A member of the Pussy Riot punk band pours what appears to be oil over a portrait of Igor Sechin, head of state oil firm Rosneft and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, in this undated photo.
A video game that allows players to kill members of the feminist punk rock group Pussy Riot has been released online.
The game “Don’t Let Pussy Riot into the Cathedral” was first unveiled at a recent Orthodox festival held in Moscow and is available on Russian flash game website gg-flash.ru.
Using their mouse or touchpad, players control an Orthodox cross to zap cartoon drawings of Pussy Riot members – clad in colorful balaclavas and brandishing guitars – before they can enter a church.
If too many Pussy Riot members enter, the church building collapses and the game is over. Then, to register your score on the table, you are asked to enter your name to pay an “indulgence,” in order “to absolve all of your sins to the servant of God [St. Peter]”. The screen shows a cartoon image of the apostle outside the gates to Heaven.
Maria Voskresenskaya, one of the game’s creators, told Metro: “I can’t judge Pussy Riot – do not judge and you will not be judged yourself – but I cannot approve of the act they’ve done. Such acts have no place in the church – even more so, politics should not enter there.”
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 23, Maria Alyokhina, 25, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were sentenced to two years in prison last August for entering Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral and singing “Punk Prayer for Putin,” a song that called for the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Vladimir Putin. Samutsevich was later freed on appeal.
