. The war begins right now.” If burning a police truck is art, one might ask, then what is war?

Russian opposition leaders and civil-society figures see Voina’s act of arson as damaging and disturbing to the current political situation. Over the past few weeks, tens of thousands of Russian activists have taken to the streets in Moscow and other cities to protest against Putin’s domination of Russian politics. To Boris Nemtsov, one of the more conventional opposition leaders, Voina’s radical act has served to undermine the peaceful movement that has awakened in Russia since last month’s reportedly falsified election results.

“Half a year ago, when the country’s protest was deeply asleep, I would understand Voina,” Nemtsov says. “But today, when 100,000 people protest against the Kremlin on the streets, Voina gives Putin good reason to say, ‘See, they are nothing but criminals,’ about the opposition in general.”

One of the inspiring figures behind Moscow’s mass anti-Putin protests, theater critic and satirist Victor Shenderovich, long ago stopped seeing the antics by Voina as aesthetically attractive. “Voina’s latest performances—turning police cars upside down on Palace Square, spraying police with urine, or burning police trucks—look tasteless from an artistic point of view, unlike their previous art projects.” Shenderovich said that by burning the police truck, Voina performed an act of trivial hooliganism at a delicate historical moment for Russian opposition.

To Vorotnikov and his wife, aesthetics and diplomacy have long ceased being a part of the discussion. Since they take their 2-year-old son with them to each “action,” Kaspar has been detained by police three times; once, last spring, Kaspar was injured when a police officer grabbed him out of his father’s hands. Vorotnikov said that on Nov. 15, 2010, several police officers broke into the Moscow apartment where the Voina family was staying with friends and threatened to send Kaspar into social services. According to Sokol, police confiscated her passport, medical insurance document, driver’s license, and her Moscow State University employee’s certificate—leaving her without any legal documents or access to neonatal care when she gives birth later this month.

Despite the arrests and public outrage, Voina’s war goes on. The group deals selectively with unknown underground civil leaders and anti-fascist and anti-Kremlin Left Front–movement activists, sticking to its agenda of overturning Putin’s regime. It would seem that Voina should be happy about the mass rallies all across the country and opposition declaring the same goals as Voina. But that’s hardly the case. The group’s activists feel frustrated with the opposition. “The opposition leaders compromise with the Kremlin, they discredit the spirit of protest, people’s anger. The opposition’s goal is to become a part of the existing system and not to fight it,” Vorotnikov says, sarcastically complimenting the authorities for “allowing” the protests, so people’s anger “flies out of the chimney, like a puff of steam.”

If burning a police truck is art, one might ask, then what is war?

Internationally, Voina’s ideology—defined by the group as “an anti-consumerist lifestyle marked by alternative living strategies, such as dumpster diving”—is publicized more significantly worldwide than it is at home. Giant “Voina Wanted” banners can be seen in the U.S., the U.K., and Germany. As German film director Artur Zmijewski, a Voina supporter at the Berlin Biennale, put it, “Art is free, and Voina activists are not just saying words, they act to prove the idea.”

Last November, the Berlin Biennale appointed Voina’s activists, including Vorotnikov,  Sokol, and their son, as the festival’s curators. That, of course, was before they burnt the police truck.

Source: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/06/russian-protesters-use-art-as-act-of-war.html

By Sergey Chernov


Vorotnikov holds his son as they stand in front of a police vehicle similar to the one Voina claims to have set on fire

St. Petersburg law enforcers have filed a new criminal case against award-winning Voina art group for burning down an armored police truck on New Year’s Eve. They also addressed the group, whose activists are in hiding, via news web site Fontanka.ru late last week.
Late on Dec. 31, a Voina activist climbed over a fence surrounding Police Precinct No. 71 on the Petro- grad Side and set fire to a massive Ural truck using Molotov cocktails as an art stunt called “Cop’s Auto- Da-Fe, or Fucking Prometheus,” Voina spokesman and chronicler Alexei Plutser-Sarno said on his Livejournal.com blog.
The statement said the armored Ural police truck was targeted because it was a prison-on-wheels used for holding and transporting detainees.
“This is our modest New Year present to political prisoners from a group of artists,” Voina’s Oleg Vorotnikov said in an email interview this week.

“It’s undisputable that political prisoners are forgotten by Russian society — because they remain locked up in prisons. Political prisoners have become the norm in Russia, and this norm is a despicable crime of the state and its cowardly and indifferent citizens.”

According to Vorotnikov, the group came up with the idea of “giving the gift of a burning prisoner truck” when activist Filipp Kostenko, who spent 15 days in custody after being arrested at the Dec. 6 protest against electoral fraud, was arrested right in the detention center as soon as his term had finished on Dec. 21 and was sentenced for another 15 days on what he called fake charges.
Vorotnikov believes that “Cop’s Auto-Da-Fe” had an immediate ef- fect: The court declined to put Kostenko in a pre-trial detention center at the end of his second prison term on Jan. 4 until his next court hearing due on Jan. 29, despite the investiga- tors’ request for it to do so. Kostenko was released on Jan. 5 after spending 30 days in custody.

“There are characters who act arrogantly and pretend to be kings, annoying everybody and interfering with everyone’s life — but only until the first hurdle,” Vorotnikov said.
“Once they are given a rap on their forehead, such characters quiet down and start behaving respectfully and politely. Such are the cops from the political police in Russia.
“Let them talk now about what methods are more efficient; peaceful dances in condoms at rallies [a reference to music critic Artyom Troitsky, who spoke at a Moscow antifraud rally in December wearing a condom costume] or the smell of fresh napalm at night.”

Published on Jan. 2, Plutser-Sarno’s posting included photos and a video of the arson. As the news made headlines, later on Jan. 2 the police issued a statement saying that the damage was “minor” and that an investigation into the cause of the fire was underway. The police pointed out that a similar blaze in a police car last year originally reported to be arson was in reality caused by a short circuit.
On Friday, however, the police said that a criminal case into “hooliganism” or criminal mischief (Article 213 of the Russian penal code) had been filed over the incident, and addressed Voina via Fontanka.ru, a local news web site that has police ties.
According to the site, the police suggested that the artists should come to a Petrograd Side police pre- cinct, get in touch with the investigator in charge of the case and “present their artistic views.” “In turn, the police officers promise to pass the results of these conversations to journalists in full,” Fontanka.ru continued, sarcastically.
“We are not interested in the cops’ proposal,” Vorotnikov said in an email Monday.

“We don’t feel that we have any lack of communication with journal- ists. We can always arrange a press conference if we need to make a di- rect statement.”
Vorotnikov reminded police that his wife Natalya “Kozlyonok” Sokol and their two-year-old son Kasper had been beaten by plainclothes po- licemen after a Voina press confer- ence in March.
Meanwhile, the group said that a criminal case against its members for the Palace Revolution art stunt, which involved overturning a parked police car in St. Petersburg in Sep- tember 2010, had been closed for the second time.
The case, which charged Vorot- nikov and Leonid Nikolayev with hooliganism motivated by hatred to- ward a social group, was originally closed in mid-October after Herzen Pedagogical University experts came to the conclusion that the police is not a “social group.”

However, the case was reopened two weeks later after the prosecutor’s office repealed the investigators’ de- cision. Voina reported that it had found out Sunday that investigator Vadim Rud closed the case for a sec- ond time as early as Dec. 1.
Vorotnikov and Nikolayev spent three-and-a-half months in pre-trial detention after they were arrested in Moscow in November 2010, but were released on bail — 300,000 rubles ($9,455) each — paid from a dona- tion made by British street artist Banksy, who learned about the legal charges facing the group via the BBC.
In April, two separate criminal cases against Voina activists — Voro- tnikov and his wife Sokol — were filed after the activists were detained during a protest march to City Hall held on March 31. They were charged with disorderly conduct, using vio- lence against a police officer and in- sulting a police officer. Later, inter- national arrest warrants were issued for the two.
Voina’s lawyer Dmitry Dinze said Tuesday that investigators had not been in touch with the art group, two members of which have been issued with international ar- rest warrants over the new criminal case, Interfax reported. Dinze added that they lacked any evi- dence on the case besides the activ- ists’ claims.
On Tuesday, the human rights as- sociation Agora said in a press release that Dinze had found himself under surveillance.

“I have been constantly and closely watched by two men over the past three days,” he was quoted as saying. “As soon as I cometothecity—Igotoacafé,they go there too. I go to a movie theater, they follow me there.”

Publications: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/voinas-new-year-gift-for-police/450949.html

Kozlenok and Kasper

Oleg Vorotnikov states:

“My wife and Voina activist Natalya Sokol lives without any ID for one year now. Her passport was confiscated by policemen from the Special Service against Extremism North Western Federal Department. They also confiscated her travel passport, her driver license, her Moscow State University ID as scientific assistant and her health insurance ID.
 
Besides countless minor problems, this means that Natalya cannot get medical care for her two year old son Kasper, because there is no written proof that she is his mother.
 
She cannot vote. On the 4th of December there was a parlament election she couldn’t take part in.
 
Her fundamental rights are being violated. To move within the country and even use public transport is impossible for her and her son – IDs are necessary everywhere.
 
The child’s benefit for Kasper was also withdrawn.
 
All petitions were rejected by the investigating officer and by the Department of Public Prosecution.
 
The reason given for the rejection of all the petitions: the confiscated documents and objects are of interest for the investigation of criminal case number 276858.
 
Since neither Natalya nor Kasper were officially involved in this criminal case, it seems to be illegal to confiscate their documents, and this confiscation appears to be a form of pressure on the relatives of the accused.”

 
Natalya Sokol states:

“A lawyer petitioned on my request to the investigating officer Mr. Borodavkin for the return of my documents and for the return of benefits for my son Kasper.
 
The petition was rejected (there should be a copy among all the materials of the case at the police).
 
I sent a second petition to the investigator officer Mr. Petrov in early February via regular mail and still haven’t got a reply.”

Source: http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/?p=17361

interview
BY ANNIE RUTHERFORD @
12/12/11

With organisers saying that almost 100, 000 people protested in Russia’s biggest anti-governmental rally on 10 December - accusing the kremlin of ‘fraud’ in 4 December parliamentary elections - we hear from the Moscow-based self-styled ‘street art gang’ in part two of an exclusive interview, where they describe their role in this Russia.

VOINA Group

What do you think about the reactions in the media to your actions? What’s the biggest cliché you’ve heard about the group?

Koza (the group’s coordinator Natalia Sokol): There’s a great number of myths about Voina circulating in the media. Any given publication is 30% gossip and hearsay, even though we are always available and open to communication with journalists. The thing is, there is no honest, independent journalism in Russia. It has been eradicated. On the other hand, the misinformation in the media sometimes works in our favour. It helps to have a cloud of lies surrounding you when the state is attempting criminal persecution against you.

Leo (the group’s president, Leonid Nikolaev): The biggest cliche is that we are simply spoiled ‘golden youth’, rich party kids whose powerful parents keep us out of trouble. In truth, we a leading a deeply underground existence, living the honest lives of Russian paupers.

Voina’s action | ‘Help a child, help your country!’

What do you think or Russian politics today? And of Russian culture?

Vor (the group’s ideologist Oleg Vorotnikov): There is no politics in Russia today. The so-called parliamentary opposition as a whole is entirely tame and controlled. The communists have long turned into prostitutes who whore themselves out to the regime. The non-parliamentary street opposition has been wiped from the streets, crushed, its activists thrown behind bars or physically exterminated by riot police and by the infamous police department ‘center E’, the anti-extremism department, which has assumed the role of secret police tasked with suppressing political dissent. The list of activists and journalists in Russia who have been killed, maimed or imprisoned is ever growing.

Then there are the so-called liberals, a bourgeois crowd, self-proclaimed as part of the opposition. All they do is hang out and organise festivals in their own honour, all sanctioned by the president’s administration. They enjoy themselves at country resorts where they hold their conferences, and they call it protest activity. They’re nothing more than trendy kids, clutching their iPhones as they discuss the revolution on twitter. They aren’t interesting to anyone but themselves yet for the regime they are very convenient. The underground protest movement is now on the rise. It is made up of activists who no longer see any promise in peaceful protest methods. They are extremely secretive and have serious ambitions. They are forming underground squads and groups that would oppose the regime by force. Peaceful protest has exhausted itself.

Leo: In the years of Putin’s rule (2000 - 2008 - ed), the regime has discredited peaceful protests through violent crackdowns on harmless rallies, and through beatings and long prison sentences for peaceful activists. On the other hand, the adherents of peaceful protest have been discrediting themselves for a long time. They have failed to find a way to make their protest effective. There is only one way for true opposition in today’s Russia: WAR, or VOINA.

Do you also see positive trends in Russia today?

Vor: Yes. The things germinating in the underground right now are unknown activists who are the only people we work with. All of our thoughts and deeds belong to Russia. However, I’m not at all sure that Russia has a future. Only in the best case scenario would it be able to continue its existence as a country without the need for human sacrifice. That is the most optimistic projection.

What artists do you admire?

Leo: There’s no sense talking about artists. Our art tastes are irrelevant. Art did affect us when we were students, it helped shape us but it isn’t central to our lives anymore.

Koza: We don’t care about art anymore. We’re politicians, fighters.

Where do you see yourselves in ten years time?

Vor: I’m not sure that I will live that long. The path of a Russian activist is tragic. Once you’re engaged in actions, you don’t belong to this world anymore. You belong to actionism.

Leo: I am confident that the regime will choke on us. We’re inedible. We’re poisonous fruit.

Koza: In October the criminal investigation against Voina was closed. Suddenly the public prosecutor’s office decides to reopen it. There’s an international arrest warrant out against Vor. I’m wanted by the police country-wide (Voina’s Koza has just been declared an internationally wanted person. She’s being charged with insulting a police officer and violence against a police officer). On 18 October, Kasper and I were abducted from the street by Center E operatives The system has been working towards taking away our son since November 2010. We’re seeing more and more charges being brought against Voina members. Our activists in St. Petersburg are being detained on a regular basis, their homes invaded by cops who destroy their personal possessions in faux searches. Just a few days ago, two plain-clothes cops (most likely Center E agents) broke into Leo’s home in Moscow. Leo was clear of any criminal charges at the time. The majority of our members have already abandoned their homes and resorted to an underground existence.

Vor: Ten years does not mean anything to us. We belong to history.

Source: http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/39526/russia-voina-street-art-interview-activism-beliefs.html

interview
BY ANNIE RUTHERFORD @
05/12/11

The Moscow-based self-styled ‘street art gang’ formed in 2005. Its four main members consist of president Leonid Nikolaev - who was arrested at an ‘election fraud protest rally’ on 5 December - ideologist Oleg Vorotnikov, coordinator Natalia Sokol and her son and Voina’s youngest activist, two-year-old Kasper Can’t-Take-Our-Eyes-Off-Him Sokol. Part one of an exclusive interview marks their brief history.

VOINA Group

How did ‘Voina’ start?

Vor (aka Oleg Vorotnikov): I graduated in philosophy from Moscow state university (MSU). Koza has a PhD in physics and she is affiliated with the sub-department of molecular physics at MSU. Leo is the only one without a college degree. He’s just naturally gifted. I envy him a little bit. Koza and I had been living off the grid in Moscow for ten years and had renounced the use of money for seven of those. We declared that food is a right, not a privilege, and so refused to spend money on it. In fact we never paid for anything at all. We were interested in social practices in the urban space, the ‘how’ of living in one of the world’s most expensive cities while refusing everything that is being forced on us as necessary. Gradually, we renounced everything ‘human’: a home, wealth, jobs, careers. In Moscow, all of those niceties depended in one way or another on loyalty to the current regime, which can only be characterised as cannibalistic. We loathed the regime. We lived in attics and we spent nights in hallways and classrooms of the university. In summer we slept on the streets. We call it the ‘no-whoring way’.

Koza (Natalia Sokol aka Kozlenok): This way of life eventually produced our first exhibition of street practices, which took place in the cult art centre DOM in Moscow. The exhibition’s opening in May 2006 marks the starting point of Voina’s public existence as a street art gang. Our adventurous, criminal life received an aesthetic formulation. I named the group after my man. ‘Vor’ sounds like ‘war’, and ‘war’ in Russian is ‘Voina‘.

Vor: Our whole life is also an endless war, a war against philistinism.

Leo the fucknut (aka Leonid Nikolaev): Our main enemies are the corrupt police and the Russian regime, as the epitome of aggressive philistinism. In the Russian criminal culture, there’s a word for an aggressive philistine: zhlob. It’s the zhlobs who are in power in today’s Russia. They are cops in priest’s cassocks. They have hijacked the country just to be able to stuff their pockets with dirty money. Essentially it’s a triumph of police state mentality and right-wing reactionism under the guise of faux patriotism. A zhlob’s kingdom. So we are against zhlobs.

Voina is made up of over 200 activists. Is there also a core to the group?

Vor: The backbone of the group, its ideological core is just a handful of people. Right now there are 13 of them. The devil’s dozen. I call them the real leaders of Voina. Kasper is our youngest activist. He was born on 19 April 2009 and has participated in every single one of our actions since then. His first action was Voina’s punk concert in the Tagansky court in Moscow on 29 May 2009. This took place during the trial of art curators Andrei Yerofeev and Yuri Samodurov who were being prosecuted for organising the Forbidden Art exhibition at the Sakharov museum. We smuggled in electric guitars, a microphone and an amplifier into the courtroom. Then we interrupted the judge with a live performance of the song All Cops Are Bastards. Koza screamed into the microphone while holding the one-month-old Kasper in her arms.

Kaspar’s first action: | improvised concert in the courtroom

Leo: Kasper is Russia’s youngest political prisoner. He has been arrested three times by the Russian police in connection with our activity. On 31 March 2011 the police arrested Kasper in the street on Nevsky Avenue in the heart of St. Petersburg. They yanked him from his parents’ arms by force and sent him to a hospital as an unidentified child.

Have you ever lived outside Russia?

Leo: We are Russian people. I have never travelled abroad and I’m not planning to. There is war to destruction underway in today’s Russia. The regime is wiping out the Russian people. A significant number of people, especially well-educated folk, have already left the country after trying unsuccessfully to succeed here. The life plans of dozens of millions of people who stayed in Russia have failed to materialise. The regime is to blame for this. That’s why I can’t leave the country. For me, the front line lies here.

Source:  http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/article/39505/voina-russia-art-collective-interview-biography.html

DER SPIEGEL №51/2011
By Walter Mayr in St. Petersburg

Members of the Russian art collective Voina are supposed to serve as associate curators for the 2012 Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, which begins this spring in Germany. Voina’s work is drawing attention around the world,  but international arrest warrants have been issued for two of the its leaders.

Voina in town

The message arrives at the last minute via email, and the tone is commanding. Meeting place: McDonald’s. The conditions: No mobile phones or recording devices. The meeting time: now.

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Philip Kostenko in his 10th day of hunger strike

St. Petersburg activist Philip Kostenko, who has been on a hunger strike since December 6th to protest his 15-day jail sentence, was sentenced today to 15 more days in jail.

Philip was initially arrested on December 6th for participating in a peaceful rally against electoral fraud. His first jail term expired yesterday, December 21st. However, instead of being released, he was taken straight to a police station, where he was detained on new charges. The court hearing on those charges was scheduled for today.

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Artur Żmijewski appointed the Voina group from Russia and Joanna Warsza from Warsaw as Associate Curators, who will work together to develop the concept and program of the 7th Berlin Biennale.


Vor and Żmij on the Neva River

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Index on Censorship magazine (The Art Issue, Vol 40, NO. 3 2011):

Widespread frustration with the establishment has fostered a brand of political street art that’s taking the country by storm. Nick Sturdee reports

Scandal goes down well in the art world, and the organisers of this April’s prestigious state Innovation art award in Moscow clearly decided to make the most of their moment. The queues outside the cavernous Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture – Konstantin Melnikov’s 1927 constructivist bus depot refurbished as a gallery for Dasha Zhukova, Roman Abramovich’s wife, and graced by Amy Winehouse at its opening in 2008 – were to be expected; so of course were the chic crowd and the TV cameras. But the on-stage video installation of revolution in Cairo, Japanese tsunami, and London student riots – accompanied by epic dissonant swells and jabbing chords, lyrics shouted by a male voice choir and an albino’s falsetto solo – was an unmistakable statement. We live in momentous times, Russia is no exception (or hopes not to be) and Russian art is ready for the challenge.

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