Russian intellectuals abandoned the homeless art group “War” in the lurch. Five years without "war"

Leader of the art group "War"

Leader of the Voina art group since its creation in 2007. In the fall of 2010, in connection with one of the group’s actions, a criminal case was opened against him under the article “hooliganism committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy”; the case was closed in September 2011. In the spring of 2011, he also became involved in a criminal case under the article “hooliganism, use of violence against a representative of the authorities and insulting a representative of the authorities.” In July 2011, he was put on the international wanted list.

Oleg Vladimirovich Vorotnikov, also known as Thief, and Peregnoy, was born, presumably, 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,” noted Vorotnikov.

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, perhaps 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. 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 them. 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, which organized a collection of funds for things needed by prisoners and to pay for lawyers. In addition, British street artist Banksy, , , and blogger Vagif Abdilov, who lived in Norway, collected money for the arrested (he organized the release of customized stamps for the Norwegian Royal Mail 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 be more like an action”).

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 “based on 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 up 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, together with their son, were detained during the unsanctioned opposition “March of Dissent” in St. Petersburg, after which they were taken to different police stations, , , . On 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 the arrest of his parents, , , .

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 integrity. 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 , , , .

Used materials

The investigation into the criminal case into the action of the art group “War” involving overturning police cars has been resumed. - Interfax, 20.02.2012

The court did not arrest the Voina activist who gave birth to her second child. - New Region – North-West, 20.01.2012

The Goat has a Mom! - Free War, 20.01.2012

The Voina art group announced an end to the persecution of its activists. - RIA News, 08.01.2012

Voina activist Nikolaev became accused again; the prosecutor's office reversed the decision to dismiss the case. - Gazeta.Ru, 02.11.2011

The prosecutor's office overturned the decision to terminate the criminal case against Voina activist Nikolaev. - Open News Agency, 02.11.2011

The court canceled the seizure of the bail paid for Voina member Vorotnikov. - RAPSI, 24.10.2011

The owner has been found. - Kasparov.Ru, 24.10.2011

The case against the leader of the Voina art group, Vorotnikov, has been dropped. - Interfax, 13.10.2011

Maria Moskvicheva. Was "War" forgiven for the "Palace Coup"? - Moscow's comsomolets, 12.10.2011

The case against Leonid Nikolaev, an activist of the Voina art group, has been dropped. - Interfax, 11.10.2011

Nikita Zeya. The police are not a social group. - Gazeta.Ru, 11.10.2011

Resolution to terminate the criminal prosecution of the investigator of the investigative department for the Central District of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg (criminal case No. 276858), 09/01/2011

The ECHR received a complaint from a member of the Voina group. - IA Rosbalt, 31.08.2011

The complaint of Voina art group activist Vorotnikov was accepted by the ECHR. - Interfax, 31.08.2011

Members of the Voina art group are preparing a new action for the authorities. - RBC, 22.07.2011

The court arrested Voina activist Vorotnikov in absentia. - Infox.ru, 22.07.2011

Activist of the Voina art group Vorotnikov has been put on the international wanted list. - RIA News, 21.07.2011

An activist of the Voina art group is suspected of insulting government officials. - BaltInfo, 13.07.2011

Voina activist Sokol is suspected of insulting police officers. - RIA News, 13.07.2011

Voina activist Oleg Vorotnikov has been put on the federal wanted list. - Fontanka, 13.05.2011

An activist of the Voina art group has been put on the federal wanted list. - IA Rosbalt, 13.05.2011

Help for Barnaul activists. - Free War, 24.04.2011

Has “War” begun to have a persecution mania? - MK in St. Petersburg, 20.04.2011

Alexander Ermakov. The Voina activist will be put on the wanted list. - TVNZ, 19.04.2011

Alexey Plutser-Sarno. Today, on Kasper’s birthday, Oleg Vorotnikov was put on the wanted list. - plucker.livejournal.com, 19.04.2011

Main Investigation Department of the RF Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg (sledcomspb.ru), 14.04.2011

The case of "War". - Interfax, 14.04.2011

Alexander Ermakov. The Voina activist will be imprisoned for beating and insulting police officers. - TVNZ, 14.04.2011

A criminal case has been opened in St. Petersburg against a native of the Perm region, suspected of committing hooliganism, using violence against a government official, and insulting a government official. - Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for St. Petersburg, 14.04.2011

The criminal case of the Voina art group has been transferred to the Investigative Committee. - Interfax, 13.04.2011

Police coup. - Kasparov.Ru, 13.04.2011

Oleg Kashin. "War" took "Innovation". - Poster, 09.04.2011

Svetlana Yankina. The Voina art group received the Innovation Award. - RIA News, 08.04.2011

Marina Akhmedova. "War and Peace. - Russian reporter, 07.04.2011. - №13 (191)

Alexander Ermakov. A Voina activist will be punished for dragging his two-year-old son to the Dissent March. - TVNZ, 07.04.2011

Alexey Mavliev. Voina activists doused the police with urine. - TVNZ, 04.04.2011

Lenya E***nuty: “The wicked fairytale path of Putka and Teddy Bear, who are hitting the ass, is nonsense!” - plucker.livejournal.com, 04.04.2011

Marina Akhmedova. “He stole his own child from the system.” - Russian reporter, 02.04.2011

Tatiana Voltskaya. The "war" suffered for the Constitution. - Radio Liberty, 01.04.2011

Maria Tsvetkova, Denis Pinchuk. In the fight between the authorities and the opposition in the Russian Federation, a baby was injured. - Reuters, 01.04.2011

Tatiana Voltskaya, Dmitry Volchek. The police are at war with children. - Radio Liberty, 01.04.2011

State Prize "Innovation". Reference. - RIA News, 29.03.2011

A case was opened in St. Petersburg regarding an attack on Voina activists. - RAPSI, 25.03.2011

The Voina group donated the money collected by Banksy to help prisoners. - RIA News, 22.03.2011

Andrey Arkhangelsky. "Our ambitions are brutal." - Ogonyok, 14.03.2011. - №10 (5169)

Following yesterday's attack by unknown persons, artists from the Voina art group contacted the police. - Echo of Moscow, 04.03.2011

"War" came across people in civilian clothes. - Interfax, 04.03.2011

Dmitry Volchek. Activist of the Voina art group Oleg Vorotnikov talks about his prison experience. - Radio Liberty, 25.02.2011

The case of the "War" group. - Political Convicts, 25.02.2011

Natalya Sokol, nicknamed Koza, coordinator of the Voina art group and wife of Voina leader Oleg Vorotnikov, answered Life’s questions about the group’s new life in Europe.

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 call the police, and then he 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. 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 of 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 we 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 from fans the "Russian Activist Art" award, 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 haven’t 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 prison, I had a conversation with the police, they drew two possibilities: either to a camp and ask for political asylum, or we would be separated from our children and separately deported to our homeland as illegal immigrants. Plus, in my case, at the request of Interpol. The usual manipulation of children by the police began, and we succumbed 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 slammed shut. Traditionally, the Swiss authorities call for leaving the country by a certain date. If not, then repressive mechanisms are activated. Us "They took us to the camp, filled out paperwork and literally left us 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.

The Voina art group, known for its daring actions against the police and security forces, left Russia in 2012. In Europe they were offered asylum, work, exhibitions. But after seven years of wandering and after dozens of quarrels with curators and human rights activists, forgotten by many, “War” ended up on a boat in Berlin without electricity and water. In January, its founder, Oleg Vorotnikov, disappeared. Who are they - modern holy fools or provocative artists?

January night, five minutes past twelve. Moscow celebrates the Old New Year. In Berlin, on a playground in the semi-darkness, 38-year-old Natalya Sokol, also known as Koza, pushes her daughters, six-year-old Mama and two-year-old Trinity, in a supermarket cart. They squeal quite a bit.

With her left foot she manages to hit the ball, which is sent to her from the corner of the field by her son, eight-year-old Kasper - her mother promised to play football with him this afternoon. Curly, high cheekbones, thin bones - only the belly is slightly noticeable under the down jacket: Falcon is pregnant with her fourth.

Standing next to her in a hat is her husband, the father of the family, the heavyset, stately Oleg Vorotnikov, the founder and leader of one of the most successful art groups of the 2000s. “We’re even pleased that you came. We are completely isolated here. We don’t communicate with anyone. Everyone is afraid of us, no one talks,” they say.

“War” are famous actionists from Russia, winners of the state award “Innovation”, in whose favor the British artist Banksy organized a sale of his works. By the time we met, they had already been wandering around Europe for six years and were leading, in the opinion of the majority, a reprehensible and unacceptable life. They did not ask for political asylum, did not register their three children, did not have a permanent place of residence, they stole food, and they despised Europeans. In the winter of 2018, their epic existence turned into a drama.

"Arranging your life like art"

A graduate of the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University, Vorotnikov, and a teacher of the Faculty of Physics, candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, Sokol, created the art group “War” in 2005. In 2007, they were joined by activist Pyotr Verzilov and his wife Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a future member of Pussy Riot. Voina had many promotions, all bright, extravagant and media successful.

They celebrated “Prigov’s Wake” - they set up tables with stolen delicacies in Moscow subway cars. In December 2007, at the largest literary fair, speaking out against the authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, girls were lowered down a tarpaulin canopy with live, tranquilized sheep in their hands. Below, the rams stood up and looked around.

Before the election of Putin's successor, Dmitry Medvedev, "Voina" staged a politically motivated group sex in the Biological Museum under the banner "Fuck [intercourse] for the heir of Little Bear."

There was an action against the “Soviet official” called “Humiliation of a cop in his own home.” A few days before the presidential inauguration, Voina organized a tour of the darkest police stations near Moscow with cake, tea and a hidden camera. Activists entered the offices, lined up in a human pyramid and begged to hang a portrait of Medvedev on the wall.

They blocked the streets shouting “the cop is sucking the prosecutor”, at night they jumped over the fence of the White House, broke video cameras and ran around the adjacent territory, and at that time they projected a skull and crossbones onto the building itself with a projector from the roof of the Ukraine Hotel.

On City Day, two homosexuals and three migrant workers* were ritually “executed” in “Auchan” - as follows from the group’s explanations, “as a gift to Mayor Yuri Luzhkov.” Heroes were hanged from climbing belays.

In May 2010, one of the group members, Leonid Nikolaev, ran with a blue bucket on his head through a Federal Security Service car with a flashing light. He was charged with hooliganism, for which he could have received 15 days of arrest. Nikolaev did not appear at the trial, and the case was closed.

Their former comrade-in-arms Pyotr Verzilov recalls that the Thief (this nickname stuck with Vorotnikov) proudly spoke about the way of life of “War”: “We are worse than the gypsies.” Activist Artem Chapaev, a Moscow friend with whom they lived for a long time, also calls them typical nomads.

They could steal delicacies according to the list compiled by the owners of the "entries", stocked the refrigerator, and themselves ate whatever they found. Porridge with leftover fish and vegetables, a mattress in the corner, overnight stays in the garage where the owner turned off the heating - these are things that are important for the image of "War". “To organize your life as an art, according to your own principles, but all these left-wing, right-wing, fascist, anti-fascist, opposition or pro-Putin ideas are not important at all,” Chapaev describes their approach.

Activists planned many protests against patriarchy - Tolokonnikova’s punk band Pussy Riot later became famous on this idea. For example, we thought about the projection of a huge vagina, which is mounted on the dome of a church. And Vorotnikov, according to friends, accumulated 700 liters of pig feces on a farm near Moscow and was toying with the idea of ​​renting a sewer truck to flood the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with it. They wanted to rent a sprinkler from the Mosfilm film studio.

This was one of Vorotnikov’s initiatives, which was sabotaged by Verzilov and Tolokonnikova. After several conflicts, the artists quarreled, and in the spring of 2010, Vorotnikov and his wife left to create in St. Petersburg. A month later, a 65-meter image of a male genital organ appeared on the Liteiny Bridge in St. Petersburg. At night, when the bridge was raised, the drawing rose in front of the FSB building.

Action "X**** in captivity of the FSB" on Liteiny Bridge, June 14, 2010, St. Petersburg

In September 2010, “War” staged a “Palace Coup” in St. Petersburg, overturning several police cars. For this action, Nikolaev and Vorotnikov were charged with hooliganism and sent to a pre-trial detention center, but in February 2011 they were released on bail. The thief calls the months behind bars one of the three main impressions in life. The other two are sex and snow, which began to fall in April when, after 36 hours of labor, their first child, Casper, was born.

"Everyone else is a dud"

Acquaintances describe the Thief as the leader of a cult he created himself, a charismatic, manipulator and demagogue. "He is for any movement that did not exist before. He doesn’t care with whom. His idols are Lenin and Limonov. All the rest are imperfections. In the artistic community, he considered himself cooler than everyone else, and he had reasons for this - he was the most brave, with the most striking actions,” recalls activist Artem Chapaev.

Vorotnikov more than once simply left the police after being detained, without waiting for interrogations and arrest: he behaved so confidently and simply that it never occurred to anyone to ask where he was going. “In conflicts, he himself does not run into a fight, he does not yell, but he can quietly say: “Don’t you f***** [calm down], please.” And you will immediately shut up,” friends say.

He himself is rarely silent. During our meetings, when Vor is not talking about himself, the history of art or children, he recites Brodsky, Akhmatova or Blok, then begins to sing Vysotsky, hits of the Mumiy Troll group, chanson, and the charter, switches to artistic whistling. The only person he listens to and who can pull him back is Koza, Chapaev believes: “Koza always had the role of a “scientist from Moscow State University,” the only reasonable person in this whole get-together. There were no arguments, all she had to do was whisper.”

Vorotnikov and Nikolaev emerged from the St. Petersburg pre-trial detention center on their own recognizance as stars. “We thought that after leaving prison, we would increase the number of supporters, but it turned out that everyone, on the contrary, fled, and even it became difficult to steal - you go into a mushnik (that’s the name of the store in Voina slang), and they recognize you there,” - says Vor.

Then “War” made a tactical mistake, he believes. Instead of making several “average quality actions, but with high media expectations,” they “locked themselves in some kind of monastery of the spirit and were preparing an incredibly complex thing.”

They spent the whole of 2011 organizing one campaign, gradually realizing that they couldn’t pull it off together. The pregnant Goat could no longer go with Vorotnikov and Nikolaev to rehearsals on the roof of one of the elite residential buildings in St. Petersburg. There are guards below, statues on the roof.

“I won’t tell you the details, the project can still be done. To prepare it, you had to climb high. Walk at a height through other people’s balconies, people could wake up in apartments,” says Vorotnikov. “And then walk for 2.5 hours along the roof itself, pulling with you 40-kilogram gas cylinders and a welding machine. We also filmed all this. It was just an approach. Having reached the point, we had to train or prepare the equipment. Night after night, three times a week, we did this," says Vorotnikov.

“One night we are walking on an icy roof. And then I see that one of the statues is smoking. They found our warehouse. I turn around and say: “Lenya, run.” Somehow we sped off. The point burned down,” he says. “Even and it was impossible to appear nearby. We spent the whole of 2011 on this, for an artist this is a huge pause. During this time, primitive actions and attempts at actions, actions-defeats began to be valued." This is what Vorotnikov calls the works of the artist Pyotr Pavlensky and the performances of Pussy Riot.

A month later, “War” burned a paddy wagon right in the yard of the police department. So they congratulated all political prisoners on the upcoming 2012. After the idea with the roof, it was a piece of cake, recalls Vor. The police opened a criminal case under the article of hooliganism, but no culprits were found.

"Do we exist?"

In 2012, the famous Polish action artist Artur Żmijewski invited Vorotnikov and Sokol to curate the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Berlin. “Voina” demanded that a contract be concluded for 11-month-old Kasper, and offered to consider illegal entry into the European Union with a baby in her arms as her contribution to the event - shortly before the trip, Koza gave birth to a daughter, Mama.

“We wanted it seriously: illegally crossing with documentation, and then posting these recordings at the Biennale with the words: “Here you go, they wanted to catch us, but that didn’t happen!” explains Vor. He doesn’t say exactly how they wanted to do it. But at the negotiations in Minsk, Zhmievsky was not satisfied with their proposal and, after consulting with lawyers, he refused to participate in the action.

As a result, after five months, “War” in a truncated composition (Leonid Nikolaev returned to Russia) came to Berlin on its own. They were able to cross the borders of the European Union with two children, being wanted in Russia, without passports or visas. According to Vorotnikov, certain Ukrainian “authorities”, fans of the work of “War,” helped them organize the “corridor.”

Having reached the Biennale, they proposed new actions to the organizers. Among them is the “Free Supermarket”: 20 activists go to the store every day of the exhibition, as if they were working, from 8:00 to 17:00 and steal expensive alcohol, caviar, and other “elite food”, and then lay it out in the pavilion, where Anyone can take it.

“Zhmievsky liked the idea at first. But again they decided to consult with lawyers. I then told them: “Why did you call us? Well, continue with your decorative antics." Zhmievsky said that he was a law-abiding citizen. We had a fight and left," says Vorotnikov. The Polish artist did not respond to the BBC's invitation to describe his version of events.

Poster for the exhibition "Wars" in Milan

They began to prepare the trip back. “But the “corridor” along which we were leaving was closed,” says Vor. “The delay was a tactical mistake. We did not use the departure as a new springboard, but hid our existence. As a result, we are now being asked the question of whether we exist.”

“In general, Vor was determined to transfer the actions of “War” to European soil, making them even more radical, to engage in direct action,” says their friend, artist and LGBT activist Maria Stern, an agender who calls herself Gray Violet and speaks of herself in the neuter gender "But I didn't find like-minded people there. European artists are fighting injustice by hanging a picture of a child from Africa in their brand new gallery."

“There is something Leninist in the annexation of Crimea”

From Germany, the family was invited to Austria. “Back then they made a big bet on us. They expected us to break down and talk shit about Russia,” says Koza. Human rights activists found them a two-story apartment in the center of Vienna. “We lived in an apartment like Vasilyeva’s (convicted in a high-profile case of financial fraud in the Russian Ministry of Defense - BBC). P**** [horror] is simple,” Vorotnikov laughs. “We didn’t know what to do.” with a five-room apartment with a jacuzzi, so we had a bicycle room and a dressing room - but not like Ksenia Sobchak, but just f***ing [all] piled up to the ceiling with f***ing [stolen] clothes."

“We are no more noisy than any family with three children,” Voina marvels in response to accusations from squat neighbors

In the spring of 2014, they were invited to Amsterdam to participate in the OpenBorder festival in a huge Catholic church. In a letter to Vorotnikov and Sokol, the organizers said that this exhibition is about the Iron Curtain that will soon fall in Russia, an event criticizing the annexation of Crimea and pressure on the liberal media. The artists responded with a categorical refusal.

“The Voina group takes a fundamentally different, opposite position on Crimea,” said Vorotnikov, an old national leader and admirer of Eduard Limonov, in a response letter. “We are happy that Crimea joined Russia, and we are happy for the Crimeans. I am so simply proud of the country, for the first time in a long time. That's not all. I have been talking for years about the unprofessionalism of the liberal media - Lenta.ru and Dozhd in particular. And I finally welcomed their belated shrinking."

The festival organizers refused to comment to the BBC about their communication with Voina, calling them “very unpleasant people.”

Their neighbor and friend Chapaev recalls one of the “War” actions - an attempt to carry a chicken carcass from a store into the activist’s vagina. “It was made to cool the ardor of the liberal crowd, which was too fond of them. It’s a big fig in the face, they say, we have our own agenda, we don’t need to be included in your program. The same thing - Crimea,” says Chapaev. “Well, and the Thief, of course ", should have assessed the referendum. There is something Leninist for him in the annexation of Crimea, this is his motto: any movement is better than order."

Why “Crimea is ours”? - I ask Vorotnikov himself.

We woke up in Vienna. It was a sunny morning. I read in the news about the results of the referendum. I was in such a joyful mood. I started reading the reaction of liberals. And he imagined: I wake up and start moaning: “How? Has Crimea become Russian?” What? Well, fuck [nightmare]! I realized that I don't have such feelings. I liked it.

Announcement of the lecture "Wars" in Venice

On April 30, the organizers of the Dutch festival, according to Sokol, sent correspondence about Crimea to European art curators. When asked by the BBC to confirm or deny these words by Sokol, the festival organizers responded: “No comment.” The apartment in Vienna was asked to be vacated for renovation. A week later, the actionists were already traveling on the Vienna-Venice train.

"Everyone wants to steal"

Two years earlier, an exhibition entirely dedicated to “The War” was held in Venice, and a photograph of the Thief still hangs in the permanent exhibition in the Salt Warehouses. Their local supporters told the activists that there was a vacant apartment for them.

After giving a lecture, the artists settled in a squat - a nursing home in an old palazzo seized by anarchists. After a couple of months, it became clear that life in a commune was not the art group’s strong point. The stumbling block, as in all subsequent cases, was the three pillars of the “War”: theft, liberty and children.

According to legend, the Thief began to steal when, as a student, he scattered a pack of rice, bought with his last money. Later this became the ideology of "War". For them, stealing from chain hypermarkets is a way of fighting capitalism, in which food prices are supposedly deliberately inflated, making food unaffordable for many. But in Europe such anarchist ideas are sharply condemned. For shoplifting, artists face prison sentences ranging from a week to eight years.

However, in the entire history of Voina, activists have never been convicted of theft. In St. Petersburg, in cases of failure, they fought with the guards; in Europe this did not happen. Stony faces, expensive clothes, a baby stroller, the hood of which is convenient for stuffing food into - it’s hard to suspect them.

Products stolen by "War". In the comments, Koza writes that she is tired of “stealing from such a crowd.” Berlin, 2018

On a winter evening in Berlin in 2018, in response to my questions, they enter an expensive wine boutique with the words “Come with us.” Thank you, I say, I’d rather stand here with the stroller. A minute later the parents return with a bottle of Italian red.

“The secret of the elusiveness of “War” is speed. 23 seconds for a dick on a bridge, nine seconds for a paddy wagon,” the Thief answers my surprised look. “The first two minutes the guard doesn’t notice you and you can do whatever you want. This works at protests too , and in mushniki." According to him, the family "takes out about 400 euros each time, and that's without wine."

The children want to ride a double-decker bus, and we drive along route number 100, looking to see if the controller will stop at any stop.

A typical "War" report about a trip to the store

“I don’t understand what everyone is so afraid of. And shares, and theft,” says Vorotnikov. “It’s all just being done, it’s not playing chess games. Everyone says that we are **** screwed up. But we steal every day, we physically cannot allow ourselves to be f***ed [going] - this business requires a cold mind, concentration, attentiveness. In fact, everyone wants to steal, but everyone is f***ed [afraid]."

They filled the freezer in the squat with kilogram packs of expensive Movenpick ice cream. The youngest, Trinity, is so used to seafood in Switzerland that now she eats dumplings like mussels: she tears the dough, puts it on an empty plate, and eats the filling. Kids can ride their skateboards into an Adidas store, put on trendy hats and leave without breaking the price tags.

Products and toys from another eco-market

“War” lays out everything stolen, photographs it and posts it on Facebook and Instagram with a detailed description of what region the apples are from, how much the sheep’s cheese costs, and what kind of mysterious berries are in that box. Some people read carefully to the end, others are breathless with indignation, but few remain indifferent.

“This is modern art,” says artist Alexey Knedlyakovsky. “The inaccessibility of most of these eco-products is played on. And there is a free person who frees them from the cost. And they put them right on the asphalt, children jump around, take straightforward photos with a flash ", advertising slogans are included in the description - and all the sacredness of this meal disappears. From these photos you can put together an exhibition."

"Incompatible with our principles"

But in the summer of 2014, anarchists in Venice, unfamiliar with these art historical displays, were angry that guests were stealing delicacies from neighboring shops. The Thief and Koza responded by calling their palazzo a drug den, and the Italian anarchists themselves as drug dealers.

In addition, the owners of the squat in Venice were infuriated by the forced documentation of their life. And “War” has been constantly filming, recording and taking photographs throughout its entire life, as an artistic action. The archive is a sacred thing for them, and when they move, it is its loss that they lament most of all.

As a result, the forced eviction of “War” ended in a fight with anarchists on the Incurable Embankment, glorified by Brodsky, and in the palazzo itself. The tourists called the police. Vorotnikov was first taken to the hospital, where his broken head was stitched up, and from there he was taken to arrest at the request of Interpol: he was then wanted for spraying urine on police officers at the “March of Dissent” on March 31, 2011 in St. Petersburg.

The thief was taken to court along the Venetian canals in a gondola, his hands and feet were handcuffed, there were bruises, his head was bandaged, and medical wire was sticking out from somewhere. Gondolas carrying travelers from Japan floated towards us.

Vorotnikov in the hospital after a fight with Italian anarchists, June 2014, Venice

Due to the attention of the Italian media to the "War", the anarchists were forced to issue an explanatory press release: "It has become obvious that their lifestyle is incompatible with our principles of trust, respect and mutual assistance in relation to those with whom we live." The squatters refused to communicate with the BBC.

While the Thief was sitting in a Venetian pre-trial detention center, a palazzo with a mosaic floor, a pregnant Goat with two children slept under a tree near the church. This is how “War” found itself on the street for the first time, which was then repeated more than once.

Oleg Vorotnikov's card in the Interpol database

On New Year's Eve 2015, they found themselves in Rome, with a cold, they broke into the first barn they came across and lay there on rags with a temperature of 40 degrees. Every morning at 8:00 am, its owner, a retiree, drove up to the barn in an old Buick.

“She took all four of us to hostels and shelters in the hope of getting rid of it, but at the sight of the heavily pregnant Goat, no one would take us,” recalls Vor. “At that time we wrote letters to everyone in search of registration. We signed up for the Cabaret Voltaire (the legendary club -cafe in Switzerland, considered the birthplace of Dadaism - BBC) in Zurich and our Swiss history began."

“They are real practitioners of laziness and abandonment.”

The existence of the art group "War" is reminiscent of Dadaism - a provocative and defiant movement in the history of art during the First World War. His followers - artists, writers, performance artists - denied the laws of combining colors, sounds, coordinated actions, and in general everything that was customarily aesthetic. Dadaism is a style that openly protested against the bourgeoisie, striving for anarchy and communism.

Connoisseurs of modern art, speaking about "War", mention the first Dadaists like the artist Marcel Duchamp and the first radical actionist of Europe, Arthur Cravan.

Duchamp is famous for his concept of "ready-made things". He believed that any object can be made into an artistic object by adding only a signature and the context of an exhibition or museum. One of his most famous works is "Fountain": a urinal with an autograph and date.

“I threw a urinal in their faces, and now they admire its aesthetic perfection,” Duchamp wrote to his friend.

Cravan, a famous writer, boxer, tramp and thief throughout Europe, elevated hooliganism to a genre of art. He staged boxing matches, gave scandalous interviews, ran from country to country to avoid being drafted, spent the night with prostitutes, cursed fellow avant-gardists with the last words at his lectures, and at the end he undressed, threw bottles at the audience and fired a pistol.

He lived on rare donations from various connoisseurs of his extravagant life, stage and poetic style. He is called “an artist without a work” and “a master of hoaxes” - definitions that are well suited to the Thief and the Goat. Gray Violet says that he has discussed these artists with Vorotnikov more than once.

Explaining the artistic method of "War", Gray Violet mentions Kazimir Malevich's 1921 treatise "Laziness as the Real Truth of Humanity" and the 1882 essay "On the Right to Laziness" by Karl Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue, where he glorifies the "noble savage" in contrast to exhausting work workers.

According to Gray Violet, Russian actionists, including those from “War,” once again brought open and untamed modern art to the vastness of Europe - artistic laziness of direct action. “This is laziness and refusal, not reducible to peaceful coexistence with capitalism, subject to the prosperity and well-being of the art scene or the marginal anonymity of anarchist communities - but open, suggesting a readiness for direct confrontation,” he writes in his article about artists in the online publication "Knife".

It puts the life of “War” on a par with the performances at Western exhibitions of Oleg Kulik and Alexander Brener, who furiously argued with the organizers. But they are more radical, says the art critic: “The group has renounced refugee status, ignores state borders and bureaucracy, and steals only the most valuable things. They are real practitioners of laziness and refusal, consistently turning their entire way of life into an artistic act.”

"I can't grow a crystal"

In April 2015, Trinity was born in Basel - the third child of “War”. The goat always gave birth without doctors, and the artists turned the whole process into an action: they filmed, photographed, and posted it on the Internet. And the placenta that Kasper fed on was stored in Chapaev’s freezer for five years.

He only threw it out when he rented out the apartment before leaving for Asia. “They were so busy with Casper, I’ve never seen such parents before. They babysat him all the time, teach him something, tell him something. So even if they keep them all home-schooled, the children will grow up really well.” , says Chapaev.

Birth of Trinity, May 2015, Basel

Sokol and Vorotnikov, despite their distilled anarchism, are caring parents. One of the conditions for meeting with me was a visit to the Museum of Natural History - they say that it is difficult to get there without a ticket, and the children need to be shown a real museum.

“Mom, become an artist, come up with an action, then journalists will take you everywhere and pay for you,” Vorotnikov teaches his eldest daughter while she looks at dinosaur skeletons. Casper goes to the hall of stones: Goat says that they can’t grow a crystal at home, the fragile particles need peace, and they move around all the time.

Children of "War" at the Natural History Museum, January 2018, Berlin

“For many media outlets, our children are such extras, but they are full-fledged members of our group,” says Vorotnikov. "We are "War"! We are "War"!" - children chant at the exit from the museum and sing a song about Russia of their own composition. According to Koza, Kasper, Mama and Trinity consider the Russians their best friends.

Russia for children "Wars" is like the country of Oz from fairy tales. When Kasper first saw snow in Germany, he brought it home and stored it in the freezer. Their common dream is a house on wheels and for Lenya to return (a participant in “War” and the closest friend of the Nikolaev family, who remained in Russia, died in 2015 while working on sawdust in the Moscow region - BBC).

We want seven. Nothing in life makes me happy anymore. Children are my only joy.

And I? - clarifies the Thief.

And I’m exploiting you,” Koza smiles.

"A squat within a squat"

In May 2015, three days after Trinity was born, the family found housing. Through the mediation of Adrian Notz, director of Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, "War" was accommodated in the attic of a house on Wasserstrasse, a squat occupied by local anarchists and leftists. Here, in addition to the usual sidelong glances from neighbors because of a freezer full of Movenpick, problems with children began.

“When we were seen in Switzerland after 20:00 with a stroller on the street, passers-by stopped and asked what happened to us, twisting their finger at our temple,” says Koza.

“Children here are so terribly marginalized as anywhere else in Russia. Having a child in the West is an aggravating circumstance,” Vorotnikov is sure for some reason. “We make no more noise than any family with three children. But you must keep your child in check , so that it would be convenient for the fat neighbor to watch TV. I don't give a damn. The gay couple living below us complained because the children were running around the apartment during the day. If a child pressed the wrong button in the elevator, they can grab him by the hand and start yelling at him. But we won’t tolerate this. They integrate their children into the system from birth. And then Europeans always ask why your children are so cheerful, because your life is such a difficult one.

Apartment "Wars" in a squat on Wasserstrasse

The residents of the house thought that refugees from Russia would live there for a couple of days and go to a migrant camp to ask for asylum. Which was still not part of the “War” plans. As follows from police reports, a year later the Swiss realized that Russian artists did not intend to “fit into the system,” and scandals began. The children of “War” were accused of stealing toilet paper; the neighbors did not like the noise at night and dirty dishes in the shared kitchen.

Vorotnikov can be a very unpleasant neighbor, his Moscow acquaintances admit. The creator of “War” knows how and loves to humiliate people, one of his favorite phrases is “oh, well, this is low-quality human material.” “But I don’t be rude to people, I give them the price they are worth,” he explains. The owners who “inscribed” the “War” in Russia speak more calmly than Europeans about everyday devastation. “Well, they can, of course, mess [mess up] everything, the potatoes, I remember, were so rotten, the floor was also rotten. The thief also walks around the apartment in shorts and dries his socks in the kitchen. S***t [relieves himself] ] from the balcony. I screamed. And they very politely, poetically ignored me. We lived normally," Chapaev recalls.

In Switzerland, "War" again turned out to be too anarchist. The Russians, for their part, considered the Baselians to be conformists. “The war” has brought the situation to the point of absurdity, wrote the local newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende. - They occupied an already occupied house. We created our own squat within a squat. The neighbors, who had recently actively fought the police, more than once threatened them with calling the same police." At a general house meeting, they decided to evict the migrants by force. And they announced this to their guests in advance, advising them to leave for a deportation camp.

Children of "War" in the attic of a squat on Wasserstrasse after an eviction notice, March 2016, Basel

In fact, by this time “War” was already thinking about asking for asylum. But the Thief and the Goat did not want to end up in the camp with the children. According to Gray Violet, who then lived nearby and often communicated with Voina, in March Vorotnikov’s mother came to visit them in Basel from the Tula region. The actionists asked her to live in Switzerland with her grandchildren while they themselves sat in the camp and waited for the authorities’ decision. But the grandmother of Casper, Mom and Trinity refused. The thief caused a scandal.

“Our parents have not met each other for 19 years of our marriage. I cannot understand such people. They saw their grandchildren only a few times in their lives, when we ourselves came. There is a special frying pan prepared for such grandparents in hell,” the thief seems to continue interrupted dialogue with mother: “You’re 62 years old, you’re going to die soon, don’t you really want to sit with your grandchildren?” The BBC was unable to contact Vorotnikov's mother. The artists and their acquaintances did not provide a phone number or address, and she could not be found on social networks.

The thief comes from the city of Novomoskovsk, Tula region. My father was a miner, the head of a rescue team.

"I remember how he came home from work. We were riding rafts there, burning fires, and suddenly the men returned to their houses. They walked dirty, covered in black dust, not because there was no shower, but because it was cool. He was used to to feel like a hero, - it seems that the Thief is already talking about himself. - The Soviet government gave him this opportunity. And when after that his son studies philosophy, fucks [has sex] in a museum, it is difficult for him to understand this ".

After the collapse of the USSR, the Vorotnikov family opened a hardware store. The son traveled around villages selling shampoos and washing powders. Then he entered Moscow State University.

Kozy’s mother lives in Balakovo, Saratov region, and does not believe that her daughter is wanted. Sokol left home at the age of 16 at the insistence of her mathematics teacher and entered the prestigious metropolitan mathematics school named after Kolmogorov. Then - to the physics department of Moscow State University.

The Thief and the Goat celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary, January 2018, Berlin

When Sokol brought Vorotnikov to meet her parents, they, according to her, began to say that he was not a match for her and was terrible. The students fled to the dacha.

“My parents tried to storm this dacha,” recalls Koza. “My father chased me in a car across the steppe. My father was a desperate guy, he worked at a nuclear power plant.”

Then they went to Vor’s parents in the Tula region, but they were kicked out from there too: the parents no longer favored their eldest son. The goat spent the night in the attic of a neighboring house. This is how their first vacation together went. None of the relatives came to the wedding, the artists say. It was not possible to find out the version of this story from Sokol’s parents: her father died, she did not share her mother’s contact information.

“The main task of a person is not to make a career, not to be successful in business, not to succeed as a person - well, because what kind of person are you, Lord - but to maintain relationships with your children. This did not work out for mine,” concludes Vor.

Vorotnikov's loud night-time quarrel with his mother in Basel was the last straw in the patience of their neighbors.