Mascha Alechina

Mascha Alechina, born in Moscow in 1988, is a Russian political activist and former member of the Pussy Riot collective. Following the so-called Punk Prayer at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, she was sentenced, together with Nadya Tolokonnikova, to two years in a penal colony. Before her arrest, Alechina studied journalism and creative writing in Moscow; she served her sentence in penal colonies in Berezniki and Nizhny Novgorod. After her release, she co-founded the online publication Mediazona, among other activities. In 2014, she received the Hannah Arendt Prize jointly with Yuri Andrukhovych and Nadya Tolokonnikova.