Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

Who is Nadezhda Tolokonnikova?

Nadezhda Andreyevna Tolokonnikova, also known as “Nadya Tolokno”, is a Russian conceptual artist and political activist. She is a member of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot. On August 17, 2012, she was convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” for a performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and sentenced to two years imprisonment. She has been recognized as a political prisoner by the Union of Solidarity with Political Prisoners. Amnesty International named her a prisoner of conscience due to “the severity of the response of the Russian authorities.”

She is a philosophy student at Moscow State University with a history of political activism with the street-art group Voina. She is married to Pyotr Verzilov and has a daughter, Gera, whom they named after the Greek goddess Hera. Her first name means “hope” in Russian. She has Canadian permanent resident status and her husband is a dual citizen of Canada and Russia. There was speculation that Canadian authorities might attempt to intervene in the case, but this did not occur. Tolokonnikova is serving the remainder of her two-year sentence in the IK-14 women's penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia.