Nadja Tolokonnikowa

Nadja Tolokonnikova (born 1989) grew up in Norilsk and began studying philosophy in Moscow at the age of 16. She joined the city’s artistic avant-garde and became a co-founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot. She gained international recognition through Pussy Riot’s “punk prayer,” which criticized the close ties between the church and the state in Russia. In 2012, Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years in a penal colony for her involvement.