Pussy Riot’s Masha Alyokhina has a message for Donald Trump: “The United States started from refugees.”

The Russian activist was standing on a busy San Francisco street corner late Friday night, taking a drag of her cigarette and chatting with adoring fans who wanted to take selfies, offer her weed and talk political resistance.

“It’s very strange to have a main concept in politics to send out all the refugees,” she told the Guardian after finishing a frenetic musical performance that recounted her journey, from activism to hiding from police and eventually facing solitary confinement for singing about Vladimir Putin. “If you forget your history, you will make the same mistakes.”

If you forget your history, you will make the same mistakes Masha Alyokhina

The 28-year-old member of the feminist punk collective came to California for the premiere of Revolution, a Pussy Riot theater piece. The performance retold the 2012 political performance in a Moscow cathedral that landed her nearly two years in prison.

San Francisco offered a fitting setting for the jam-packed, hour-long event, which featured a percussive narration and reenactment by Alyokhina and three other performers, accompanied by footage of the Pussy Riot protest and trial. Large demonstrations and protest art have become commonplace in the Golden State, a leader in the resistance to Trump where many protesters are quick to note his praise of Putin and possible ties to Russia, which stands accused of interfering with the 2016 election.

“The most dangerous censorship is self censorship,” she told the crowd. “Freedom doesn’t exist unless you fight for it every day.”

The Revolution, based on a forthcoming book by Alyokhina called I Felt Free, mocked Putin and delved into the dangers of oppression, censorship and propaganda, offering unavoidable parallels to Trump, who has called the press the “enemy of the American people” and blacklisted news outlets.

“We need Pussy Riot in America more than ever,” said Michael Kasian, a 31-year-old writer in the crowd, who wore a Pussy Riot T-shirt and brought Russian vodka to the show. “I really admire their balls.”



“And their pussies!” a woman next to him chimed in.

Alyokhina, who wore a black dress and her signature balaclava, in a shade of bright pink, narrated in Russian as translations projected on a screen behind her, with anti-Putin messages that could easily stand in for rallying cries in the era of Trump: “Show the freedom of civic anger” and “You don’t represent me.” Practical advice for activists also flashed on the screen: “Destroy your sim card,” “Find a lawyer” and “Don’t go online from home.”

Pussy Riot rebuked Trump last year with a song, Straight Outta Vagina, and when it took on the Kremlin and the criminal justice system with a satirical pop video. But Revolution, performed at the Regency in San Francisco in a church-like venue that evoked the Moscow cathedral, had repeated dark undertones.

Revolution by Pussy Riot Theatre. Photograph: Glen Casebeer

Alyokhina recounted degrading strip searches, isolation from other prisoners and chants of “burn the witches” at the trial. In one jarring sequence about incarceration, a performer made high-pitched screeches as Alyokhina walked slowly through the crowd smoking a cigarette.

At another point, a performer repeatedly doused the crowd in cold water.

Irene Becklund, a San Francisco startup worker who sat in the front row of the historic ballroom, said it seemed possible that Trump’s America could soon resemble Putin’s Russia.



“America can go backwards really easily,” said the 32-year-old, who moved from Moscow to the US when she was 12 years old. “Americans are a little naive about the reality of political corruption. To me, it’s like no fucking shit.”

The choice is very simple – to act or to stay silent. What we are showing is just one small example Masha Alyokhina

Kate Blood, a 58-year-old woman in the crowd who said she is “not a punk rocker”, said she could imagine Trump targeting critics. “I tweet directly to Trump. I joke to my friends, ‘Will you come visit me in jail?

Shona Mitchell, a 41-year-old public school educator, showed up wearing a pink “pussy hat”, one of more than 20 she made for the recent women’s march against Trump: “Pussy Riot to me is the vanguard of artists as revolutionaries. They’ve been a big touchstone for me in the past year of political turmoil in renaming and reclaiming the arts as protest.”

Alyokhina avoided directly discussing Trump in the performance, but in the interview afterward, she said she was dismayed by anti-immigrant policies and noted that the project’s director, Yury Muravitsky, was unable to get a visa to travel to the US.

People have to unite in opposition, she said: “The only way to overcome things like nationalism or racism or sexism, it’s possible only together.”

In 2017, there must be a “cultural revolution”, Alyokhina added. “The choice is very simple – to act or to stay silent. What we are showing is just one small example.”