“The violators were subject to a security measure — the confiscation of the tools and objects used to commit administrative offenses,” read a police report following a raid against street musicians in St. Petersburg in October 2025.
The “tools and objects” were guitars, a drum kit, a microphone stand — musical instruments.
What was once an ordinary scene in Russia’s cultural capital — young people singing on a pedestrian street — has been reframed as a public threat. In the language of bureaucracy, music becomes an instrument of disorder, and a song becomes evidence.
Arresting a song
The crackdown intensified after the detention of members of the band Stoptime, known for performing songs by Noize MC and Monetochka — artists designated in Russia as “foreign agents” for their anti-war stance.
Singer Diana Loginova (Naoko), guitarist Alexander Orlov, and drummer Vladislav Leontyev were sentenced to 12 and 13 days of administrative arrest for “organizing a mass gathering of people in a public place.” Naoko was also fined 30,000 rubles (around €330) for “discrediting the army.”
After serving their terms, the musicians were detained repeatedly in so-called “carousel arrests,” a tactic used to exhaust dissenting voices by stacking short administrative sentences. Another report accused Naoko of petty hooliganism. Their performance was treated not as art, but as unauthorized assembly.
“These songs have love… Art is now the only language — at least in Russia — through which you can say what you think.”
From cultural capital to controlled soundscape
The Stoptime case became a warning. Across Russia, space for spontaneous performance has narrowed.
In Krasnodar, authorities introduced new requirements obliging street musicians to submit passport details and their full repertoire 20 days in advance. Informal urban culture now requires prior approval. Songs must be vetted before they are heard.
These measures reflect a broader expansion of censorship beyond formal media into public space itself. Not only lyrics, but gatherings around them are subject to scrutiny.
Stoptime’s performances were not rallies. They were young people playing songs about love and conscience. Yet in the current climate, even love songs by the “wrong” artist can be interpreted as dissent.
As Naoko said in an interview, “These songs have love… Art is now the only language — at least in Russia — through which you can say what you think .”
A generation raised under one regime
The musicians were 18 years old — part of a generation that has lived entirely under Vladimir Putin’s rule. They were not seasoned activists, but teenagers with guitars. Their case illustrates how political meaning is projected onto cultural expression when institutional politics is constrained.
Repeated arrests and fines eventually forced the band members to leave the country, echoing the exile of the artists whose songs they performed. Exile has become a recurring refrain.
Music as the last language
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, laws targeting “discrediting the army,” “extremism,” and “foreign influence” have expanded. These elastic categories now encompass sidewalk performances.
Yet the Stoptime case also shows that art persists even when the stage disappears. A guitar can be confiscated, but a melody will be remembered. A performance can be dispersed, but recordings circulate. And when musicians leave, their absence itself speaks.
For some, this moment marks the shrinking of civic space. For others, especially the young, it signals that beneath enforced silence, a new language is already forming — one that cannot easily be unheard.
Listen to the artists’ music:
https://www.tiktok.com/@naokooomusicc
https://www.instagram.com/naokooomusic
https://www.instagram.com/p/DNknLZXoUy3
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ILLxUj1r74o
By Polina Sadovskaya, Freemuse’s Eastern Europe researcher.
