Photo: Alisa Gorshenina / Instagram
A court in the city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals has fined artist and anti-war activist Alisa Gorshenina 100,000 rubles (€1,089) for “LGBT propaganda” and a further 45,000 rubles (€490) for “discrediting” the Russian army, the artist revealed on Tuesday.
Gorshenina, 31, was released from a special detention centre in Yekaterinburg on Sunday after spending 10 days there. She was detained last month in her hometown of Nizhny Tagil before being taken to regional capital Yekaterinburg, where she was found guilty of displaying “extremist” symbols.
Her lawyer later confirmed to human rights organisation OVD-Info that the “extremist” symbol in question had been a rainbow emoji in one of her Instagram posts.
Known for her works exploring the mythology of her native Urals region, Gorshenina has already faced pressure from the authorities for her opposition to the war in Ukraine.
In 2022, she was fined 35,000 rubles (€370) for “discrediting” the Russian military after holding a white rose with anti-war messages written in the minority Chuvash and Tatar languages on its ribbons during a solo protest in Nizhny Tagil.
After her works were removed from an exhibition at a Moscow gallery in February, Gorshenina wrote that she was being subjected to “digital harassment, denunciations and threats” due to her anti-war stance and accused pro-war groups including the ultranationalist movement Zov Naroda of trying to cut off any remaining opportunities she had to show her art in Russia.
Despite the mounting pressure on her, Gorshenina has repeatedly stressed that she has no intention of leaving Russia.
Russia imposed a total ban on what it terms “LGBT propaganda” in November 2022 before outlawing the non-existent “international LGBT movement” as “extremist” a year later. Since then, the authorities have further cracked down on queer establishments and the expression of any form of queer identity.
