Uncooperative. Three street musicians jailed in St Petersburg for performing songs by artists critical of the Kremlin

The band has gained a significant online following for performing songs by popular Russian artists who have been designated by the Kremlin as “foreign agents” for their opposition to the government and the war in Ukraine.

Videos of Naoko singing tracks by artists such as Noize MC, Monetochka, and the band Pornofilmy have gone viral, with the musicians using their Telegram channel to announce their impromptu concerts.

Their setlist features Noize MC’s “Swan Lake Cooperative,” a song whose very title is an act of political satire. It references both the exclusive “Ozero” (“Lake”) dacha cooperative founded by Vladimir Putin and his circle before their rise to power, and the ballet “Swan Lake,” which the USSR would broadcast to signal a leader’s death. A Russian court banned the song in May, deploying impeccable bureaucratese to claim it “uses humiliating and offensive characterisations that can be identified with a figure symbolising the people of the Russian Federation”.

This is not the band’s first encounter with law enforcement. The musicians were detained after a similar performance in August, ostensibly for a “noise violation”, and were released after being fined. At the time, they vowed not to alter their setlist. “Of course, we will continue to busk, because we are not scared and not broken,” Loginova stressed.

Naoko was detained on October 15 and spent the night in the 78th police station before two administrative offence reports were filed against her the following morning. The other two band members, Leontyev and Orlov, were arrested when they voluntarily went to the same police station for questioning in connection with Loginova’s detention. All three then spent a night in custody.

The prosecution’s case against the trio was reportedly based on the testimony of a single witness, 28-year-old Mikhail Nikolaev, who told security forces he had happened upon their performance by chance while walking home from work. He claimed that on October 11, a crowd of 70 people had gathered to listen, thereby disrupting “traffic and public order”. Rotonda, a St Petersburg outlet, notes that his name and date of birth match the name of MYSLI, a local rap artist.

During her hearing, Loginova insisted she had not organised anything. She argued the performance was spontaneous and that the audience had not obstructed any passersby. Her defence also pointed out a glaring inconsistency in the police report: it initially cited the violation as occurring on October 13. When Loginova noted at the station that she had not performed that day, officers simply crossed out the date and wrote October 11 in front of her.

The hearing for the drummer, Vladislav Leontyev, was similarly strange. The court’s sole witness was the police officer who drew up the report, who admitted he had forgotten to sign it “due to being overworked and inattentive”. The court denied the defence’s requests to question other witnesses, including the other band members, the arresting officers, and even Leontyev’s father, who had volunteered to fight in the war in Ukraine. Leontyev confirmed he was playing the drums but maintained he had disturbed no one, noting that no complaints were ever made by the public or nearby businesses.

The final hearing, for the guitarist Alexander Orlov, was held behind closed doors. Court bailiffs barred the press and public from the courtroom, claiming that the court’s official working hours were over.