Punk band war. Leader of the scandalous art group “War”: “We ended up in hell…. "Moscow faction" art group

The art group "War" became the curator of the a special dinner in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Kunstwerke Institute, organizer of the Berlin Biennale. Since 2013, the leader of the Voina art group, Oleg Vorotnikov, nicknamed the Thief, and his family have been living abroad. In November 2010 - February 2011, Vorotnikov was in a pre-trial detention center in St. Petersburg for participating in the "Palace Coup" action. , during which the participants of the “War” overturned several police cars in St. Petersburg.

In May 2011, Vorotnikov and his wife Natalya Sokol, nicknamed Koza, were announced in Federal criminal investigation. The reason was again their participation in the “Palace Coup” action, as well asparticipation in the opposition march on March 31, 2011 in the Northern capital.In July of the same year, Oleg Vorotnikov was put on the international criminal wanted list and arrested in absentia.

While abroad they went through many trials, they were arrested more than once as illegal immigrants, they were beaten by local human rights activists. At some point the Goat and the Thief, whom the Western media considered ardent oppositionists, became disillusioned with the myth of a free Europe and began giving patriotic and pro-Russian interviews.

Now the life of “War” is gradually improving: the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic Karel Schwarzenberg came to their aid. Natalya Sokol told Life about the creative plans of “War”.

- You recently visited Berlin. What kind of project was there?

We were invited to Berlin as curators to a gala dinner in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Kunstwerke Institute - the organizer of the Berlin Biennale (we were curators of the seventh biennale in 2012) - and went with the goal of finding activists. I have already said that we are recruiting a team of inveterate actionists, like the one that was selected in “Treasure Island” - remember the cartoon? In three weeks of Berlin vacillation, they found one person, which is quite a lot for Europe. True, he turned out to be Russian, or rather Belarusian.

We were almost arrested twice on this train. The first time the police were called because we were drinking coffee while sitting in a cafe, but did not order food. The waiter warned us that he would now call the police, and then he went ahead and called. We couldn't believe our eyes! They left straight from the hands of the arriving squad, pretending to be stupid tourists.

The second time was on the train: according to the passengers, we were returning home too late. A typical bald German came up to us and began to threaten. Kasper (son, he’s seven) jumped up and hit him in the face with a mitten in response. The police were also called, but we got off at our stop before the squad arrived.

Children, families with children are driven into a kind of social ghetto, like dog walkers, from where it is better not to stick out. Are you a mother with children, especially since you have more than one? Ay-ay-ay, what a shame! Be careful and expect tricks from everywhere. You better become a predatory animal so that your children are not eaten by the childless creatures around you.

In this I see a monstrous transformation of feminism in our days: now the struggle of a woman in modern society is a struggle for the rights of her children, for their opportunity to develop creatively, to become people with a rich spiritual world. Otherwise, they will immediately make robots out of kids. Berlin only strengthened my thought: hey, you can trample on family values here in Europe as much as you like, but not at the expense of limiting the freedom of my children.

When I gave birth to my third child in Switzerland, my daughter Trinity, the doctor warned the police in advance, being for some reason sure that I was giving birth in order to sell the child for organs.

Natalya, on Voina’s Instagram, one of the latest photos is of the castle in Chimelitsa, which will house Voina’s studio. Have you started preparing any projects yet?

We are planning projects, but we are not making any announcements. Otherwise it simply won’t work: they will come and arrest you. The code name is GOU, in the sense of “Woe from Wit”. We will start preparing as soon as our activists from Russia arrive. Unfortunately, in Europe it was not possible to find activists brave enough to participate in the “War” actions. It is easier to discharge people from Russia.

The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, Karel Schwarzenberg, is actively helping you. How did you meet? Did he know about “War” before? Why do you think he decided to help you, because before that many people refused to help you?

Karel himself volunteered to help, and at a very difficult time for us. Oleg had just been released from prison in Prague, we were surrounded by the local press, we gave out patriotic interviews that shocked Czech society. After their publication, the local public immediately turned away from us. We lost everything: housing, lawyers, support.

Human rights activists circulated vile gossip behind our backs. The creative projects that were being prepared were immediately curtailed. Newspapers burst out with propaganda articles portraying us not as brilliant artists, as was before, but as inhuman maniacs who belong in prison or a mental hospital. Then Karel appeared and turned out to be a sensitive person and a great politician: he offered us a residence in Orlik.

And as a studio for creative experiments - a castle in Cimelice, where, by the way, he spent his childhood in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. So our family history of misadventures turned out to be close to him.

Karel loves Russian art, and at the banquet he quoted Blok, his father’s favorite poet.

Another noble Czech was the wonderful children's artist Petr Nikl. When Oleg and I were arrested, the children - Kasper and Mama - remained in his apartment in Holesovice, Prague, not knowing where we were or what was happening to us, and while waiting for our return, they drew alone on the walls.

Children's creativity is a guaranteed path to losing housing in Europe. People here have forgotten how to enjoy children.

But Peter was delighted with the drawings of Casper and Mom. He asked to leave everything as it is. In gratitude, we arranged a farewell opening day for him before leaving for Orlik. Peter and the children had a joint session - drawing and cutting out masks from paper.

Was it just an event “for our own people” or can it be positioned as one of the “War” projects? How often do you organize such events?

The children accumulated a large archive of creativity, but it was destroyed during an attack on us by a group of Swiss human rights activists on March 20 this year in Basel. An armed crowd broke into our attic room at 21 Wasserstrasse.

Human rights activists kidnapped children and left them naked on the street, beat us parents, stole our computers, iPads, and stole archives, including the works of Kasper and Mama.

The arriving police were not interested in the attack; instead, we were arrested as illegal immigrants, then in a deportation prison, and then the whole family was escorted to an underground concentration camp in the town of Esch in the canton of Basel-Land, from where we managed to escape. We managed to take several photographs with a hidden camera at the Esch concentration camp.

In Prague I had to start all over again. The exhibition at Peter Nikl is the first after horror in Switzerland.

Oleg said in one of his interviews: “The artist, as you yourself probably guess, is just about the camps and arrests, and about unexpected ones.” Lately you have accumulated a lot of emotions associated with such events. Will they be reflected in the projects of "War"?

You are quoting a falsified interview published in Fur-Fur. Unfortunately, we were unable to influence this publication in any way, since we were outside the legal field, and Fur-Fura journalists took advantage of this by passing off fragments of email correspondence as interviews. Therefore, it is unpleasant for me to refer to this text. He is evidence of dishonesty on the part of this publication.

In an interview, Oleg said that many people know about “War”: “When we meet artists, they start writing with delight: “Oh, “War,” “*** in captivity,” “Punk in court,” that’s all you !" They feel like just lucky people who managed to communicate with those legends they read about. But when the conversation turns to a practical plane - is it possible to find housing or a lawyer - then almost everyone loses interest. We are good somewhere there - when in the Russian prison, then we are good." Maybe there are still artists in Europe who are interested in working with “War”?

- We initially did not intend to conduct any artistic activity in Europe, since we considered the European context uninteresting in comparison with the Russian one. We also didn't plan to stay here.

But the circumstances turned out differently: the channel of return to Russia slammed shut, and we found ourselves in Europe as if in a trap. If we ever take creativity seriously here, it will be very, very critical.

We don’t communicate with European artists, because they simply don’t exist in nature. We constantly receive offers from the West, but this is like an invitation to the grave. We're in no hurry.

Do you maintain relationships with any Russian artists? Are you interested in what contemporary artists are doing in Russia now?

In Russia we like the work of video artist Injoikin; he managed to capture the spirit of the times better than anyone else.

Quote from Oleg: “The image of the West that intellectuals in Russia paint is a fiction. People here are not violating anything - it’s not for nothing that the stagnation in European contemporary art is more powerful than under Brezhnev. Art is crammed into an entertainment ghetto for rich people. You can be a clown - and only then will you be interesting. They sit and wait for an idea to come from the third world. This is how I explain the success of Russian actionism, when the most basic actions are well read.” Do you want to try to somehow change the situation with this “entertainment ghetto” with your projects? Or will it be very difficult or even dangerous to do this due to the specifics of the legislation?

Working in Europe and for Europe is a waste of time. The West groans from the meaninglessness of existence, but these groans are deserved. All that remained was for the barbarians to come and stop the protracted performance. A strange situation has developed in Europe. Like in war, almost no one has their own children, but they command how we should behave with ours.

Recently there was news that . Although this issue was already raised in September, and then the authorities stated that there were no grounds for extradition. Do you have an understanding of how the Czech authorities will behave now?

The actions of the Czech authorities are only their own headache. We healthy people are not interested in it.

Oleg Vorotnikov, a liberal activist from the Voina group who fled Russia, describes his impressions of life in Europe with horror. The Radio Liberty journalist was shocked and didn’t even know what to say when he heard from a radical activist a desire to return to Russia.

Several years ago, Oleg Vorotnikov, formerly notorious in Russia under the nickname “Thief,” and the leader of the no less scandalous art group “War,” left our country with curses, declaring that he was fleeing a dictatorial and repressive regime. But now, having pushed around in the vastness of “civilized Europe,” he was horrified and declared that he was a “fan of Putin” and that in Europe he felt “like in hell.”
Such an incredible pirouette, of course, is hard to believe. That’s why his former liberal friends, having heard about what their former idol was now broadcasting, went to Europe in the hope of proving that this was just “Putin’s propaganda.” And suddenly - lo and behold! It turned out that all this is actually the purest truth. A certain Dmitry Volchek published a report on the website of the American Radio Liberty about a meeting with Vorotnikov, and in such a way that the question involuntarily begs whether “Putin’s propagandists” also recruited him?

With a phallus on the bridge

But let's start in order. At first, Volchek with undisguised sympathy describes the previous scandalous acts of the art group “War”, dear to his liberal heart, which became famous most of all for the image of a giant phallus on a bridge raised in St. Petersburg. For this they were raised to the shield by the liberal press and crowned with numerous awards.

“The last action of the Voina art group took place on December 31, 2011,” writes Volchek, “on New Year’s Eve, a police paddy wagon in St. Petersburg was cleverly burned. For "Mento-Auto-Da-Fe" "War" received the "Russian Activist Art" award from fans, and from the state - a criminal case under Article 213 ("Hooliganism"). After that, Oleg Vorotnikov and his wife Natalya Sokol (nicknamed Koza) crossed the border and ended up in Europe, where their life was not the best: tedious information about scandals, detentions, beatings and other incidents can be found on the group’s website.

“The campaign in support of actionists, organized by philologist Alexei Plutser-Sarno, who calls himself a “media artist of the War,” Volchek continues the story, “took place in Europe, America and even the Philippines. I myself participated in one of the actions when a huge portrait Oleg Vorotnikov with the inscription Voina Wanted was hung on the Charles Bridge in Prague. When the same poster was hung on Tower Bridge, the London police intervened, and in Bucharest Oleg Vorotnikov’s defenders were completely beaten and detained.

In 2014, reports emerged that Vorotnikov supported the seizure of Crimea and became a supporter of Putin. It was hard for me to believe this: how could such a metamorphosis happen to an urban “partisan”?

He also came up with actions that ridiculed Putinism - in the role of Mentopop, he went to the supermarket, drew a huge penis on the drawbridge opposite the FSB building in St. Petersburg, overturned police cars, projected a skull and crossbones onto the building of the Russian government and was imprisoned for this.”

The disgruntled Volchek went “to Europe,” apparently with the laudable goal of exposing the false accusations being made against his liberal idol. “And so,” he writes, “in one of the European cities I meet Oleg and his wife. They have three children, the youngest are sleeping, the eldest, Casper, whom I remember as a baby, has grown up and should have gone to school. But where will they take him? The parents are in an illegal situation, they have no documents, much less medical insurance, and a daughter named Mama, born in St. Petersburg when her parents were hiding from arrest, is not registered at all. When Koza went to the antenatal clinic for an examination, the doctors identified her and wanted to call the police, as if repeating the story from the series about Stirlitz. The goat ran away and wisely gave birth at home without the involvement of midwives in uniform.

Oleg immediately warns that he will not give me an interview because he does not want to deal with the “liberal” media. Yes, everything turned out to be true,” Volchek throws up his hands in amazement, “he is now a “Putinist.” And not just a supporter of the seizure of Crimea: Oleg believes that Putin “amazingly completed the work of saving Russian statehood,” Vyacheslav Volodin is a “brilliant leader,” Sergei Lavrov is an outstanding diplomat who knows how to win in an enemy environment, “Zack he Dima Yakovlev" is fair, and in general "there is nothing more beautiful than national unity" ... He is sure that Western propaganda is worse than Russian, since a taxi driver in Europe can say that he likes Putin, but an intellectual is afraid.

“Good Russian propaganda is a ray of sunshine on the last page of Pionerskaya Pravda on a July day,” Oleg says, and I suspect that this is a quote from Prokhanov’s article.

He has never seen anything worse than Switzerland

After spending several years in Europe (and he visited many cities - Venice, Rome, Zurich, Basel, Vienna and even Cesky Krumlov, where Egon Schiele vegetated a hundred years ago), Oleg was unconditionally disillusioned with the West. "I wasted years of my life and found nothing interesting." People here are intimidated by the system, they make a “positive bet on hypocrisy,” the left movement is helpless and there is no art. Most of all, he doesn’t like Switzerland: “I have never seen anything worse than this country”... It all ended in a conflict with squatters, which Oleg described in an interview with the Furfur website:

“We managed to capture the massacre, but when we reported to the police, they snatched the camera from our hands and hid it. Then we visited a human rights organization that helps victims of violence. They provided us with a lawyer for four hours - they are so willing to pay for a lawyer, and they are expensive here. At the migration office in prison, I had a conversation with the police, they outlined two possibilities: either to a camp and ask for political asylum, or we would be separated from the children and separately deported to our homeland as illegal immigrants. Plus, in my case, at the request of Interpol, the usual manipulation of children began for the police, and we. We gave in to asylum. We are not emigrants, not refugees, it was not a gesture like our friends. We arrived for a while, and then the return channel was closed. Traditionally, the Swiss authorities call on us to leave the country by a certain date. If not, then repressive mechanisms are activated. "we were taken to the camp, filled out with paperwork and literally left lying on the floor in the aisle. We were told that this was the best camp for families with children."

Oleg describes the refugee camp as an underground hell, the scared to death inhabitants of which are released for walks according to a schedule, like prisoners. According to Oleg, only the lawyer who became famous for defending Roman Polanski agreed to help them, but he also failed to do anything due to bureaucratic resistance.

Before this, a similar conflict occurred with neighbors in a squat in Venice... Oleg colorfully describes how, in front of stunned Japanese tourists clicking cameras, he was handcuffed and with his head bandaged by police officers being taken by boat along the Grand Canal. He spent only a few days in prison, and from Venice - “this is not a city, but a cemetery, what to do there?” - moved to Rome. “The best years of our children were spent in hell,” he now complains bitterly. “I am a Russian person, why do I need their values?”

“I refuse on principle to organize actions here, to participate in artistic life. You can only criticize Russia from within, and not from sitting in the West,” says Oleg. He doesn’t like everything that happens in European art...

Disappointment in the West led to the fact that what was happening in Russia began to seem wonderful to Oleg and his wife. “Most of all,” Volchek admits, “they dream of returning to their homeland. “If they told me we were getting into a taxi and going to the airport, I wouldn’t even start packing my things.”
But it is impossible to return: Oleg is on the international wanted list, Koza is on the federal wanted list. And where to go with three small children? Their relatives are not interested in their fate, a significant part of their friends have turned away, and there is nowhere to live.

“There is no such freedom as in Russia anywhere”

“Oleg,” Volchek laments, “praises the wisdom of Putin, who “perfectly beat” the liberals in 2013. In his opinion, Putin acted gently with his enemies, “there was so much fatherly care in these decisions!” The reminder of the fate of Udaltsov (who also supported the annexation of Crimea), Oleg Navalny and Boris Nemtsov does not impress him - all this is Western propaganda. Oleg remembers his time in prison in Russia with delight. "This is one of the best events in my life. I have three or four radiant memories, and one of them is prison." Over the years spent in European hell, his homeland began to seem like a promised land to him. He is convinced that there is no such freedom as in Russia anywhere. “When I was wanted, every day I rode my bicycle past the main entrance to the prosecutor’s office, where they were waiting for us, and nothing happened.”

“But what to do now? The Vorotnikovs are truly in a desperate situation... How to help people without documents who are wanted? In Europe, no one needs them...”, writes Volchek in conclusion and does not find an answer to his questions.

The co-founder of the notorious art group “War” Natalia Sokol appealed to the Commissioner for Children’s Rights Anna Kuznetsova with a request to evacuate her to Russia from Berlin. After six years of wandering around Europe, Sokol and her husband Oleg Vorotnikov found themselves in a desperate situation: Oleg ended up in prison, and Natalya herself was pregnant and with three small children was freezing on the street.

Vorotnikov disappeared in Berlin after a police raid and, according to some sources, is being held in Moabit prison. Natalya has children aged from 2 to 8 years old, they have to live on captured boats with canvas tops in Rummelsburg Bay.

At the same time, the founders of Voina are prevented from asking for political asylum in the EU by their convictions. For the same reason, they have practically no documents in their hands either for themselves or for their children, and they are all illegal.

“Whether he is arrested, whether he is alive or not, I have no information. I tried to drive the dacha into Moabit prison, but they didn’t accept it: does that mean he’s not there? I contacted lawyers and they refused to help. But the local press cannot be penetrated; it is propaganda reinforced concrete. I live with three children on a boat with canvas walls, so as not to sit in a transit prison, waiting for a convoy to a Swiss concentration camp, where people are kept for two years in storage rooms underground. I don’t have any friends or even any sane acquaintances in Berlin,” writes Natalya Sokol on Facebook.

Kuznetsova’s office has already responded to Sokol’s request, contacted her and sent a request to the Consular Section of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the radio station “Moscow Speaks” reports. As negotiators told Natalya, Anna Kuznetsova plans to send a request for a pardon to the President of Russia.

Let us remind you that the left-wing radical actionist group “War” claims to achieve achievements in the field of conceptual protest street art. It was formed in 2007 by Oleg Vorotnikov, nicknamed Thief, his wife Natalya Sokol, nicknamed Koza, Pyotr Verzilov with an obscene nickname, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the punk group Pussy Riot.

Among the most resonant actions of the “War” are the “Palace Coup” with a police car, a sex performance in the Timiryazev Biological Museum, an action with jumping on a FSO car, as well as an action with an image of a phallus on the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg and others. The public was especially outraged by the antics of Voina group member Elena Kostyleva in the St. Petersburg Nakhodka supermarket, where she shoved a frozen chicken into her crotch.

A criminal case was opened against Vorotnikov for insulting police officers and using violence against law enforcement officials after he poured urine on police officers on March 31, 2011 during the St. Petersburg “March of Dissent.” In addition, there are questions about past promotions. After this, Vorotnikov and Sokol with their children went on the run to Europe. In Russia, they are both on the wanted list and arrested in absentia.

However, in Europe, an unusual family quickly began to have troubles on such a scale that it was time to write an adventure drama. “Reedus” talked about some of them in this publication. Sponsors from among lovers of contemporary art abandoned Vorotnikov and Sokol with their young children to the mercy of fate and they actually turned into homeless people: they live anywhere, steal food and clothes from stores, wander from country to country, regularly dealing with the police, migration services and aggressive natives.

“I fought with fascists in the Prague metro, with human rights activists in Basel, with NO TAV-loving dealers in Venice. Now I always carry a hammer with me,” Vorotnikov told reporters.

While checking documents, the police hit Natalya in the face several times.

“Even a Russian cop, he wouldn’t do this to a woman who has a child,” she complained to the Czech media.

Sokol's Facebook page, where she talks about her misadventures, can only be described as shocking.

Dissidents and oppositionists from Russia are not eager to help the family due to the fact that Vorotnikov, having wandered around Europe, made positive comments about the activities of President Vladimir Putin, as well as about the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

From his adventures, the actionist came away with the firm conviction that Europe is “experiencing an epidemic of psychosis caused by fear for its high standard of living.”

In 2010, when activists of the art group “War” Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaev were detained after the “Palace Coup” action, a group of Russian intellectuals came out in their defense: music critic Artemy Troitsky, art critic Andrei Erofeev, publisher Alexander Ivanov, journalist Andrei Loshak, co-owner of the Falanster bookstore Boris Kupriyanov, artists Alexander Kosolapov and Oleg Kulik.

Andrei Erofeev told Reedus that he was at the dacha and had not yet seen Natalya Sokol’s appeal to the Russian authorities, and therefore could not comment. Andrei Loshak said that he “doesn’t have time” for this, Kupriyanov said that he “doesn’t know about this situation at all and cannot comment on it,” and Troitsky, Ivanov, Kosolapov and Kulik were unavailable for comment.

“Apparently, in Europe it’s even worse to live outside the system, especially with children. Therefore, having become disillusioned with everything, the family asks for help from the Motherland. Our own system turned out to be better in comparison, apparently. The liberals who once defended “War” are now keeping silent. But the “vatniks” began to comment on the situation with the pregnant Sokol and children. They are calling to return these anarchists who have already come to Russia and somehow help them. Let them steal houses, or something,” concludes journalist Natalya Radulova.

“The antisocial behavior of the professed “artists” of the Utyrks is supported by the EU solely as an “export” colonial practice. This is an obvious banality - just as the hypocrisy of the European media and the “public” is banality, feeding the mentioned pricks to wage information warfare - and immediately forgetting about them, as soon as the puppets go beyond the prescribed role,” says a researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Dyukov. In his opinion, it is high time to remove children from irresponsible parents.

Oleg Vladimirovich Vorotnikov, also known as Thief and Peregnoy, was probably born in 1978. According to him, he lived in the city of Novomoskovsk, Tula region, but in the investigative documents he was identified as a “native of the Perm region”, registered in the village of Ordzhonikidze, Tula region. Vorotnikov said that he grew up in a large family, whose members had the status of victims of the Chernobyl disaster; he also reported that his father was a miner who had to drive a minibus to provide for his family. According to Vorotnikov, one of his brothers died in a car accident and the other was killed. He mentioned his sister Nastya in one of his interviews. “I can call most of my relatives unhappy people,” Vorotnikov noted.

The future leader of the Voina art group studied at the Novomoskovsk Lyceum, where many knew him because he wrote poetry well (“Everything was forgiven to me as the best poet of Novomoskovsk,” he said). Subsequently, he entered the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow State University (MSU), but he himself spoke unflatteringly about him. It is also known that for some time the leader of the art group worked as the head of the information department (or press secretary) at the Moscow Cinema Museum.

In 2005, Vorotnikov and Natalya Sokol (Koza, Kozlenok) created the art group Sokoleg, which was engaged in outdoor photography (according to other information - avant-garde fashion) and performances. Natalya was mentioned in the press as a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, a junior researcher at Moscow State University, a specialist in the field of biochemical and medical physics. Since 2008, the press has repeatedly written that Sokol was Vorotnikov’s wife, possibly a common-law wife. In 2009, they had a child, whom they named Casper the Beloved Falcon.

At the beginning of 2007, Vorotnikov and Sokol organized the Voina group. Vorotnikov always played a key role in it. He was called a “founding father,” and the media claimed that “War is Vorotnikov,” although the ideas for many performances were invented by Sokol, who stated that the group’s goal was “an art war against all the global ideological rotten stuff.”

The group became known thanks to numerous high-profile events in which Vorotnikov acted both as an organizer and as a performer. In August 2007, he took part in the “Wars” event called “Feast,” which was a wake for the poet Dmitry Prigov in a Moscow metro car. In 2008, a few days before the presidential elections in Russia, "War" held a group orgy at the Biological Museum in Moscow against the backdrop of the slogan "F*** for the heir of Little Bear." One of the couples participating in the orgy was Vorotnikov and Sokol. In July 2008, during the “Cop in a Priest’s Cassock” campaign, Vorotnikov, dressed in a cassock over a police uniform, picked up a large amount of food from a supermarket and took it out without paying for it. In June 2010, one of the most famous actions of “War” was held in St. Petersburg - “F***y in captivity of the FSB”: activists of the group painted a huge phallus measuring 65 meters in length and 27 meters in width on the Liteiny Bridge. After the bridge was raised, the raised image of the phallus appeared in front of the windows of the Office of the Federal Security Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. For this action in April 2011, the Voina art group received the Russian art award “Innovation”, established by the Ministry of Culture and the State Center for Contemporary Art, in the category “Work of Visual Art”.

Subsequently, the actions of the art group headed by Vorotnikov acquired an increasingly defiant character. Thus, in September 2010, in St. Petersburg, members of the Voina group held the “Palace Coup” action, during which they overturned several police cars, and some of them may have had police officers inside. Soon, a criminal case was opened against Vorotnikov, Sokol and the group’s activist Leonid Nikolaev, known under the pseudonym “Lenya E***nuty”, under Article 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy). In November 2010, they were detained in a Moscow apartment. Some of the personal belongings of the detainees were confiscated, and they themselves were interrogated at the “E” Center at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which deals with the fight against extremism, after which Vorotnikov and Nikolaev were sent to St. Petersburg to a pre-trial detention center. In January 2011, the court refused to release Vorotnikov and Nikolaev on bail of 2 million rubles each.

The arrest of the art group activists caused a wide resonance both in Russia and abroad. In their support, the “Free War” website was created, where funds were collected for things needed by prisoners and to pay for lawyers. In addition, British street artist Banksy and blogger Vagif Abdilov, who lived in Norway, raised money for the arrested (he organized the release of customized Royal Norwegian Post stamps depicting the group’s action on Liteiny Bridge).

Vorotnikov spent more than three months in prison. In February 2011, by decision of the court of the Dzerzhinsky district of St. Petersburg, he was released from the pre-trial detention center on bail of three hundred thousand rubles. The court took into account that the leader of the art group has a place of permanent registration, “receives income from work” (although he himself stated the opposite in an interview), as well as the fact that he has a young child in his care. In the same month, Nikolaev was also released on bail. Talking on Radio Liberty about his prison experience, Vorotnikov noted that while in prison he kept notes. At the same time, he doubted that they should be published after his release (“It would be more interesting, of course, if it could be published promptly, it would look more like an action”).

Best of the day

At the end of March 2011, Vorotnikov said that the money collected to help Voina was transferred to two political prisoners, as well as to his former cellmate, whose case, according to Vorotnikov, was fabricated. In addition, in April 2011, part of the money collected for “War” was transferred to Barnaul activists, against whom, after the graffiti campaign “Do you need such fellow travelers?” a case was opened on charges of hooliganism “motivated by political hatred, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy.”

In early March 2011, Vorotnikov, Nikolaev and Sokol were attacked in the center of St. Petersburg. According to the activists, they were walking from a press conference when they noticed that they were being followed and took photographs of their pursuers. Then these people, who introduced themselves as employees of the criminal investigation department, beat the members of the Voina group and took away their flash card with photographs. At the end of March, in connection with this incident, a criminal case was opened under Article 116 of the Criminal Code (beatings).

At the end of the same month, Vorotnikov and Sokol, along with their son, were detained during the unauthorized opposition “March of Dissent” in St. Petersburg, after which they were taken to different police stations. At the march, according to Sokol, they walked in a column of anarchists with the goal of “shouting anarchist slogans” and throwing bottles of urine at the police. According to Vorotnikov and his lawyer, he was beaten several times during his arrest and by the police, and was released only because he needed hospitalization. Sokol was kept at the station for about a day, and Vorotnikov took his son from the hospital where Kasper was placed after his parents were detained.

On April 14, 2011, a new criminal case was opened against Vorotnikov on suspicion of hooliganism, use of violence against a government official, and insulting a government official. According to investigators, during his arrest at the “March of Dissent,” Vorotnikov tore off the uniform caps of several policemen, hit one of them, and also damaged a police car.

In the same month, the first criminal case initiated against Vorotnikov and Nikolaev, at the request of the defense, was transferred from the Main Investigation Department of the Main Internal Affairs Directorate for St. Petersburg to the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for St. Petersburg. This was due to the fact that the St. Petersburg Central Internal Affairs Directorate in this case acted both as the prosecutor and as the injured party, whose property was damaged as a result of the “War” action. According to the lawyers, the investigators also ordered a psychiatric examination for Vorotnikov, despite the fact that the article “hooliganism” did not imply this.

At the end of April 2011, reports appeared in the press that Vorotnikov escaped from interrogation in a criminal case about his actions during the “March of Dissent,” and simply did not appear for the second interrogation because he thought that he would be arrested. Supporters of “War” stated back in April 2011 that the leader of the art group was put on the wanted list, but he was officially put on the federal wanted list in May 2011. In July 2011, it became known that a criminal case was opened against Vorotnikov’s wife, Natalya Sokol, under Article 319 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (insulting a government official) for behavior at the “march of dissent.”

In July 2011, Vorotnikov was put on the international wanted list. His deposit of 300 thousand rubles was seized in favor of the state. On July 22 of the same year, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg granted the investigators' request to change the preventive measure for Vorotnikov in the first case and arrested him in absentia. On August 31, 2011, a complaint from Vorotnikov was registered with the European Court of Human Rights about the violation by the Russian authorities of his rights to freedom and personal security. At the same time, Vorotnikov perceived the international criminal investigation “as one of the highest forms of recognition of the work of a political artist here on earth.”

In October 2011, it became known that on September 1, the criminal prosecution of Vorotnikov and Nikolaev, which began after the “Palace Coup” action, was terminated, since the actions they committed did not comply with the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation under which they were accused. In the same month, the St. Petersburg City Court overturned the lower court's decision to collect Vorotnikov's bail in favor of the state. In early November, the “Palace Coup” case was resumed, suspended on December 1, and in February 2012, the prosecutor’s office again insisted on continuing the investigation.

On January 19, 2012, Vorotnikov and Sokol had a second child, a girl, whom they decided to call Mama Beloved Sokol. The next day, the court refused to satisfy the investigation's request to arrest Natalya Sokol.

The media published a variety of assessments of Vorotnikov and his activities. Thus, Anton Kotenev, who at one time participated in the activities of the Voina group, wrote that Oleg is “one of the smartest and most subtle people” whom he “has ever met in life,” who reads a lot and is well versed in art. At the same time, it was noted that he was rejected by many, largely due to his commitment to theft of food in stores, elevated to a principle, and also due to the fact that he and Sokol took their young son to all the events, putting him in danger. There were even reports in the media that Kasper’s parents could be held administratively liable for improper performance of parental responsibilities.

The co-founder of the notorious art group “War”, Natalya Sokol, appealed to the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Anna Kuznetsova, with a request to evacuate her to Russia from Berlin. After six years of wandering around Europe, Sokol and her husband Oleg Vorotnikov found themselves in a desperate situation: Oleg ended up in prison, and Natalya herself was pregnant and with three small children was freezing on the street.

“Whether he is arrested, whether he is alive or not, I have no information. I tried to drive the dacha into Moabit prison, but they didn’t accept it: does that mean he’s not there? I contacted lawyers and they refused to help. But the local press cannot be penetrated; it is propaganda reinforced concrete. I live with three children on a boat with canvas walls, so as not to sit in a transit prison, waiting for a convoy to a Swiss concentration camp, where people are kept for two years in storage rooms underground. I don’t have any friends or even any sane acquaintances in Berlin,” writes Natalya Sokol in Facebook.

However, in Europe, an unusual family quickly began to have troubles on such a scale that it was time to write an adventure drama. “Reedus” talked about some of them in. Sponsors from among lovers of contemporary art abandoned Vorotnikov and Sokol with their young children to the mercy of fate and they actually turned into homeless people: they live anywhere, steal food and clothes from stores, wander from country to country like gypsies, regularly dealing with the police, immigration services and aggressive natives.

“I fought with fascists in the Prague metro, with human rights activists in Basel, with dealers who are fans of NO TAV in Venice. Now I always carry a hammer with me,” Vorotnikov told reporters. While checking documents, the police hit Natalya in the face several times. “Even a Russian cop, he wouldn’t do this to a woman who has a child,” she complained to the Czech media. Falcon's page Facebook, where she talks about her misadventures, can only be described as shocking.

Dissidents and oppositionists from Russia are not eager to help the family because Vorotnikov, having wandered around Europe, made positive comments about the activities of President Vladimir Putin, as well as about the reunification of Crimea with Russia.

From his adventures, the actionist came away with the firm conviction that Europe is “experiencing an epidemic of psychosis caused by fear for its high standard of living.”

“Reedus” decided to ask intellectuals whether they continue to support “War” in 2018. Andrei Erofeev told “” that he is at the dacha and has not yet seen Natalya Sokol’s appeal to the Russian authorities, and therefore cannot comment. Andrei Loshak said that he “doesn’t have time” for this, Kupriyanov said that he “doesn’t know about this situation at all and cannot comment on it,” and Troitsky, Ivanov, Kosolapov and Kulik were unavailable for comment.

“Apparently, in Europe it’s even worse to live outside the system, especially with children. Therefore, having become disillusioned with everything, the family asks for help from the Motherland. Our own system turned out to be better in comparison, apparently. The liberals who once defended “War” are now keeping silent. But the “vatniks” began to comment on the situation with the pregnant Sokol and the children. They are calling to return these anarchists who have already come to Russia and somehow help them. Let them steal houses, or something,” concludes journalist Natalya Radulova.

“The antisocial behavior of the self-proclaimed “artists” is supported by the EU exclusively as an “export” colonial practice. This is an obvious banality - just as the hypocrisy of the European media and the “public” is a banality, feeding the mentioned pricks to wage information warfare - and immediately forgetting about them, as soon as the puppets go beyond the prescribed role,” says a researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Dyukov. In his opinion, it is high time to remove children from irresponsible parents.

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