Pussy riot: A who’s who

Published on 18/08/2012 01:05

Yekaterina Samutsevich, “the artist”: The 30-year-old graduated top of her class at Moscow’s Rodchenko School of Photography and Multimedia.

She has given some of the clearest accounts as to why the band protested in church, saying: “Christ the Saviour Cathedral had become a significant symbol in the political strategy of the authorities.”

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, “the philosopher”: The 22-year-old is the face of Pussy Riot in the Western media. Her antics as part of high-profile street-art collective Voina [War] have made her a focus of attention in The Russian media, which featured pictures of her having public sex with her husband Pyotr Verzilov at a protest in 2008.

Maria Alyokhina, “the writer”: The fourth-year student at the Institute of Journalism and Creative Writing in Moscow, 24, has a background in humanitarian volunteering and environmental activism with Greenpeace. She said: “I thought the Church loved all its children. But it seems the Church loves only those children who believe in Putin.”