When cameras captured members of Pussy Riot getting pepper sprayed, whipped and bloodied by Russian militiamen on Wednesday, the punk activist collective reacted how you might expect: They used the footage for a music video.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina, who have become the faces of Pussy Riot, appear with several other brightly-dressed, balaclava mask-wearing protesters in the video for their song, "Putin will teach you how to love the motherland," which was uploaded to YouTube Wednesday evening.
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The video's release came just hours after Cossack militia members, an auxiliary police force in the region, broke up a Pussy Riot protest staged in front of a wall painted with a promotion for the Winter Olympics about 21 miles from where the games are taking place in Sochi, Russia. The group appears to have been capturing footage for the video during the protest.
Photos show that the Pussy Riot members continued to film the video after the encounter with the militia. This photo of the group in front of the Olympic rings, which appears in the video, was recorded after the altercation.
Later on Wednesday, Tolokonnikova and Alekhina tweeted pictures as they lay in hospital beds, presumably recovering from injuries suffered in the scrum with the Cossacks.
Лежим с Надей на соседних койках в больнице. pic.twitter.com/3BjMR1QS1x— Мария Алехина (@MashaAlekhina) February 19, 2014
The tweet above translates as, "Nadia lie in adjacent beds in the hospital."
The song in the music video opens with 30 seconds of delicate music-box melodies before transforming with a shrilling guitar into a driving punk anthem.
The lyrics lament the treatment of political dissidents, specifically the group that has become known as the May 6 protesters, which was arrested for anti-Putin demonstrations when the Russian President reassumed the office in 2012. The protesters have been held in captivity ever since, and the sentencing is expected to take place later this month.
The song also takes aim at the Olympics with lyrics such as "Sochi is blocked / Olympic surveillance." The full lyrics to the song, as posted on the video's description on YouTube, are copied below.
50 billion and a gay-driven rainbow,
Rodnina and Kabaeva will pass you those flames
In prison they will teach you how to obey
Salut to all bosses, hail, duce!
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
Sochi is blocked -- Olympic surveillance
Special forces, weapons, crowds of cops
FSB is an argument, the police is an argumentState TV will run your applause.
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
Spring to Russia comes suddenly
Hello to the messiah as a shot from Avrora
The prosecutor will put you down
Give him some reaction and not those pretty eyes
A cage for the protests, vodka, matrioshka
Prison for May 6, more vodka and caviar
The Constitution is lynched, Vitishko's in prison
Stability, the prison meal, the fence and the watchtower
For TV Rain they've shut down the airwaves
They took gay pride down the washroom
A two-ass toilet -- a priority
Sentence to Russia, medium security, 6 years
Putin will teach you how to love the motherland
The motherland
The motherland
The motherland